Jan 18, 2011
R. William Borchardt
Executive Director for Operations
US Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Washington, DC 20555-0001
Subject: 10 C.F.R. § 2.206 Emergency shutdown of Vermont Yankee and requesting a NRC OIG investigation with the NRC behavior surrounding inspecting activities associated with the AOG piping tritium leak and its Vermont Yankee Root Cause Analysis. Entergy and the NRC gamed the RCA and inspection activities in order to try to influence the 2010 election of the Governor of Vermont...with their intent to save the life of Vermont Yankee no matter what it took.
Dear Mr. Borchardt,
§ 50.9 Completeness and accuracy of information.
(a) Information provided to the Commission by an applicant for a license or by a licensee or information required by statute or by the Commission's regulations, orders, or license conditions to be maintained by the applicant or the licensee shall be complete and accurate in all material respects.
(b) Each applicant or licensee shall notify the Commission of information identified by the applicant or licensee as having for the regulated activity a significant implication for public health and safety or common defense and security. An applicant or licensee violates this paragraph only if the applicant or licensee fails to notify the Commission of information that the applicant or licensee has identified as having a significant implication for public health and safety or common defense and security. Notification shall be provided to the Administrator of the appropriate Regional Office within two working days of identifying the information. This requirement is not applicable to information which is already required to be provided to the Commission by other reporting or updating requirements.
[52 FR 49372, Dec. 31, 1987]
I like them words: “An applicant or licensee violates this paragraph only if the applicant or licensee fails to notify the Commission of information that the applicant or licensee has identified as having a significant implication for public health and safety or common defense and security.” So if it is not a significant implication for public health and safety, it is OK to give incomplete information to the agency and the public, that may impact the continued operation of the plant.
ROOT CAUSE EVALUATIN REPORT CR-VTY-2010-00069 dated 06/16/2010
The below Root Cause evaluation is just a falsification. I don’t see any evidence through Entergy documents, NSA and the NRC inspection reports...FSAR and licensing bases...that the AOG tunnel was a initial plant design barrier against the leakage of radioactivity into the environment. It is designed to be a leak off warning and drain water from the saturated outside soils into the piping. If it not a engineered and designated radioactive barrier, then it can’t be a root cause of the leak.
Root Causes:
RC1: Latent Standards and Practices That Were Inadequate
Inadequate housekeeping standards and practices were applied during the construction of the AOG Pipe Tunnel in 1972. Inadequate design and installation standards and practices were applied during the installation of the 2”CNPE-172A line in 1978. These latent issues combined to compromise the leak tight design of the AOG Pipe Tunnel and allow for water containing radio nuclides to leak to the environment.
Although a leak of a tritiated system was required to complete the event, the team concluded that the original design of the tunnel would have been able to adequately contain and process a leak from within the tunnel. It was only after modifications to the tunnel and poor housekeeping during construction, that the water was able to leak from the Pipe Tunnel to ground.
The poor leaking interfaces and the brick replacement of the poured cement encasement indicated in the 1970’s timeframe the tunnel was not a designated radioactive barrier. The poured cement encasement of the piping was just a cheap construction technique for the general environmental protection of the piping. The intent of the encasement and the drain leak off was to protect the carbon piping from standing water. They feared the ground becoming saturated through storms and the water leaking into the tunnel...with the carbon pipe sitting in the water for extended periods of time. One must remember the times of severe fuel failure problems and high AOG piping radioactivity...this was no designed radioactive barrier.
Pg 15-Interface Between The AOG Pipe Tunnel And The Concrete-Encased, 2-Inch Condensate Drain Line, 2”-CNPE-172A, Not Watertight:
A modification was performed to the AOG pipe tunnel in 1978 per Plant Alteration Request (PAR) 78-36., which installed 2”CNPE-172A to AOG, and did not ensure the AOG Pipe Tunnel remained watertight. To implement this modification, workers in 1978 excavated down approximately 18 feet and penetrated the side of the AOG pipe tunnel to gain access to 12”-AOG-100. After the new drain line (2”CNPE-172A) was added, it was surrounded by 4” PVC and encased in concrete. The PVC was cut in half lengthwise to aid in the installation and concrete was poured over the PVC assembly for the encasement. The intent of the PVC was to provide room between pipe and concrete for thermal expansion during heat up and cool down. Furthermore, the 2”CNPE-172A encasement did not form a watertight interface with either the AOG pipe tunnel or with the AOG Drain Pit. These interfaces were not keyed, grouted, or sealed, so the interfaces were not leak tight. Once the water rose as a result of the floor drain obstruction, it was able to communicate to the environment through gaps in the concrete encasement. When the AOG Pipe Tunnel wall was restored in 1978, masonry blocks were used instead of restoring it with poured concrete as the original design had been.
We know with the below there are really two possibilities with how the debris and soil came to obstruct the drain. It could of either came from the 1970’s construction debris like Entergy claimed, or it could have came in from the outside dirt as the water leaked into the tunnel from saturated soil, from storms and snow melt off. It is atrocious these two possibilities was not discussed by the NRC or Entergy. It gives rise to the idea they engineered the RCA to an out come...they picked and chose the facts that fitted into a preconceived political and public objective before the RCA was even began.
Pg-15-Obstruction of the AOG Pipe Tunnel Floor Drain:
Because the AOG Pipe Tunnel was inaccessible, it has not been accessed since original construction in 1972 (with the exception of the field modification to install 2”-CNPE-172A in 1978). Therefore, the debris is considered to be original construction debris left in the tunnel since 1972.
Chief Engineer of Boiling Water Reactors for Entergy Timothy Trask
http://www.reformer.com/localnews/ci_17115617
....high-ranking engineer for Entergy, which owns and operates Vermont Yankee, said that leaks from two pipes were merely a "contributing cause."
Timothy Trask, chief engineer of boiling water reactors for Entergy, said the reason the Root Cause Analysis wasn’t focused on the leaking pipes was because the problem statement was a leak to the environment.
"The concrete barrier in the Advanced Off-Gas pipe tunnel was flawed and had a hole two to three inches in diameter, which allowed the water to leak into the surrounding soil," Trask told the Reformer. "If there was no hole in the concrete tunnel, the tritiated water leaking from the AOG pipes would have flowed into the plant’s drainage system and would have never entered the environment."
He said although the pipes that leaked had not been inspected for at least a decade prior to the leaks being found, an improved inspection program had been put in place.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-12/vermont-regulators-hear-about-nuclear-leaks.html
Trask maintained that the leaking pipes were merely a "contributing cause" of tritium — a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that is a carcinogen when ingested in high amounts — reaching test wells on the Vermont Yankee plant. But he said they were not the most important, or "root cause," of radioactive water reaching the environment. That was a gap in the wall of the concrete underground enclosure where the pipes were located, he said.
Entergy/Vermont Yankee Maintenance Work Manager.
Laurence is a 26 year employee of Vermont Yankee and he was a long time licensed operator.
“Mike, I got 26 years in Vermont Yankee and it doesn’t matter what happens to the plant.” (He is getting a pension)
“We all knew that damn AOG tunnel was leaking for years.”
Real Root Cause(s)
1) The Vermont Yankee knew there was a leaking water anomaly in the AOG tunnel...the AOG piping had a hole in it and higher management prevented them from confronting the problem and fixing it.
2) The AOG tunnel and piping system wasn’t engineered, designed and constructed to contain radioactivity.
3) The safety culture of the plant is impaired because of information inaccuracies and wide spread acceptance of falsifications.
Questions
Was the water leak from the AOG piping larger than the drain hole...?
Request:
1) I request Vermont Yankee to be immediately be shut down and that Entergy be prohibited from owning nuclear power plants... because Entergy doesn’t have the integrity to tell the truth about safety and nuclear power plant issues. Money and profits comes before truth telling and full disclosures.
