79th Carnival of Nuclear Bloggers at ANS Nuclear Cafe

The 79th Carnival of Nuclear Bloggers is now posted at ANS Nuclear Cafe. Dan Yurman has put together a fascinating Carnival.

Let's start with Nuclear Green's contribution: a three- part interview with Sherrell Greene, a recently retired ORNL reactor researcher. Greene describes several types of new reactors, including several molten salt reactors, and point to the problems of "business as usual" in the nuclear industry. We need to develop new types of reactors!

In a similar vein, Brian Wang of Next Big Future describes new types of uranium/thorium fuel under development, and third generation reactors on order in China.

In several cheerful notes, both Gail Marcus and I enjoy a pro-nuclear cartoon from a Vermont newspaper. (Yes, you read that right. Pro-nuclear and Vermont newspaper appeared in the same sentence.) Dan Yurman at Idaho Samizdat explains how the next generation of nuclear engineers will have been raised on computer games---and that's a good thing.

The International Scene

Gail Marcus of Nuke Power Talk describes the positive effects of Russia's interest in joining the international Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA). In 2006, Marcus headed an NEA delegation to Moscow to sign preliminary papers about cooperation, and that effort is bearing fruit. Good going, Marcus and NEA!

Meanwhile, Rod Adams of Atomic Insights reports the good news that reporters are now allowed to visit Fukushima Daiichi. This shows great progress in the clean-up. Rod also reports that USA Today managed to turn this into a bad-news time-to-worry story.

Steve Aplin of Canadian Energy Issues wonders why the Occupy protesters in Ottawa are using gasoline powered diesel generators. Pretty dirty electricity. They could connect batteries to the clean Ottawa grid instead. Three quarters of the grid's power comes from non-emitting sources of nuclear and hydro.

At ANS Nuclear Cafe, Dan Yurman reviews the issues and consequences of the anti-nuclear protests in India. Let's see. The national government is pro-nuclear, some of the provincial governments are anti-nuclear, and nobody told the people in the area of one plant that the siren-test-evacuation drill was a test. So local citizens were terrified as they heard sirens and saw people streaming from the plant grounds. India is a complicated place, goodness knows, but the nuclear start-up could also be far better organized. Excellent post on an important subject.

News and views and updates from all over! Come to the Carnival!

Still Too Close to Call

The latest Times Argus update shows that with all precincts counted, Shumlin has won by 178 votes over Racine and 390 votes over Markowitz. 73,000 votes were cast, a far higher turnout than expected.

Matt Dunne, who lives in my area, gathered 15,000 votes to come in fourth. John Gregg of the Valley News wrote: Dunne Says He's Not Done With Politics. (Unfortunately, the Valley News did not put that article on-line.) In that article, Gregg noted that observers before the election thought that 15,000 votes would have been enough to win the nomination. Nobody expected a 70,000 vote turnout.

A recount may be called, since two candidates, Racine and Markowitz, are within 2% of the votes cast for the leading candidate. Either of them is allowed to ask for a recount. Last time there was a recount in Vermont, the swing (difference in votes) was 239 votes, more than Shumlin's margin of victory.

In other words, it's still too close to call.

A Cartoon About the Election

I live near White River Junction, and one of the wonderful new things about White River Junction is the Center for Cartoon Studies. Sarah Stewart Taylor, Matt Dunne's wife, teaches there. One of my favorite cartoonists, James Sturm, is one of the co-founders of the school.

Full disclosure: Taylor and Sturm both donated signed copies of their latest books to a charity auction I was involved in. They were both very gracious when I asked them to donate.

James Sturm accompanied Matt Dunne on a final electioneering push, the day before the elections. Sturm and Katharine Roy have an excellent report of that day posted at Slate magazine now: Honk and Wave. The small town feeling of a Vermont campaign is captured in this short "dispatch in comics." I encourage you to look at it.

PSB Meeting Thursday Night. Get Your Comments In!

There's A Meeting Here (Thursday Night)

The Public Service Board is holding a hearing, Thursday July 8, at Brattleboro High School. The hearing is about Docket 7600. This is the docket to shut down Vermont Yankee immediately. (The relicensing docket is Docket 7440.) The hearing starts at 7 p.m and should be over at 9:30, because the high school does not stay open after 9:30 at night.

What's It All About, Anyhow? Why Should I Do Anything?

Starting in January, and going through sometime in March, there was a leak of tritiated water at Vermont Yankee. On Thursday February 25, the day after the Senate vote against Vermont Yankee renewal, the PSB opened a new docket, docket 7600, on closing Vermont Yankee early, due to the tritium leaks. As I noted in a blog post at the time, the PSB said they would hold the first hearing on the new docket in March, and I predicted the leak would be over by then. (It was).

But of course, it's not over till it's over. Once you open a docket, it stays open. It's like some modern version of Dickens Bleak House--a never-ending court case. The fact that the leak is fixed and being remediated seems irrelevant to the law.

