WGBH Radio; The Callie Crossley Show

I'm Cally Crossley This is the Cali Crossley Show. We're going nuclear this hour. We're talking about the nuclear plants in New England that carry with them the age old debate that has long surrounded nuclear energy. Are they ticking time bombs creating headaches with their hazardous ways or are they a meltdown waiting to happen when a natural disaster strikes or are they the road to energy independence. Giving us considerably cheap carbon free energy. These are the questions we're facing in New England. Nuclear power plants in Vermont New Hampshire and Massachusetts are looking to renew their licenses for another 20 years with news that Vermont Yankee has radioactive leaks with the nuclear meltdown in Japan still looming. Today we'll look at the pros and cons of having these nuclear reactors in our backyard. Up next nuclear New England. First the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi saying the Democratic led Senate

votes today on a bill to fund the government until November and avoid a partial shutdown when funds run out Friday. The legislation also provides 3.7 billion dollars for the Federal Emergency Management Agency where disaster aid funds are almost out 3.7 billion is the same amount offered in a GOP led House bill. The Democratic senators later rejected. Critics say they were against offsetting disaster relief monies with cuts from clean energy programs new home sales are down for a fourth straight month to a six month low. NPR's Paul Brown reports on what's keeping the market down. Even the population is rising and pushing demand for housing up. The problems high unemployment tight credit and analyst Diane Swonk of Mesirow Financial says competition from foreclosed properties will only increase in the near future. You have to look at the flood of foreclosures that are about to hit the housing market that were delayed because of lead. No problems competing further with the

new home market so this market is going to be weak for some time to come. She predicts no pick up before 2014. In the meantime she says builders are eliminating some amenities such as marble countertops from the homes they do put up. She says they can't afford to install them when nearly new foreclosed homes have them and sell for less. Paul Brown NPR News Washington. The U.S. is investigating an Afghan employees attack on a CIA office in Kabul that left one American dead and another wounded yesterday. NPR's Quil Lawrence has more on the third high profile attack in the past few weeks in the Afghan capital. Afghan officials confirm that a short gun battle took place near or inside the CIA station in Kabul within the highly restricted quarter of the city that encompasses the U.S. embassy NATO headquarters and the presidential palace. A U.S. embassy statement said An Afghan employee was shot dead after he turned his weapon on his American colleagues. The Afghan capital is still on tenterhooks after two major attacks in two weeks. Shooting a

barrage of rocket fire that paralyzed part of the city for 20 hours. U.S. military officials blame that attack on Afghan militants with direct links to the Pakistani intelligence service. Quil Lawrence NPR News Kabul. More violence reported out of Iraq today were a roadside bomb has killed at least three people near the city of Kirkuk and gunmen have wounded government officials in the capital Baghdad. Scotland is asking Libya's new leadership to help catch all those linked to the 1900 bombing of a plane over Lockerbie in which 270 people were killed. Most of the victims were American. Scottish prosecutor's office says it has sent a letter to Libya's National Transitional Council asking for written evidence and witnesses. Only one person has been convicted in the Lockerbie bombing and that's Abdel Basset al-Megrahi. The Dow is up 94 points. You're listening to NPR News. A federal judge in Chicago is delaying the sentencing of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. NPR's David Schaper reports the former Democratic governor faces a

lengthy prison sentence after being convicted of corruption over the summer. U.S. District Court Judge James Zagel had tentatively set to go over just sentencing date for next week October 6th but a posting on the Chicago federal court's website today says that sentencing date is now stricken intil further ordered by the court. No reason is given for the delay but it is not unexpected. As one of the lawyers just co-defendants fundraiser William Salinas is scheduled to go on trial before Judge Zagel next week. Jury convicted in June on 17 counts of political corruption including that he tried to sell Illinois U.S. Senate seat vacated by President Obama for personal gain. David Schaper NPR News Chicago. The U.S. Postal Service will now honor living people on stamps. NPR's Debbie Elliott reports the change in policy is aimed at generating more interest in stamp collecting. The Postal Service is ending its long standing rule that a person must be dead to appear on a stamp. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe who says stamps will now pay

tribute to acclaimed Americans while they are still alive to enjoy the honor. The financially struggling Postal Service is hoping the change will be a boost for stamp collecting which provides income because collected stamps aren't used for postage. The agency is inviting suggestions from the public on Facebook and elsewhere on which a nationally known figure should appear on stamps. Debbie Elliott NPR News. U.S. stocks mixed at last check Dow is up 92 points at ten thousand eight hundred sixty three Nasdaq down 19 to 24 64. I'm Lakshmi Singh NPR News Washington. Support for NPR comes from the Melville charitable trust supporting solutions to prevent and end homelessness on the web at Millvale Trost dot org. Good afternoon I'm Kelly Crossley. It's been a little over six months since the tsunami earthquake disaster in Japan that caused extreme damage to the Fukushima

