Monday, February 25, 2013

Kewaunee Lies Continue, At Least Its Dead

From this website, we used the data to plot historical electrical costs.

Historical Wisconsin Rate Information - Wisconsin Public Service

Dominion, the owner of  Kewaunee stated a main reason for shutting down is that the nuclear plant can't compete with traditional energy sources, and that the current rate were "low", when in fact they are the highest ever.

Hmmmm, I just wanted to check on that statement.   It seems that the truth is, the rates are the highest they have ever been in history, and nuclear cannot compete.    Wow.  

That is the amazing truth, nuclear cannot compete, even this low cost plant bought for around $380M cannot amortize it's debt service AND turn a profit.  

Once the nukers realize that we are going to make them clean up their plants, decommission them and incur the whole cost of doing so.....once the rats see that they are going to have to pay the piper, the rats will all start jumping ship.   He who panics first panics best.   And sure, much of the costs of cleanup will be socialized, ie. the taxpayer and rate payer will eat it in any scenario.    But good riddance

2 down, 102 to go!







Whales off Molokai, saying Aloha to Nuke!




Closing Of Kewaunee Power Station Not Expected to Affect Regional Electric Reliability

Dominion, one of the nation's largest producers and transporters of energy, recently announced that the Midwest Independent System Operator (MISO) has concluded that the shutdown and retirement of Kewaunee Power Station in northeastern Wisconsin will not affect the reliability of the regional electric transmission system. Therefore, Dominion will proceed with its plans to close the 556MW, single-unit nuclear power station in Carlton, Wis., in the second quarter of 2013, as previously announced last fall.
Kewaunee Power Station, located on Lake Michigan about 35 miles southeast of Green Bay, began commercial operation in 1974. It has one Westinghouse pressurized water reactor. Dominion acquired the station in July 2005. In February 2011, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) renewed the station's operating license for an additional 20 years — until 2033.
Dominion was unable to find a buyer for Kewaunee after it put the station up for sale in April 2011. The decision to sell Kewaunee was part of a regular review of the company's portfolio of assets to determine which ones fit strategically and support its objectives to improve return on invested capital and shareholder value. The company also was unable to grow its nuclear fleet in the Midwest to take advantage of economies of scale. In addition, Kewaunee's power purchase agreements are ending at a time of projected low wholesale electricity prices in the region.
"I want to reiterate that the employees of Kewaunee have been doing an outstanding job, and the decision to close the station is in no way a reflection on them," said Thomas F. Farrell II , Dominion chairman, president, and CEO. "They have my thanks and gratitude. The company is working to make the transition as smooth as possible for them and their communities."
Farrell also said the company's top priority will be a continued focus on safety during the station's last weeks of operations and during decommissioning.
"We intend to take all steps necessary to ensure the protection of the public, employees, and the environment," he said. "The station will have the resources it needs."
The station will remain under the oversight of the NRC throughout the shutdown and decommissioning process. Following shutdown, Dominion plans to meet its obligations to the two utilities that purchase Kewaunee's generation through market purchases until the power purchase agreements expire in December 2013.


Sunday, February 24, 2013

A gun can do many positive things

An antigun person made a blanket statement that “Guns can only destroy”, I thought about that a little bit, and found the statement far from true.

In fact, I find the statement absurd to anyone who gives even 10 seconds of legitimate thought to the subject.

A gun can do many things

A gun can provide peace of mind and a sense of security for a person or a family

The presence of a gun can stop a bad person from committing an act that may land them in jail.

The presence of guns in the community can keep a good man who is down on his luck from crossing over into the land of criminals.

A gun can provide protection of honest people's hard earned wealth whether at the bank, the grocery store, or the brinks truck.

A gun can directly protect lives. In this article, a 70 year old basketball coach was walking two teenage girls to their cars when 2 men assaulted the group. Consider the possible outcomes. The coach shot the two men, he had a Concealed Carry permit CCW and was operating within the law.

 http://www.wxyz.com/dpp/news/man-shot-near-martin-luther-king-jr-high-school-in-detroit

A gun can be the “Great Equalizer”, promoting justice based on rightness and not on “might makes right”. Old people do not have to cower inside their homes in fear of leaving the house.

A gun can provide enjoyment for marksmanship training and competition.

A gun, perhaps with training related to the responsibility, can cause a person to live their life more deliberately, more responsibly, knowing that they possess deadly force and should live alert and aware and with clear mind.

A gun can protect a military person when their primary weapon fails

A gun can provide the environment in which a business holding assets can take more societal beneficial risk through a business plan that otherwise could not realistically be pursued.

