It's been a bad week..

for Indian Point, anyway.

The explosion in the transformer yard across the street from the facility has caused IPs safety rating to be degraded from green to white. Not to mention it scared the crap out of a lot of people already on edge about Indian Point's safety.

Local Congressman John Hall, Westchester's County Executive Andy Spano and a host of other politicians renew their calls for independent safety assessments and for outright closure of the plant.

Noreen O'Donnell writes a common-sense piece in the Journal News, articulating the gut-level fear felt by most of the people who live in the shadow of that facility.

Leaks, shutdowns, terrorism, and now explosions. Scary stuff when you're talking nuke plant.

But we must realize that either choice - shutting down, or allowing re-licensing of IP - is not to be made lightly. A thousand good jobs, megawatts that would need replacing, huge impact on the local economy - these are all huge considerations. While the dangers of radioactivity weigh in as well. 

So here's what I'm effectively being asked to decide. Would I prefer cheap electricity from a life-threatening plant that could be minutes away from melting down? Or spiked unemployment, loss of millions of dollars in the local economy and a drastically higher electric bill - but I'm alive?

I'm a regular joe citizen of this area, I've lived my whole life within Indian Point's shadow, and that's the choice I'm being asked to make. And I do not know a thing about what distinguishes a safe nuclear facility from a dangerous one. But I still have to choose based on what little comprehensible information I have available to me.

Entergy and ren ask me to trust the tireless, wholesome, well intentioned scientists of Entergy and the NRC, the benevolent fire-keeping sorcerer-owners of Gaia's fire.

Riverkeeper and my local leaders call them dangerous, incompetent, venal liars who will let everyone rot so they can become ever richer.

So I sit here worrying about my choices, as cries are raised for an independent review of the plant.

It's absolutely true that nobody trusts the NRC, and on the other side, nobody who supports the plant will trust a study conducted by a team of Indian Point assassins.

And there's the more disturbing question: why does Entergy oppose an independent review of the facility? If there's nothing to hide, what are they hiding?

So here's what I think we should do. call on our government - and Entergy - to remove the politics from the equation, and let us take a real look at what's hot in Buchanan.

Hire a FOREIGN organization with NO vested interest in the outcome. Give them full authority to conduct a thorough and thoroughly independent study. Bring in scientists from another nuclear country like France, Germany or Norway to conduct this independent assessment, and make the conclusions a matter of public record. Keep it honest by making it contractual that none of the participants can work for Entergy or a related company at any time in the future. And if that is not honored, allow for severe, multi-million dollar fines. This shouldn't be much of an issue for say a German engineer. There's plenty of work for them in their own countries.

We are not capable of doing this on our own. IP can't get a fair trial in a local court, so let's change the venue, or at least the place the jury comes from.

Does anybody have any compelling reason why this is a bad idea?

If so, I'd love to hear it, and I'm sure the two or three other readers of this obscure message board would as well.

****Update****

John Hall will be holding a town meeting tomorrow evening at 7pm (Monday, April 9th) at the Howland Cultural Center on Main Street in Beacon. The subject will be - you guessed it - energy. I wonder if Vincent Ferro will be there. Just in case, I'll bring the "Excommunicate Rudy" signs - in case he forgot his.

Comments

[ren]

In "protest space" your post is reasonable.... hell,... eloquent even.

However , the two phrases "Life Threatening" and "Minutes from Melting" are accepted concepts only within protest space.

In reality, they are untrue.
Let's skip my 500 word tome on why. (unless you want me to provide it).

So.... the old dual personality every activist is forced to inhabit...... over-reacting , carefully nurtured fear, (to move the uncommitted), and then the mood swings back to compassion for the real damage your position would cause, were it to be accepted, and acted upon.

Know this: the fact you hear anything about Indian Point, is simply that its a media hot button. It gets about 89,000 hits on a usual google day.

Don't let your existence be steered by google hits. (unless you are selling something).

If you ARE selling a product, (perhaps a "close Indian Point" pre-cooked TV dinner) then please don't appeal to us as neighbors. That would be deceptive, and manipulative huckstering, wouldn't it?

As a person who has lived exactly 9/10 of a mile downwind from the place for decades, let me say that I'm annoyed at the thing, tired of the exaggeration, but well schooled in what to fear.