2) Request an extent of conditions with Entergy providing the NRC with inaccurate information, false and incomplete documents and any falsifications to the NRC. I can give you three other inaccurate and false Entergy documents from three different plants other than VY....LERs.
3) Request the NRC look into if Entergy gave new false testimony to any proceeding with the state of Vermont.
4) Request an OIG investigation concerning recent falsified and incomplete NRC inspections...specifically how come the NRC didn’t nail down in inspection reports the design bases, licensing bases, the UFSAR basis and the engineering characterization of the so called radioactive containment system of the AOG piping.
5) Request a extent of conditions with any falsified and incomplete licensing bases, UFSAR or any plant engineering and plant designs that protect the pubic and environment of the people surrounding Vermont Yankee. Request a extent of conditions with this on any other Entergy nuclear plant and at any other plant in the USA. Does Vermont Yankee need a licensing bases reconstruction program?
6) Request a national formal NRC code and regulations on Root Cause Analyses and the quality of RCA...
7) Request to have a discussion with the top NRC official in charge, or the most knowledgeable, with of Root Cause Analysis before the 2.206 pre hearing.
8) You know their corrective action program are keyed off the RCA or RCE...so their corrective actions program is corrupted and they don’t address why the tritium leak occurred.
9) I request the NRC be prohibited from ever using the term...it is before the ROP overhaul and it is of no concern of the NRC....there is no bases at all for that NRC statement other than it is political and they are just plain lazy.
10) If it come down to a OIG involvement, it should be noted that time is a precious commodity. A shutdown is but a year away at the most, there is now significant state issues with this and it should be a unusually open NRC OIG process...mostly the investigation should be accurate, swift and open.
Sincerely,
Mike Mulligan
Hinsdale, NH 03451
1-603-336-8320
steamshovel2002@yahoo.com
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
2.206: Illegal start-up of VY in 2007
10 CFR 2.206 PETITION for Vermont Yankee
Allegations,
I am requesting a 2.206 on Vermont Yankee. Would you please pass it on?
Mike
Notepad:
NRC reports 1 low-safety issue at VY
HPCI: VY and NRC cult of falsification
The nuclear peanut commission?
June 8, 2008
Executive Director for Operations
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Washington, DC 20555-0001
10 CFR 2.206 PETITION
I request a 2.206 on Vermont Yankee. Vermont Yankee operated their reactor illegally and unsafely coming out of their start-up after a outage from June 6, 2007 until June 12, 2007. With the cost of a shutdown being $750,000 a day times 7 days, I request Vermont Yankee pay a fine of $5,250,000 for operating the reactor illegally and falsifying paperwork submitted to the NRC.
1) SUBJECT: VERMONT YANKEE NUCLEAR POWER STATION - NRC INTEGRATED INSPECTION REPORT 05000271/2007004
(Closed) LER 05000271/2007002-00, High Pressure Coolant Injection System Valve Failed to Open (1 sample)
“On June 8, 2007, with the reactor at 81 percent power, Entergy identified that the HPCI pump injection valve (V23-19) did not open on a manual signal from the control room during a surveillance test. Entergy entered the condition into their corrective action program and a root cause evaluation was performed. Entergy determined that one of the motor operated valve (MOV) contacts (72/C) was in the intermediate position, causing electrical and mechanical interlocks that prevented the open contactor (82/O) from energizing. Entergy identified that the 72/C contacts were pitted and worn, causing the contact surfaces to overheat and weld together. Entergy determined that the PM performed on the valve control circuitry was inadequate, in that it did not contain sufficient guidance on how to determine contact wear and when the contacts should be replaced. The inadequate PM activity constituted a performance deficiency.
This finding is more than minor because it is associated with the Equipment Performance attribute of the Mitigating Systems Cornerstone and affects the cornerstone objective of assuring the availability, reliability, and capability of systems that respond to initiating events to prevent undesirable consequences.
The inspector conducted a Phase 2 SDP analysis, using the following assumptions, and the Risk-Informed Inspection Notebook for Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station, Revision 2: the exposure time was approximately six days and no operator recovery credit provided.”
2) So the NRC says it is a 6 day exposure from 06/06/07 to 06/12/07...but the violation began on 06/05 when the mode switch was place to start-up.
“05/31/07: Electrical Maintenance inspected the HPCI V23-19 valve starter LOCAL-23-19 cubicle. The contactors were noted to be carbonized and pitted. This was an expected condition due to the load on these contacts during MOV operation. The contacts were cleaned and no unusual indications were observed.” ( Vermont Yankee LER 2007-002-01)
1) Vermont Yankee operated with OP-5210, "MCC Inspections" procedure that didn’t meet 10 CFR 50, Appendix B, Criterion V. Having procedures that didn’t meet the intent of 10 CFR 50, Appendix B, Criterion V illegally gave Vermont Yankee non conservative operational flexibility and this involved a lot of money.
2) “This was an expected condition due to the load on these contacts during MOV operation.” This is evidence that Vermont falsified their paperwork and reporting to the NRC.
3) According to “10 CFR 50, Appendix B, Criterion V” on 5/31/07 (shutdown) HPCI wasn’t capable of performing its intended function with such a damaged relay.
On June 5, 2007 at around 2 am Vermont Yankee illegally and contrary to technical specification began starting up the nuclear reactor knowing they had a inoperable HPCI. Correction, on some unknown time on June 5, 2007 Vermont Yankee contrary to technical specification positioned their mode switch to start-up and began commencing a improper reactor start-up.
In and around June 6, 2007, after they made the reactor system’s pressure exceed 150 psig, Vermont Yankee was required within 24 hours to make the HPCI fully operational or be below shutdown. They were required to do HPCI line-ups, a full flow test and valve operation timing. That is how you make HPCI operational. There was indications that V23-19 was not functional on 60/06...dimming lights and other indications. In the last operation of V23-19 on June 6, 2007 a relay was welded shut, thus making HPCI inoperable. It is at this point that Vermont Yankee didn’t meet their 24 hour tech spec requirement of having HPCI operational upon start-up. They should have begun a immediate shutdown according to tech specs.
“06/08/07: Operations attempted to open V23-19 as part of normally scheduled surveillance activities for the HPCI System. V23-19 failed to open on a manually initiated signal from the Control Room.” ( Vermont Yankee LER 2007-002-01)
1) Vermont Yankee and the NRC intentionally misinterpreted V23-19 failure to open event. They illegally thought making HPCI “failure to become operational” on June 6, 2007 and the valve V23-19 failure to open on June 8 were separate events. By making it a separate event they wrongly assumed HPCI met the tech spec requirement of being operational within 24 hours of exceeding 150 psig.
"The contactors were noted to be carbonized and pitted. This was an expected condition due to the load on these contacts during MOV operation. The contacts were cleaned and no unusual indications were observed.” ( Vermont Yankee LER 2007-002-01)
"Prior to implementing the corrective actions developed by the Root Cause Analysis Team, the contactors were inspected at 6 year intervals and replaced when signs of degradation such as pitting were present." ( Vermont Yankee LER 2007-002-01)
1) I don’t get it, the NRC says VY didn’t have appropriate quantitative or qualitative acceptance criteria, but the root cause says they had a criteria of replacing the relays if “degradations such as pitting were present”. Everyone knows in critical safety systems if carbonization and pitting shows up in any relays you don’t repair it or sand paper over it. These guys are all profession trades and higher educated nuclear professional. This isn’t a back yard mechanical oil monkey operation going on. It is a nuclear power plant. You are talking about pennies here compared to the risk of the safety system is not working in a accident and the risk of $750,000 a day risk of a shutdown. You never repair a nuclear grade safety relay. You reinstall it with band new high quality safety grade relay. You call immediately that god dam machine or circuit INOP when you get any pitting. You make the component a “critical path” for reactor start-up...to energize all your staff to come up with a new relay before it starts costing us big bucks. Yet again, how times do we have to hear of the opportunities that Vermont should not have started up that reactor, or once it was operational the broken relay should have caused them to immediately shutdown?
