Heh.

Arnie makes a point to say the prompt criticality was not a nuclear explosion. A Criticality. Watch the vid. I have not seen, nor heard a coherent rebuttal. http://vimeo.com/22865967

Cancer? A useless argument. Who can really say what causes this or that? It is a booming cause of death since 1950. Why? Who knows? Twinkies? Coca cola, that and steak sandwiches. Alexey V. Yablokov 2006 book, says a million died from Chernobyl. Jay M. Gould , Benjamin A. Goldman did an "Excess death study". Claim 40,000 US deaths after Chernobyl.

I do not know the truth about this. But the difference of opinion, the different numbers from this scientist and that could not be more stark. Maybe one is correct maybe this other. How do we know? i have given up on that.

Hang out at Lake Karachay for one hour. Die. At some point, we all agree, it is possible for this stuff to kill. All agree. There is an amount that is too much.

It is Not Acceptable to have to abandon New York City. No amount of coal or fossil fuel or natural gas, or low fat artificially flavored strawberry yogurt poses this level of threat.

That is my bottom line.

This is it. Well stated. The problem today is young people are being taught what to think, not how to think. Mr Shakes his spear and Chaucer are negated for sexual and race politics.

Say this and that, these are the acceptable opinions. Shout down and attack those who dare to disagree.

So of course, they have no respect. Their wise elders fill them with bullshit, that they are expected to repeat. They know this. It is time for them to speak out about this.

I will check it out. Good work there. The difference between what folks say is striking. This one says Chernobyl killed 60 or so, that one, a million. We are blessed to have all this information, this great tool, our struggle is to know what is true.

1986, word leaked out about Chernobyl. They were lying, trying to cover it up. Weatherman on TV talked about the passing air, the clouds, it is there, in the clouds, in the air over my head. He advised, if it rained, do not go outside.

It rained. Radoiactive rain. That was my moment of decision on the matter.

Chernobyl, Fukushima are an unacceptable. Leave your home with the clothes on your back, never return. Then, as soon as possible, get rid of the clothing. Tech can only be as good as the people. Repeatedly, the industry folds safety concerns for economic reasons, Japan and here. They lie. Japan lied, is still lying. There are three people I trust on the matter, Arnie Gunderson, Bob Alvarez and Dave Lockbaum. I should note that none of those three trusts them either. Listen to them, listen to their words, their arguments.

Gunderson called every aspect of Fukushima from the first month. Contradicting all the official, and expert statements at the time. Meltdowns, containment lost, radioactivity from groundwater to the sea. Tepco over their head, a management firm, not engineers. Spent fuel found all around. The amount of radioactivity far higher than stated.

And, that unit three was a prompt criticality. Yup. Black mushroom cloud, volatilized fuel. The world has not caught up with that, yet. NRC says it never happened, can't happen. I would be interested to hear your input. http://vimeo.com/22865967

The United States, due to the cold war escapade, our gift for spending Ten Trillion dollars, Ten Million Million dollars, for that we have an area the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined, reeking with the stuff. Crap from the Manhattan Project is still a problem. They do not take care of business, they do not get it done. Then, they lie. There are virtually no variations from this.

Alvin Weinberg, a notable exception, a great and good man. Yanosuke Hirai of the Onagawa NPP. Closer to the quake center, a larger tsunami, instead of folks having to flee in terror, it became a sanctuary from the cold. MR Hirai is credited with that. He is described as a stern, old school man who was not to be contradicted. Alas, there seem to be few like those two great and good men.

It would be significantly better if it all of this stuff actually was not that dangerous. But, as should be clear by now, I do not trust them, it is too convenient. I immediately reject it as an effort to legislate the problem away. Hey, nobody can prove they got cancer from it, right? Japan has raised the "safe" level, cut off payments to folks and said, Okay, move back home now.

I am not neutral in the matter, I do not trust them. I am listening. But I will be damned, going forward? It will Not be business as usual. Past performance forces me to no other position than to say to the industry, to advocates, prove it. Get it done. Deal honestly with the existing issues, then talk to me about more, better newer, whatever. But until then? The answer is a definitive and unqualified No.

Marcelo, it is good to speak with you, my name is Jimmy. You keep at it, be one that listens to both sides, because both have serious people, worthy of our attention.

Later.

EPA is currently soliciting public comment on a potential change. www.regulations.gov under Docket ID No. EPA–HQ–OAR–2013–0689.