I fear blackouts, brownouts, declining demographics, Mexicanization, burnt-out houses, and a third world on the Hudson, a lot more than I fear anything from Indian Point.

I think most other people, unprompted, more or less concur.

[b tween]

ren-
where are these thoughtful locals who have weighed the risks and decided that they, like you, trust an energy producing megacorp at its word, and feel totally secure as they read their Bible's at night by light benevolently provided by IP?
As I said above, I was born and raised 20-odd miles from Indian Point. It's been part of my consciousness my whole life.
Noreen O'Donnell's piece articulates a point almost every person I know from Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess would agree with: everyone goes about their lives knowing that the "INDIAN POINT EXPLOSION" text message may come at any moment. The REAL explosion. The one that causes those sirens they're always testing for go off for real. That mean crushed KI pills down baby's throat. That mean every-man-for-himself, head for the hills, and probably die in a traffic jam on the Taconic as millions of others flee.

That fear is real, whether it is warranted or not. And it is widespread.

But it's kept in check by the same mental mechanism that keeps commuters on trains into Manhattan every day.

Commuters know that a dirty bomb could detonate at any moment in Manhattan, but the trains fill up for that ride every day.

But mass hysteria is one unscheduled siren screwup away, and you know it.

"That'll never happen here" is a hell of a mental shield, and Indian Point operates almost entirely on that back-of-mind principle.

But times have changed, and that power shift in DC was something Entergy should have been prepared for.

So, the last election brought Indian Point from the backs of minds to the forefront, and we are approaching a time of reckoning, where the opposing force - the anti-Nuke/IPEC lobby is becoming powerful enough to make real trouble for Entergy.

And the anti-nuke powers will shut down Indian Point gleefully, electricity, economy, jobs be damned.

I believe what I propose is the only way to close the book on the debate.

Don't underestimate the power of a motivated population. Every politician in America will turn on Entergy if they believe their electorate will punish them if they fail to. This is something you also know.

Bring in an agnostic review team and put the issue to bed.

As far as the product I'm selling: funny you should mention TV dinners. I'd like to take this moment to introduce you to my line of "Indian Point `Nuke n' Run` Suppers". There's the "Chicken Buchanan Meltdown Meal". A delightful repast of stuffed chicken and parmesan cheese with succotash, finished with Baked Alaska. Then there's the "Indian Point Damaged Dome Breakfast": three "nuclear" hot eggs served in their cracked shells, crisped bacon and well done toast with "radioactive" green apple jelly oozing from a red and white "chimney" tube.

Available everywhere! Try one today!

[ren]

They are at work, or at home, not posting, not agitating, not editorializing, simply paying their utility bills, and wishing maniacs like you & me would shut up and go away.

I often go back to the petitions of 2001-2002. Ross Weale's petition signed up 8000 antis. My petition signed up just over 13,000 pro-nukes.

Add 'em up. that's about 21,000 who give a damn, either way. (not counting media, and paid flacks).

What's the local population? 20 million?

That gives about 19,979,000 truly unconcerned, truly uncommitted souls, the vast majority hereabouts.

I think the truth may hover somewhere around this concept, although I don't put it out there as gospel.

[ren]

You must hang with very committed activist people, because definitely not "almost every person I know" feels the way you do.

Look around, and ask some strangers on the train, and it will go one of two ways. If you ask them in such a way that they feel a wrong answer will condemn them to social ridicule as a Bushite, they will sing the reconstructionist line, just out of rightful fear of Democratic Party Brownshirtism. If you ask them when their guard is down, so they say what they really feel, they will admit it doesn't matter to them, so long as their taxes stay reasonable, and no blackouts happen.

As far as altruistic corporations paving our streets with silk & satin for us, try paving those streets without them, by direct social action. You'll give up & go back to college after about 6 months, I'll warrant.

As far as your TV dinners. They sound delicious, but my wife is a CIA grad, and would probably brain me if I tried 'em.