2) The above italicized sentences are prima facie evidence coming from the horse’s mouth that Vermont Yankee had reason to know that they started up that reactor illegally and unsafely. And it is evidence that the NRC accepted VY secretly violating tech specs because they haven’t called VY on the big sin in this event.
Discussion
“Revise procedure OP-5210, "MCC Inspections", to provide criteria for determining contact wear and replacement.
See, everything is about this is perspectives. There is fabricated or designed perspective or point of view...then there is the real story. These guys are so deep into lying they can’t keep tract where they lied in the past. Everything written in these procedures is there for a purpose, or what is legally required to be there and is missing is absolutely intentional. These things are so unbelievably scrutinized. The primary function of these procedures is to provide operational flexibility and to conserve corporate cash. There never is a mistake or incompetence in these procedures because a comma misplacement could cost them many millions of dollars. Incompetently written up procedures or invaluable federal regulatory criteria’s missing from them are a sure sign those procedures are designed to improperly enhance operational flexibility, and god knows how risky that is. So the procedure “MCC Inspections” is a generic procedure defining how all breaker inspections are to occur throughout the plant. They got many 100’s of motor operated valves and they got a breaker for each one...they probably got 1000’s of relays.
“Think about all the issues over degraded contracts over the years at VY....the enormous experience the nuclear industry has with electrical contact problems. Does it seem plausible that they wouldn’t have a written criteria for the relay contact wear and replacement...even as it was required in10 CFR 50, Appendix B, Criterion V? Who would a non disclosed or documented criteria benefit? Can Entergy possibly be this incompetent?
If they had a relay wear inspection criteria on 05/31/07 then the electrician’s would have had to follow the directions of the procedures. They would be held accountable for falsification of documents and not following procedures. If the criteria was in the MCC inspection procedure they would had to call HPCI INOP on 05/31. Once it is written down and a known criteria...the paper trail begins...then they known a cover-up is a impossibility. Can’t start up the plant with HPCI inoperable. So the absence of the relay wear criteria was the intentional tool that allowed VY to look incompetent with not having a relay degradation criteria in their procedure. The “we are so unbelievably stupid defense” was their ticket to start up that reactor unsafely and illegally.
The absence of the criteria was an intentional strategy to give them exactly the operational wiggle room that allowed them to start up the reactor. I’ll bet you the operational testing on V23-19 on 6/01 was because they were nervous with the reliability of the relay. It was designed to give the NRC the assurance of due diligence if it failed immediately upon start-up like it did. The managers could say the “pitting and wear” was normal, we, the so called tested that hand grenade with a pulled pin over and over again, knowing the reactor startup was right around the corner, then illegally start the reactor up on 06/06/07. If Vermont Yankee ran into trouble upon start-up, they knew that relay would be cycled over and over again, the chance of failure was high. They want a phony rationale we certainly tested in enough between 5/31 and start-up. They want to drawl the NRC away from the cover-up of 5/31...give the NRC the flimsiest excuse to overlook the broader cover-up. You see what I an getting at, I think it is a industry wide problem, if you give the NRC the flimsiest excuse or rational they will ignore blatant rule breaking. What kind of parent is that if the NRC accepts any stupid excuse from their children?
The smoking gun would be if on 5/31/07 they went through the paper work process of looking for a repair parts relay for HPCI. Hmm, they might see the limitation of that, gin up a reason to inspect the relay at operation weeks later, then put in the paper work starting the search for a repair part replacement. These guys are all into the knowledge of the meaning of the paperwork trail. They are all aware of the paperwork trail game. You can’t accuse us anything if you can’t prove it.”
I broadly question if the NRC are meeting the community’s needs of maintaining a safe Vermont Yankee organization. The NRC inspector’s on the very next inspection associated the June 6, 2007 start-up with should have fully captured in writing the events in detail of the HPCI in their next inspection report. Both violations should have been uncovered because all the information was there. The first mention of a violation was in Dec 07, then the next one occurred in a upcoming inspection report. This is completely unsatisfactory. It is like a cop giving you a speeding ticket and failure to inspect you vehicle a year after the date when it occurred. I get it, if you got the safety inspection after the violation, entered into you known defective corrective action problem, then the year old car safety inspection never happened, and this new information make it inconsequential. You can’t charge or accuse anyone with anything if it is not written down. Why was the first mention of this in a few paragraphs in December 07 inspection report? How could we be talking about a new violation for a 2007 event, and it be the middle of 2009? Why wasn’t the public immediately notified that there was two violations surrounding this event in the first inspection report opportunity. The not meeting10 CFR 50, Appendix B, Criterion and then not have a appropriate safety evaluation saying that the “carbonized and pitting” relay could meet the full intended function of HPCI in any designed accident. I bet you it would have turned into a sited violation or higher if it was fully disclosed in the first inspection opportunity after early June 07?
There is a whole idea here that the NRC doesn’t capture Vermont Yankee operation events that interest the community in their inspection reports. I have in mind the steam tunnel clean up leak and the cleanup problems where they injected air or resin into the primary system causing the evacuation of the reactor building. The NRC is just not meeting the needs of the community through the ROP and the depth of the inspection reports. I believe if the NRC met the communities needs, this would make the nuclear plants a lot more stronger and safer.
“Imagine you are a licensed operator in Vermont Yankee. Some people know that there are degraded relays in HPCI...but nobody in the control room is allowed to know. If you tell a licensed individual that unreliable relays are in the HPCI he is likely to call that machine INOP on his own. He’d be looking up the wiring diagrams on his own and he would make a independent judgment. You see the incentives from keeping degradation information away from the licensed people?
So an accident occurs with the need of HPIC...the relay slowly fails. The crews gets stuck in diagnosing the completely unknown problem that is really known by everyone. They make a easy human error with over focusing on fixing and operating HPCI when they should be trying to cool the core. They get behind the eight ball and they then overreact. Remember the operation’s department doesn’t know about the degradation...but engineers and executives know about this? Can you see the magnitude of the cover-up when the operator's makes a screw-up?
All bets are off if two known safety degradations show up in a emergency on separate equipment in the same accident. You can’t predict the human interaction and it is highly risky. If they get caught taking a short cuts once (such as carbonized and pitted relays” ...you can depend on this was occurring for 5 years or more and everyone was doing it. You got to know there are a lot of secret component degradation, lots of safety equipment that will break down in the stress of a accident, information is being kept from the license operator. Many off control room engineers and executives know about a lot of secretly degraded safety equipment. This is all below documentations...so nobody is able to keep tract of the magnitude of it.
The more right way of dealing with this( not correct) is notifying all the control room employees of the degradation. Everyone does training on the degradation symptoms...everyone is fully trained on the unreliability of HPCI. So the plant has a accident with the necessity of HPCI, the whole control room is thinking many steps ahead that it is a expected condition when HPCI fails. During the startup of the machine they are fully trained on what symptoms that will show up with a failing relay. That machine blinks or burps they will drop that machine like a ugly women. They already have thought ahead in that it will fail ahead of time. They are prepared to immediately continue on with their emergency procedures. It would just be a inconvenient blip...they would use the rest of the equipment to protect the public.
Right, you don’t have that confusion with a unknown safety system failing and the delay time. Fiddling around with dead, but not known dead machine eats up licensing resources and severely eats up control room intellectual resources.
The problem is once you get the control room licenses involved with accommodating the failing relay...then the cover-up of degraded equipment can’t be maintained. There are all sorts of documents and peoples testimony proving that HPCI wasn’t functional and the plant was knowingly gaming the allowable outage time. That is intentional falsification of the condition of nuclear safety equipment and it is provable in a court.
If you play the very profitable roulette betting game of intentionally not having the expensive repair parts on site...then you should be punished with a very expensive reactor shutdown. If you are not competent with maintaining a nuclear power plant’s repair parts warehouse and inventory ...then you need to be severely punished for the good of everyone. That is the only way you are going enforce the integrity of the warehouse repair parts requirements...that is how you limit the number of lying employees and cover-ups.
