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(01/17/18 10:37pm)
Friday Jan. 12, pianist Shai Wosner graced Robinson Hall at the Kevin P. Mahaney ‘84 Center for the Arts. He arrived in all-black, and as the lights dimmed and the hall applauded, Wosner took his place by the grand gold Steinway. As his fingers began to slide and glide on the piano, I slowly fell into a reverie.
Wosner’s renditions of Schubert’s piano sonatas are consecutively violent and delicate, loud and soft, and exaggerate both aspects. The fingers came down hard on the keys, and the pianist’s body mirrored the aggression of the louder parts. These powerful and passionate sections often took us by surprise, as a result of Wosner’s deliberate decision to enhance the contrast.
Wosner was at his best, however, when the piece got softer, subtler, faster. Then his fingers would glide and upon closing your eyes you really would be transported to the fantastic, the ethereal. Then the piano would sing, and you could dance.
In Wosner’s own words, these six sonatas are like, “six thick novels, rich with insights about the human condition.” They have an “enveloping quality” which gives him a sense of “communing” with the audience. On Friday night, as he gradually moved into yet another of the softer sections of the “Fantasie” (Sonata No. 18 in G Major), I began to understand what he meant.
This performance was part of his recently launched recital series “Schubert: The Great Sonatas.” Since the beginning of his career, he’s engaged with the composer’s music and has been described by Gramophone as a “Schubertian of unfaltering authority and character.” In the 2017-18 season, he will go on to perform Schubert’s last six piano sonatas in New York, Washington, D.C. and other venues throughout the United States and Japan.
A resident New Yorker, Wosner was born in Israel and received a comprehensive education in music from a young age, first at home and later at The Juilliard School. Currently, other than performing extensively on the classical music circuit and recording with Onyx Classics, he also sits on the faculty at the Longy School of Music in Boston.
As the pianist in the annual Sophie Shao and Friends concert, Wosner has performed here in Middlebury before. Deeply impressed by his skill and talent, the then series director Paul Nelson immediately engaged him for a solo recital. Now, after the multiple standing ovations Mr. Wosner received here in the MCA on Friday night, I have no doubt we will see him again in the (hopefully) near future.
(05/10/17 11:37pm)
“Like the mother bird at her plundered nest,” Hecuba says.
Grieving, suffering Hecuba.
“Do you even remember, King of the gods, that we exist, while the very air explodes around us, and fire reduces our city to ashes and stone?”
Troy is to be burned. The most agonizing of Hecuba’s wails are not enough to stir the gods. Abandoned, the mother stands alone and bereft of hope. She has lost her son, the Prince of Trojans, the best of men: Hector, the son of Priam. She has lost her daughter, a sacrifice to the very gods who now pretend to be deaf. Now, she must lose her grandson.
Andromache must give him up, though he is her own son, her only son. She must look on as her child is thrown from the walls of Troy. Humanity must look on, as all justice is violated, as the ugliest face of the Greeks – of the best of humans! – is uncovered. A face naked and ugly – a face human, all too human.
Caitlyn Meagher ’17 played Hecuba and when I looked into her eyes, I was almost convinced. To convince an audience in a tragedy is no easy task, and Meagher managed to do it for almost the entirety of the two hours. Considering the production did not even allow her an intermission, she did a very fine job indeed.
Madeleine Russell ’19 played Andromache. She had to summon a mother’s devastation as her child is stripped from her arms and say not a word as he dies the most gruesome of deaths. I cannot comprehend how one could ever do justice to Andromache’s tears, but Madeleine did it exceptionally well. Her stage presence was remarkable, though her gestures and her movement around the stage were a little too quick for the Andromache of my imagination; perhaps that was the director’s intention.
The director, Vanessa Mildenberg, visiting assistant professor of theatre, definitely managed to create a contrast between the resigned, old Hecuba and the desperate, suffering, but still young Andromache.
Roxy Adviento ’18 played a scheming, unrepentant Helen with convincingly seductive eyes. Michael Brady ’17 impressed as Talthybius and his final monologue, which was delivered while holding the vulgarized body of Astyanax in his arms, was tender and could reduce one to tears.
The set was appropriately minimalist, but I wish they had used rocks of a different material. Instead, the rocks were nearly identical blocks – identical in both color and shape – which sounded hollow when stepped upon or when Hecuba struck one in rage, which damaged the illusion. Altering the illusion was not a problem by itself: the helicopter sounds of the beginning and the US army uniforms of the Greek soldiers, for example, altered the illusion to make it more relevant, more real, for us.
