It's 2013. Indian Point's reactor 2 license has expired and it is operating illegally, because just like Vermont Yankee, the NRC hasn't renewed its license. Why? Because it can't, and yet, Entergy keeps these plants running despite the will of the people in hosting communities whose lives are most at risk, in our case New York City and Fairfield County.
The Vermont legislature voted 24-6 to decommission the Yankee nuclear power plant. Despite this overwhelming vote in favor of shutting down the plant, Entergy and the NRC keep the reactor running, in flagrant disregard for the democratic process. The law does nothing.
In New York, Indian Point lost its water permit when the Department of Environmental Conservation revoked it a couple years ago. It shouldn't be operating at all. Entergy has managed to keep it all in limbo in the courts.
The lawyers on both sides benefit from this, because that's what lawyers do to get paid, just like divorce lawyers do. The longer it goes on, the more money they make, both parties get sucked into a bottomless vortex of inane legalities draining us of common sense.
Then a group of anti-nuclear organizations out West managed the impossible. They won a legal battle to stop the NRC from licensing or relicensing any new or old nuclear power plant until the age old brain twister problem of storing waste on site was remedied.
The moratorium didn't stop anything, instead of rubber stamping old plants, the law backfired as the NRC simply used it as a pretext to allow all nuclear plants to keep operating at perpetuity way past their due date, without a renewed license until the waste issue was solved, an issue mind you, which hasn't been dealt with since the dawn of the nuclear age!!!
So what's going on. Simple really, and that might be why so few people dare challenge this status quo. The unions are all powerful! In other words, the Teamsters... the mob! All these workers are lied to by their bosses, who collect their dues, living fat on the hog with corporate thugs.
For every job the nuclear power industry gives a boilermaker, a dozen lucrative jobs are created in the solar energy industry providing the same amount of electricity. And yet, believe it or not, it's not until last year that the electrical unions started awarding solar installer certifications to their members!
I think a WTF is in order.
In the meantime, back at the ranch, Cuomo who keeps saying he wants to shut down Indian Point, spends all his time with the No Fracking crowd. He's already given them a two year breathing period, so pumping poisons into the ground isn't a burning issue for New York right now.
Yoko and her son Sean should divert their ample resources to tackle the most pressing problem at hand, that we're all living in the shadow of another potential disaster, which could spell an end to the fashion district! Artists Against Fracking should rename itself Artists Against NUKES and Fracking!
Do you realize that despite the many small events hosted over the years by Riverkeeper, ABC Home, Deepak Chopra, Donna Karan, etc... to discuss the future of Indian Point with those who have the most to lose, New Yorkers, there still hasn't been a big shut down Indian Point celebrity benefit gala in Manhattan, like ever?
Then we find out the Creative Coalition, an organization once founded by the likes of Susan Sarandon and Alec Baldwin, both on the record as opposed to nuclear power, is allowing the marketing executive for the Nuclear Energy Institute to host their benefits?
Can I hear another WTF, please?
Let's face it, if Governor Cuomo wanted to shut down Indian Point tomorrow, he could do it with the stroke of a pen, just like he passed those new gun laws. It's what Governors do! He could call in the National Guard and block the entrance to the gates, telling all the workers to go home. Except a nuclear power plant isn't like a coal plant, you just can't shut the door. You have to babysit that thing for decades!!!
You know that dumb science fiction show Revolution on television, where all the electricity goes out? What makes me crazy is the writers refuse to deal with the real life consequences of such an event. All nuclear power plants would melt down without cooling systems! We'd all be dead!
There is a certain madness at play here, some kind of irony, that we would make ourselves so vulnerable to natural disasters or human error. Faced with the absurdity of the situation, sit on our hands and do nothing to prevent the inevitable, just like we did with the Twin Towers... everyone knew that sooner or later it would happen, that it was just a matter of time before some asshole would fly a plane into them... we got two!
It's time for Cuomo, Riverkeeper, all the politicians, celebrities, scientists and activists involved in this fight to jam the nail in Indian Point's coffin. You can't do that without a big splashy event in the media capital of the world. Why this hasn't happened yet boggles my mind... What else can I do but bitch?
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