Vermont Nuke Plant to Close

Vermont's lone nuclear plant will shut down at the end of next year, reports the Burlington Free Press. Entergy, the company that runs the 41-year-old Vermont Yankee plant, said the decision to shutter it was based solely on financial factors—including the boom in natural gas production across the nation through fracking. But it surely didn't help that the state has been fighting for years to shut it down for a host of reasons, including its age.

The legal fight had been an interesting one, as the AP explains. The state gave itself the authority to shut down the plant, but a federal appeals court ruled earlier this month that Vermont had overstepped its bounds—that only federal regulators could do so. Despite that legal victory, Entergy concluded that it no longer made sense to keep the plant running. After it stops producing power, the plant will remain under the watch of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as its parts cool down ahead of removal. (More Vermont stories.)