(Culinary Institute, not Central Intelligence)

[ren]

Its great getting back in the swing like this. Thanks a lot!There's a special connection every generation feels with the events that acted to trap them in their eventual life-course. You know.... "It was the best of times.... It was the worst of times". I see clearly how the seminal social awakenings of the rock'n'roll generation were "much more significant" than whatever passed for progress in the 1980's or the 1990's. I'm wrong of course. To those who turned 21 in 1991, the old fart crapola that shines so bright for me, & McCartney, & Bob Dylan is faded almost to gray, and their own awakening history seems epochal. Who is right? Everybody is right, inside his/her own reference frame, peer group, and family. I do know one thing though. Collectively, the wisdom emerges from individual choices, all made in secret, adding up in the end to a new politics, a new mandate hardly understood at all by those seeking office.The ones seeking office are the only ones forced to take these decisions out of the oven before they are fully cooked. The rest of us get to waffle, change, evolve, seek the best outcome, and never commit. Once the hopeful Pol commits, he/she is dead meat, progress-wise. To get those votes, you have to alienate about 49% of the current wisdom, and it sets up your own downfall, usually two election cycles later. So if you think you feel an epochal seachange making the earth move beneath us, sit down a while, let it pass, and you will recognize it as nothing more than the ripening of your own youth. Right after ripe, is when the apple falls off the tree, and a passing horse eats it. Happens every time. Once the horse eats it, you know what happens after that!

[b tween]

Don't blame me - I'm not responsible for turning fear into precious political capital. Unlike many of my elected leaders - local and national - I don't start or finish my every utterance with "since the attacks of 9/11".
I didn't run on a platform of "I'm strong on defense while my opponent wants to sing Dance With Me to Kim Jong Il"
I didn't create a fearmongering industry that's out of its creator's control
.
But what I can say is that those who created that fear-environment did it largely to obscure their dirty deeds, and that they lack the skill to control something so primal.

They can't say "fear terrorists bombing NYC, but don't fear terrorsts bombing Buchanan" and have the people nod quietly in agreement and get back to worrying about Manhattan.

I did not let that cat out of that bag.

And frankly. I'm tired of seeing my country's wealth and weal squandered so an obscenely wealthy few can get even richer on my dime. I resent the shifted tax burden, how the yoke was removed from corporations and placed on the shoulders of the people who can't afford clever accountants to itemize for them.

I have no issues with wealth, but I do have issues with anybody stealing it from the public trust (with devices such as multibillion dollar no-bid contracts) and lying to get it (tamiflu vs. relenza).

The economic disparity that is created when this goes unchecked is precisely what causes what you call the "Mexicanization" of the Hudson Valley. Town after town of cafes, galleries and antiques stores teeming with workers who can't afford to live in the towns they work in.

The factories move overseas and our leaders call it progress, while we debate caps on H1B visas.

Madness.

So, let's not do more damage to our local economy than we already have with our years of brainlessly electing handsome, charismatic criminals with perfect smiles.

Bring in an outside auditor to comb through Indian Point. Put everyone's mind to rest.

What could possibly be simpler? And as I said in my original post - what possible issue could there be with something like that?

Because the question that lingers is still, if there's nothing to hide, why are they hiding nothing?

[Tom Clegg]

Transformers fail, go on fire. This is not just at nuclear plants. This happens where you need transfomers to transmit power. So when ever a transformer catches fire. That place should have an ISA. Go to November to see why an ISA is not needed. By the way, If you saw how the food you ate was made would you call for an ISA. You are nothing more than a John Hall puppet

[b tween]

Mr Clegg:

Clearly you didn't read past the headline or you'd probably be thanking me, not taking pointless cheap shots.

If you bothered to read what I wrrote, you would see that I do NOT want a Congressional hit-team to close IP. But I think that's what will happen if Entergy doesn't start to take the shift in public perception that happens when your enemy moves from shotgun to the driver's seat and starts making noise that starts getting heard by the people.

But this is America, and generations of brave men and women fought and died to preserve your right to insult me with no good reason.

Part 2 of your post:

My food? My family gets our vegetables from the farm on 9D. It's cheaper than the store, and there's no question of how it's grown.
Meat comes from Trader Joes in Danbury. It's grass-fed, no hormones and it's the same price as the stuff in Key Food on Main St., or if there's a good deal at the Farmers Market at the train station on Sunday, it comes from someone local.