If you called one plant on this it, it would never happen again. If you let VY get away with it then everyone else will do the exact same thing....and they will keeping taking chances until there is a huge accident. They will compete to the death.”
You see what I am saying, these control room people are so smart. They all have been trained so much, they all have gone over and over tech spec training so often. They had so many quizes and test questions thrown at them in license school and requal training about the tech spec requirements upon startup ....they know these things in and out. They are seeing these things through a professional eyes and we are seeing it through outsiders eyes.
Imagine you are a young fresh licensed operator up in the control room. Nobody admit these things straight out. You’d seen the NRC inspectors come in and out and they have thoroughly questioned everyone including the shift supervisor. You know everyone is aware of what occur. They started that plant up, and the management with the NRC’s knowledge fiddled with the tech specs and the rules. The pulled their punching in publicly reporting this. Management and the NRC colluded to falsify the whole thing. The young licensed operator would say, really what kind of a risk was this to the public. Especially thinking about it after it was all fixed on 06/13. He would say it was absolutely no risk to the public.
But in the astonishing chilling thought in the back of his mind he’s know management and the NRC were colluding together potentially saving the company millions of dollars. If I catch a safety defect that is going to cost Entergy millions of dollars what chance does my career have to prevail if the NRC and management are in cahoots for the big bucks. They could both lie saying I am a incompetent operator with a mental illness...and I would lose my job over reporting safety defects that crosses the NRC and my company. .
So is this isn’t about the isolated risk of core damage associated with the offending relay...could you get to core damage through our risk studies with a welded relay and HPCI not operational.
Or is it about a completely different accident than the simple assumption. What if the site and the licensed operator’s lived with the idea that the nuclear industry was brutally “unjust” and they thought they faced the fear of being fired for raising legitimate safety concerns. There was only “one” way to talk about conditions in the industry and everyone only talks with the nuclear industry’s single voice. The industry and the NRC held absolute and infinite brutal power over these employees with absolutely no human rights.
How much money is human rights worth? How much salary would you need if they told you your US Constitution would “not” apply while working on corporate property? Would you sell your constitutional rights for $100,000 a year and benefits.
Right, the utility and the NRC are saying our story is the absolute facts....our story can’t be contradicted...truth is disconnected from real reality....your story or evidence will never have any standing in our system.
If that isn’t brutal dehumanization nothing is.
The only remaining questions is, what would have happened if Vermont Yankee asked the NRC’s permission to start up with HPCI inop. What would have happened if they couldn’t make the HPCI operational within 24 hours upon start-up, could they asked the NRC permission to keep running until its fixed?
Sincerely,
Mike Mulligan
PO Box 161
Hinsdale, NH 03451
steamshovel2002@yahoo.com
1-603-336-8320
Allegations,
I am requesting a 2.206 on Vermont Yankee. Would you please pass it on?
Mike
Notepad:
NRC reports 1 low-safety issue at VY
HPCI: VY and NRC cult of falsification
The nuclear peanut commission?
June 8, 2008
Executive Director for Operations
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Washington, DC 20555-0001
10 CFR 2.206 PETITION
I request a 2.206 on Vermont Yankee. Vermont Yankee operated their reactor illegally and unsafely coming out of their start-up after a outage from June 6, 2007 until June 12, 2007. With the cost of a shutdown being $750,000 a day times 7 days, I request Vermont Yankee pay a fine of $5,250,000 for operating the reactor illegally and falsifying paperwork submitted to the NRC.
1) SUBJECT: VERMONT YANKEE NUCLEAR POWER STATION - NRC INTEGRATED INSPECTION REPORT 05000271/2007004
(Closed) LER 05000271/2007002-00, High Pressure Coolant Injection System Valve Failed to Open (1 sample)
“On June 8, 2007, with the reactor at 81 percent power, Entergy identified that the HPCI pump injection valve (V23-19) did not open on a manual signal from the control room during a surveillance test. Entergy entered the condition into their corrective action program and a root cause evaluation was performed. Entergy determined that one of the motor operated valve (MOV) contacts (72/C) was in the intermediate position, causing electrical and mechanical interlocks that prevented the open contactor (82/O) from energizing. Entergy identified that the 72/C contacts were pitted and worn, causing the contact surfaces to overheat and weld together. Entergy determined that the PM performed on the valve control circuitry was inadequate, in that it did not contain sufficient guidance on how to determine contact wear and when the contacts should be replaced. The inadequate PM activity constituted a performance deficiency.
This finding is more than minor because it is associated with the Equipment Performance attribute of the Mitigating Systems Cornerstone and affects the cornerstone objective of assuring the availability, reliability, and capability of systems that respond to initiating events to prevent undesirable consequences.
The inspector conducted a Phase 2 SDP analysis, using the following assumptions, and the Risk-Informed Inspection Notebook for Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station, Revision 2: the exposure time was approximately six days and no operator recovery credit provided.”
2) So the NRC says it is a 6 day exposure from 06/06/07 to 06/12/07...but the violation began on 06/05 when the mode switch was place to start-up.
“05/31/07: Electrical Maintenance inspected the HPCI V23-19 valve starter LOCAL-23-19 cubicle. The contactors were noted to be carbonized and pitted. This was an expected condition due to the load on these contacts during MOV operation. The contacts were cleaned and no unusual indications were observed.” ( Vermont Yankee LER 2007-002-01)
1) Vermont Yankee operated with OP-5210, "MCC Inspections" procedure that didn’t meet 10 CFR 50, Appendix B, Criterion V. Having procedures that didn’t meet the intent of 10 CFR 50, Appendix B, Criterion V illegally gave Vermont Yankee non conservative operational flexibility and this involved a lot of money.
2) “This was an expected condition due to the load on these contacts during MOV operation.” This is evidence that Vermont falsified their paperwork and reporting to the NRC.
3) According to “10 CFR 50, Appendix B, Criterion V” on 5/31/07 (shutdown) HPCI wasn’t capable of performing its intended function with such a damaged relay.
On June 5, 2007 at around 2 am Vermont Yankee illegally and contrary to technical specification began starting up the nuclear reactor knowing they had a inoperable HPCI. Correction, on some unknown time on June 5, 2007 Vermont Yankee contrary to technical specification positioned their mode switch to start-up and began commencing a improper reactor start-up.
In and around June 6, 2007, after they made the reactor system’s pressure exceed 150 psig, Vermont Yankee was required within 24 hours to make the HPCI fully operational or be below shutdown. They were required to do HPCI line-ups, a full flow test and valve operation timing. That is how you make HPCI operational. There was indications that V23-19 was not functional on 60/06...dimming lights and other indications. In the last operation of V23-19 on June 6, 2007 a relay was welded shut, thus making HPCI inoperable. It is at this point that Vermont Yankee didn’t meet their 24 hour tech spec requirement of having HPCI operational upon start-up. They should have begun a immediate shutdown according to tech specs.
“06/08/07: Operations attempted to open V23-19 as part of normally scheduled surveillance activities for the HPCI System. V23-19 failed to open on a manually initiated signal from the Control Room.” ( Vermont Yankee LER 2007-002-01)
1) Vermont Yankee and the NRC intentionally misinterpreted V23-19 failure to open event. They illegally thought making HPCI “failure to become operational” on June 6, 2007 and the valve V23-19 failure to open on June 8 were separate events. By making it a separate event they wrongly assumed HPCI met the tech spec requirement of being operational within 24 hours of exceeding 150 psig.