A gun can provide food during normal and extreme (SHTF) situations A gun can give jack booted thugs a second thought --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gun Control is very important, get a firm grip on that gun, and control that gun. "Hickok"

Know your target and beyond, Eyes Open No Fear.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Why Nukes and Humans should not mix on the Home Planet

The real problem with nuclear is not so much the technology, its the cost to make it "safe enough" but then the stunning realization that if humans are involved that nuke can never be safe because humans are highly imperfect creatures.

 In human nature there will always be episodes of greed, denial, "hope", laziness, times when the operators personal life if way out of whack, substance abuse (like the Kewaunee worker who was busted pounding beers at lunch, in containment), economic hardship.

All these can lead to grave errors.

Then another factor of the human condition are unavoidable things like business cycles, companies that have financial problems and they start short cutting, political cycles, and just plain political stupidity causing issues like no place to put the spent waste. There is something like a Billion pounds of spent waste and no where to go, and no solution looming or even being built.

Then the human reaction to problems once they develop, and the reaction is always denial, hope it won't be that bad, and coverup. Coverup is standard. No government official wants to give the order to evacuate, the last thing a government official wants is for their people to be panicking, "out of control". So they will ignore clear evidence, and say nothing instead.

And of course, the whole process of regulation, a symbiotic necessity that for the regulators to exist they need the industry and in particular the plant in the location they live with their family to exist. And regulatory capture is commonplace these days, we see it everywhere, not just the nuke industry. The Chairman of the NRC was sacked after he cast some dissenting votes against Vogtle approval. That was just last year.

And let's not forget Mother Earth. She can really be the B word when she wants, you know what I mean? Earthquakes started the meltdown at Fukushima, and the Tsunami sealed their fate. Just by having some rivers to hot, these plants are designed so close to the edge of performance, that they have to shut the nuke plant down if the river goes up just one more degree

And finally -- Terrorism. The spent fuel pools are the obvious targets, We have them all over the place, many places there may just be a chain link fence and 1 guard, like the abandoned fuel pools that the buyer of Palisades got hoodwinked with. When they bought Palisades in Michigan, they got stuck with an abandoned spent fuel pool....there is the deal --take it or leave it. Do you think they really want to spent millions protected that pool for 60 years?

Manifesto of why to shut them down....at the Nuke Pro (not pro nuke)

http://nukeprofessional.blogspot.com/p/manifesto-why-shut-them-down.html

Friday, February 15, 2013

Meteor Breakaway Magnetic Shear

FREEDOMROX on ENENEWS Actually, this was predicted. This was an off shot of the so-called asteroid because of the axial shear of the magnetosphere. As an asteroid this close comes close to a celestial body, then the electrical properties inherent undergoes a shear effect, and propels parts of the mas forward, while conversely slowing down the main body. It is an action/reaction electrical impulse. No rockets were involved, no missiles intercepted anything. This was so fast and unexpected by mainstream scientists, that it is doubtful you will kear a word of it here in the US. If everyone didn't die here, then people wake up in the morning and go to work never knowing a thing about it. As the main portion of the 'asteroid' has now passed the earth, it will continue to degrade and axial shears will get worse. It is fully expected to an extreme blow out, as projected by the Electric Universe. Its not that there is nothing to see here, because there is. NASA blathers on, possibly a passing mention, but not much to do for them. If this does not completely stream out as projected, then so much mass will be lost at the extreme speeds it grazed by and in contact with out magnetosphere, then it will only be because its trajectory was just changed because of it, and will be greatly diminished in mass. This really could have spawned many more 'children' meteorites, and we should all feel very lucky sonic booms and smoke is the worst that planet earth received. EU, it's not just for kids. ----------------------------------------- Sorry for the typos, just excited, as this is my field, and it did just as projected. This could easily have become a 'Tunguska' event, and proves the theory of just what did happen in 1908. It was just a larger chunk that impacted the atmosphere, and the glow and the sonic booms were dead on in line with the electrical model of Tunguska, and what was proposed to happen today. Seriously, we were very lucky, and I mean earth as a whole. -------------------------------------------------------- No, stock. It hit our magnetospheric tail about 7 hours ago. Just as the Solar CME was still impacting earth, yet the main wave had passed earth and impacted the asteroid, causing the magnetic variations which lead to small shears along it's axial framework. VALENTINE'S DAY MAGNETIC STORM: Valentine's Day in Scandinavia began with a magnetic storm. Rob Stammes of the Polar Light Center in Lofoten, Norway, reports: "Our instruments recorded 2o swings in the local magnetic field, which induced strong electrical currents in the ground outside our lab." The needles on his chart recorder were swinging wildly: At this time, twice the amount of solar CME radiation and solar wind density had streamed passed by earth and impacted the asteroid. http://www.spaceweather.com/ "At 2:25 p.m. EST (19:25 UTC) on Friday, Feb. 15th, asteroid 2012 DA14 will fly past Earth only 17,200 miles above our planet's surface. This will put it well inside the orbit of geosynchronous satellites, closer than any asteroid of the same size has come since regular sky surveys began in the 1990s. Researchers speculate that Earth's gravity might even cause seismic activity on the 50m-wide space rock." http://www.spaceweather.com/ Current solar winds and protonic density near eath is only a Solar wind speed: 371.6 km/sec density: 2.6 protons/cm3 cont. This will be the main event, and it is possible for more shears, but doubtful since only the weaker outlying sections fall prey to these protonic excitations of mass activity in such extreme shearing conditions only exist from an electrical excitation comparable to 4.6 protons/cm3 that the asteroid encountered earlier and after it had passed the earth yesterday. There is a chance, however small, that a flame out could still occur after it passes earth, if any CME's or prominences are expected, and at this time, no coronal holes venting are aimed in this direction, so the probability is very low.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Nuclear Phaseout