Mildenberg allowed her actors to experiment quite a bit in order to create unique characters. Mary Baillie ’18, who was a member of the chorus, said each of the chorus members invented a backstory for their characters in order to “individualize” the chorus members. While I am not sure the Greeks would have liked that, it worked fine for us moderns. We like a personal voice and a personal story and have no patience for the voice of the collective, even though the entire purpose of the chorus in Greek tragedy might be to represent the invisible but overwhelming voice of the city – or the ‘society’, in our modern vocabularies.
The lighting design was phenomenal, especially in the final scene, when Troy was set on fire. Professor of Theater Mark Evancho made it seem as if the whole stage was lit, and I had to actually turn around to confirm that there were no naked flames in the room. Costume design was notable too, and although an overall grey-brown color scheme was followed, Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre Mira Veikley created a unique look by combining modern and ancient clothing. Tanks were combined with what seemed to be plain potato sacks, petticoats with peplos, striped patterned shirts with drab, torn pants; the costumes toyed with the attention of the spectator, but the color scheme kept them from becoming distracting.
“Women of Troy” was complex and heartbreaking, though it is never easy to do justice to Euripides’ tragedy. Working off of Don Taylor’s evocative translation, Mildenberg has envisioned a performance that occupies both the modern and Ancient Greek worlds. Her vision is an attempt at a simultaneous approximation of the ancient and the modern, and I think she has done a good job of realizing it.
(05/04/17 1:32am)
Prasanna Vankina’s ’18 radio show page on the WRMC website boasts a series of puns, which light-heartedly demonstrate the profound connections between music and political movements. The description reads as follows:
“How do ya address a broken system that perpetuates power and VIOLINS? What’s the deal with capitalism which vows to HARMONY one that stands in the way of profit? What do ya do when you catch the Russians TAMBOURINE with your elections? How do ya resist a government that CYMBALizes racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia and continues to deBASS scientific consensus? How do you deal with a LYRE in office, a TRUMPET that totally blows?”
Vankina tells you how, loud and clear every Friday at noon, on 91.1 FM, WRMC.
Each week, Vankina sits behind the massive microphone in the tiny WRMC studio in Proctor and plays “songs of resistance.” These songs, coming from all around the world, have come to define social movements, as well as speeches of activists and revolutionaries.
The show is titled “These Machines Kill Fascists,” and Vankina tells me she got the slogan from Woody Guthrie, the iconic singer-songwriter who traveled with displaced farmers from Oklahoma to California and brought their folk and blues songs to mainstream audiences. In 1941, the “Dust Bowl Troubadour” painted “This Machine Kills Fascists” on his guitar as a symbol of opposition to fascism, and it has inspired musicians and activists ever since.
In a “Trumpified” world, a radio show airing voices of dissent is Vankina’s own small way of playing a part in the resistance. She wants us all to realize the power of alternative forms of resistance, especially music. She wants us to listen to The Clash and “queen” Ella Fitzgerald and to remember that protesting does not have to be ugly. She wants us to listen to “Born in the USA” again, and stop misunderstanding Springsteen’s powerful (and ironic) lyrics. And there are musicians out there making this resistance music today; Vankina recommends Vikesh Kapoor and Valerie June.
This is not Vankina’s first WRMC show. She did a solo show for two semesters called “If Music Be the Food of Literature, Play On,” in which she selected a famous literary character or author each week and created a hypothetical mixtape for them. She enjoyed piecing together character sketches, biographies and quotes to curate a truly representative playlist each week, even though it took her quite a bit of time. Both her shows have required a significant weekly time commitment, but Prasanna enjoys the process. Her philosophy is simple: a bad radio show is worse than no radio show, and so she doesn’t see any point in putting together a mish-mash of barely relevant songs and disappointing her dedicated listeners. (Take note, other WRMC DJs.)
For Vankina, radio is an entirely unique platform for expression, since it puts her in the spotlight and lets her play all that incredible music though there is no visible audience. This allows her to be authentic in a way that is simply not possible in other media.
