Hell Yeah!

Hallfire rains on Indian Point

As promised, one of the first things John did upon arrival in Washington was begin to make trouble for the Indian Point Energy Center (IP).

In a move that has enraged advocates of nuclear power, Hall introduced a bill that will require an independent safety assessment of Indian Point - surely designed to expose problems and flaws that will warrant shutting it down.

Hall said "it would never have been sited here if the population 40 years ago was what it is today", noting that 8% of the population of the entire United States lives within the 50 mile kill zone that surrounds the plant.

Entergy spokesman Jim Steets says "if an independent study was done, I'm' sure we'd do very well on it".

A regular commenter, whose own blog (that I won't link to because it doesn't allow comments) defends IP well, criticizes the independent assessment as "an exercise in partisan attack futility".

Rep. Eliot Engel supports the independent study pointing out that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission can't do the job on it's own, saying "the NRC never met a nuclear plant they didn't like".

Meanwhile, I sit bemusedly watching, enjoying the posturing, withering criticism and great one-liners from both sides, I ask myself "what's the big deal with an independent safety assessment" before a creaky old powderkeg is relicensed for another thousand years?"

Given Entergy's steadfast position that IP is one of the safest nuke facilities in the world and all is well, why fight the ISA? Entergy should welcome the opportunity to put the debate to rest. Rather than pull a Saddam and kick inspectors out, they should throw open the doors to every inspector with even a casual interest, rather than risk the might of a hostile invader Congress bent on chasing them into a spider hole.

Entergy knows the no-nukes lobby is only going to grow stronger over the coming few years. If, and I mean IF, IP is really that safe, why the strident opposition to inspection?

It wasn't the left who coined the phrase "energy security" and forced energy to become a bona fide National Security Issue. It was the producers and their friends in DC who did that. Intended to mean oil, it naturally grew in scope to include nukes as well.

So as an exercise in ensuring our "energy security", putting the debate, finally, to rest around Indian Point, and easing the unease the 8% feels in the backs of their minds when they see the smoke and reactor domes, Entergy should embrace this opportunity for all it is worth.

Unless, I shudder to think, they have something to hide.

Getting some help

A year ago, when POTUS Bush pronounced on America's Oil Addiction, I believe he misspoke. What he really meant was that American business is addicted to oil revenue and needed to be weaned from it.

As we stand now, it's believed that a good part of the cash torrent that's floated comestic markets and the global economy comes to us from the massive influx of revenue to the petroleum producers who really do have nothing better to do with their money than invest it. It would explain the disparity of wealth between rich and poor, and the great economic boom we're witnessing on paper isn't being enjoyed by the great unwashed in this country.

But today something interesting happens, on the eve of this year's State of the Union address that is expected to focus heavily on energy:

The addict's family is executing an intervention.

In the same way a crackhead's family confronts their loved one's addiction and trundles him off to rehab, the leaders of ten of America's largest corporations will confront POTUS and urge him to act aggressively on climate change.

WalMart, Alcoa, Duke Energy, GE, Lehman Brothers - the heads of some of the companies many on the left have considered the worst mega-culprits - will sit with the President and say that this man-made climate crisis is REAL and we must ACT because the actuaries predict the impact on the bottom line will be dramatically worse than the short term costs of change.

America's' major insurers have been beating the pans for a few years. Self-serving, indeed, but the insurers will be the ones who pay for the cities that get wiped off the map when sea level rises about their top floors.

All of the individuals who have spent the last decade or so throwing wrenches into the work of dispassionate, empirical scientists will be silenced and the work of the ideology driven "reasearch" organizations hired and funded by the likes of ExxonMobil will be relegated to the ranks of crazies crying in the wildernesss.

It's almost game over for them.

Unfortunately, the economic consequences of our failure to act expediently will be severe. Already, China is way ahead of us in developing cheap alternative infrastructure. The largest producer of photovoltaic cells in the world is there.

That company should be here, but we blew it. Never looking beyond the end of the quarter made a few people a hell of a lot of money, but with a heavy long term cost.

Hopefully, the President's speech tomorrow night will provide real incentive for America's entrpreneurs to begin ramping up research and production of green bulding technology and practices, but if the past is any indication, we will get more of the same: bogus platitudes and inaction.

I was walking along minding my own business when this stronium 90 landed on my head!

The Middletown, NY Times Herald Record newspaper published a story on January 18th that reported 4 of 12 fish tested in the waters around the Indian Point nuclear power plant were contaminated with strontium 90.

Entergy says no link between Indian Point plant and tainted fish

Of course, Jim Steets, spokesman for IP owner Entergy Nuclear Northeast, assures us that everything is just dandy in Buchanan. The levels of the radioactive isotope were considered "background levels", "But the results, for a lot of reasons, do not indicate Indian Point as the source."

If you aren't aware, there's a leak they can't find at Indian Point, and strontium 90 is one of the materials escaping into the environment through this source-unknown leak. It has contaminated the water pools beneath the plant, and local anti-Indian Point activists and politicians have been clamoring to force Entergy to shut down the plant until they can find and stop the "hot" water leak.

I find it amusing that a spokesman from Entergy can assert, with a straight face no less, that fish swimming in the waters around Indian Point who are contaminated with ANY level of a radioactive isotope (that is known to be escaping containment and has been predicted to leach into groundwater), are just a crazy coincidence. It's as though we're supposed to believe strontium 90 is everywhere, and any old fish - say one swimming in an Icelandic lake 1000 miles away from any nuclear power plant - could have detectable levels of this metal.

Four of twelve sampled fish were contaminated. I'd say 33% of even a small sample is significant and worth being worried about, particularly if your drinking water comes from the ground around there.

Regional economic impact be damned, an entirely unaccountable holding company (there's nobody to sue if Indian Point melts down, it's owned by a corporate shell) makes enormous profit with a facility that is clearly past its safe, useful life. It's time to close Indian Point and develop those alternatives.

So much for "cheap"...

As we watch the antics of the Fed as it tries to manage a collapsing dollar has been the dramatic rise in commodities prices. From crude oil to canola oil, the values of the basics of manufacturing have been going through the roof for the last several years.

There are almost no commodities that have enjoyed the sonic boom that uranium has. This metal went from about $8/lb in mid-2000 to where it sits today at $60.25/lb.

Uranium Spot Price

So much for nuclear being cheap. The cost of a megawatt of nuclear generated energy has gone up almost 7 times in 6 years. None of the other energy commodities has that kind of track record, though crude oil is a close second.

The time to put serious research into renewables is now.

There was a time when America held the leadership position in energy research - including nuclear - but we've lost that edge to lousy education and more pressing urgency in developing countries. We sat back smugly as cheap oil and gas flowed in, ensuring endless profits for the petroleum industry. We opted against preparing for today. We ignored climate change science. We ignored political climate change. We ignored economic climate change. We live in thick-headed denial, failing to read the writing on the wall.

Now, we face a series of crises that had been building for years, while we went about our business pretending everything was ok.

We can't burn fossil fuels anymore. We don't have the nuclear capacity (or plans to build one) that can satisfy our ever growing thirst for electricity.

We need leadership. We don't have it now.

You have the chance to change that tomorrow. Vote against the incumbent. If you live in the 19th CD, vote for John Hall.