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Gov. Rick Perry has named seven members to the Texas Low Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission, including Andrews County Judge Richard Dolgener. Andrews County is home to Waste Control Specialists, which currently stores low-level radioactive waste. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has issued a draft license to dispose of the waste and is considering a final license. "The Texas Compact Commission was created by the Texas Legislature to oversee the disposal of low-level radioactive waste was authorized under the Texas-Vermont Compact. It is critically important that the residents of Andrews County has a voice on this commission in light of the fact that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is considering granting Waste Control Specialists a final license to dispose of this waste at the company's Andrews County facility," Dolgener said in a news release.

Entergy Nuclear's hopes for renewing its Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant's license for another 20 years were dealt a surprise setback Monday when a federal panel raised concerns about possible metal fatigue problems at the facility. The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, a panel that acts as the judicial arm for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said in a 154-page decision that Entergy needs to do more tests now, not later, on metal nozzles used to supply water and maintain the temperature in the reactor core.

PETER A. BRADFORD, adjunct professor, Vermont Law School, and former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission: * For an even-handed recent overview of most nuclear power issues, see "Nuclear Power Joint Fact-Finding," a June 2007 report by the Keystone Center, a non-profit organization that brought together a cross section of parties interested in nuclear energy - including environmentalists and consumer advocates, industry representatives and government officials - to create a base of agreed-upon knowledge about the costs, risks and benefits of nuclear power. www.keystone.org/spp/documents/FinalReport_NJFF6_12_2007(1).pdf * For a responsibly skeptical look at nuclear power's rapidly rising costs in comparison to available low carbon alternatives, see "The Nuclear Illusion" by Amory Lovins and Imram Sheikh in the November 2008 Ambio, the Journal of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. https://www.rmi.org/images/PDFs/Energy/E08-01_AmbioNuclIlusion.pdf The Journal Report * See the complete Energy report. * The Web site of the Nonproliferation Education Center, maintained by WSJ op-ed contributor Henry Sokolski, features an ongoing collection of thoughtful conservative pieces skeptical of nuclear power. http://www.npec-web.org/ * For an excellent short critique of reprocessing and the Bush Administration's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, see Victor Gilinsky and Alison Macfarlane's Minority Opinion from the National Academy of Science's Review of DoE's Nuclear Research and Development Program, http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11998&page=73 * For an even-handed look at how nuclear construction went astray in the U.S. in the 1970s, the best book remains "Light Water: How the Nuclear Dream Dissolved, Irvin C. Bupp and Jean-Claude Derian. * Another good overview text is Megawatts and Megatons, Richard Garwin and Georges Charpak.

A Montpelier firefighter lets a pedestrian into the Chittenden Bank on State Street in Montpelier on Monday while, in the foreground, a protest against Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant takes place on the sidewalk. Authorities said members of the Yankee protest made demands inside the building, then dumped a smelly substance on the floor, sparking a precautionary evacuation of part of the building. The material was determined not to be hazardous and no one was harmed. Police are investigating.

With heating fuel and gas prices fluctuating, and two of Vermont's major electrical contracts coming to a close, it's no surprise that energy cost issues have galvanized the current race for the state's top job. Gov. James Douglas places the responsibility for the electrical supply in the hands of the state's utilities. He said on Friday the government should collaborate with utilities as they strike new deals with the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant and Hydro-Quebec, but it should not dictate where companies buy power.

As political candidates wrangle over how to map out Vermont's future electricity supply, the heads of the state's utilities are moving ahead with their own plans. A long list of contingencies, however, including the election, has complicated power source negotiations. Regulators and lawmakers, for example, haven't yet determined whether Vermont Yankee will continue to operate after its license expires in 2012, and utility contracts with Hydro-Quebec will start expiring in 2015.

As the Liberty Union candidate for lieutenant governor, I want to point out, that the Vermont Yankee reactor had another evacuation this week. Also notice that Yankee can't seem to operate for more than a few weeks without having to power down, and guess what, the lights are still on. Yankee only provides 2 percent of the power in New England and it is leaving a legacy of toxic dry casks that will be lethal for the next 250,000 years. We do not currently have the technology to change the dry casks, but their designed lifespan is 100 years. When Entergy purchased the reactor, they had a surplus in the decommissioning fund, and now they want us to pay the $400 million difference?

The Department of Health should rewrite a 1977 radiological health rule it uses to monitor radiation releases from the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant and make sure the public has an opportunity to comment, a legislative oversight committee concluded Wednesday. Critics of the nuclear plant have said the Health Department had re-interpreted the emission measurement rule over the years, allowing radiation at the edge of the plant's property to violate state standards. Health Department officials have countered there's science behind their measurement practices.

