I don’t know about you, but when Entergy decided to close Vermont Yankee last month, and with Maine Yankee closed since 92′, I was concerned about Pilgrim staying open. Well relax, Engergy has issued a statement saying its apples and oranges when comparing Pilgrim to VT Yankee.
Pilgrim produces 680 Megawatts of uninterrupted electrical power, enuff for 550,000 homes. “Pilgrim has benefits beyond its power production, with about 700 permanent employees, a $50 million to $60 million annual payroll, a roughly $2.5 million contribution toward emergency planning, $8 million to $10 million in property taxes, and $350,000 to $400,000 in donations.”
interesting, Deval Patrick is mentioned in this Boston Globe article. I called Deval on a talk radio show and specifically asked him if he has reached out to Entergy about building Pilgrim II. I pointed out the $10 million in annual property taxes Plymouth enjoys, construction jobs, safety of a modern plant, etc. Besides giving me the usual “good question Dan, haven’t thought of that”, now I know why Deval said Plymouth must plan without the $10 million a year Entergy gives the town. “It’s not clear to me that we need Pilgrim in order to meet all of our electrical needs. So we’re going to have to have the conversation about how we meet all those needs and whether this aging nuclear facility is a necessary part of that formula,” Patrick said of the roughly 40-year-old plant along the shore of Cape Cod Bay.”
Deval went on to tout the solar output in Massachusetts, approx 250 megawatts. But Entergy scoffed at that notion by saying ““The cost of solar, you know, it’s so highly subsidized by grants and by credits that are paid for, in large part by the distribution companies… people don’t see it, what the real cost is.”
There is an old saying these alternative energies remind me of, “if its sounds too good to be true, it usually is”.
http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/plymouth/2013/08/entergy_official_distinguishes_between_pilgrim_vermont_nuke.html