She loves to hear her friends, teachers and family tune in, but the really special moments have occurred when a stranger or someone she barely knows has called in, like the time a woman called in two weeks after sitting next to her on a flight from Detroit to Burlington during spring break. Or, when a few weeks ago, Vankina got an email from a high school teacher out in Maine with the following note: “Thank you for playing Phil Ochs this afternoon. He really thought he could change the world by singing and exposing the truth. He thought he could ‘sing louder than the guns.’”
It made her day, she told me. It would have made mine too.
Vankina is on a break till the end of term, but her show continues next fall. Be sure to check it out!
(04/27/17 3:39am)
Let me paint you a picture. The canvas is blank. The colors are pink, purple, yellow and black. The artist is in a particularly gay mood and has about an hour to paint butterflies, roses and all things good and happy.
It is the Midd Masti show, guys.
Last Saturday on April 22, Wilson Hall was caught up in a Bollywood song and dance bonanza as the hosts looked out to a packed audience and invited on the glittering stage the first performers of the night: Ayesha Ashgar ’19, Hamza Kiyani’19 and their Bhangra dance crew.
Dressed in black harem pants, tank tops and donning yellow “dupattas,” the dancers stepped onto the stage and flashed everyone the biggest smiles they could muster. They had hops, they had twirls and lots and lots of “thumkas.” They even had a (bearded) grandmother who seemed to be scolding them, before she joined in the dance and gave us a few “thumkas” herself.
This year’s show was titled “Baat-Cheet” (chit-chat) and a dialogue between the hosts preceded each performance. Each dialogue was based around the theme of identity and aspired to capture the spirit of the dance that followed. Many stories – most of which were happy, a few of which were sad – were shared by students who call both Vermont and the eclectic mix of colors that is the world of South Asia, home.
Over the last few years, Midd Masti has maintained a tradition of inviting guest performers for its annual showcase. This year saw INGOMA – Midd’s only African a capella group – took the stage. They sang two spiritual songs from Kenya and South Africa: “Kuliko Jana” (Swahili) and “Ndikhokele” (Xhosa). They were followed by the University of Vermont’s Bollywood dance group, JAZBA, who performed a fusion of pop, traditional Punjabi and Bollywood music. With a six-song medley and a substantial storyline, JAZBA’s performance was really a mini Bollywood musical, complete with love at first sight, a (not too) devastating heartbreak and eventual (ecstatic) union.
Varsha Vijayakumar ’20 wowed everyone with a vocal performance of classical Carnatic music, which the New Jersey first-year has been practicing since she was five years old. Her hymn to Lord Shiva, the Transformer and Destroyer, was both tremendously skillful and incredibly emotional.
Akhila Khanna ’17, who is bidding us all goodbye next month after four years of organizing the brilliant annual Midd Masti shows, choreographed on the magical rhythms of the iconic “Humma Song” for the senior piece. As she prepares to leave our College, she wants to leave her Midd Masti pals with a very special message.
“Keep spreading the energy joy and happiness that is so pure and inherent in your dance,” she said. “Always keep the Proc basement doors open for everyone and anyone and I am certain you will change lives like you have changed mine. Thank you for keeping me going, reminding me of home when Middlebury was not. I will miss you from the bottom of my heart.”
We will miss you too, Akhila. The “thumkas” won’t be the same without you.
The show ended with the performers taking their bows and heading over to Crossroads for the after-party, with more desi songs and many more “thumkas” in store.
(05/06/15 7:04pm)
Wide-eyed and tight-lipped, students sit facing the podium in the Warner Hemicycle. The class will continue its discussion of Plato’s Republic today. As Charles A. Dana Professor of Political Science Murray Dry begins to write his outline, the whispers begin.
“Is that a d?”
“No, no – that’s definitely an ‘s’ and a ‘t’?”
“Positive?”
“No.
Mr. Daniel Dignan ’17 — Dry always addresses his students using honorifics — suggests the class set up a fund for handwriting lessons. There’s a murmur of agreement.
Dry turns around, his face beaming. He begins his lecture with a three-minute-long question addressed to Ms. Ella Marks ’17. She is clueless; it’s not her fault. Dry restates the question.
If you have done the reading thoroughly, the lecture and ensuing discussion is a delight. There is passion in his voice that draws students in — a passion fueled by his desire to convey the zenith of his chosen author’s philosophical heights, even if he has to go overtime. This is his 47th year teaching political science, and few if any students remember him ever finishing class on time.
If you haven’t done the reading thoroughly, however, “your shame will be very public and your justice swiftly dealt,” wrote Mr. Caleb Cunningham ’14 in a Campus article two years ago.
