The NRC says: “… we mean it.”

Woof,woof! The NRC is feeling good about itself. Sounding pumped, like a lean mean nuclear regulatin’ machine on their "blog" where they declare: “When the NRC says we consider new and significant information, we mean it.”
The story is that errors in recently submitted information were found during a review process for equipment replacement at an existing plant in the Southern US. Based on this new significant information the NRC found that designs for a new Economic Simplified Boiling-Water Reactor (ESBWR) plant might have similar errors.
What is the upshot of these NRC discoveries? It could mean the NRC must revise reports and/or have the applicants make changes to design control documents which will delay their final decision on design certification. New information comes to light, consideration given to the new facts, followed by regulatory action. Has a watchdog stirred?

“We mean it” yips the NRC watchdog. Well, ok calm down. So let’s say significant new information about potential seismic activity near an existing plant (let’s call it Indian Point-which rhymes with Vermont Yankee) was readily available; the NRC would of course considerate it in the ongoing relicensing process. Well not exactly as a former oil industry geologist writing in a vtdigger.com opinion piece points out:

Judging by Indian Point, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission may be forcing us to base Vermont Yankee’s geologic risk analysis on antiquated data:“Much new seismological information is available since their initial approvals (of Indian Point) in 1973 and 1975. Nevertheless the US NRC, so far has not permitted any new information to be used or old information on which the original licenses were granted to be contested in considering extension of licenses,” according to a 2008 study by researcher Lynn Sykes.

New York State has an aggressive attorney general who has called upon the NRC to do a comprehensiveColumbia University seismic review as part of their Indian Point relicensing process. The New York AG must have considered significant the findings from 2008 by seismologists. They found that two intersecting fault lines near Indian Point were capable of creating a 7.0-magnitude earthquake. Despite all this, none of this recent information is incorporated into the current NRC process.

Now remember clearly the NRC claims–“When we say we consider new and significant information, we mean it”. Well, except when there are significant fault lines.

Sadly it's a Fake Washington Post

Yes it's a fake. Guess this happens often as pointed out here.

National Lampoon in 1972 did a faux front page with then President Richard Nixon yucking it up at the headline news that Senator George McGovern won the Democratic nomination to run against him.
Interestingly for several years many historians believed this to have been the last and final image ever taken of Nixon laughing.However it is now common knowledge that Nixon never had the last laugh.




http://apple.copydesk.org/2012/01/22/no-this-is-not-a-real-front-page-from-the-washington-post/

Hollywood:"We do some of that (online) stuff…”

Inattentional blindness, a term for when a person fails to notice and react to stimulus that is in plain sight came to my mind while reading a rundown of last week’s SOPA/PIPA drama.

The demise of the dual Senate and House internet piracy bills is the latest in an ongoing almost traditional battle by two sides competing to influence policy. Thrown into this struggle of money power and influence is the capacity of the internet to quickly inform and gather opposition. One side and notably some powerful congressional players appear to have been thoroughly been blindsided by this capacity.


One report on Hollywood blindness says:

Some Hollywood executives acknowledge their own flat-footedness in trying to marshal public opinion as opposition mounted. While technology companies brandished the power of the Internet, Hollywood relied on old-media weapons such as television commercials and a billboard in New York's Times Square. It proved to be too little, too late.
One entertainment-company lawyer complained that opposing arguments were often inaccurate but spread like wildfire anyway on the Internet, leaving supporters scrambling to correct the information without the benefit of a strong online network.
"We do some of that (online) stuff, but it has to go through a committee of 14 people," he said. "The other side doesn't have conference calls. They just put stuff out there."

Where has the Hollywood entertainment industrial complex been? An amazing remark when you consider the Arab spring events and more recently the ongoing Occupy movements (or simply the last ten years of media upheaval) amply demonstrated the applied power of internet. Even the regular TeeVee news and radio broadcasters reported this for all to see -not sure if it was posted on any billboards. Television commercials and the Times Square billboards couldn’t turn the tide.

Sen. Schumer gets it says Sen. Wyden

A report on this week’s SOPA and PIPA drama lists winners and losers. Google,Rep.Darrel Issa, Reddit and Sen. Ron Wyden landed on the winning side according to thehill.com

Rep.Lamar Smith, Sen. Patrick Leahy the MPAA and the Chamber of Commerce soundly on the losing end.

And President Obama coming in late to the parade is somewhere in the mushy middle or muddle.
It is a surprising mix of players from business groups,corporations and both political parties planted on both ends of the victory.

Washington Posts blogger Greg Sergeant observes it was “a huge victory for grassroots online organizing” and wonders about lessons learned:

Does the Senate Dem leadership really understand that its approach was a major threat to what makes the Internet a democratic force and that it needed a complete overhaul?

Senator Ron Wyden, the primary driver of opposition to the bill within the Senate, and he confirmed that the leadership grasps the depth of the problems with its approach, and is ready to address them head on.

Wyden singles out Sen. Schumer for grasping the situation and says he has “really now come to understand what’s happened in technology,”

Vermont's Senator Leahy is less understanding and to put it mildly disappointed with the outcome in his statement released after Majority Leader Reid killed the senate bill. Leahy’s stern warning raises the specter that Chinese and Russian criminals may even now

"...smugly be watching how the United States Senate decided it was not even worth debating how to stop the overseas criminals from draining our economy And warns But the day will come when the Senators who forced this move will look back and realize they made a knee-jerk reaction to a monumental problem."

Vermont Yankee: ‘yup tires still bald’

Entergy according to the Times Argus is seeking NRC permission for Vermont Yankee to stop a current required inspection routine.

Instead of inspecting the steam dryer every time it shuts down for refueling, on average every 18 months, as currently required, Entergy wants to inspect it every seven refueling outages, or once every 10 years or so.

This is as if Vermont Yankee having been granted permission to drive a 40 year old nuclear vehicle with bald tires well above the legal speed limit has grown bored; bored with examining their old worn tires and repeatedly finding them still worn and tread-less ‘yup still bald’. So they want to stop the bother and expense of looking altogether. Simply put, if they ain’t looking they ain’t finding.
According to reports as of July 2010 required VY inspections discovered a total of 65 cracks. Entergy maintains that despite these "non relevant" cracks the steam dryer is in “good shape”.

The routine inspections are part of requirements the NRC placed on Entergy VY when it permitted the 40 year old plant to operate at 20 percent greater power production than the original design. A steam dryer is used to remove water from steam before it enters the power plant turbine. While not considered officially safety equipment by the NRC dryer failure can impact components that are. A test power up-rate of less than VY’s 20 percent at a similar US Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) plant resulted in major steam dryer failure.

Not that long ago in 2009 VY was happily bragging about their Nuclear Energy Institute(NEI)industry trade group award winning (cost saving) remotely operated steam dryer inspection mechanism. Certainly a clever thing but it wasn’t as if Entergy had an award winning repair to any “non-relevant” cracks in the worrisome steam dryer. They just found a slick way to monitor the steam dryer’s aging –and naturally cut costs.

An annual reduction of 3.6 person-rem of radiation exposure is expected along with a minimum $500,000 cost reduction per outage.

Also not that long ago Entergy hired a Vermont PR firm to splash on a quick fresh coat of PR paint? The IAMVY.com campaign and tagline safe, clean, reliable that resulted ring just as hollow now as in 2009 just before tritium leaks were disclosed. Now Entergy requests permission to practically stop required steam dryer inspections. I propose a new tagline for Vermont Yankee in the form of a question: VY:What could possibly go wrong?

Happy Blackout Day

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