As part of my growing interest in America’s second smallest state, I see in the papers today that Vermont has announced that it is going to start buying some of its electricity from neighbouring New Hampshire’s wind turbines because it is still having difficulties getting planning permission for more of its own wind machines.
Vermont is a wondrously beautiful place and I guess I can see why the good citizens of Vermont may not want lines of windmills along the tops of its Green Mountains
These 130 foot tall turbines sit along a ridge in Searsburg, Vermont 2,900 feet above sea level. I have always thought they were attractive pieces of modern design but I can see how others would might consider them a blot on the otherwise perfect landscape.
Central Vermont Public Service Corporation and Green Mountain Power Corporation, Vermont’s two largest electrictiy utilities will get about 4 percent of their annual energy from the reliable sounding New Hampshire company, Granite Reliable Wind.
So a touch of not in my back yard from Vermont at a time when we should all be looking at ways to avoid what we are being promised both in the USA and here in the United Kingdom, more nuclear energy.
If I were you, my Vermont friends, I would seize the opportunity to develop a nuclear energy future when your less than loved and rather elderly nuclear power plant, Vermont Yankee, is heading towards its retirement in two years time.
If you think those wind turbines are eye-sores then take a look at this horrible scene from Vermont in 2007.
Part of one of the cooling towers collapsed sending its water cascading down to the Connecticut River which as you can see below is handily placed to catch any leakages from the power plant.
Of course, nuclear power plants are usually run by people who know all too well how to calm our nerves over leakages, spokesmen for Vermont Yankee were forced to admit not long ago that their statements about the safety of its underground pipes were “incomplete” even if they were cleared of intentionally misleading the investigators when they said that their underground pipes were not the same type of pipes that had leaked radioactive tritium in other power plants across the USA in 2008 and 2009 when, in fact, they were.
You only have to look at the power plant’s handsome riverside situation to see how easy it would be to send tritium into the Connecticut River and beyond.
The good news is that Vermont Yankee is going. Please, citizens of Vermont, make sure that you don’t ever get a replacement….stay Green, Green Mountain State!