"The contactors were noted to be carbonized and pitted. This was an expected condition due to the load on these contacts during MOV operation. The contacts were cleaned and no unusual indications were observed.” ( Vermont Yankee LER 2007-002-01)
"Prior to implementing the corrective actions developed by the Root Cause Analysis Team, the contactors were inspected at 6 year intervals and replaced when signs of degradation such as pitting were present." ( Vermont Yankee LER 2007-002-01)
1) I don’t get it, the NRC says VY didn’t have appropriate quantitative or qualitative acceptance criteria, but the root cause says they had a criteria of replacing the relays if “degradations such as pitting were present”. Everyone knows in critical safety systems if carbonization and pitting shows up in any relays you don’t repair it or sand paper over it. These guys are all profession trades and higher educated nuclear professional. This isn’t a back yard mechanical oil monkey operation going on. It is a nuclear power plant. You are talking about pennies here compared to the risk of the safety system is not working in a accident and the risk of $750,000 a day risk of a shutdown. You never repair a nuclear grade safety relay. You reinstall it with band new high quality safety grade relay. You call immediately that god dam machine or circuit INOP when you get any pitting. You make the component a “critical path” for reactor start-up...to energize all your staff to come up with a new relay before it starts costing us big bucks. Yet again, how times do we have to hear of the opportunities that Vermont should not have started up that reactor, or once it was operational the broken relay should have caused them to immediately shutdown?
2) The above italicized sentences are prima facie evidence coming from the horse’s mouth that Vermont Yankee had reason to know that they started up that reactor illegally and unsafely. And it is evidence that the NRC accepted VY secretly violating tech specs because they haven’t called VY on the big sin in this event.
Discussion
“Revise procedure OP-5210, "MCC Inspections", to provide criteria for determining contact wear and replacement.
See, everything is about this is perspectives. There is fabricated or designed perspective or point of view...then there is the real story. These guys are so deep into lying they can’t keep tract where they lied in the past. Everything written in these procedures is there for a purpose, or what is legally required to be there and is missing is absolutely intentional. These things are so unbelievably scrutinized. The primary function of these procedures is to provide operational flexibility and to conserve corporate cash. There never is a mistake or incompetence in these procedures because a comma misplacement could cost them many millions of dollars. Incompetently written up procedures or invaluable federal regulatory criteria’s missing from them are a sure sign those procedures are designed to improperly enhance operational flexibility, and god knows how risky that is. So the procedure “MCC Inspections” is a generic procedure defining how all breaker inspections are to occur throughout the plant. They got many 100’s of motor operated valves and they got a breaker for each one...they probably got 1000’s of relays.
“Think about all the issues over degraded contracts over the years at VY....the enormous experience the nuclear industry has with electrical contact problems. Does it seem plausible that they wouldn’t have a written criteria for the relay contact wear and replacement...even as it was required in10 CFR 50, Appendix B, Criterion V? Who would a non disclosed or documented criteria benefit? Can Entergy possibly be this incompetent?
If they had a relay wear inspection criteria on 05/31/07 then the electrician’s would have had to follow the directions of the procedures. They would be held accountable for falsification of documents and not following procedures. If the criteria was in the MCC inspection procedure they would had to call HPCI INOP on 05/31. Once it is written down and a known criteria...the paper trail begins...then they known a cover-up is a impossibility. Can’t start up the plant with HPCI inoperable. So the absence of the relay wear criteria was the intentional tool that allowed VY to look incompetent with not having a relay degradation criteria in their procedure. The “we are so unbelievably stupid defense” was their ticket to start up that reactor unsafely and illegally.
The absence of the criteria was an intentional strategy to give them exactly the operational wiggle room that allowed them to start up the reactor. I’ll bet you the operational testing on V23-19 on 6/01 was because they were nervous with the reliability of the relay. It was designed to give the NRC the assurance of due diligence if it failed immediately upon start-up like it did. The managers could say the “pitting and wear” was normal, we, the so called tested that hand grenade with a pulled pin over and over again, knowing the reactor startup was right around the corner, then illegally start the reactor up on 06/06/07. If Vermont Yankee ran into trouble upon start-up, they knew that relay would be cycled over and over again, the chance of failure was high. They want a phony rationale we certainly tested in enough between 5/31 and start-up. They want to drawl the NRC away from the cover-up of 5/31...give the NRC the flimsiest excuse to overlook the broader cover-up. You see what I an getting at, I think it is a industry wide problem, if you give the NRC the flimsiest excuse or rational they will ignore blatant rule breaking. What kind of parent is that if the NRC accepts any stupid excuse from their children?
The smoking gun would be if on 5/31/07 they went through the paper work process of looking for a repair parts relay for HPCI. Hmm, they might see the limitation of that, gin up a reason to inspect the relay at operation weeks later, then put in the paper work starting the search for a repair part replacement. These guys are all into the knowledge of the meaning of the paperwork trail. They are all aware of the paperwork trail game. You can’t accuse us anything if you can’t prove it.”
I broadly question if the NRC are meeting the community’s needs of maintaining a safe Vermont Yankee organization. The NRC inspector’s on the very next inspection associated the June 6, 2007 start-up with should have fully captured in writing the events in detail of the HPCI in their next inspection report. Both violations should have been uncovered because all the information was there. The first mention of a violation was in Dec 07, then the next one occurred in a upcoming inspection report. This is completely unsatisfactory. It is like a cop giving you a speeding ticket and failure to inspect you vehicle a year after the date when it occurred. I get it, if you got the safety inspection after the violation, entered into you known defective corrective action problem, then the year old car safety inspection never happened, and this new information make it inconsequential. You can’t charge or accuse anyone with anything if it is not written down. Why was the first mention of this in a few paragraphs in December 07 inspection report? How could we be talking about a new violation for a 2007 event, and it be the middle of 2009? Why wasn’t the public immediately notified that there was two violations surrounding this event in the first inspection report opportunity. The not meeting10 CFR 50, Appendix B, Criterion and then not have a appropriate safety evaluation saying that the “carbonized and pitting” relay could meet the full intended function of HPCI in any designed accident. I bet you it would have turned into a sited violation or higher if it was fully disclosed in the first inspection opportunity after early June 07?
There is a whole idea here that the NRC doesn’t capture Vermont Yankee operation events that interest the community in their inspection reports. I have in mind the steam tunnel clean up leak and the cleanup problems where they injected air or resin into the primary system causing the evacuation of the reactor building. The NRC is just not meeting the needs of the community through the ROP and the depth of the inspection reports. I believe if the NRC met the communities needs, this would make the nuclear plants a lot more stronger and safer.
“Imagine you are a licensed operator in Vermont Yankee. Some people know that there are degraded relays in HPCI...but nobody in the control room is allowed to know. If you tell a licensed individual that unreliable relays are in the HPCI he is likely to call that machine INOP on his own. He’d be looking up the wiring diagrams on his own and he would make a independent judgment. You see the incentives from keeping degradation information away from the licensed people?
So an accident occurs with the need of HPIC...the relay slowly fails. The crews gets stuck in diagnosing the completely unknown problem that is really known by everyone. They make a easy human error with over focusing on fixing and operating HPCI when they should be trying to cool the core. They get behind the eight ball and they then overreact. Remember the operation’s department doesn’t know about the degradation...but engineers and executives know about this? Can you see the magnitude of the cover-up when the operator's makes a screw-up?
All bets are off if two known safety degradations show up in a emergency on separate equipment in the same accident. You can’t predict the human interaction and it is highly risky. If they get caught taking a short cuts once (such as carbonized and pitted relays” ...you can depend on this was occurring for 5 years or more and everyone was doing it. You got to know there are a lot of secret component degradation, lots of safety equipment that will break down in the stress of a accident, information is being kept from the license operator. Many off control room engineers and executives know about a lot of secretly degraded safety equipment. This is all below documentations...so nobody is able to keep tract of the magnitude of it.
The more right way of dealing with this( not correct) is notifying all the control room employees of the degradation. Everyone does training on the degradation symptoms...everyone is fully trained on the unreliability of HPCI. So the plant has a accident with the necessity of HPCI, the whole control room is thinking many steps ahead that it is a expected condition when HPCI fails. During the startup of the machine they are fully trained on what symptoms that will show up with a failing relay. That machine blinks or burps they will drop that machine like a ugly women. They already have thought ahead in that it will fail ahead of time. They are prepared to immediately continue on with their emergency procedures. It would just be a inconvenient blip...they would use the rest of the equipment to protect the public.
