The plant likely won't be dismantled until
Those were among the reactions in the three-state region of Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts as the plant finishes powering down and prepares to disconnect from the grid, most likely Monday.
"Economically it's going to really hurt," said Bob O'Donnell, co-owner of Trend Business Solutions, a small Vernon business that sells clothing and other items adorned with business logos, including that of Vermont Yankee. "It's going to kill the tax base."
Vermont Yankee, the state's only nuclear reactor, employed more than 600 people when it announced it would close. The workforce will be cut in half after a round of layoffs and retirements Jan. 19. In 2016, the plant will see another big reduction as it prepares for a 30-year period during which time its radiation will cool. The plant likely won't be dismantled until the 2040s or later.
New Orleans-based Entergy Corp. bought Vermont Yankee in 2002 from a group of New England utilities that had owned the plant since it opened in 1972. In August 2013, Entergy announced it would close the plant because it was no longer economical to operate.
"This has been a bad investment for us," said Barrett Green, an Entergy finance executive who recommended both that Entergy buy the plant and later that it be closed.
The company was betting on a carbon tax, or some other hit on fossil-fuel-fired power plants, that would make nuclear power a clear winner. Instead, Green said, nuclear plants have been hit with increasing "regulatory costs" like beefed-up security post-9/11 and new safeguards against extreme events like the earthquake and tsunami that struck a nuclear station in Japan in 2011.