Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant

Vermont Yankee was an electricity generating nuclear power plant, located in the town of Vernon, Vermont, in the northeastern United States. It generated 620 megawatts (MWe) of electricity at full power. The plant was a boiling water reactor (BWR), designed by General Electric. It operated from 1972 until December 29, 2014, when its owner Entergy shut down the plant. In 2008, the plant provided 71.8% of all electricity generated within Vermont, amounting to 35% of Vermont's electricity consumption. The plant is on the Connecticut River, upstream of the Vernon, Vermont Hydroelectric Dam and used the reservoir pool for its cooling water.

In March 2012, the plant's initial 40-year operating license was scheduled to expire; in March 2011, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) extended its license for another 20 years. Vermont Yankee's continued operations were complicated by the Vermont state legislature's enactment of a law providing the state legislature authority to determine the continued operation of the plant, in addition to the federal government. Entergy requested a new state certificate of public good (CPG), but the Vermont legislature voted in February 2010 against renewed permission to operate. In January 2012, Entergy won a court case, invalidating the state's veto power on continued operations. In August 2013, Entergy announced that due to economic factors Vermont Yankee would cease operations in the fourth quarter of 2014. The plant was shut down at 12:12 pm EST on December 29, 2014.

Since the 1970s, there have been many anti-nuclear protests about Vermont Yankee, including large protests after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011, and on the date of the original operating license expiry in March 2012. The plant's initial operating license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was the subject of a lawsuit that produced the U.S. Supreme Court's 1978 decision Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., in which the Supreme Court set forth a significant doctrine in American administrative law.

Vermont Yankee was a BWR-4 Boiling water reactor that used a Mark I containment structure. It provided 71.8% of all electricity generated in Vermont in 2008 and met 35% of the overall electricity requirements of the state.

It was originally designed and constructed for 500 MW electrical output. In 2006, it was upgraded to 620 MW electrical output. The reactor produces 1912 MW of heat which is converted to electricity at 32% efficiency. In comparison, the average residential power demand for all of Vermont in 2012 was 239 MW. The nearby Northfield Mountain hydroelectricity facility was built to balance the supply from Yankee.

The reactor core held up to 368 fuel assemblies and 89 control rods. The spent fuel pool is licensed to contain up to 3353 spent fuel assemblies.

In 1978, the Vermont Yankee reactor was the subject of Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., an important United States Supreme Court administrative law case which ruled that courts cannot impose procedures upon the NRC as this exceeds their power of judicial review.

On July 31, 2002, Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee, LLC (EVY) purchased the plant from Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corporation (VYNPC) for $180 million. Entergy received the reactor complex, nuclear fuel, inventories, and related real estate, as well as the liability to decommission the plant and related decommissioning trust funds of approximately $310 million. The acquisition included a 10-year power purchase agreement (PPA) under which three of the former owners committed to purchase a portion of the electricity produced by the reactor at a cost of approximately 4.5 cents per kilowatt hour.