Westinghouse reacting to the "Nuclear Phaseout"

The company expanded by about 5,000 new hires over the last five years on predictions of a nuclear renaissance in the making. The cuts, Westinghouse CEO said, are a result of slowed demand for nuclear power around the world following the 2011 Fukushima meltdown, as well as a worldwide economy still struggling to find its way out of a recession.

The writing is on the wall, solar is 3cents to 8 cents per kWH, and the long term nuke of new nuke is 62 cent to 92 cents.  

Sorry, that a clear winner.     Solar wins, nuke loses.    Goodbye and good riddance.

Monday, February 11, 2013

Great Link

https://spoonsenergymatters.wordpress.com/2013/02/11/a-lasting-legacy-of-the-fukushima-rescue-mission-part-2-the-navy-life-into-the-abyss/#comment-398

New Nuke, Over schedule, over budget

By even trying to get close to "safe enough", and because of the lack of industry expertise in this dying industry, new nuke just doesn't make sense

They are overbudget, and this plant they tried to complete by 2009 is now "hoped" to be finished by 2016.     Good luck with your 1.666% annual rate of return on investment, if there is ever ANY return on investment.
The Olkiluoto 3 nuclear reactor. Finnish electricity company TVO said on Monday that an EPR nuclear reactor being built by Areva and Siemens may not be ready until 2016, after an initial 2009 completion target
Finnish electricity company TVO said on Monday that an EPR nuclear reactor being built by Areva and Siemens may not be ready until 2016, contradicting Areva's claims that it would be completed in 2014.

http://phys.org/news/2013-02-finnish-nuclear-reactor-years-late.html

 The Olkiluoto 3 nuclear reactor on March 15, 2010
The Olkiluoto 3 nuclear reactor. Finnish electricity company TVO said on Monday that an EPR nuclear reactor being built by Areva and Siemens may not be ready until 2016, after an initial 2009 completion target Finnish electricity company TVO said on Monday that an EPR nuclear reactor being built by Areva and Siemens may not be ready until 2016, contradicting Areva's claims that it would be completed in 2014.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-02-finnish-nuclear-reactor-years-late.html#jCp
The Olkiluoto 3 nuclear reactor. Finnish electricity company TVO said on Monday that an EPR nuclear reactor being built by Areva and Siemens may not be ready until 2016, after an initial 2009 completion target Finnish electricity company TVO said on Monday that an EPR nuclear reactor being built by Areva and Siemens may not be ready until 2016, contradicting Areva's claims that it would be completed in 2014.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-02-finnish-nuclear-reactor-years-late.html#jCp

Another Accident Covered Up, Peterborough Tritium


A reader brought something to our attention, and its a good one.    You know those emergency exit lights that are in almost every building in the "civilized world", well they are designed to stay lit even without electrical power, so you can excape the building even during a power failure, even through smoke.

This is a licensed form of radiation in our immediate environments.   Battery backups make a lot more sense to me.     Because radiation "glows in the dark"....well the old saying is, just because we can, does that mean we should.    

