>The Vermont Yankee plant has the same design as Fukushima Daiichi and was approved for a 20 year extension, ten days after the Fukushima meltdown
Are you suggesting that Vermont is likely to be hit by a tsunami?
The Fukushima plants did not 'fail', they were beaten to fucking death. For whatever reason, the regulations in Japan did not consider tsunamis of that magnitude possible, despite the fact that they have happened several times in recorded history in the same region.
>Also, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) "has never turned down a plant relicensing"
That's probably literally true. This is because the process involves a long period of examination and overseen investigation by parties with no stake in keeping them running - it would be obvious that such a requested license would be turned down years before any kind of formal 'No' would be issued, and continuing to seek one would waste millions of dollars.
From the article, that plant is moving its spent fuel rods from the roof top pools to a passive containment system.
I guess actively cooled, roof top swimming pools full of used fuel rods makes sense from the standpoint of monitoring, but it carries more failure modes than anyone wants now.
Not terribly high, but that doesn't seem like a very good excuse for lackluster design specifications.
Also, it's worth noting that while Vermont isn't exactly the the SF Bay Area when it comes to unfavorable proximity to fault lines, it's not entirely devoid of seismic activity.
Map is USGS, not TreeHugger original, but I couldn't find it on USGS.gov.
Also, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) "has never turned down a plant relicensing":http://ecopolitology.org/2011/03/30/fukushima-daiichi-proble...