That's because I DO know where other people's food comes from.

Where's your food come from?

[ren]

You yourself have said it, above, Bren.

They have nothing to hide.

That's why they are hiding nothing.

Take a look at those 2 sentences again, and begin to see where the "problem" is.

The "problem" (if there is one) therefore must be in you.

I'm not exactly Mr. Spock, but that seems logical to me.

[b tween]

Oh come on ren.

"If there's nothing to hide, what are they hiding?"

is a conditional statement (IF-THEN).

And "that's why they are hiding nothing" is an assertion that they are hiding "nothing". Are we going to have to define "nothing"?

As in "Junior, what are you doing?" "Nothing, mom" is the reply as he finishes emptying the ammonia bottle into the bucket of bleach.

Is indian point pouring ammonia into bleach?

[b tween]

By the way, you see the price of uranium went from $95/lb to $113/lb between the last 2 trading sessions? That's a hell of a jump.
Cameco says Cigar Lake won't be back online until 2010 at the earliest. And that's the optimists. The Saudi Arabia of uranium just stopped pumping out crude for the next 3+ years.

Hope they can keep my lights on!

[b tween]

and re: ammonia/bleach.
dont blame me, you started it.

[ren]

OK, you asked for it:.....

I asked my minister whether God loved me, and he said yes. But I had heard that he had a vested interest in making me think that God loved me, so I disbelieved him, and asked my wife. She said yes, God loved me, but because I had scolded her about credit card overuse, she apparently had a vested interest in my believing this, so I disbelieved her, and decided I needed an independent assessment of whether God loved me. Since I was incapable of discerning whether God loved me alone, I turned to my minister, and my wife, and my congressman, John Hall, and asked them if they could collectively tell me whether God loved me, in a more credible way than the agendized and non-credible answers I had gotten up until then. Mr. Hall said yes, he had a bill already tabled in congress to that effect, and that as soon as he got it out of committee, passed in 2 houses, and past Bush's veto, he would gather my minister and 20 other ministers, and my wife and 20 other people's wives, and spend $20 million dollars doing a totally independent assessment of God's love for me, and then sit down to write up a 5000 page report telling me whether or not God loved me. Right in the middle of this God came down to earth, and entered the inner regions of my brain, curing me of my horrible doubts, my self-induced and very prideful skepticism, and my nitpicking penchant for not listening to what people were telling me. I knew at that moment that God loved me, and that I no longer needed the $20 million team effort Mr. Hall had set up to investigate the issue. But Hall was not in his office when I called to tell him I no longer needed his assistance.So Hall's effort went forward, Independently Assessing God's Love for little old me, and they mailed me the report. I read it very carefully, but unfortunately, I didn't believe it. Go figure!

[ren]

If all the writers, actors, artists, and producers ruined by the House Un-American Activities Committee of Senator Joseph McCarthy were truly innocent of wrongdoing, then what did they have to hide? A simple chance for them to clear their names in public with the whole world watching on TV was actually a GREAT OPPORTUNITY for them to demonstate what loyal Americans they really were.

Right?

[ren]

If it walks like a pogrom, and quacks like a witch hunt, and flaps its wings like a brownshirt on Krystalnacht, then very likely what you have here, is a crypto-fascist Duck, with artficially green-dyed wings.

[ren]

Four caucasian undercover police officers accost an African American bridegroom after his bachelor party at 4:00 A.M.,and suggest he stop, throw up his hands, and submit to them. If he truly has nothing to hide, what would be the problem with simply complying with these men, emptying his pockets, lying face down on the winter pavement, and trusting in the wisdom of angry strangers, such as it might be, to determine his fate?... (Men who admittedly have "Deep Seated Fears" about African Americans but to them, just as to TJN reporter Nora O'Donnell, those fears, justified or not, SEEM real). The bridegroom, not honoring or catering to the crippling and incapacitating inner fears and delusions in those who accost him, assumes that this is the United States of America, and puts his car in gear, to drive home to his family. He is shot 50 times.

WHAT WAS IT, THAT HE WAS TRYING TO HIDE?

Or perhaps, more correctly:
What was it, he was trying to protect?