Sometimes, Professor Dry will ask a particularly difficult question and his face will contort with anxiety as one by one, his students fail to come up with the answer.
Mr. Alex Brockelman ’18 remembers one such day. The class was discussing the Republic with a particular ferocity. Dry had just asked the class whether or not the philosophical life was possible.
Dry knew it was a tough question; the purpose of Socrates’ teaching was at stake. He wanted his students to stimulate their intellects and utilize their reasoning capacity to their fullest. If that involved buckling knees under the intense gaze of Dry’s eyes, so be it.
Nine people attempted to answer the question. All were wrong. Brockelman raised his hand and said that the philosophical life is possible as Socrates himself embodied it.
“AND THE DUCK COMES DOWN!” Dry shouted.
He started pacing around the room in ecstasy, his face red as a tomato and his hands held high in the air. The students – some excited, others still as a statue – heaved a sigh of relief and began to laugh.
Dry was referring to the duck that dropped whenever an audience member said the secret word on You Bet Your Life, a 1950s comedy quiz show.
This is trademark Dry: exacting and exuberant. He will laugh uproariously at Socrates’ hints at the impossibility of the communalism of men and women in Plato’s Republic.
For Dry, there are two prerequisites for good teaching: interest in the subject matter and in talking about it. He fell in love with political philosophy as a senior at the University of Chicago. As a Ph.D. candidate, he decided that being on one side of the lecture wasn’t very different from being on the other. When a friend recommended applying for a teaching position at Middlebury in 1967, he did not hesitate.
“Why have I stayed? My wife asks me that too. She said she thought we’d get married, I’d do well and we’d go elsewhere!” he exclaims, laughing.
From the very first day, he felt that Middlebury was the right place for him. He has occasionally taught at some other institutions. For him, the differences between teaching at a small liberal arts college and a major university are stark. One just cannot find time “to be the complete teacher of your students,” he says.
And then there’s the freedom.
“Nobody says, ‘What on earth are you doing teaching a course called Love and Friendship?’” he says. “They even say it’s pretty good.”
Dry met his wife, Cecelia, at the College. She started as a student the same year he began to teach, and was among the first group of students housed in mixed-gender dorms. She took two of his courses.
“I don’t think she wanted to do constitutional law,” he says with a chuckle.
When they got serious, she decided she was not going to take any more of his classes. He believes her friends and fellow students accepted their relationship, even though it was unusual.
“It is a little more difficult to do now,” he adds with a smile.
Dry has two daughters: Rachel, who attended Harvard University, and Judith, who graduated from the College. Judith found a world here in complete contrast to her father’s. She was a theater major and did not take a single political science course. He would have liked if she had, but concludes that the experience turned out perfectly for her.
“There are many Middleburys in Middlebury,” he concludes.
For Dry, teaching always complemented his familial responsibilities. However long his office hours might have been, he was always five minutes away from home. Though Cecelia had the major parental role, he was the parent who “did the trips to the school,” he says. He was a timer for his daughters’ swim team and served on the board for Middlebury Union High School.
Mr. Dignan says if he were to create a statue of Dry, it would depict him leaning back on his podium with arms outstretched, book in one hand, chalk in the other; a timeless visage of intellectual might and fortitude.
Professor Dry is known for his absolute intolerance of hats in class, his struggle with memorizing names, his hatred of e-books, and his habit of calling on students instead of waiting for volunteers.
Most of all, however, he is known and respected for his ability to inspire his students care about learning from the great philosophers. The fear of being called on is part of the reason, but mostly it is his enthusiasm, his vigor, and his love for the material he is teaching. He is in love with Plato, and will not rest until he makes you fall in love with him too. Aristotle, Hobbes and Locke are mountains of knowledge, but the best way to reach their summits at the College is to go through the Murray Dry experience.
A version of this article appeared in the Jan. 2015 issue of “The Snow Globe,” a publication of the J-term course, Reporting and Writing.
(04/29/15 11:40pm)
Last Thursday, David Huddle – who is currently a Fellow of the Vermont Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a distinguished poet and novelist with eight published poetry collections and 11 works of fiction to his name – drew quite a different portrait of form in poetry through his lecture “Formal choice as the Path to Fresh Possibility” at a packed audience at the Vermont Book Shop.
The lecture – the second in a series titled “Poets and their Craft” – was organized by the Sun Dog Poetry Center. For each lecture in the series, each poet is in charge of choosing their own topic.