nuclear plant and the radiation leaks there ratcheted up concern here in the U.S. about nuclear plant safety just in time to add to the intensity of the debate about whether or not to re-up the licenses of two of the three New England based nuclear plants. Could what happened here in Japan what happened in Japan happen here. Should the plants be shut down or do the benefits of alternative energy outweigh the perceived risks. All these are the questions that we'll tackle this hour. Joining me to talk through what the nuclear plants mean for New England Dave Graham a reporter for The Associated Press based in Vermont. Ian Hutchinson a professor of nuclear science and engineering at MIT and Sandy Levine of Vermont based senior attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation. Thank you all for joining us. Thank you. Dave I thought I would start with you because much of the kind of commonly heard opposition to nuclear plants or came to

a head has been coming to a head there in Vermont as the relicensing question came up. And that is that the plant there Vermont Yankee owned by Entergy wanted to re-up the license for 20 more years. And a great deal of opposition including that of the governor of Vermont said no. So I wondered if you could talk about whether or not the Japan disaster the impact of that on the discussion there and has it made people more or less concerned or just made them aware of the nuclear plant in their backyard. Well I think that people have become the people who were concerned about Vermont Yankee had become maybe even more concerned in the following the Fukushima disaster because in part because the Fukushima reactors are actually of very similar design and each to the Vermont Yankee plant. And they're they're both early. He's been to

boiling water reactors and so watching what happened in Fukushima did not make people who are already nervous about hosting a nuclear plant robot rest any easier. A lot of this vision making however that went into where the state currently stands because of B B actually occurred before the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan. It really came to a head in the winter of 2010. Roll the clock back now 18 months when the state Senate here voted against a bill that would have allowed our public service board our utility regulators to proceed with a case that would have given a Vermont Yankee a new state permit. The plant needs a this year and won federal approval for a 20 year license extension. So it was originally planned to run for 40 years but under the NRC ruling would run 60 and it needed also a sort of a companion state permit to go along with that.

And so far that has been denied by a vote in the legislature in the winter of 2010. Now what we should pull out of what you just said are a couple of things first of all that the basic design of Vermont Yankee similar to what was happening it focused Shima for same similar design which made people think well in terms of aging and safeguards are they at risk for the same kind of things as the plant was built in the same way and at the same time there has been approval by the NRC which is the federal regulatory agency to extend the license of Vermont Yankee However Vermont is the only state in the nation that has a law that says we here in Vermont get to veto a license if we don't want it to proceed. That is that dispute now interest the owner of Vermont Yankee has filed a lawsuit saying you can't do that. That's a federal law not a state. It's not within the state to be able to decide that. However when it originally bought the plant back in 2002 it agreed to

those that those terms we're on board. So far Dave. Pretty much yeah. And energy by Brawn Yankee from of the big group of New England utilities which build and owned it previously. In 2002 and they said that we will abide by state rulings on the real question for the state was it will. Will Entergy get in what's called a Certificate of public good which is essentially a state license to operate and Entergy said in 2002 when it bought the plant we know we will abide by speed rulings. Now what it is he is saying now is that this law that you mentioned that the legislature passed giving itself the authority just to either allow or not allow the public service board to issue that certificate. That law passed in 2006 and Entergy is arguing in federal court that the state changed the rules of the game in sort of midstream and and so that its 2002 agreement doesn't really hold up anymore because the you know the states change the terms. So it

obviously is for one of the issues that a federal judge sitting in Brattleboro will have to. OK let's go over to Professor. How do you regard the kind of increase concern that came in the wake of the Japan disaster and when we look at a case study like Vermont where does that leave you as a professional in this field thinking that people are overly concerned are raising that questions. Well it's very important that nuclear power should be safe. And clearly what happened in Fukushima showed that in the context of an enormous natural disaster the tsunami the earthquake and so forth in their case those reactors were not able to be kept safe and so as a result there was a significant release of radiation. We must make sure that that doesn't happen in the US. And so for example the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the U.S. has been paying a lot of attention to what's going on in Japan.

They've undertaken major studies as there was a recent report short term report and there will be longer term reports whereby we can learn whatever lessons we can learn about. What happened at Fukushima and take what actions are appropriate to make sure it can't possibly happen here. Of course exactly what happened in Fukushima cannot possibly take place in respect of a Vermont Yankee or the New England plans because we don't have two nominees. We don't have to tsunamis up the Connecticut River I'm very pleased to say so exactly what happened at Fukushima cannot happen here but what we must make sure is that the plant should be kept safe in respect of nuclear power regulation which is one of the it which is one of the key questions I think that's coming up in respect to Vermont and this argument that they've talked about about is it the prerogative of the States or of the federal regulators. You know. The people of Vermont naturally