After all,.... all the "bad things" the caucasian officers had heard time after time, about African American men, even if exaggerated, spun up, or even dead wrong NEVERTHELESS had filled their inner beings with great dread, so that when an African American is asked for an independent assessment of his right to go about his own business unobstructed, he had better comply with the demands of the fearful (but wrong) majority --IF HE KNOWS WHATS GOOD FOR HIM-- because the fear of the few, is worth much much more than the rights of the many.

Right?

[ren]

Those in opposition to Indian Point have declared their own inner feelings to be a god. They worship this false god, and wish the rest of the world to be baptized in fear, along with themselves. They fend off reason, reality, good sense, and humanitarian best interest, by declaring their god-their fear to be SUCH A POWERFUL FEAR- as to be worth downgrading everybody's existence , in order to honor it. They harrass, obstruct, denigrate and misrepresent the fruitful, honorable, honest and expert efforts of others to engage in normal life, and go about their normal businesses, as having HUGE AND URGENT EVIL CONSEQUENCES attached to them, when in truth they do not. The rest of us realize these warnings are without basis. They do not.They deem these delusions to be sacred.Thus they also worship the children of their false fear-god, their delusions. In their delusions, all of reality will soon end, in a huge devastating scene of cataclysmic destruction. THIS IS A NON BIBLICAL BIBLE TALE. It is a technophobic Gilgamesh flood. It is a dragon, spouting atomic fire from its lizard's mouth. It is a point of cult obeisance, and in bowing together, they make community. Within their cult of cataclysm, they pose as the righteous, and cast modern society as Gomorrah. They confusedly interchange their delusion with any reality they choose, should it suit them, and are willing to harrass, assault, accuse, demean, oppose, and sadden any other citizen, or group of citizens, in this delusional cult pursuit.They have been manipulated by John Hall, into electing him, and now Mr. Hall is quietly trying to detach himself from the most embarrassing implications of this wedding with idiots. He may not escape unscathed, but the rest of us must. Our right to live as full lives as we are capable of, is a much deeper right, than the "right" (actually not a right at all) to entertain cult delusions, and thus assault the rest of humanity. Sixty million people died in WWII to declare this bogus , delusive "right" to be a great evil, far worse than anything it promises to cure. I see the sickness, and I pity its victims, without hate. However, I stand as the permanent public cure, as long as my powers for truth should remain, and will burst their delusive bubble anytime it needs lancing.

Nice talkin' to ya, Bren !

[b tween]

To compare Indian Point's safety to God's Love is frightening.

God's love can not be proven empirically. In fact, neither God nor Love can be empirically proven. A room full of people would give a room full of different definitions for both.

On the other hand, the safety of a facility that produces anything from widgets to heat from nuclear reactions CAN be proven.

$20million is a pittance compared to most of the stuff our tax dollars get wasted on. Clearly this isn't a question of money.

So what's the problem? Get started!

Oh me of little faith?

Please, give me something I can use!

The McCarthy hearing questions had no right answers.

ISAs conducted by a green-winged ducks or government/industry quacks won't have any right answers either.

An ISA conducted by Norwegians may prove something (like God's Love?) empirically.

And if the cops had identified themselves credibly as cops, they might have saved themselves a fortune on blood, bullets and lawyers.

Sometimes I get the feeling from you that the most annoying aspect of a crypto-fascist government is, for you, the crypto part.

I mean, really, ren, you keep telling me not to worry without actually addressing a single point related to WHY Noreen and I are worried about Indian Point. You simply ridicule the fact that we are worried. I've given reason after reason and you've called me an atheist because I have no faith in Entergy.

But why take such a posture and play chicken with a congressional hit squad?

Entergy should already be organizing an ISA with a foreign study group, and they should let everybody within a hundred and fifty miles know it.

Why they aren't is beyond me.

And answering that with hubris (as in "they don't have to answer to anybody but their shareholder and the NRC because the shareholders and NRC are the only ones who can understand the answer!) may have worked in the past, but my money is on that strategy being slow suicide.

[Ren]

I'm writing a paper just for you guys, but it will take a couple of days. I'd prefer to send it by email.

These blog arenas have too much boast'n'signify to them.

[b tween]

Excellent! I thoroughly enjoy reading your writing, and usually agree with you - except on this one teeny little sticking (Indian) point. If there were more people like you on that side of the fence, us John Hall puppets would be in trouble.