Based in Jeffersonville village in north-central Vermont, the Sundog Poetry Center works to promote poetry and create audiences for the poets based in Vermont. The center, whose name originates from one of Tamra’s poems titled “Parhelion,” is focused on ways to share poetry throughout the Vermont community.
Tamra Higgins, who is co-president of the center along with Mary Jane Dickerson, explains that this lecture series grew out of a desire to have a dialogue with poets about the many aspects of poetry that is typically excluded from the opportunity to discuss in a public forum.
For Professor Huddle – who has been teaching at the University of Vermont for over 40 years– making a formal choice does not necessarily mean imposing a standard form on your stream of thoughts. He explains how he has been making formal choices in the context of free verse poetry throughout his writing career.
“They include decisions like where one breaks a line or adds a three line stanza,” he explained. “They are little things that you do not pay attention to.”
As Huddle sees it, formal choices are not only for the writer. As an example, he had an audience member read out a poem of his chronicling the days of his father’s last illness. The second to last line of the poem ended with an enjambment that forced the reader’s eyes to continue without pause. This format created a sense of breathlessness, and forced the reader to make conscious decisions about the poem should be read.
Huddle also explained that formal choices do not have to be conventional either. He referenced with delight a number of poems of his in which he tried to make all the lines come out exactly the same length in typewriter space. He had varying success.
Emphasizing how poetic form should have a purpose, Huddle describes how form should move the reader, rather than merely showing off the writer’s skill. As an example he mentioned shape poems, in which the physical arrangement of the words in the poem play an important role in conveying the intended meaning of the poem. In Huddle’s view, shape tends to become much more the point than the content itself.
To further depict how he views form, Huddle compares poetic form to the way a jazz musician interacts with accompanying musicians; where the accompaniment is a steady rhythm with some chord changes, the jazz musician who is improvising weaves the melodic story into the background music.
As Huddle describes, the process is “something steady and solid under a line that can meander all over the place.”
Shedding light on his creative process, Huddle explains how form and content overlap in his mind simultaneously. He describes how while writing the poem he can “almost step back and let the two [form and line] talk.”
Huddle then explains how he draws inspiration from that that specific moment of overlap.
“When I am writing and suddenly I put down a word or two, a line or a sentence that I had no idea I would write.”
Alongside expansive events like this lecture series, the Poetry Center also organizes periodic retreats to Fielder Farm at the base of Camel’s Hump in Huntington. Higgins and Dickerson are currently preparing for a ‘Poetry and Healing Retreat’ on April 17-19 for people interested in exploring poetry as a means of dealing with loss or difficult events.
Although Dickerson recognizes that the SPC still has a lot to do for the encouragement of young poets in Vermont going forward, the Center at large has received a positive response from the Vermont community. The organization has grown significantly since its inception.
Higgins mentioned the tremendous encouragement they have received from local bookstores throughout Vermont, many of which have taken up the center’s cause and cooperated extensively for the organization of the long-running lecture series.
This current lecture series will run until October 8. For more details and full event listings, visit sundogpoetry.org.
(02/25/15 2:07pm)
Hundreds of Vermonters recently debated a new bill on gun control. The bill hopes to expand background checks and bar people considered mentally ill from carrying a weapon alongside imposing other restrictions on gun ownership.
The Senate Bill 31 was met with much opposition as the largest crowd descended on the State House since the Vermont Civil Union Bill - which granted the full benefits of marriage to same-sex couples - was debated and passed 15 years ago. The 43 people who signed up to speak in favor of the bill were outnumbered by the 65 who spoke against it.
Critics of the bill were concerned that the new legislation was against the spirit of the Vermont Constitution and the Sportsmen Bill of Rights. Many feared it was the first step on a slippery slope which would eventually lead to gun confiscation.
Bill Moore of Vermont Traditions Coalition emphasized that “we don’t need them in the safest state in the nation.”
FBI figures show that with only 115 violent crimes per 100,000 - a third of the national average - Vermont was indeed the safest state in 2013.
The Gun Owners of Vermont issued a statement in which it expressed concerns over possible inclusion of Veterans who have returned home from Desert Storm and sought counseling at the Veteran’s Administration among people who might be prohibited from accessing a gun in case the bill passes and is made into a law.
