When the nuclear power plant closed, another environmental activist, Bill McKibben, confidently wrote that Vermont was “completely capable of replacing its power output with renewables . . .” That’s certainly a nice, happy, green thought — but that’s not exactly what happened. Vermont Yankee’s power supply was replaced with something else: Natural Gas.
The thing about natural gas is that it sounds pure and clean, but it’s still a fossil fuel that releases — you guessed it — CO2. What happened? Did the New England area continue to experience the annual decrease in emissions it was accustomed to with the switch to natural gas? In a word, no. The region saw a 5% increase in carbon emissions — the first year-to-year increase since 2010.