want to be confident that any industrial activities in their state are safe so that's completely understood. But the other the flip side is that the people of the United States through their elected representatives have decided that the safety of nuclear power should be regulated at a federal level by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. And that's the same as it is for example for food or drugs or aviation or the environment and so on and so forth. So. So that's the tricky part of the argument of course the people of Vermont should have a say about their own safety. But on the other hand in the US several many major industries are regulated federally and and quite frankly in the case of nuclear power that's a very good decision. It ensures uniformly high standards of safety are met everywhere. It would be a very bad idea I think for the regulation to be the responsibility of state legislatures or governors because they have none of the scientific knowledge

to back up those kinds of needs. Let me just point out that this is very close to the same argument going on right now about immigration law. Exactly what happened in Arizona Arizona said to the rest of the country. You all don't live here. We should be able to as a state make some decisions about that and so they haven't proceeded to do so in the federal government is that's not within your purview. That's our purview. Blah blah blah. It seems to me though in Vermont Yankee if I can just make one little push back with you that is at the original purchase of the plant they introduced said we will abide by the local rules now. Maybe maybe they knew at the time that there was a law that said that that would be overridden federally. But they did agree to abide by. So we're a little bit of a he said she said now because then the state legislature came in later and changed the rules somewhat. You're quite right you're quite right and I and I don't know enough about the details of a legal situation to make a comment on that. I just I just want to make the comment but I think the idea that we regulate nuclear energy nationally

federally is a very good idea and I'd hate for to have that kind of responsibility devolve to the states and the state legislatures because frankly they wouldn't be able to take that responsibility. All right. And then one other thing professor before I move to our next guest and that is. It can't happen here as you've said from a scientific vantage point what happened in Japan. But some part of that could happen. We can have an earthquake now who knows what kind of damage that could do. The combination of tsunami and earthquake of course was the most horrible thing that could happen and as did happen in Japan but we could have an earthquake quake and what we know now from the last few weeks is we can really have an earthquake on the East Coast. So that becomes it seems to me a present day concern that the safeguards that people keep talking about are you know infallible but but nobody knows that until they get tested. Right.

None of the safeguards are infallible. What engineers do is their very best to design the power plants and so forth to withstand the maximum credible event that they could experience in the place where they are whether it's New England or wherever. And in the U.S. That's the way that the NRC proceeds. And we do you know they the regulatory agencies do very careful assessments of what the credible earthquake risk is and so on and so forth. I'm not claiming but I'm by no means claiming I was stating that power plants are 100 percent safe. There is always some risk about any industrial activity but what the. Nuclear professionals do is to try to make them as safe as possible and certainly as I say the particular risk to which Fukushima succumbed was wasn't one that we experience here. Another remark and respect to Fukushima you know Fukushima as the and the tsunami and earthquake in Japan is often talked about as if the only interesting part of it is the nuclear disaster.

That's very far from the truth. You know there were somewhere between 20 and 30 thousand people killed outwell absolutely the flooding. So actually you know it's important to keep that whole thing in perspective right. Well we're we are seeing that just as we're focusing right now today on the on the nuclear plant and the damage there and what it means here. Sandy Levine let me turn to you you are based in Vermont senior attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation. You've heard David now you've heard the professor. Your job is to is to raise concerns to flag issues about all of this we know now. If we didn't even know before this conversation that nothing can be made absolutely safe. So where are you and how you talk to people in Vermont about understanding the risk benefit ratio. Because after all I mean something we have not mentioned a lot of people are getting their energy from this nuclear plant certainly and certainly in the wake of Fukushima there's more than enough reason to be to be concerned.

As Dave mentioned this is a plant of a similar vintage a Vermont Yankee and similar to Pilgrim as well which is in Massachusetts. I certainly agree with the professor that we don't get tsunamis on the East Coast but two plants on the East Coast are very close to the shores of the ocean. There are floods and it's actually the flooding that caused the backup generators to fail and cause serious problems at Fukushima. So I don't think we're were immune from problems here in New England simply because we don't have tsunamis here in New England. And just the last few weeks have shown. Problems with both hurricanes and with earthquakes in the region and in fact in an earthquake the epicenter of which was right under a nuclear plant in Virginia that was built to withstand a 5.9 earthquake and that's exactly what happened there and in Virginia. And that margin is certainly seeming far too close and we need to be much more vigilant. A top to bottom review and I think in large part the public has really lost faith in the regulators and in their ability to really keep close

tabs on what's happening at nuclear plants around the region. It was certainly very cavalier and callous at least of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to within days of the Fukushima accident to approve the license for my Yankee as it Fukushima never happened. There needs to be a much careful review of these plants making sure that these old plants which have corroding in leaking pipes which have had a series of problems over the years that's certainly indicative of problems at the plants these plants are not supposed to be leaking and we simply shouldn't be accepting that. Dave speaking of the leaking one of the things that perhaps got people even more concerned after Fukushima and that disaster and the possible. Parallels here in New England was the finding that some fish in the Connecticut River had radioactive material in the fleshy part of their bodies and some people believe that it was traced back

to the plant there. The plant says no. What your reporting showed something interesting. Well you know it began where it's a little bit of a strange look at the calendar that the fish that was actually tested positive for a radioactive substance called Strontium 90 was pulled from the river before the Fukushima accident and actually the whole issue of radioactive emissions from the plant became a huge thing in this state in January of 2010 again you know a year and three quarters ago now when it was reported that tritium radioactive tritium had been found in water in the soil surrounding the reactor and burn it in about the corner. By the way just for your listeners about three miles from the Massachusetts border. And it's within sight of New Hampshire so it's really the emergency evacuation zone extends into all three states. It's about as far south as you can provide if you get