[Tom Clegg]

b tween if you recall you fired the first shot. Go back to Nov. Where you made fun of the artical I wrote in the Poughkeepsie Journal. So when people who work in the industry (I have worked at Indian Point for 24 years. I have also worked at FitzPatrick, Vermont Yankee and Pilgrim) tell you Indian Point is safe. You don't trust them. You keep telling me you are my friend, but I don't trust you. What ren missed telling you about the dome is under the concret is 3 inch thick re bar. That is the skeleton of the dome. Inside is the 3/8 inch thick skin of carbon steel that covers the inside of the dome. also the reactor is below ground. In order to get into work everyday I pull my car up and my car is subject to random searchs. After I park my car I enter the command post. Where I have to go through a metal detector. Zero Tolerance.If it alarms I have to empty all the metal out of my pockets, remove belts, take off steel tip shoes, and take off watches. As this goes on anything I have taken off and all bags that I take in have to go through an X-RAY machine. If it looks suspicious I have to take it out and show it to the guard. After that I gather up my stuff and head to a machine that sniffs me over for explosives. Then I head up to a turnstile where I swipe my ID card and put my hand in a machine that reads my hand geometry to release the locking device on the turnstile. This is what I go through every day to get into work. As for what you eat. What I was referring to was rat or mouse droppings, roaches, people not washing their hands. Even where you shop this happens. So should they get an ISA? As for the NRC they don’t just over see Nuclear Plants. They oversee hospitals. I have a relative that works in a hospital. When he heard that the NRC was on site at Indian Point he said their always there. We only see them when we do something wrong. THAT’S IT AN ISA FOR ALL HOSPITALS. My suggestion for you is to go to the NRC web site and see all that they are involved in. Also they list fines that they hand out and why. You will see that the industry does not have them in their back pocket. In my next message I will tell you the Inconvenient Truth about organizations like Rivercreeper. Then maybe we can demand an ISA for them.

[b tween]

I'm all for accountability, because the food makers, the electricity makers and the noise makers all must take responsibility for the ways they get money from your pocket into theirs.

Because people with a vested interest in keeping inspectors out are the ones who really need inspecting.

I did not fire the first shot though. Your letter to the editor did that.

Trying to insinuate John Hall was unfit because Pete Seeger was a communist was a bold statement and it rated a response. Pete Seeger has done more for Beacon than any other person or corporation and doesn't deserve to be used that way.

[ren]

Hey you guys, Pete Seeger is proud of his Communist party membership (and his Dad's) . He makes no bones about it. He and Communist philosopher/philanthropist Corliss Lamont were thick as theives. So don't excoriate Mr. Clegg, for calling Pete a name that he wears with pride...it doesn't make sense.

Now on to some scenariomongering.

I have a dog who thinks I'm God.

I have other dogs, who know I'm just an annoying human, but the one dog is star-struck. The capability for moonstruck adulation must have some innate adaptive Darwinian advantage, or it would not be so strongly expressed, in both canines and hominids. It might help packs cohere, by the self-subjugation of many, to a leader figure. It may lie near the roots of religious awe in humans. It certainly is being abused mightily by our modern all-intrusive media, in its star-making machinery, above and beyond what politics or public discourse had been, before radio,TV and movies. Now, in 2007, political success for an unattractive candidate is impossible (We will never see another Abe Lincoln). More than that, our hopes of having a republic, with unglamorized civic leaders, and without royalty, are being eroded, just as in ancient Rome, by the emergence of a need to worship, a need to be moonstruck in order to trust. Fallible leaders are now hated, automatically, for not having transcendent wisdom. It bodes ill for future governance, beyond any party affiliation. Skating lightly on this predilection, the horde of third generation Kennedys has gained public influence far beyond their abilities, and have conspired in witless quixotic solidarity, to mislead the public. One such effort was the Liz Garbus/Rory Kennedy crockumentary "Imagining the Unimaginable".

