Well, it seems that I stand corrected. Just checked OPM's website. My benefits brochure in no way implies it is a yearly figure so I have just always assumed it was a lump sum. But OPM calls it an annuity implying it is a yearly figure. I take back my assessment. If you factor in the Soc Sec payments, and a decent 401K, that is pretty good, especially if the house is paid off and kids are through college. The only major expenses one has to look forward to then are medical bills.

Actually, the pay freezes are not stopping the automatic step increases. Just the automatic cost of living adjustments. My agency has taken an effective $25 million budget decrease because our approved budget has remained flat, but because the agency must still pay for all those step increases and promotions, it has to take $25 million from the money we would use for contracting to pay for those added salary expenses.

It is not cushy when you factor in the typical medical expenses and insurance that a senior citizen will incur in their later years. Take those expenses out of the equation and I might agree with you.

No, not $45K per year. Just $45K. That is it. Plus Social Security. Plus your 401K Thrifty Savings plan. As the parent said - not cushy.

No, you got chocolate in my peanut butter!!!

The problem with killing the idea entirely if two people happen to file close together is this:

Independent Inventor Guy invents the next "new big thing" in his industry. He files for patent. He then goes to Big Corporation to show his idea and get them to license his idea and market it. Big Corporation looks at the idea and thinks to itself "Wow, this truly is revolutionary!...... But the license fees are going to make it not profitable for us to incorporate into our product line". So Big Corporation tells Independent Inventory Guy, "Sorry, we don't see any future in your idea". Big Corporation then files for a patent on the same idea (perhaps even after conducting a little corporate espionage), thus causing the patent to become invalidated entirely. Big Corporation is now free to use Independent Inventor Guy's idea for free in its products.

The study was started 6 years ago in the aftermath of 9/11 and the trouble the agency had communicating reactor accident risks for things like terrorist attacks and plane crashes. No conspiracy theory. The draft report was FOIA'd by UCS and shared with NYT, otherwise you wouldn't be seeing it until next year some time.

Yes, I work for the NRC, but my comments are my own and not affiliated with the agency in any way. Just meant to shed some light on the issue.

They have such systems. One is called RHR or residual heat removal system, and one is called RCIC, or reactor core isolation cooling. The RCIC pumps are steam driven, and they take water first from a condensate water storage tank and then the suppression pool and send it to the reactor to remove the decay heat. As the water in the pressure vessel boils away, the steam gets vented to the suppression pool, as well as the steam used to power the RCIC pumps. The steam condenses in the suppression pool, slowly heating it up. This pressurizes the containment which must be vented to the outside in a controlled way to prevent over-pressurization. The RHR system operates at lower pressure and its pumps are not steam driven. It operates more like a traditional Carnot cycle, using secondary pumps to circulate water through a condenser to remove the decay heat. Of course, without offsite power, these secondary pumps don't work.

Well since the Ronald Reagan is a nuclear-powered ship itself, I am guessing that the political angle has nothing to do with it. If I am captain of a nuclear powered vessel, chances are I understand the consequences of hanging out downstream of a radioactive plume. 1) there is no reason to expose oneself to any radioactive contamination, no matter how inconsequential. 2) If my ship gets contaminated with radioactive particulates, how do I now distinguish that from contamination that might come about from a mishandling of radioactive material on ship or release of radioactivity from the reactor on board?

I'm not impressed until it can run faster than a cheetah

Not sure why people continue to believe that building a boat load of new nuke plants is going to break our addiction to oil. Newsflash - oil is predominantly used to produce gasoline, not generate electricity. To break our addiction to oil, we first need electric frickin' vehicles. That problem needs to be solved first. Now granted, all those electric vehicles are probably going to require new power capacity (although not as much as one might think if most vehicles are charged overnight - which is when many baseload plants decrease power level), and nuclear can fill that bill nicely, but there is no direct correlation such that "more nuke plants = less oil dependency", which is what was implied.