ANY WAY THE POINT was found to be leaking tritium and there also had been concerns about you know other radioactive substances potentially leaving the plant. Now this summer the speak out lab results back from testing if issue were actually called last summer and I'm still not clear on why it takes so long to process the thing and get the results back. But be that as it may and believe it that very early August the 2nd or 3rd when it was reported by the state that Strontium 90 had turned up in the fleshy part of a fish Normally you find it if you find it all in the bony parts of the fish that are the fish had to sort of what they call the not edible part and if you're going to have the labor you're basically OK in this in this instance it turned up in the in the parts of the fish that you would eat. And that obviously raised some concern. Now to think about that you know in family fairness to provide the Yankees and the nuclear industry the levels were very very low. Our health commissioner was saying he wouldn't have a problem fishing there or eating fish from the river and that sort of thing.

And secondly they were saying that the levels were actually within what are called background levels of radiation found in the environment now which is attributed mainly to. At the spirit bomb testing in the US in the 50s 60s and also to the Chernobyl accident in 1906 and so be it the plant immediately came out with announced the thing is absolutely no evidence that 90 in the space came from the plant. I then wrote a story a couple days later pointing out that actually the plant had emitted some Strontium 90 according to reports buried deep in the NRC the online file system. In the early 2000s you know almost a decade ago or so there were submissions of strontium 90 from the plant. So it's really sort of impossible to tell I mean the stuff doesn't come in different colors depending on whether it came from your local nuclear plant or from halfway around the world. It's really impossible to tell where it came from but it definitely you know

again it just raises eyebrows here and kind of added to that level of concern. Now I would say it from what I'm reading it added to a level of intensity to the debate about whether or not this is a plant that was safe. How do you respond to that. The fish radioactive. TESS Well I would say Dave has it about right but the way I would put it is as far as Vermont Yankee and the radiological safety of the people of Vermont are concerned the strontium 90 levels reported in fish are a complete red herring pun intended. OK so those levels are so small that you can barely detect them. Even if all of your body's flesh were replaced by the flesh of that fish or by the bone of that fish it would be a factor of a hundred less than the naturally occurring radiation in your body. There wouldn't be the slightest danger or health effect to be meant to be measured. So so

really the truth of the matter is these findings which are are being handled as far as I can tell very professionally by the health department of the state of Vermont. Are our just simply completely irrelevant and anybody who refers to these measurements in terms like another example of Entergy Louisiana putting their shareholders profits above the welfare of a month has is either woefully ill informed or they just don't care about the facts of the situation. So you know I don't to be too heated about this but the truth of the matter is the science from the point of view of the science. Those findings are completely irrelevant to the discussion and we simply should simply put them behind us. All right well we're going to continue this conversation at the side of the break because a professor has made some provocative comments we want to follow up on. We're going to talk. We're talking about nuclear energy and the fate of nuclear plants in New England from Vermont to Massachusetts. We'll continue the conversation on the other side of the break. Keep your dial on eighty nine point seven. WGBH.

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download away at the App Store or at WGBH dot org. Good afternoon welcome back to the Calla Crossley Show. If you're just joining us we're talking about nuclear plants in New England and the pros and cons of having reactors in our backyard. I'm joined by Dave Graham a reporter for The Associated Press based in Vermont. Ian Hutchinson a professor of nuclear science and engineering at MIT and Sandy Levine of Vermont based senior attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation. Also on the line with us is Mike Toomey vice president of external affairs for the Entergy Corporation which owns the Vermont Yankee and Pilgrim nuclear power plants. Senator Levin let me start with you you heard Professor Hutchinson's statement about the science does not suggest that there's a danger even in something that sounds as scary as fish with radioactive active material in the fleshy part of their bodies. So how do you respond.

