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Comment Re:Around here (Score 1) 392

What I heard this morning is that a number of the plants are in a refueling cycle and not in operation. No fuel in the reactor and at least some of the backup diesel generators undergoing overhaul. The current NRC regulations do not require that the spent fuel ponds use the generators for cooling the spent fuel rods, instead relying on the grid. So, it the grid goes down, which it likely will, then its possible that the spent fuel rods can overheat due to lack of circulating cooling water. That's probably the major issue here.

There was a situation last year from Irene. There was so much water that the propane tanks floated away down a river toward a hydroelectric dam near one of the reactors (I think it was in Connecticut). The road to the reactor was closed fearing an explosions from the tanks. I don't think that disaster planning for the reactor design included such a scenario.

This was my post, I forgot to log in.

Comment Re:Great! (Score 1) 279

Yes Colorado is a water poor state--semi desert. Fracking uses a shit-load of water that cannot be reused. There is an ever increasing demand on the Front Range (Pueblo to Ft Collins, including the Denver metro area) for water (can you say uncontrolled growth?). The proposed source for this water is from the western slope, ie, the Colorado River drainage, which is already over subscribed! I guess at some point this will be self limiting. Not too long ago, Douglas County, north of Colorado Springs was the fastest growing county in the country. The wells that people had on their properties were certified by State Engineers as being 100 year wells. The rapid growth and development depleted those wells in just a few years, leaving the home owners literally high and dry. So, lets keep fracking and burning the natural gas with its, albeit reduced, CO2 levels, and deplete the water supply and raise the environmental temperature. That will surely limit growth and the need for water and natural gas from fracking.

Comment not entirely true (Score 2) 138

Some of the 12900 employees that were laid off or had voluntarily retired were doing things outside of the 5 areas of focus. Some on my development team were in one these areas but the bulk of the development in this area was shifted overseas. A large number of the voluntary retirees were doing work in these areas as well. With some of these folks in very key roles.

Comment Re:fuel rods are explosive (Score 1) 580

lets just say that there is some contention about the explosiveness of zirconium. An older article (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/148/3677/1594.abstract) suggests that it can be explosive (what about flaring, does that count)? Given that there are high concentrations of Hydrogen, the point may be moot!

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