An initial report from Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission indicated there were no signs of fatigue in structural welds in the power plant's steam dryer, wrote Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the NRC, in an e-mail to the Reformer. "As part of the Extended Power Uprate process, Entergy committed to the NRC to perform a detailed examination of the steam dryer in each of the three outages after attaining the uprated power level," wrote Sheehan. The steam dryer is a static device with no moving parts meant to extract water vapor from steam produced by the reactor before it is sent to the power turbine.

For the past three years, Mary Alice "Mal" Herbert and her friends have spent every Thursday afternoon at Wells Fountain appealing to passers-by to help shut down Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. From 4 to 6 p.m. they stood on the corner waving signs, cheered by the honking of cars driven by those who agreed with them while bearing with a smile the taunts, curses and ridicule of those who did not. Thursday, Mal Herbert's three-year-long vigil ended.

Officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission tried on Tuesday to reassure local residents that recent problems with the cooling towers at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant are not symptomatic of the rest of the plant. "We did not get any indication that these design issues were occurring in other areas of the plant," said George Malone, a team leader on the recent special NRC inspection of the plant's cooling towers.

Area residents made it clear to Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials Tuesday that they didn't believe their assurances that Entergy Nuclear's recurring problems with its cooling towers at Vermont Yankee didn't translate to more serious problems. Sam Collins, regional administrator for the NRC, told about 100 people gathered at the Latchis Theatre that while Entergy had problems with communication, design and oversight with the cooling towers, the problems didn't rise to the level of a safety threat.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in what was termed a "fairly unusual meeting" by its regional administrator, presented to the public Tuesday night its special inspection report on the status of Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant's cooling towers. Because of the public's interest in the matter and because of the concerns of local elected and appointed officials, said Samuel Collins, the administrator for the NRC's Northeast region, the agency felt it was important that it present the results in Brattleboro rather than relying solely on a written report to describe what it found.

While problems with Vermont Yankee's cooling towers did not impact safety at the nuclear power plant in Vernon, wrote the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in a letter to site vice president Ted Sullivin, the agency did fault Entergy Nuclear Operations for some of the actions it took relating to maintenance and inspection of the towers. Since August 2007, Yankee's cooling towers have suffered a series of mishaps, including the collapse of a cooling fan cell and subsequent water leaks of distribution pipes in both the east and west towers.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gaye Symington accused Republican Gov. Jim Douglas of tying the hands of an oversight panel that was appointed to study the reliability of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. The panel was appointed by Douglas and the Legislature this year to provide a recommendation on whether the plant should be allowed to continue operating after 2012. The Department of Public Service denied a request by Douglas' own appointee to attend an interview between a consultant hired by the Douglas administration and employees of the Vernon plant.

New numbers show Vermont Yankee's decommissioning fund is taking a hit amid all this financial turmoil. Last September, the fund to dismantle the plant once it closes was at $440 million. A year later-- it's dropped $43 million. It's expected to cost at least $800 million to shut down and clean up the site.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspectors are determining why a shipment of lead shielding from Pilgrim nuclear station in Plymouth, Mass., to Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon exceeded radiation levels established by the federal Department of Transportation. The lead shielding is used to protect workers during refueling outages. "It's not uncommon for plants to share equipment during refueling outages," said Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the NRC. Both Pilgrim and Yankee are owned by Entergy.

MONTPELIER - Because of the recent dramatic events on Wall Street, the future of Entergy Corp.'s spinoff plan for five nuclear reactors could be in doubt. The proposal, which includes the Vermont Yankee plant in Vernon, would fold the plants into a new highly leveraged company. Entergy would retain half ownership of Enexus Energy Corp., though the new company would be a separate entity.

The Massachusetts attorney general is appealing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's rejection of concerns about possible accidents or sabotage involving the spent radioactive fuel pools at the Pilgrim and Vermont Yankee nuclear plants. The office of Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley filed the appeal with the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston this week.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is assuming regulatory authority over certain radioactive materials in five states, Guam, and some U.S. possessions, effective Sept. 30, under provisions of the Energy Policy Act (EPAct) of 2005. The material in question consists of naturally occurring and accelerator-produced radioactive material (NARM), which had been under state authority until the EPAct included this material in the definition of "byproduct material" subject to the NRC's jurisdiction. The states affected by the current action are Vermont, West Virginia, Idaho, Missouri and South Dakota. The NRC initially issued a waiver of its authority to allow the states to continue to regulate this material while the agency developed new regulations to implement the legislation. The final regulations became effective Nov. 30, 2007. At that time, the NRC terminated the waiver and assumed authority for NARM held by federal agencies and licensees in federally recognized Indian tribes, Delaware, Indiana, Wyoming, Montana, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. This current action is the second phase of waiver terminations.