Well certainly the debate over the levels entirely misses the point. The fact is that these facilities are designed not to be releasing any Strontium 90 and in fact they have released they are releasing tritium that continues to be a problem. So arguing over that these are small amounts versus big amounts misses the point there should not be any amount. OK does that does that make you feel as though there despite what has been said here that by the health commissioner for example that there is reason to be concerned if you're a consumer of fish in Vermont. Well there's certainly reason to be concerned if nuclear power plants are leaking radioactive material into the rivers or into the groundwater. There's reason to be concerned if these older plants are corroding have pipes that are corroding. There's reason to be concerned if the owner as in the case of Vermont Yankee The owner of this plant said that there were no pipes underground and then lo and behold pipes were not only underground the pipes

underground were leaking all contributes to a complete lack of faith in both the ability of the regulators and the ability of the owners and managers of these plants to operate them responsibly. And we're talking about nuclear power I think there is a very heightened concern and there should be a very heightened concern and there should be much greater assurances might to meet Vice President of External Affairs for the interim interview Corporation which owns from a Yankee and the Pilgrim Pilgrim nuclear power plants. I'm going to get you into this conversation. So here we are. You know you're your average I'm your average consumer I'm living in the New England area. I hear about fish which would be scary enough in and of itself. I listen to the professor he says don't worry the health commissioner says don't worry. But then as Sandy has pointed out there were several instances where there was a release of this material into what was released by the plant which was not known to the public it was known to the NRC.

And that's who you're supposed to report to but not known to the public. All of this does seem to me to add up to an undermining of a feeling of security and or trust in the folks who are running the plant. Can you understand that. Well Cal we thank you for having me on I appreciate it very much. The. The issues about the do clear power have been discussed at great length in a number of different forums one of the things that makes this industry you know what helps this industry is the extraordinary level of transparency that allows these kinds of debates in fact when we make filings with the NRC that information is available to the public. And if you're the average voter in New England I hope you're part of the 60 percent of registered voters that support the relicensing of these plants there's been a number of independent polls done over the last year that show that support for the relicensing of these plants is important because it contributes not only to attaining our greenhouse

gas reduction objectives but to the reliability of the electric system. Now the specific issues that have been talked about some of them I can't comment on because we are in. We are in litigation with the state of Vermont as you noted. But for example on the issue of the fish I agree entirely with the professor. In fact the commissioner of health in Vermont was quoted as saying Strontium 90 is quote everywhere. It's background radiation. And he could assure people in Vermont that there was no threat to health or public safety as a result of the findings which in this case was actually one individual fish. Barely above detectable levels and it's not even clear that that was a good sample result there have been no other sample results that I'm aware of that have shown this kind of a of an outcome. But you can understand people being concerned about that. I mean we were at a time where we've just in the wake of the Japan disaster. By the way those

folks weren't forthcoming with the public. So there are people here that were concerned before it but certainly after what they're at they have to ask the questions. This thing is in my backyard. Are people being truthful too. I think that's I think that's that absolutely right. I mean the one thing that's going to come out of the Fukushima disaster is that there will be lessons learned across the industry. You know one of the comments that was made earlier was that these plants are similar in design and age to the Fukushima plant. And while that's generally true it doesn't take into account that there have been significant enhancements to U.S. plants following 9/11. That was another industry changing event that provided lessons learned about emergency preparation. And for example in in Boston outside of Boston the pilgrim plant we have several enhancements to that plant that have been put into place post 9/11. That deal directly with the kinds of issues

that were. Facing the operators of the Fukushima plant so the industry as a whole and Entergy in general should say specifically it their learning organizations that take into account new information the NRC as I think the professor noted is doing a comprehensive review of all U.S. nuclear plants and to the extent that there are upgrades or enhancements that are deemed appropriate for dealing with any potential natural disasters those will be applied to all operating nuclear plants and it won't make a difference whether a plant is in the middle of a relicensing process or not. If you've already got your 20 year license for example at the Y or you're in the middle of getting the license at another facility those lessons learned will be applied by the NRC which you know again is an expert agency full of.

Committed people that that spend every day worried about the safety of these nuclear plants and if you look across the spectrum of the industry in the U.S. the safety record of the nuclear industry is really second to none. And that's not accidental that that is a product of a way of doing business both at the NRC and at the operators to focus on public health and safety first and foremost day in and day out and that's what the men and women who work at Pilgrim do. That's what the men and women at Yankee do. And that's why they have achieved the level of safety and reliability that those plants have enjoyed. I think when you have an event halfway across the world it should raise questions. It does raise questions and it will allow us to further inform. Our operating procedures by whatever may have gone wrong in the other

facility. Let me follow up on something you said in terms of making it clear that from your vantage point as the owner operators of both Vermont Yankee and pilgrim that the NRC is an expert organization the NRC with regard to Pilgrim also cited it as having the second highest risk of potential damage if there were an earthquake. So I'd like to know what how you respond to that and what measures are in place to make certain that as the press professor and I talked. There is no danger of a tsunami earthquake combination but we can have an earthquake here that can you know render some damage. Well I will tell you Kelly I'm not sure what the source of that statement is up. There was some misinformation floating around after Fukushima where there was an MSNBC story that you know showed a ranking of plants that was supposed to be based on NRC data. The NRC itself disavowed that entire report and made it clear that they don't rank plants based on seismic risk I think there was a an