Since the docket is still open, everybody and their brother is weighing in with claims for the docket. The original docket was started by the Conservation Law Foundation, and concentrated on the leaks and leak remediation. Recently, the Vermont Natural Resources Council (VNRC) has taken a slightly different spin on the matter, saying that Entergy is violating the public trust about groundwater. A quote from Groveman of the VNRC:

"Groundwater is to be managed for the benefit of all Vermonters and the public trust doctrine does not allow for contamination of groundwater, even beneath your own property," he said. "Groundwater flows across property boundaries so these boundaries are meaningless when it comes to public trust resources."

I am particularly fond of this quote because it implies that septic tanks are illegal in Vermont, since they do "contaminate" their "leachfields" on your "own property" to some extent.

Is It Just Silly?

In my opinion, the people attacking Vermont Yankee on the basis of tritium leaks and groundwater contamination have VERY weak arguments. Pretty close to just-silly, as a matter of fact.

BUT, when Yankee opponents are the only ones to show up at a meeting, this has an effect. When the PSB sits at the front of the room, looking at the audience, it looks as if everyone is against Vermont Yankee. If there are no supporters at the meeting, the arguments of the opponents seem to carry more weight, no matter how trivial the content of these arguments might be.

So, try to attend the meeting and support the plant.

What If I Can't Come to the Meeting?

You can still help. Many people in the opponent organizations will testify at the meeting. They will make charges against the plant. As my friend Howard Shaffer points out:

"A charge unanswered is a charge believed." A quote from former US Senator Alan Simpson, in Newsweek recently.

Therefore, we must answer these charges. We know what the opponents are going to say: tritium, groundwater, leaky badly-run plant. We must write own comments and submit them to the board, noting that

• leaks were found and fixed within weeks
• there is no groundwater contamination outside the plant boundaries, and there will be none (contaminated groundwater is being removed).
• the plant is a valuable asset to people of Vermont, keeping electricity rates and emissions low.

You can write about your own experience with the plant and its safety culture. You can write about septic tanks and groundwater. You can say anything you want, really, as long as it is true and hopefully relevant.

You can submit comments by email. File a comment using the PSB general Comment Form. I wrote my comment under "other" ( I could not choose "Docket 7600" from the drop-down list). I wrote the words "Docket 7600" near the beginning of my comment. It only took a few minutes, and I urge you to do the same.

Aside: On the Docket 7440 page, at the bottom you can see a link to file a public comment. (This is the relicensing docket.) No such link is at the bottom of the Docket 7600 page, or on meeting announcement for July 8. I am not sure what to make of this. If the meeting tomorrow night is a hearing only, without public participation, there should still be an area in the general docket where the people can file a public comment. I'm not sure why they haven't made it easier to comment on the 7600 docket. End Aside.

Come to the meeting or submit your comments by email! Or both!

-----

About the cartoon. G. Murphy, the same artist who drew the parody cartoons in a previous post, allowed me to use this original cartoon. The copyright remains with him, of course.

This cartoon is about Indian Point. A series of polls taken by the Manhattanville College showed strong local support for Indian Point. 70% pro-plant, 30% anti. However, one of the local papers headlined the survey results: "Residents Worried About Indian Point." This totally misleading headline prompted Mr. Murphy to pen this cartoon, which shows the gap between perceived opinions (of people making a lot of noise) and actual local opinions.

Destructive Lies

Entergy Makes Misleading Statements and is Punished

Recently, the Public Service Board awarded various intervenors (VPIRG and others) financial restitution to be paid by Entergy. The basis for this award was that Entergy had supplied misleading information about its piping, causing the intervenors to be forced to spend money on research and attorney's fees on these issues.

The PSB ruling was somewhat confusing. Here's a quote, edited slightly for length:

However, we further conclude that reasonable attorney's fees and costs of VPIRG, NEC and WRC subsequent to the disclosure of the leaks, and that were and will be incurred as a result of Entergy VY's provision of incorrect information, should be reimbursed by Entergy VY. ..... there is a clear causal connection between the misrepresentations made by Entergy VY and additional expenses that WRC, VPIRG, and NEC would incur, and in fact have incurred, in this docket.....The affidavits supplied by NEC show that its staff person, its technical consultant, and its attorney expended a considerable number of hours to address matters in Docket No. 7440 directly related to the Entergy VY misrepresentations. For example, NEC's technical consultant, Raymond Shadis, affirms that between January 7, 2010, (the date on which the existence of the leaks was publicly disclosed) and March 10, 2010, he spent 172 hours on Docket No. 7440 issues related to piping, soil and decommissioning.

I am not a lawyer. and I don't know why intervenors are paid if they have to do more work due to misleading statements by one of the parties. I also can't get too excited about this. Entergy won't decide to shut down the plant because they had to pay Raymond Shadis. I don't think this ruling is fair, but I also don't think it's a big deal.

What Were the Real-Life Consequences of the Entergy Statements?

Without going through the entire history, from "They Lied" at the potluck to the legal report showing that Entergy statements were careless but unintentional, let's just look at a hypothetical case. Let's say Entergy had said: "Yes, we have some underground piping that carries water with radionuclides. It is the piping that takes the non-condensable gases and some water vapor from the turbines to an advanced condenser. The condenser is also a heat exchanger. The piping returns the condensed water to the plant."