Ann Braden, President of the anti-gun group Gun Sense Vermont, was adamant that the legislation would not impede on the Second Amendment rights of Vermonters. She had announced in May of last year that the group would focus on the issue of introducing universal background checks for firearms sold in the state.
“It’s focused exclusively on keeping guns out of the hands of convicted abusers, violent felons, and drug traffickers,” Braden said.
The Green Mountain state, which prides itself on being the most liberal state in the country, is also among the most protective of its right to bear arms. It is one of only three states which allow anyone to carry concealed weapons without a permit. It also has a firearms preemption law that prevents cities or counties from enforcing gun laws that are more restrictive than state law.
The shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 renewed debate over gun control laws in Vermont but in spite of repeated attempts by many in the House of Representatives, such as former Rep. Linda Waite-Simpson of Essex, to introduce gun-control laws the bills have failed to garner enough votes and often have not even made it to the House Floor.
Gov. Peter Shumlin attributes Vermonters’ passion for guns to “years and years of Vermonters respecting guns as a tool to manage wildlife and to put food on the table.” Gov. Shumlin is among the most prominent pro-gun voices in the state, as he himself was raised in a hunting family.
“The current laws that Vermont has in place around guns serve us well,” Shumlin said in a news conference held at the end of last month. He wanted the Legislature to focus on affordability, property taxes and health care costs instead of debating issues that “divide us,” the Burlington Free Press reported.
(01/15/15 1:52am)
The Vermont Yankee Nuclear power plant shut down its operations at 1:04 p.m. on the 29th of December, and is no longer sending power to the New England electric grid. The 604-megawatt plant was responsible for producing 71 percent of all electricity produced and 35 percent of all electricity consumed within the state in its 42 years of operation, according to the Energy Information Agency.
The plant is not expected to be dismantled until the 2040s. According to the final Site Assessment Study, it will be decommissioned even later if dismantling and decontamination with fuel is going to occur on the site.
“I know this is hard news for the many Vermonters who have relied on the Vermont Yankee plant for employment and economic opportunity in Windham County and beyond,” Governor Peter Shumlin said in a statement. The plant employs about 550 people currently, and that number is expected to drop to 316 immediately. By 2016 the workforce will be further reduced to 127 people.
“My administration will continue working with local communities to ensure that the Windham County region grows jobs and economic opportunity as operations wind down at Vermont Yankee. We will also continue to work with Entergy [the parent company] and community partners to ensure that decommissioning happens as promptly and smoothly as possible,” he said.
Shumlin hailed the closure as “a positive step for our state and our energy future” and is optimistic that “Vermont’s energy future is on a different, more sustainable path that is creating jobs, reducing energy costs for Vermonters and slowing climate change.”
The closure marks the end of the protracted legal battle between Vermont and Entergy Corporation. The collapse of a cooling tower, radioactive tritium leaks and misstatements from plant executives in the years 2007 to 2010 drew heavy criticism from environmental groups across the country. Vermont had tried to close the plant in the wake of the events but Entergy Corporation - a Louisiana-based energy company - successfully sued the state claiming that it did not have the authority to force a shutdown in 2011.
Entergy officials maintain that the reason for the closure is that the plant is no longer economically feasible due to availability of cheap natural gas from US shale fields. Entergy will give Windham County $10 million over five years beginning this year for economic development, reported the Sentinel Source. No such agreements exist with New Hampshire or Massachusetts, homes to the second- and third-largest employee bases for Vermont Yankee.
The regions of Cheshire County and Franklin County in Massachusetts and Windham County in Vermont will lose more than 1100 jobs and $480 million as a consequence of the shutdown, says a study released from the UMass Donahue Institute of Hadley, Mass. The jobs span diverse fields such as leisure and hospitality, education and health services, professional and business services and construction.
Vermont Yankee is the fourth nuclear power plant to retire in the US. The total number of functioning nuclear power plants is now less than 100. Five new nuclear reactors are currently under construction in the country, with an expected combined capacity of more than 5,000 MW.
“We are moving full speed ahead with local, sustainable no-carbon renewable in Vermont,” said Vermont Public Service Commissioner Chris Recchia on the day the plant closed.
The Independent System Operator of New England, which oversees Vermont’s electric power system and transmission lines, is less optimistic about the closure. The organization released a statement saying that while it “does not favor any fuel or technology, the retirement of this large nuclear station will result in less fuel diversity and greater dependence on natural gas as a fuel for power generation.”