effort by one reporter to put together information that really wasn't accurate. I will tell you that the seismic risk at Pilgrim is been carefully evaluated by by us by the prior owner before we bought it and it is being reviewed by the NRC along with the risks. Presented to any point and has as there are findings or if there are five things that they need to be changes they certainly can be dealt with. We've got emergency diesel generator capacity at that plant we've got Mobil pumps available for dealing with any issues. The seismic rating of the spent fuel pools. You know there's a long list of comprehensive procedures and equipment that that lead to the reliability of that plant and we know we're certainly not going to sit back and and and assume we won't have an earthquake. I think the risks in Massachusetts are far less than

they are in Japan and that just has to do with the way the plates are butting up against one another in Japan as opposed to us being in the middle of the North American plate here. But Miss Levine was absolutely right there was a nuclear plant in Virginia where there was an earthquake just a few miles away. And although there's some question about the design basis of that plant to respond to an earthquake from a from a public standpoint the good news is there was no event there was no crisis. There was no risk to the public health and so I think that as we go through this further analysis of Fukushima the industry and the NRC will be taking into account all of the facts that they can get from whatever source to help us run these plants in the most effective and safe manner

that we can. Mike I mean that information came from the NRC report that the pilgrim plant is the second most earthquake prone plant in the in the country so I just want to put that out there for you. If they've disavowed that report I wasn't aware but that is where I cited it from. Well I know there was a letter from Senator Brown earlier and I saw a response from the NRC and I'm not sure which report we're talking about but. I can tell you that I am confident that the seismic evaluation of Pilgrim is current and that any new information that comes along will be taken into consideration as we move forward. Dave I heard you want to get into this let me just put on the table for people that there are a hundred and four nuclear plants in the U.S. and 23 licenses are under review at this moment and the Obama administration through his head of the Department of Energy is fully confident in the nuclear power plants. Dave go ahead.

Well I just wanted to ask you you raise an interesting point earlier when you said that this is predicted to be that the changes made at U.S. nuclear plants post-9 11 would address some of the issues that raised by the regime a disaster and I'm just wondering about the nexus there I would have thought. I mean there was a lot of secrecy and still is surrounding the changes made post-9 11 which I understood had mainly to do with the curity issues you know anti-terrorism that sort of thing. How how would those changes address what happened. Well obviously you're Dave you're right in the first instance that there are some security related items that are not public and and will not be made public on this call either. But there also were disaster response features and we've talked about that in a number of public forums that we've conducted over the last eight months where the ability to respond to a fire or to another catastrophic event at the plant

led us to put in emergency diesel generator redundancy as well as portable pumps at different facilities and each each plant is different in its in its response to 9/11. But there are enhancements that were put into place that would benefit any operator if the if the event was instead of a terrorist attack was in fact a some kind of a natural disaster. All right I'm going to button right there in the conversation because I have much more to discuss on the other side of the break. I'm Kelli Crossley we're talking about nuclear energy and the reactors that are here in New England. Is this a good thing we haven't talked about the risk and cost benefit ratio in a time when cheap and carbon free energy is essential. Or do these reactors pose a threat to the environment and to us. We'll continue the conversation after the break. Stay with us. At the.

WGBH programs exist because of you. And Davis mom and Augustine PC attorneys at law at Davis mom they make your business their business on the web at Davis mom dot com. D A V I asked em a l am dot com. And the Boston Speaker Series 7 evenings of personal perspectives and insights at Boston Symphony Hall featuring Tom Brokaw Valerie Plane Wilson David McCullough and others. Information at Boston Speaker Series dot org. With. With things. With. I'm Lisa Mullins It's 1970s West Africa. Young Nigerians struggle to shake off colonial rule. A musician comes along with a message. When you go well you know sell and who you are you don't need anybody to give you an A-Z.

Three decades later singer Johnny Hastur recalls the music and times Nigeria's Soul Brother Number One NPR isor the world. Coming up at 3 o'clock here at eighty nine point seven WGBH. Bayless sure is known worldwide as Buddy the Jewish grandmother with her own Internet cooking show. Feed me buddy. Susan today enjoying a quest to join the WGBH News Club with a gift of one hundred twenty dollars and eighty nine point seven will say thanks. With two tickets to the third annual beyond Bobby's kitchen event October 23rd at WGBH in Brighton join Bobby and sample traditional Jewish recipes as prepared by 15 of Boston's top chef is at WGBH dot org slash box office the latest local news headlines are as close as your smartphone with the new WGBH app a single tap keeps you up. Today's headlines from business to arts and culture just a free download away at the App Store or learn more at the GBH dot org. I'm Kalee Crossley If you're just tuning in we're talking about nuclear energy and the nuclear