Check it out.   Do you think we ought phase out these devices in almost all buildings except for the most specialized situations?    Like say an emergency exit in a dangerous area that requires vapor proof light fixtures to avoid explosion and servicing of batteries would present an undue risk.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TechDud has left a new comment on your post "Nuke Accidents Civilian and Military 99 since 195...":

How about the Peterborough Tritium releases rivaling that of a full-fledged Candu NPP?

http://www.ccnr.org/tritium_exit_signs.pdf

Quote: "On February 1, 2010, a tritium light factory (SSI) located at the Peterborough Airport released 147 trillion becquerels of tritium to the atmosphere in about 5 minutes. This did not become public knowledge until 2012."
from: http://www.ccnr.org/tritium_unlimited.pdf

http://www.ccnr.org/Tritium_Blog_12_09_08.pdf



And this is a Maddow report that I first saw on a "Green Road" blog, about nuke accidents, coverups, etc.

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/7zVXI6DKtc4?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Good link, esp for used fuel pool tonnage in USA

http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/no_nukes/nukelist1.htm#NorthernMidWestStates

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Freaked Out Nuke Worker

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This from a post on Nuke Worker website
Ya think we might just deserve a better level of worker, what say you?

________________________________________________________________________


frenchyjr Guest Made a BOO BOO « on: Mar 27, 2004, 01:51 » Reply with quoteQuote Cry

 Finally got into the nuke industry with Atlantic Group at the Calvert Cliffs shutdown (expensive there!!)

On the first day (mind you this was my first job in the industry) during orientation I recieved a call on my cell phone that my wife was in the emergency room and I freaked out and left the plant and flew back to WI. Ok not too bad so far ( and now my wife is out of the hospital).

The bad part is that I didn't tell anyone at the plant I was leaving and I freaked out and just left. I called my recruiter at AG and he chewed me a new hole in my bottom and hung up on me. Not good!! Now I am out of work and he won't return my calls and I think I just screwed myself royaly in the industry. So what do you guys and gals think I should do, I am desperatly in need of the work and have to find something here even if I could go back to Calvert for Bartlett or Ames, my craft was only a laborer and I can do just about anything if they would let me (LOL). But I jsut wanted to get my DOE clearence first. Suggestions would be helpful, thanks

Quick Reference to US Nuke Plants

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Kewaunee and Crystal River are confirmed kills, 102 left Pilgrim, Palisade, and San Onofre are some of the weakest antelope in the pack, lets take them down. It will be fun. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arkansas Nuclear 1
Arkansas Nuclear 2
Beaver Valley 1
Beaver Valley 2
Braidwood 1
Braidwood 2
Browns Ferry 1
Browns Ferry 2
Browns Ferry 3
Brunswick 1
Brunswick 2
Byron 1
Byron 2
Callaway
Calvert Cliffs 1
Calvert Cliffs 2
Catawba 1
Catawba 2
Clinton
Columbia Generating Station
Comanche Peak 1
Comanche Peak 2
Cooper
Crystal River 3
D.C. Cook 1
D.C. Cook 2
Davis-Besse
Diablo Canyon 1
Diablo Canyon 2
Dresden 2
Dresden 3
Duane Arnold
Farley 1
Farley 2
Fermi 2
FitzPatrick
Fort Calhoun
Ginna
Grand Gulf 1
Harris 1
Hatch 1
Hatch 2
Hope Creek 1
Indian Point 2
Indian Point 3
Kewaunee
La Salle 1
La Salle 2
Limerick 1
Limerick 2
McGuire 1
McGuire 2
Millstone 2
Millstone 3
Monticello
Nine Mile Point 1
Nine Mile Point 2
North Anna 1
North Anna 2
Oconee 1
Oconee 2
Oconee 3
Oyster Creek
Palisades
Palo Verde 1
Palo Verde 2
Palo Verde 3
Peach Bottom 2
Peach Bottom 3
Perry 1
Pilgrim 1
Point Beach 1
Point Beach 2
Prairie Island 1
Prairie Island 2
Quad Cities 1
Quad Cities 2
River Bend 1
Robinson 2
Saint Lucie 1
Saint Lucie 2
Salem 1
Salem 2
San Onofre 2
San Onofre 3
Seabrook 1
Sequoyah 1
Sequoyah 2
South Texas 1
South Texas 2
Summer
Surry 1
Surry 2
Susquehanna 1
Susquehanna 2
Three Mile Island 1
Turkey Point 3
Turkey Point 4
Vermont Yankee
Vogtle 1
Vogtle 2
Waterford 3
Watts Bar 1
Wolf Creek 1

Greed of Nuke, Uprates are at a Blow Off Top

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Unbridled greed of the nuke industry Charts say it all

Entergy is a Slum Lord

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When you look at the Nuke plants in the USA which have the worst records of safety, the most violations, the most dangerous, one name keeps coming up