Environmental Standards for Uranium Fuel Cycle Facilities: Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) http://www.epa.gov/radiation/l...

EPA establishes certain generally applicable environmental standards to protect human health and the environment from radioactive materials. Issued in 1977, “Environmental Radiation Protection Standards for Nuclear Power Operations” (40 CFR 190) limit the radiation releases and doses to the public from the normal operations of nuclear power plants and other uranium fuel cycle facilities—the facilities involved in the manufacture and use of uranium fuel for generating electrical power.

mac, you are a student in this field, IIRC? What do the folks from within that circle think? Who has run the numbers on this, where did the "40%" come from? Thanks.

France's large nuclear program goes back to 1973, Middle East BS, the "oil shock." Most of its electricity came from oil burners. They had a choice of being dependent on foreign oil, or nuclear. Decommissioning costs are an issue there, too. Brennellis is at 20X estimates, still going. Over the next ten years 22 of France's 58 reactors will turn 40. Funding is insufficient, as here.

The problems are different, but all involve dollars. France politically could maybe pull off rate increases, but in the current US environment? Trouble. Not just NIMBYs wielding BANANAS. Closed five last year for economic reasons, canceled another 8. Natural gas is killing them. So much oil is being shipped from Canada, Detroit has cars sitting and waiting for available trains. Nukes need 600 people to run a plant, others get by with 100. They are stuck with large inventories of spent fuel, resisting the move to cask storage, as they are well aware stashing it "temporarily" in the parking lot will become the defacto storage solution. There is no place to put it. There are zero dollars in private money for new stuff, which start at 10 billion, and 10 years before a payback.

Exelon's Nuclear Matters lobby org has just drafted Carol Browner to hellp legislate the thing back in their favor. Efforts include getting rid of solar and wind subsidies, getting themselves considered as "renewable" (New York) and pushing to receive some sort of credit for being "reliable". The effort to squash renewables will likely cause some conflicts their "green" selling point.

In this environment, nobody wants to talk about pre-existing troublesome expenses.

No, we cannot stop determined individuals. This is a key part of what I am saying. We can never get this %100 security. But what we now have is an effort to have %100 knowledge and control. I am dead set against all of it. So instead of trying to remove every threat, remove all risk and in the process become what we thought we were fighting...

I do not know how specifically it could be done, but we got beat because planes got grabbed, and nobody knew. The US was ready to shoot down commercial jets. We did not know what was in the sky, who was flying, what was up. Literally. Now we still don't. It should have been the first priority to close that hole. Some means of real time ID and location of the planes, and who is flying them. The military must have something like this already?

We limit the freedoms of the airlines to the extent that we are going to know who you are, where you are, and where you are going. Everyone else goes along as before. Instead? We are under this secretive microscope, everything they have will be used against us. We have effectively suspended the rule of law, all of us routinely searched and inspected, probable cause, the need for warrants out the window. This big brother virus, born from stupid, feeds on this idea that we can control it, if we just have some more information. It is the road to hell. We are fast becoming what we swore to fight, in the previous 10 trillion dollar cold war escapade.

And we still have no real time data on the planes in the sky. It is upside down. Going to take a lot of work to turn it back. Unfortunately, It will take obvious abuses I think to get the momentum to do it. Unless we decide to vote for someone who promises to find the crap, and unplug it.

It is not about the 250 lost, though that is significant enough. I am ticked over the emotional over reacting and incoherence that lead to Iraq, Afghanistan, Homeland Security, TSA, sacrificing civil rights, sacrificing privacy, militarizing the police, endless drone strikes, dramatically changing the character of this country.

Instead of getting a proper handle on the one thing that was the source of the problem, we have expanded to this fiasco of trying to control and know everything, everywhere, and are now enmeshed in an endless war.

Cost? We have paid, and will continue to pay orders of magnitude beyond what it would have been required to know precisely what is in the sky, where, and who is flying it. Control, knowledge that we still do not have.

Not acceptable

9/11 was only a couple of airplanes.

Turns out 406 Mhz distress radiobeacon ELT's can have GPS built-in. Also "In addition to standard ACARS messages, airlines can install a system sold by Boeing called Airplane Health Management which provides real-time troubleshooting and allows Boeing to monitor the flight as well as the airline."

The situation is not acceptable. Especially in light of two trillion spent on the WoT, the swatification of every department of this government, the abandonnment of civil rights, vacuuming up of data, the treatment of folks at airports, drone strikes on wedding celebrations?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D... http://www.boeing.com/boeing/c...