plants that are here in New England Vermont Yankee to the Seabrook plant in New Hampshire to New Hampshire and the Pilgrim plant in PIL Plymouth Massachusetts. I'm joined by Dave Graham a reporter for The Associated Press based in Vermont in Hutchinson a professor of nuclear science and engineering at MIT and Sandy Levin Vermont based senior attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation and also on the line is Mike Toomey who is vice president for X tunnel affairs for Entergy Corporation. Sandy let me start with you because one of the things that we haven't talked about which you know is the whole point of these this kind of discussion is really the balance about the appreciation for the energy that people are using and appreciating at a low cost versus whatever their fears may be about the dangers of nuclear energy. So how do you the people who are raising concerns such as yourself how do you speak to

that. Certainly any source of power has both benefits and burdens associated with it. But bottom line is as a region and as a country we need to be moving away from reliance on these old or obsolete forms of technology that are not sustainable that are polluting our our our waters and our and our air and to move instead to cleaner cleaner technologies and we're certainly well able to do that and our continued reliance on these older plants in this older technology keeps us from doing that. So let's let's just do a suppose. If the Vermont Yankee closed down then what where would people. Where would that energy. How would that energy be replaced. Well certainly Vermont Yankee closes down there's ample energy and then in the region to continue to keep the lights on Vermont Yankee frequently shuts down and shut down for two to refuel and for other reasons and the lights stay on throughout the region. The fact is that there is a glut of power in the region now. There are not reliability concerns without Vermont Yankee

and the lights will stay on. And it gives us the opportunity to transition to cleaner forms of energy such as wind power and solar which really held a lot more promise both for our economy and our environment in the decades ahead. Well Kelly I'd like to point out that an independent system operator. For New England which is a nonprofit entity that is responsible for managing the grid it's been in place for about 10 years and the ISO New England as it's called I assume New England is is the party that's really responsible for making sure that there's reliable electricity and if you look at the reports that have been issued by New England they wouldn't agree that there are no reliability concerns. In fact they have been relying on you know concerns of the same whether or not he sees me as a hobby and I don't interrupt you and I would appreciate it if you didn't interrupt me. I so New England has issued reports that speak to the reliability concerns about a loss of Vermont Yankee. And those

concerns are real. Now there is supply in in New England a lot of it is gas fired natural gas fired units such as the one that Conservation Law Foundation helped get built in New Hampshire. But natural gas you know has its own affects on the environment greenhouse gas emissions. There's also concerns that have been identified by so New England about the adequacy of natural gas supply. For those units one of the things if we're going to have a significant amount of natural gas fired capacity added in New England you're going to have to have more natural gas pipelines built. Wind energy and solar energy in addition to being you know hugely expensive I know there was a lot of discussion in Massachusetts over what to do with the Cape Wind Project. You know they don't provide the same a liability that a baseload unit does. And in Vermont you know at that one level there's a lot of discussion about whether Vermont Yankee should be part of the portfolio but

just a few months ago at least one of the larger Vermont utilities decided to sign a contract with the Seabrook plant in New Hampshire so the movement the know the argument that they're trying to move away from nuclear you know rings a bit hollow. I think I think overall the contribution that nuclear power makes is you know clean reliable safe energy that doesn't produce meaningful greenhouse gas emissions. Let it go that's right it is Mike. Professor how do you respond to this like how well we know how much energy is being generated by this plan and what happens to the planet. Go away I'm just hypothetically if the play goes away then. Yeah I mean yeah I mean clearly if the Klan were not reopened or not in its licensing were not extended something would happen to compensate. And that something would be that we would be burning more fossil fuels. And so in the end it becomes a trade off between the goods that we all

seek. We want to avoid damaging emissions that will give rise to for example climate change and some of the catastrophes that that could give rise to on the one hand. Nuclear gives us the opportunity to do that. Many people are afraid of the risks that they think are associated with nuclear. I understand that. And that's something we have to take into account too. But the truth of the matter is to refer to nuclear plants as as polluting is really just missing the point. I mean nuclear power. Emits almost no pollution. The wastes that it produces are very radioactive and have to be very carefully monitored and safely looked after and eventually disposed of which is another whole discussion which will at some stage is worth having. But but compared to the emissions and pollution that come from fossil but burning plants nuclear is a very clean energy source and that's why actually it's

completely bipartisan position it's not something between Republicans and Democrats both the Republicans and the Democrats nationwide think that nuclear energy should be part of our energy. Let me ask this question when you say we'd be more reliant on fossil burning of fossil fuels are you talking about a scenario that we find in China at this moment. Well China of course has a very difficult situation there. They're expanding their needs for electricity very fast and they are building both coal power plants very quickly and also by the way they're building a lot of nuclear power plants they have an ambition to. Build at least 40 gigawatts of power plants by the year 2020 of nuclear power I mean at this moment is that right when you want right now you have mostly burning coal right. OK. And they are killing their citizens at the rate of about 5 million a year from the particulates that those are emitting now in New England we would we would use gas not coal and that's slightly better. But in fact from the point of view of the CO2 that it emits It's almost as bad if I could just jump in yes go ahead.