Entergy

Now the troubled Pilgrim plant is trying to shut down because of a snow storm.    If it doesn't shut down, then it melts down, it is really that simple.  
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I have posted some related materials below.
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From guezilla at ENENEWS
"Valve problem plagues Pilgrim nuclear plant"
http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130206/NEWS/302060332
Fixing safety valves by pumping reactor power up and down? Oookay… After already replacing said valves, which is to say the problem is somewhere else.
http://bostonglobe.com/business/2013/01/24/pilgrim-nuclear-plant-back-online-questions-linger-plymouth/k25udeba1UpwJlvQrPUa4M/story.html
"Another incident would likely trigger a tougher federal review, said Dave Lochbaum, director of the Nuclear Safety Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists." I guess this would be at least ninth outage or unexpected problem in 2 years for this Fukushima twin.
http://www.wickedlocal.com/wellfleet/news/x2105871310/Pilgrim-nuclear-meltdown-risk-spurs-Cape-lawmakers-to-action
"The plant was designed to hold 880 spent fuel rods. It now holds 3,200, Rolbein said." Talk of plans to shutter in Cape Cod for 6 hours in case of meltdown so as to allow people from other areas to evacuate first. Now that's emergency planning!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From comment by FREEDOMROX at ENENEWS
Troubles at Pilgrim Nuclear Plant
W/Video
With the end of its 40-year license approaching in 2012, the owners of Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth have applied for a 20-year extension. But opponents of the plant, including some local and state politicians, question the reactor's safety after three sister reactors in Japan experienced explosions and likely meltdowns this past year. There also is the lingering issue of a tightly packed spent-fuel storage pool at Pilgrim. Finally, there are concerns about the fact that hundreds of thousands of residents and visitors on Cape Cod would have nowhere to go in the event of an emergency. This WGBH News three-part series looks at these issues and others, while discussing how the context for plant relicensing has changed in light of the ongoing crises at Fukushima in Japan.
http://thecontrail.com/forum/topic/show?id=4744723%3ATopic%3A372796&xgs=1&xg_source=msg_share_topic
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From a blog operator who own land near Palisades
 The Palisades nuclear plant can be used to illustrate the concerns I have. It has a history of problems and repairs that need to be made yet the NRC continues to find ways to allow it to remain in operation. In my opinion the company that owns Palisades, “Entergy” is becoming the slum lord of nuclear plant operators. Entergy purchased Palisades which needed repairs and has not made them.
http://www.nuclearblues.com/2012/05/29/my-statement-to-nrc-chairman-jaczko-on-palisades-and-the-nrc/



Blog Rants

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 from Fluffpost blog

 I have a master degree from the U of Mich in material science, and mechanical engineering. So I understand alot about what it takes to abuse atoms to the point them want to give up their neutrons (think neutering the atom, they won't do they willingly).

And for a while I thought the science and technology could be made clean enough to be statistically safe. That was my minor of study, probability and statistics.

Now, after revisiting what the nuclear industry has been doing, I have come to the conclusion that humans and nuclear cannot occupy the same planet and be safe.

Here is why, a manifesto

http://nukeprofessional.blogspot.com/p/manifesto-why-shut-them-down.html

------------------------------------------
 If you understand materials and science you must know the issue is a human one not a scientific one. Having come to such a conclusion you might then want to take another look at probability and statistics because they’re a lot more things out there that will kill you plus many others faster an more likely...and yes with more devastation which you live with everyday.

The human problems start with not solving issues but ignoring them or regressing to defensive positions. Edison once told Tesla that alternating current would destroy the world…how’s your lights working?
---------------------
Systems operate within certain rule, on a large scale you can't avoid but have an end result dictated by the normal rules.    On a small scale, you can actually "break the rules" at least for a time, you can control the entropy and the natural path. 

Humans have some negative characteristics that over time will play out with predictable results.   Greed and the need for power and control are some of the worst, ignorance and denial don't help either.    On a grand scale, you can't control these factors, they will eventually play out.    We have wars all the time.   

When you mix humans and nuke, the outcome is predictable over time.  

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Boxer is worried about nuke lies San Onofre


Here is the story, 

http://enenews.com/just-in-u-s-senator-wants-probe-after-reading-confidential-report-on-sickly-california-nuke-plant-shows-they-knew-about-san-onofre-problems-but-chose-not-to-make-fixes

These people are all pretty much in bed with nuke.   However, the angle we need to use is to get them upset, outraged that they have been lied to by the NRC, AND that the public knows about these lies.

You can email her at this address

 senator@boxer.senate.gov



U.S. SENATOR, CALIFORNIA
Barbara Boxer (D)
Boxer.jpg (48615 bytes)

112 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-3553
Fax: (202) 228-1338
Email: senator@boxer.senate.gov
Web Page: http://boxer.senate.gov/