In the absence of any better video to provide alternative, or countervailing visual memories, many have been left with only the Garbus/Kennedy images to guide their thoughts when considering Indian Point . Although most people do not make conscious decisions from mere visual memories, nevertheless subtle emotions can be evoked by them, lessening quality of life, for those so afflicted. They can form a nagging backdrop, implying fear. Therefore we must revisit the Garbus effort, stripped of its "royal" associations, and do it all over the right way.

Imagining the unimaginable in precise detail, reveals just why it is truly unimaginable. To do a vague, sloppy, unfocused, and fanciful imagining, can result in a scary ghost fable, such as Garbus-Kennedy's fear cartoon of the same name. But Kennedy imagined the unimaginable not from any knowledge, or any effort to really see what would happen. She imagined her fable to intentionally insert her brother's political agenda, and succeeded at that, meanwhile omitting any detailed scenario construction, knowing that it might not serve Riverkeeper's advertising and propaganda aims.

Let us now make up that shortfall. Let us imagine.

The World Trade Center's horizontal footprint was one acre per floor. An acre is 212 feet wide on each side. At over 1000 feet high, WTC protruded upwards into "clear air", air not subject to ground effects, and it was therefore easy for a new or amateur pilot to fly flat & steady right into it. At 212 feet, it was wider than the plane, and so a center shot gave the terrorist pilot the opportunity to use the entire plane's body, both wings, and both engine nacelles at the same time. All the fuel, was therefore inserted into the building.

The Indian point domes are 65 feet wide, less than the distance from engine nacelle to engine nacelle, so any pilot wishing to hit the domes must choose. A simple center shot, as in the WTC attack, will have the soft body of the plane disintegrate on the dome, while the fuel-bearing wings, and the hardest part, the most useful missiles, the engines, all passing harmlessly to the left and the right of the dome. Except for having to call out their fire brigade, Indian Point would be totally unaffected by this. When it is recalled that the impact of the plane did not bring down the WTC, but only the fire, fire caused from all the wing fuel being inserted into the building, it becomes clear that with the fuel burning harmlessly in open air to the right and left of the dome, no similar mechanism exists to induce any final collapse, as the fire accomplished at the WTC.

Thus a center shot on Indian Point, is a wasted shot.

Alternatively, the pilot can aim off center to the right or left, to get fuel inside a hole that his engine nacelle might make in the dome. First off , we are now talking about precision flying skill, and an ability to mentally estimate how far out his engine is sideways from his own position in the cockpit, and correctly translate that into an offset aiming point visually to the opposite side of the dome he hates so much, all the while flying below 200 feet, in the turbulence of the ground effect caused by flying on the deck. If he succeeds, at least half his fuel, the other engine, and the body of the plane itself will all miss the dome entirely, to the opposite side. Also, psychologically, I doubt if an excited Mohammed Atta would be capable of the steely exactitude under pressure, which would challenge him to be able to intentionally MISS the target he has given his life to attack, in order to make one engine hit it, and the entire plane miss it. It would be just too unsatisfying and unglorious, in a martyr sense. Martyrs wish centrality. This is their biggest moment.Why let an engine get the spotlight, while you, the martyr, die ineffectively, off to the side?

But suppose our pilot has such ability, manages a side shot, and by some miracle of luck inserts one engine into the dome, with his plane, the other engine, and 60% of his wing fuel dissipating against the hillside rocks.The soft wing profile will not penetrate the dome. Therefore of the remaining 40% of the fuel in a single wing, only about 5% of it will follow the engine into the hole, with the remaining 35% dripping down the outside of the dome, and immediately burning off. The engine, having hit the concrete interior walls in the inner part of the dome, will cause an immediate drop of the control rods into the reactor, shutting the plant.

All of the piping providing shutdown capability is below the 95' steam generator deck, and therefore unhittable behind the concrete crane wall, and the other missile shields. If the hole made by the engine is above 95', full shutdown is guaranteed. If the hole made by the engine is below 95', the engine will be vaporized hitting the crane wall and the missile shields. Because most of the dome interior above 95' is empty air, containing only the polar crane, only the most lucky trajectory at this height would hit anything at all, except the opposite dome wall. Estimating all possible trajectories above 95', perhaps 5% intercept any target of value.