So our power supply and our power future should not be viewed as a shell game which is what's happening here with the comments of Professor Hutchinson and Mr. Toomey going forward we have cleaner solutions that are available to us. And it's irresponsible to continue to be investing in nuclear power when we do not have a long term solution for the waste of the power. That's not the case with with other forms of energy that we have. Clearly nuclear power does produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions then and then gas or then then coal Absolutely but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have its own problems and to ignore those is irresponsible. Sandy while I have you while you're talking let me ask this question. A wind farm got backing from the U.S. Energy Department in. Northern New Hampshire just this past week and it's going to generate enough power for 20000 homes but I don't know how that compares for example to

one nuclear plant. Let's just take Vermont Yankee I don't I don't. So we talk about building a portfolio of a lot of different energy sources. Twenty thousand homes seems a lot but not a lot really in the scheme of things so it seems that you have to have many different things operating at the same time at least at this moment. Absolutely there will be many different things operating going forward 20000 homes is a lot for northern New Hampshire and is a lot for many areas of New England. And in fact a power supply that is both more diverse and more distributed around the region will overall be more stable. It will not have the risks of these centralized power plants in one location. So they're both environmentally more friendly economically more friendly and more reliable. So if nuclear power was part of the probe for a LEO would you feel more comfortable then a major part of the portfolio. Nuclear power should be part of the portfolio only if we address the continued problems that that have plagued the industry that have plagued the operators of these plants. To the

point where you have the Vermont legislature the Senate bill. Provide an overwhelming vote of twenty six to four showing its complete lack of faith in the operators of that plant that they can be trustworthy that they can manage the plant responsibly and that they can be forthcoming. They continue to shatter the face of the people in the region and we cannot have nuclear plants or actually any power plant operating under those conditions. Let me just add this. Entergy is the second largest nuclear operator in the US. We certainly been involved in what might be described as a bruising PR battle up in Vermont but but we own and operate plants in addition to Massachusetts and Vermont in New York Michigan Arkansas Louisiana Mississippi we actually operate a plant for another owner. In the brassica and Entergy Corporation as a whole is you know very well regarded in in the nuclear industry it's been

recognised repeatedly by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for its leadership on issues such as corporate governance and accounting transparency. And I'm glad you agree but at this point in time there's going to be a higher require BARDA that has to be met based on what happened and based on increased fears and concerns. Well they may be a higher bar but whatever the bar is that Entergy can exceed that bar we are among the top performing utilities and corporations in the country and we are recognized by that by independent national organizations. Year after year after year we we have a bit of a myopia in Vermont about the issues relating to Vermont Yankee but. But I just couldn't go bunch longer into the program without pointing out that Entergy as a corporation and as a citizen corporate citizen across the country is very well regarded as has earned its. Record of accountability and sustainability that

that most corporations would envy. Dave Graham you get the last word on this. Is there a lot of attention from the rest of the country given what Mike has said and everybody is in on this conversation about what happens with the Vermont Yankee case. Well it's certainly in the in the in the sort of I guess an industry nationally of people who are skeptical of nuclear power the National Nuclear it's the nuclear groups are watching this very carefully. It's it comes down to a real question of state versus federal power and the you know it's a fascinating that's one of the things that I have found to be fascinating about this story is this whole question of you know states rights and you know states states obviously are able to regulate some industries. Different states have different laws regarding alcohol or casinos or that sort of thing you know could provide just decided for it doesn't like the idea of you know long term meaning multi tens of thousands of years storage of radioactive waste that think you know but I could say that it has an

ethical problem with that or something and therefore decide that you know almost on a moral basis or whatever it is that we don't want to do that. But but the way the laws structured Currently it looks like Vermont wouldn't really have an opportunity to do that under the law. And so you know these kinds of questions you know to me are even more fundamental than than really whether. The level of strontium in individual patients being cured not is it really a question of federalism and our our our state and federal government relate to one another and I think we're going to that means you're going to have to have another conversation about this very subject. Thank you very much for bringing us to that conclusion. I've been talking about nuclear energy and the nuclear plants here in New England and I've been speaking with Dave Graham a reporter for The Associated Press based in Vermont. Ian Hutchinson a professor of nuclear science and engineering at MIT and Sandy Levine Vermont based senior attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation also with us Mike Toomey vice president for

external affairs for the Entergy Corporation which owns both Pilgrim and Vermont Yankee. You can keep on top of the Kalak Ross the show at WGBH dot org slash Calla Crossley follow us on Twitter. Become a fan of the Calla Crossley Show on Facebook today show was engineered by Al Amat is produced by Chelsea Mertz globose up and every reason this is the kallah costly show.