Now, since I noted before, the service water is more of a reliability problem than this off-gas system, this statement might have changed nothing about the review process. On the other hand, it might have changed the inspection protocols. Entergy could have been required to open up the famous tunnel and inspect the pipe at that point. Let's say Entergy had been required to do so, and let's say they discovered the leak before any tritiated water touched the soil. So what?

A great deal of time and trouble would have been avoided. However, in this scenario, the same amount of tritiated water would have been detected in the river or the aquifers below the plant. No tritiated water. Zero. Nada. Below the detection limits.

In other words, Entergy's misstatements gave them a black eye and cost them money, but made no difference to the environment.

The Lies of the Anti-Nukes

I don't know where to start. The constant chorus against Entergy of "tritium is getting into the river and nobody can fish in it now." (No detectable or significant amounts or tritium got into the river, and there is no problem with the fish.) Or "They lied under oath." (No, they didn't.) Or "Oak Ridge Associated Universities does Junk Science" (this was a pre-tritium accusation).

As I pointed out in a recent post, the lies don't stop there. Shumlin, Smith and Klein are quite happy to describe radioactive strontium as "attacking the bones and teeth" of Vermont's children. They describe the tritium leak as Vermont's BP, an environmental disaster!

What Are the Real-Life Consequences of the Lies of the Anti-Nukes?

And what consequences have all these anti-nuke lies had? They have been effective at turning public opinion against the plant, which may have to shut down. I hope not. Still that has been the purpose of the constant accusations and street theater. Of course, they want to shut down the plant, so they like these consequences.

The other real-life consequence is that the constant lies about the amount of radioactivity released into the environment, and its effect on rivers and children...these lies are destroying the Vermont brand. As I noted before, if I lived in the Midwest and saw all the ranking Vermont legislators talking about all the radiation and Vermont's BP and children's teeth...I would never buy a Vermont product again.

The lies of the anti-nukes will cause people to suffer. The anti-nukes don't care about laying off the VY workers. They publicly malign Vermont farmers and food products and destroy the Vermont Brand.

All they want is a hobby horse on which they can ride to election. Scapegoating is an age-old technique, and the anti-nukes are using it.

For these lies, the people of Vermont will end up being punished.

A word about the cartoons.

If you remember, I suggested that pro-nuclear advocates need some political cartoons. I mentioned the Marek Bennett cartoons, Mimi's Doughnuts, some of which I hate (It's Tritty) and some of which I love (Same Words, Different Eras). George Murphy (no, I don't know if that is a pen name) immediately sent me links to Vermont Yankee cartoons that he derived from the original cartoons. Since then, Murphy and I have had quite a correspondence. Since his cartoons are parodies or extensions of political cartoons, they are free and protected speech.

So the question arose: would I run them? They are more hard-hitting than my usual posts, but that is what cartoons are, after all. Hard-hitting. Visceral. Perhaps too honest.

Murphy has more of these. Let me know what you think.

Note: After comments and email exchanges with the original artist (Marek Bennett) the attribution at the base of each cartoon now reads: Fair Use Parody by G. Murphy using original artwork of Marek Bennett. I thank G. Murphy and Marek Bennet for resetting the attributions to everyone's satisfaction.

The Fourth Blog Carnival

Charles Barton has posted the Fourth Blog Carnival of Nuclear Energy at Nuclear Green. Barton named this Carnival The Vermont Freak shows, and he covers our recent one-gallon-water-spill-equals-giant-oil-spill craziness from several different viewpoints.

Barton also pulled together wonderful blasts from the past. The problem with blogging is that tomorrow there's a new blog. The best and most careful analysis can vanish like a soap bubble. Barton has gathered links to some of the more important blogs of the past, including economist David Bradish's powerful deconstruction of Amory Lovins arguments that nuclear is too costly. Bradish blogs at NEI Nuclear Notes.

Political Cartoons

Charles also includes a political cartoon in favor of thorium energy, by cartoonist Pyar Anderson. As Anderson says in his description of the cartoon: Heavy investment in Thorium energy would staunch the energy crisis, blunt the fears of nuclear proliferation, reduce nuclear waste, and conceivably put nuclear power in vehicles, even. Thor knows it.

I believe that political cartoons are very powerful, and I would like to see more pro-nuclear cartoons. Right now, the PopAtomic Studios group is making nuclear-themed art. A recent post shows how PopAtomic is moving nuclear art into the mainstream. Is there anyone who can do this for pro-nuclear cartoons? While there have been occasional pro-nuclear cartoons in the mainstream, I don't think we should wait for established cartoonists to come around.

In terms of anti-nuclear cartoons, during the tritium issue, I found a Mimi's Doughnuts cartoon far more difficult to confront than anything written in the local papers. It was clear, direct, and emotionally gripping. It was also not true. The tritium levels in any drinking water or the river were too low to measure. But within the context of the cartoon, it was hard to refute. I would have to argue with one single panel of a compelling anti-nuclear story. (Yes, the cartoon was in my local paper.)

Great Job, Charles, in putting together a fascinating Carnival!