Editor, Vermont Commons:

Having spent almost six years working in The Navy/Atomic Energy Commission's Naval Reactors Program headed by Adm. H.G. Rickover in the 1960s, I gained enough experience with nuclear reactors to be sensitive to the technical and financial troubles they pose.
     
When the Vermont Public Service Board (PSB) hearing on Vermont Yankee re-licensing started well over a year ago, I petitioned the PSB to become a party. My request was denied for the reason that the Vermont Public Service Department (PSD) would be looking out for my interests. Before the PSB made its decision to deny my request I posed my questions for discovery and sent it to all parties in pre-file testimony.
     
In October 2009, I wrote the following open letter to my representatives to the Vermont Legislature, the PSB, the PSD and The Times Argus:
     
“The big news about Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant . . . (Times Argus, 10/9/2009, “State reaches deal with Yankee”) is that the Vermont Department of Public Service (DPS) has reversed its position on the Entergy/Enexus spin-off deal. David O’Brien, Commissioner of the DPS, says that Entergy has come up with “real money” which makes the spin-off deal more attractive and less risky to Vermont taxpayers.
     
“Well, one can ask, ‘Is this true? Is the money now somehow magically real?’
     
“From my research, perspective, and review of Business Week commentary and the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) analysis of the spin-off deal, I see a typical Wall Street marketing campaign. What looks like a spin-off is really a reorganization of limited liability corporations (LLC) with new names, hedging contracts, and with EquaGen, the basic prime mover of the whole entity, still providing the services to Entergy and Enexus, without which Entergy and Enexus would not be viable.
     
“The ‘real money’ that David O’Brien and the DPS are enamored with appears to be a billion-dollar- ($1,000,000,000) plus credit agreements that Entergy and Enexus have cobbled together from banks and companies (Bank of Nova Scotia, Goldman Sachs Credit Partners, LP, Paribas, Mizuho Corporate Bank, and Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.).  In some way this is supposed to make Enexus more able to cope with its three-billion-dollar- ($3,000,000,000) plus debt.
     
“The hope by Entergy and Enexus is that the reorganization will somehow make the companies more attractive, resulting in more investors, increasing the price of stock, bringing in money, and reducing the overall debt of these LLC companies.
     
“It’s no secret that the United States is still in financial trouble. Trillions of dollars ($X,000,000,000,000) of taxpayer money has been used to bail out private banks and companies. This is money that isn’t even in the U.S. Treasury because the U.S. has essentially borrowed money from China and elsewhere to keep us going. Even now the Federal Deposit Insurance Company (FDIC) is out of money and viable banks are being asked to pay three years worth of their assessed contributions to this fund immediately so that the fund can continue to rescue and restructure failing banks.
     
“This stormy and uncertain financial climate, coupled with no stronger regulations in place to prevent abuse and fix the problems that created the financial mess, does not bode well for the hope that Entergy and Enexus are placing in their reorganization and renaming scheme. In a day of panic selling on Wall Street, Enexus can go belly up, bankruptcy proceedings divide up the carcass and the Vermont taxpayer is left holding the bag, trying to find new energy sources and cleaning up the site of radioactive waste.
     
“I don’t want to put my faith and energy future in a Wall Street shell game. Why not recognize the many uncertainties, risks and costs, especially the unknown and most likely high costs to keep an aging reactor repaired and safe. Given this uncertain and complicated climate I'm not surprised that there is still no contract for Vermont Yankee power.
     
“My view is that we are entering a new era regarding how we humans relate to the environment and how we arrange our financial affairs. We need to abandon Vermont Yankee now and go to alternative energy and conservation. Why delay the inevitable and embrace the risks, unknown high costs, greater decommissioning costs, and uncertainties? Time is of the essence. If we delay the inevitable, the consequences and growing problems may be more than we and our grandchildren are able to bear.
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It appears the Department of Public Service is failing us in this matter. I urge the Vermont Legislature to be very thorough in its analysis and debate, and to make the right decisions to set us on a sane and sustainable course for the future.
     
Sincerely,”
    
In a letter I received from Susan Hudson, Clerk of the PSB, dated 11/20/09, she stated that my letter had been received and was forwarded to all Board members and is part of the public record.
     
Will the Vermont Legislature close down Vermont Yankee at the end of its design life of 40 years in 2012? Given human beings’ propensity to keep doing what they are doing until a crisis strikes (and even then we try to keep doing the same thing!), I fervently hope it doesn’t take a major nuclear or financial crisis to finally spur us to make the right decision in this case.
 
Richard Czaplinski
Adamant, Vermont