Well, with basic GPS and a plane ID, we would know at least where the plane went down, and when. This losing airplanes gag is not acceptable. It is outrageous that there is no solution. As I say above, it does not have to be expensive, or integrate into current systems, just a couple of extra bits of info.

Those old Nokia phones lasted for weeks at a time. Though, getting a signal from 15,000 feet to the negative is likely problematic.

Heh.

"The sound is garbled".

The element that bothers me is the anyone who owns a GM car can call On Star to find out where the heck am I? Or where is my damn car? "Well Mr GM owner, you evidently parked on the other side of the Mall. It is beside the blue Subaru with all the bumper stickers on it"

But we can't find an airplane? Nobody has mentioned this, asked about it, never mind demanded it. This in the context of this multi trillion dollar War Over Buildings that Got Crashed Into by Airplanes.

I have clicked into Fox/CNN/MSNBC, none of them ask this. Equal opportunity stupid.

Why is it still not part of any conversation? Why aren't there some demands for someone's head? Really, trillions on this thing, and nobody thought of it? How about now, lets do that? Call GM. They could use the business.

I suspect Musk's plan for Tesla's battery gigafactory killer app is a home storage solution. Folks with solar panels and wind gadgets, and a Model S, Artizona, Nevada, Texas, etc. Exactly where he wants to plant the plant. Once the mainstream see it works? He would be in again ahead of the masses, his factory cranking em out while the competition wonders wtf just happened? What do ytou mean I can't buy batteries? Some very wishful thinking on my part, as I have zero evidence. Except for the part where he looks to me like Smartest Dewd, World Class right now. And it sounds good, 'aight?

2003 MIT study stated than two new reactors would have to start operating somewhere in the world every month over next 50 years to displace a significant amount of carbon-emitting fossil-fuel generation.pdf: http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpowe...

Not happening, becasue it is a bad business deal. Jeremy Rifkin http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... 1. 6% of world energy, needs to be 20%. So replace existing 400, build 1600. 1 every 10 days for 40 years. 2. Waste? No solution 3. uranium deficits by 2025-2035 4. recycle to Plutonium, big risk 5. Water. 40% of French water goes to cooling nukes. Technology moving to distributed, collaborative and lateral scaling. Out: Siemans, Germany, Italy, Japan, Not a good business deal.

Already running gadgets at San Onfre, Crystal River and Now Vermont Yankees are shut/shutting down, for economic reasons.

Jarik, that is exactly what is needed. The "somewhere" appears to be at issue. NPPs want it somewhere else, handing off costs, liability, responsibility. NRC is dragging, saying the stuff can sit for 60 more years. Or 100. Can kicked down the road again. So the vulnerable spent fuel pools have become the defacto storage solution. Ludicrous amounts of radioactivity under no containment.

As at Fuku, loss of coolant, station blackout means explosions/fire. This is the real risk I am bitching about. Put the crap in the casks. It will likely require a Price Anderson type solution. Right now it is checkmate, the stuff piles up in the SFPs. How much we talking about? Indian Point has 4 times the amount from Fuku #4. The latter had the radioactivity of 14,000 Hiroashima. This is not a dope infused, screechy, conspiritard rant. The risk is real. Fuku was proof of concept.

100 enviro groups have been quietly pressuring for this for ten years. But promoting the vulnerability promotes the vulnerability, increases the risk. Now, post Fuku, due to widespread coverage, the cat is out of the bag. NRC wisely fibs about the risks for this reason, but they are wrong to not be quietly pushing to get it done.

Reality is, no need to steal the crap to make your own. SFPs are everywhere. Snipers taking out a substation on the West Coast exists as proof of concept of step one. Whoever did that is still unknown. It doesn't matter. The vulnerability is the issue.

I am not arguing against reprocessing, or other efforts. The problem is the stuff currently already just sits and waits in a vulnerable setup. Casks would lower the risks, and later provide a proper container for shipping to a future reprocessing effort, or storage site. The money is already there for this, from surcharges on electric bills.

The big holdup seems to be the industry has no confidence there will be somewhere else to put it, for good reason. By making a move to on site cask storage, the NPP site becomes the storage solution, and they are stuck with the responsibility, liability and costs.

That is why I mention Texas. Perhaps if they could be convinced of the wisdom of reprocessing? They could charge to take the stuff, charge to store it, then create more income from reprocessing? It seems, if the tech is there, answer should be found. If there is money in it really, someone would be interested?