Right, you don’t have that confusion with a unknown safety system failing and the delay time. Fiddling around with dead, but not known dead machine eats up licensing resources and severely eats up control room intellectual resources.
The problem is once you get the control room licenses involved with accommodating the failing relay...then the cover-up of degraded equipment can’t be maintained. There are all sorts of documents and peoples testimony proving that HPCI wasn’t functional and the plant was knowingly gaming the allowable outage time. That is intentional falsification of the condition of nuclear safety equipment and it is provable in a court.
If you play the very profitable roulette betting game of intentionally not having the expensive repair parts on site...then you should be punished with a very expensive reactor shutdown. If you are not competent with maintaining a nuclear power plant’s repair parts warehouse and inventory ...then you need to be severely punished for the good of everyone. That is the only way you are going enforce the integrity of the warehouse repair parts requirements...that is how you limit the number of lying employees and cover-ups.
If you called one plant on this it, it would never happen again. If you let VY get away with it then everyone else will do the exact same thing....and they will keeping taking chances until there is a huge accident. They will compete to the death.”
You see what I am saying, these control room people are so smart. They all have been trained so much, they all have gone over and over tech spec training so often. They had so many quizes and test questions thrown at them in license school and requal training about the tech spec requirements upon startup ....they know these things in and out. They are seeing these things through a professional eyes and we are seeing it through outsiders eyes.
Imagine you are a young fresh licensed operator up in the control room. Nobody admit these things straight out. You’d seen the NRC inspectors come in and out and they have thoroughly questioned everyone including the shift supervisor. You know everyone is aware of what occur. They started that plant up, and the management with the NRC’s knowledge fiddled with the tech specs and the rules. The pulled their punching in publicly reporting this. Management and the NRC colluded to falsify the whole thing. The young licensed operator would say, really what kind of a risk was this to the public. Especially thinking about it after it was all fixed on 06/13. He would say it was absolutely no risk to the public.
But in the astonishing chilling thought in the back of his mind he’s know management and the NRC were colluding together potentially saving the company millions of dollars. If I catch a safety defect that is going to cost Entergy millions of dollars what chance does my career have to prevail if the NRC and management are in cahoots for the big bucks. They could both lie saying I am a incompetent operator with a mental illness...and I would lose my job over reporting safety defects that crosses the NRC and my company. .
So is this isn’t about the isolated risk of core damage associated with the offending relay...could you get to core damage through our risk studies with a welded relay and HPCI not operational.
Or is it about a completely different accident than the simple assumption. What if the site and the licensed operator’s lived with the idea that the nuclear industry was brutally “unjust” and they thought they faced the fear of being fired for raising legitimate safety concerns. There was only “one” way to talk about conditions in the industry and everyone only talks with the nuclear industry’s single voice. The industry and the NRC held absolute and infinite brutal power over these employees with absolutely no human rights.
How much money is human rights worth? How much salary would you need if they told you your US Constitution would “not” apply while working on corporate property? Would you sell your constitutional rights for $100,000 a year and benefits.
Right, the utility and the NRC are saying our story is the absolute facts....our story can’t be contradicted...truth is disconnected from real reality....your story or evidence will never have any standing in our system.
If that isn’t brutal dehumanization nothing is.
The only remaining questions is, what would have happened if Vermont Yankee asked the NRC’s permission to start up with HPCI inop. What would have happened if they couldn’t make the HPCI operational within 24 hours upon start-up, could they asked the NRC permission to keep running until its fixed?
Sincerely,
Mike Mulligan
PO Box 161
Hinsdale, NH 03451
steamshovel2002@yahoo.com
1-603-336-8320
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
My Christmas story...David
My Christmas story...David
I worked at a children’s mental institution....maybe around 2001. David had Down’s syndrome. If you ever knew what got him up into that facility...it was horrific and unthinkable? Even with the movies and tv...you can imagine it. I was an untrained group home councilor. I had spent some time being unemployed. My last job I was being a long haul truck driver...what did I know about taking care of the most severely disabled children in New England. I couldn’t get up there unless I had a poor work history. I was sent up there to save David. My friends put me in the worst group home in the facility...they targeted me for this house.
I utterly failed.
I remembered seeing David for the first time. I wasn’t ever exposed to many disabled children like this. He frightened me. His nose and mouth was always leaking. He had a huge tongue......he could hardly keep it in his mouth. I remember that flash of disgust and fight, when I was with David, and new people had seen him for this first time. We took him out to the community often. I worked with him for a little over a year. I fell in love with him...well, a much as you could for a counselor at a mental institution. He didn’t know how to talk and sign. He could laugh really well.
I arrive at the group home, early one Saturday morning at 7am...I am getting ready to put in 12 hours of work. About an hour later, I go into David’s room to wake him up.
I walk through a drab, bleak and colorless living room....all the furniture and rugs are extremely old on the way to his room You can tell when you are in a institution with the rooms being ail gray and drab...they are all of the same. After the living room, there is a long hall in front of me...there are three doors on each side. David’s door is the last door on the left. We put him there because he can be rambunctious at times.
I enter his room. His room has grey or light blues colorless walls...there are stains on his walls. It’s got one bed on the far end, one dresser...and absolutely nothing else in the room....well, a closet. He got no pictures on the wall. It is not like my colorful son’s room. David is still sleeping. I open up his window curtains...it’s a beautiful NH winter day and the sky is so blue outside. I call his name nicely.....”David, David”. He stirs awake. He sits up in his bed...he grunts a kind of “hi how are you”. I say “good morning David...how are you”? “It’s a beautiful day outside.”
David and I generally have a blast getting dressed. I would hand him his pants after I get them from the dresser...he was suppose to put them on by himself. He then would fling the pants over my head. He’d do the same with his shirt and socks. He got such a kick out of defying me. He’s run around me laughing...I would say “David”...and he would get me laughing. I might have to chase him and his pants a few times depending on how he felt. He would eventually dress himself. I really enjoyed playing with David.
You never could laugh quietly with David...it was impossible...it was always full and hearty laughing with both of us. Laughing in a bleak mental institution is such a unique and powerful experience. You are laughing at the suffering and death all around you....parentless children mostly. You are laughing at the private, state and federal bureaucracy who set this up. Indeed you are laughing at the indifferent good people of the USA.
So David gave a series of grunts as he was waking up. He recognized who I was and smiled at me. He didn’t jump out of the bed with me gleefully chasing him around the room. I quickly recognized that something was up with him. I sat down on floor trying to signal to him that we could be still for awhile...trying to figure out what was wrong with him. Is he sick...how do you figure out if a child is sick, who can’t talk to you? He is so quiet and pensive. I am not worried about him being sick I feel yet.
I catch his eyes looking at my face, he broadly smiles at me. His head quickly turns away as we make eye contact. It’s a strange smile...it’s a focused smile. This is not like him. He looks at my face again; he has a big wide smile, a quiet smile....not a rambunctious laugh. We have eye contact for a moment, then he turns his head down. I watch his head return to my eyes. He’s got a big wide grin on, holds it for a few seconds...then his face gets serious. His head turns down to his chest. He looks me in my eyes again. He got a painted-on smile on; it is still big and wide then his lips flash into being serious. His head returns to his chest. He does the whole thing again, with a little less of a smile, and his lips are beginning to turn down.
I am confused ...I don’t know what is going on. Then I see his watering eyes and a tear is running down his cheek. The smile completely disappears...but he keeps turning his head to me, then away. He is quietly crying in front of me, returns into his chest, then looks me in the eyes with many tears. Many tears, quietly sobbing... over and over again. I have no idea what is going on...I’ve never seen this.