With all hits of an engine nacelle below 95' resulting in no penetration, and engine vaporization within 10 feet, and only 5% of all hits above 95' intercepting a target of any value, it begins to become clear that Mohammed Atta #2 has sacrificed his life in vain, and very possible should have chosen another target, perhaps a taller, softer, less troublesome quarry--- one like the WTC.

But, for completeness, let us grant our Jihad pilot every hypothetical advantage, and direct the single engine onto a value target above 95'. A loss of coolant (LOCA) brings an immediate automatic scram, outside the control of the operators, ending criticality, and shutting the reactor down. Steam will fill the dome, and escape through the engine hole.The emergency sirens will sound, and an evacuation will be ordered. The fire will burn out within a half hour (no fuel or comustible materials exist inside the dome), The broken steam lines will be shut off via remote valves, ending the steam plume, the Residual Heat Removal system will cool the reactor down to cold permanent shutdown, the unit will permanently cease operation, and except for half a dozen workers burned by the exterior fire, or hit by plane debris, no public injuries or fatalities will occur.
(Nobody works inside the dome). By the next day, with a blue tarp over the hole, Indian Point will begin its decommissioning. No radioactive clouds travelling 1000 miles to erase Philadelphia and Washington, in fact, no radioactive clouds at all. A tragic and malicious attack, killing those on the plane, and perhaps one or two workers at the point, and nobody else. NTSB will investigate, and a commission will be formed. Local real estate values will rise by 40%, now that Indian Point is closed. The next summer, blackouts will most likely be encountered, without the 2000 megawatts the plant had provided.

Is this a sufficient result to motivate a Jihad pilot to embrace martyrdom? Among western antinuclear propagandists, a large blind spot exists, intentionally centered on this question. They refuse to address it. They often claim: "Mohammed Atta's team once considered Indian Point" , but they do not logically go forward and complete the exercise--- Mohammed Atta's team then REJECTED Indian Point.

There is much Wahabbi love of public terror, the slaughtering of the helpless public, and much interest in large gatherings--- night clubs, Shiite mosques, train stations, airports, the Iraqi parliament buildings, the WTC, etc. I challenge you to list for me the industrial targets hit by jihad martyrs. There are none. Industry is not present in the Koran, or in koranic thinking. "Sunni" means "way of the prophet"-- if you do not act as the prophet acted, you are not Sunni. Therefore Arabian pride does not even recognize the existence of industry. No Arabian workers can be found to man any Arabian infrastructure. All industrial workers in Arabia must be imported from Korea, or Taiwan. There is no glory in attacking a sewage tank, a trash midden, or a slop sink, all objects of disgust and proud eternal Sunni disregard. It would waste and despoil one's martyr act in servile uncleanness and unmanly humiliation. Likewise, all other infrastructure appears to the extreme Sunni Wahabbist mind as nothing more than a form of sewer pipe, fit for Kaffirs, far below any aspirations of a real believing Islamic man, even if these particular unworthy sewer pipes happen to hold radioactivity. Jihadists know this.They have entered their own Taqfir exile into Wahab martyrdom to become Sunni clean. Western antinuclear propagandists are in deep denial over this fact. Their antinuke propaganda blind spot, is the Jihadist's big religious avoidance spot. That is why Atta rejected IPEC, and chose the WTC. That is also why obsessive focus on a jihad martyr action on IPEC is wasted concern. They have other fish to fry.

From the airspace above the Hudson valley, the most visible, targetable, and fruitful martyr target is the very vital and undefended Tappan Zee bridge. At any point where a pilot could even see Indian Point, his gaze would be strongly pulled to the much-more-visible bridge. An attack on the bridge would kill thousands, without a doubt. It is also easily flown into, not requiring any piloting skills, no great decisions on the part of the martyr. It is guaranteed glory. A martyr's dream.

[ren]

For some interesting highlights about Pete Seeger, Corliss Lamont, and other Communists, both local and otherwise, link to:

http://crotonblog.blogspot.com/

[Tom Clegg]

ren I need your help. There is a site with message board about nuclear power. including Indian Point. An anti nuke group are spruing their lies.
Just to show what lenghts anti will go to. On the web site for green nuclear butterfly they posted me as the enemy. Then they went on to give out my E-Mail adress, my home adress, and my home phone number. THIS IS A WAR THEY WILL REGRET STARTING!