You have to steel yourself working in a children’s’ institution as this. There are a few laughs, many temper tantrums and outburst...lots of angry children at times....and you call the nurses often. I save my crying for my car when I am driving home. It was such an extraordinary difficult experience...nothing can prepare for it. There was all kinds of children with many different disabilities...and some children were sent there to die. It was a facility for the severely sick and disabled children.
But David is crying in front of me this morning. It’s dawning on me that he is tenderly crying to me...I don’t know what’s wrong with him. How can I fix this I think...Is he sick enough to call the nurse? Then I start tearing and burst out crying, right out of nowhere. It’s way beyond me control...”what is wrong with him”? “How can I fix it?” I have no way with knowing what’s wrong with him. I tearing and crying a lot now...I continue thinking, “what’s wrong with him”. How am I going find out what wrong with him. It dawns on me, that I am not going to find out what’s wrong with him. I cry and sob with him a lot more. I am at a lost with what to do. I am thinking about this horrendous system in front of us and we all are so powerless. It’s a moments like this that time stands still.
I collect myself together a little. I call the nurse into the house, I tell her with unhinged red eyes, David is crying and I don’t know what is wrong with him. Oh, she says, are you OK? She finds nothing wrong with him.
About two weeks later, in the morning, we find David dead in his bed. He died from a blood clot in his heart.
I still don’t know why David was crying...nobody knows why he was crying. It’s not like him.
Please help me figure this out...Do you know why David was crying?
This occurred in and around 2001. Everyone wants to forget about this kid. He is long forgotten....nobody remembers him.
I worked at a children’s mental institution....maybe around 2001. David had Down’s syndrome. If you ever knew what got him up into that facility...it was horrific and unthinkable? Even with the movies and tv...you can imagine it. I was an untrained group home councilor. I had spent some time being unemployed. My last job I was being a long haul truck driver...what did I know about taking care of the most severely disabled children in New England. I couldn’t get up there unless I had a poor work history. I was sent up there to save David. My friends put me in the worst group home in the facility...they targeted me for this house.
I utterly failed.
I remembered seeing David for the first time. I wasn’t ever exposed to many disabled children like this. He frightened me. His nose and mouth was always leaking. He had a huge tongue......he could hardly keep it in his mouth. I remember that flash of disgust and fight, when I was with David, and new people had seen him for this first time. We took him out to the community often. I worked with him for a little over a year. I fell in love with him...well, a much as you could for a counselor at a mental institution. He didn’t know how to talk and sign. He could laugh really well.
I arrive at the group home, early one Saturday morning at 7am...I am getting ready to put in 12 hours of work. About an hour later, I go into David’s room to wake him up.
I walk through a drab, bleak and colorless living room....all the furniture and rugs are extremely old on the way to his room You can tell when you are in a institution with the rooms being ail gray and drab...they are all of the same. After the living room, there is a long hall in front of me...there are three doors on each side. David’s door is the last door on the left. We put him there because he can be rambunctious at times.
I enter his room. His room has grey or light blues colorless walls...there are stains on his walls. It’s got one bed on the far end, one dresser...and absolutely nothing else in the room....well, a closet. He got no pictures on the wall. It is not like my colorful son’s room. David is still sleeping. I open up his window curtains...it’s a beautiful NH winter day and the sky is so blue outside. I call his name nicely.....”David, David”. He stirs awake. He sits up in his bed...he grunts a kind of “hi how are you”. I say “good morning David...how are you”? “It’s a beautiful day outside.”
David and I generally have a blast getting dressed. I would hand him his pants after I get them from the dresser...he was suppose to put them on by himself. He then would fling the pants over my head. He’d do the same with his shirt and socks. He got such a kick out of defying me. He’s run around me laughing...I would say “David”...and he would get me laughing. I might have to chase him and his pants a few times depending on how he felt. He would eventually dress himself. I really enjoyed playing with David.
You never could laugh quietly with David...it was impossible...it was always full and hearty laughing with both of us. Laughing in a bleak mental institution is such a unique and powerful experience. You are laughing at the suffering and death all around you....parentless children mostly. You are laughing at the private, state and federal bureaucracy who set this up. Indeed you are laughing at the indifferent good people of the USA.
So David gave a series of grunts as he was waking up. He recognized who I was and smiled at me. He didn’t jump out of the bed with me gleefully chasing him around the room. I quickly recognized that something was up with him. I sat down on floor trying to signal to him that we could be still for awhile...trying to figure out what was wrong with him. Is he sick...how do you figure out if a child is sick, who can’t talk to you? He is so quiet and pensive. I am not worried about him being sick I feel yet.
I catch his eyes looking at my face, he broadly smiles at me. His head quickly turns away as we make eye contact. It’s a strange smile...it’s a focused smile. This is not like him. He looks at my face again; he has a big wide smile, a quiet smile....not a rambunctious laugh. We have eye contact for a moment, then he turns his head down. I watch his head return to my eyes. He’s got a big wide grin on, holds it for a few seconds...then his face gets serious. His head turns down to his chest. He looks me in my eyes again. He got a painted-on smile on; it is still big and wide then his lips flash into being serious. His head returns to his chest. He does the whole thing again, with a little less of a smile, and his lips are beginning to turn down.
I am confused ...I don’t know what is going on. Then I see his watering eyes and a tear is running down his cheek. The smile completely disappears...but he keeps turning his head to me, then away. He is quietly crying in front of me, returns into his chest, then looks me in the eyes with many tears. Many tears, quietly sobbing... over and over again. I have no idea what is going on...I’ve never seen this.
You have to steel yourself working in a children’s’ institution as this. There are a few laughs, many temper tantrums and outburst...lots of angry children at times....and you call the nurses often. I save my crying for my car when I am driving home. It was such an extraordinary difficult experience...nothing can prepare for it. There was all kinds of children with many different disabilities...and some children were sent there to die. It was a facility for the severely sick and disabled children.
But David is crying in front of me this morning. It’s dawning on me that he is tenderly crying to me...I don’t know what’s wrong with him. How can I fix this I think...Is he sick enough to call the nurse? Then I start tearing and burst out crying, right out of nowhere. It’s way beyond me control...”what is wrong with him”? “How can I fix it?” I have no way with knowing what’s wrong with him. I tearing and crying a lot now...I continue thinking, “what’s wrong with him”. How am I going find out what wrong with him. It dawns on me, that I am not going to find out what’s wrong with him. I cry and sob with him a lot more. I am at a lost with what to do. I am thinking about this horrendous system in front of us and we all are so powerless. It’s a moments like this that time stands still.
I collect myself together a little. I call the nurse into the house, I tell her with unhinged red eyes, David is crying and I don’t know what is wrong with him. Oh, she says, are you OK? She finds nothing wrong with him.
About two weeks later, in the morning, we find David dead in his bed. He died from a blood clot in his heart.
I still don’t know why David was crying...nobody knows why he was crying. It’s not like him.
Please help me figure this out...Do you know why David was crying?
This occurred in and around 2001. Everyone wants to forget about this kid. He is long forgotten....nobody remembers him.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Investigation into pipe welds from Newport News yard widened
Updated 12/19@5pm
I guest the question is...why couldn’t it be sabotage of some type?
Are there any difference between using the fillers...like could there be an advantage of some type with copper-nickel filler...is it easier to weld or quicker.
Was there a shortage of the stainless steal filler or was it more expensive...thus you gain some type of advantage...was there a production problem with the stainless steel filler?
http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-now-northgrum.1219,0,7482497.story
Navy probe of weld problems expands
By PETER FROST
757-247-4744
3:28 PM EST, December 19, 2007
NEWPORT NEWS
All vessels constructed or serviced by Northrop Grumman Newport News since 2000 will be included as part of an ongoing probe of welding errors on submarines and aircraft carriers, the U.S. Navy said Wednesday.The Navy will complete an initial assessment of critical welds on all interior, non-nuclear pipes in at least 17 vessels affected later this month. The investigation also will be expanded to include other surface ships that have been serviced by the yard in the past seven-plus years. Included in the investigation are at least seven aircraft carriers, six Virginia-class submarines, three Los Angeles-class subs and a Navy cruiser.
Notice, they don’t tell what systems are involved...like any of the seawater systems?
Investigation into pipe welds from Newport News yard widened
NEWPORT NEWS
An investigation of faulty pipe welds on Virginia-class submarines assembled at Northrop Grumman Newport News has been broadened to include aircraft carriers and another class of submarines.
The assessment will cover non-nuclear piping systems on carriers and subs repaired and built by shipyard workers in recent years, shipyard and Navy officials said Monday.
The first indication of a problem came in August, when a piping weld failed during routine testing of the New Hampshire, now under construction in Groton, Conn., at General Dynamics Electric Boat, which is teamed with Northrop Grumman to assemble the subs. When a second weld failed in October, Navy officials launched an investigation.
Since then, the Navy has found at least one faulty or suspect weld on three additional Virginia-class submarines - the Virginia, the Texas and the New Mexico. No welds have failed on the three subs now in service, including the first-in-class Virginia.
I guest the question is...why couldn’t it be sabotage of some type?
Are there any difference between using the fillers...like could there be an advantage of some type with copper-nickel filler...is it easier to weld or quicker.
Was there a shortage of the stainless steal filler or was it more expensive...thus you gain some type of advantage...was there a production problem with the stainless steel filler?
http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-now-northgrum.1219,0,7482497.story
Navy probe of weld problems expands
By PETER FROST
757-247-4744
3:28 PM EST, December 19, 2007
NEWPORT NEWS
All vessels constructed or serviced by Northrop Grumman Newport News since 2000 will be included as part of an ongoing probe of welding errors on submarines and aircraft carriers, the U.S. Navy said Wednesday.The Navy will complete an initial assessment of critical welds on all interior, non-nuclear pipes in at least 17 vessels affected later this month. The investigation also will be expanded to include other surface ships that have been serviced by the yard in the past seven-plus years. Included in the investigation are at least seven aircraft carriers, six Virginia-class submarines, three Los Angeles-class subs and a Navy cruiser.
Notice, they don’t tell what systems are involved...like any of the seawater systems?
Investigation into pipe welds from Newport News yard widened
NEWPORT NEWS
An investigation of faulty pipe welds on Virginia-class submarines assembled at Northrop Grumman Newport News has been broadened to include aircraft carriers and another class of submarines.
The assessment will cover non-nuclear piping systems on carriers and subs repaired and built by shipyard workers in recent years, shipyard and Navy officials said Monday.
The first indication of a problem came in August, when a piping weld failed during routine testing of the New Hampshire, now under construction in Groton, Conn., at General Dynamics Electric Boat, which is teamed with Northrop Grumman to assemble the subs. When a second weld failed in October, Navy officials launched an investigation.
Since then, the Navy has found at least one faulty or suspect weld on three additional Virginia-class submarines - the Virginia, the Texas and the New Mexico. No welds have failed on the three subs now in service, including the first-in-class Virginia.
Friday, December 14, 2007
It’s the tip of the iceberg...it’s in the navy itself!
It’s the tip of the iceberg...it’s in the navy itself!
One must remember with the Thresher and Scorpion...the theory is nuclear piping took them out>
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/12/navy_faulty_shipwelds_071214w/
Faulty sub welds spur inspection of 4 carriers, 3 more subs
By Andrew Scutro - Staff writerPosted : Friday Dec 14, 2007 13:51:18 EST
NORFOLK, Va. — Shipyard workers are inspecting the welds of seven more Navy ships — including four aircraft carriers — after faulty welds were discovered on new Virginia-class submarines built at Northrop Grumman Newport News, according to a company spokeswoman.
The carriers George H.W. Bush, Carl Vinson, Enterprise and George Washington, along with Los Angeles-class attack submarines Oklahoma City, Newport News and Toledo, are being assessed for faulty welds similar to those discovered on the Virginia-class submarines built in part at Newport News, spokeswoman Jennifer Dellapenta wrote in an e-mail response to questions from Navy Times.
But how many total ships will be evaluated “has not yet been determined,” she wrote.
The carrier Bush is under construction at Newport News, Vinson is undergoing a refueling and overhaul at the shipyard, George Washington is in port, and the Enterprise is scheduled to return to Hampton Roads later this month from its deployment to the Middle East.......
One must remember with the Thresher and Scorpion...the theory is nuclear piping took them out>
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/12/navy_faulty_shipwelds_071214w/
Faulty sub welds spur inspection of 4 carriers, 3 more subs
By Andrew Scutro - Staff writerPosted : Friday Dec 14, 2007 13:51:18 EST
NORFOLK, Va. — Shipyard workers are inspecting the welds of seven more Navy ships — including four aircraft carriers — after faulty welds were discovered on new Virginia-class submarines built at Northrop Grumman Newport News, according to a company spokeswoman.
The carriers George H.W. Bush, Carl Vinson, Enterprise and George Washington, along with Los Angeles-class attack submarines Oklahoma City, Newport News and Toledo, are being assessed for faulty welds similar to those discovered on the Virginia-class submarines built in part at Newport News, spokeswoman Jennifer Dellapenta wrote in an e-mail response to questions from Navy Times.
But how many total ships will be evaluated “has not yet been determined,” she wrote.
The carrier Bush is under construction at Newport News, Vinson is undergoing a refueling and overhaul at the shipyard, George Washington is in port, and the Enterprise is scheduled to return to Hampton Roads later this month from its deployment to the Middle East.......
Monday, December 10, 2007
USS Scorpion 589…It’s 1968 again.
USS Scorpion 589…It’s 1968 again.
I am just saying there is a huge ethical problem in our fleet of submarines and within our ship Yards. It is effecting our war fighting stance and is threatening a loss of another submarine such as the Scorpion.
It’s a giant breakdown in ethics based on a rationalization with cost. This process of cost, profits and quality…it training all the players to distort and lie.
Reminds me of the end of Rickover at EB!
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/12/ap_virginiaclass_071210/
Weld problems found on Virginia-class subs
The Associated PressPosted : Monday Dec 10, 2007 18:36:56 EST
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Northrop Grumman’s Newport News shipyard and the Navy are inspecting welds on all Virginia-class submarines after finding problems with welds in those vessels.
Katie Dunnigan, a spokeswoman for Naval Sea Systems Command, said Monday that the Navy, Northrop Grumman and its shipbuilding partner, General Dynamics Electric Boat, started assessing completed welds through record reviews, additional inspections and testing.
The assessment is thought to have delayed the sea trials and delivery of the North Carolina, which Northrop Grumman planned to hand over to the Navy at the end of the month.
A shipyard spokeswoman said last week that delivery has been pushed
I am just saying there is a huge ethical problem in our fleet of submarines and within our ship Yards. It is effecting our war fighting stance and is threatening a loss of another submarine such as the Scorpion.
It’s a giant breakdown in ethics based on a rationalization with cost. This process of cost, profits and quality…it training all the players to distort and lie.
Reminds me of the end of Rickover at EB!
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/12/ap_virginiaclass_071210/
Weld problems found on Virginia-class subs
The Associated PressPosted : Monday Dec 10, 2007 18:36:56 EST
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Northrop Grumman’s Newport News shipyard and the Navy are inspecting welds on all Virginia-class submarines after finding problems with welds in those vessels.
Katie Dunnigan, a spokeswoman for Naval Sea Systems Command, said Monday that the Navy, Northrop Grumman and its shipbuilding partner, General Dynamics Electric Boat, started assessing completed welds through record reviews, additional inspections and testing.
The assessment is thought to have delayed the sea trials and delivery of the North Carolina, which Northrop Grumman planned to hand over to the Navy at the end of the month.
A shipyard spokeswoman said last week that delivery has been pushed
Thursday, December 06, 2007
A little more works in progress?
At the top of this house of cards, it is inescapable…it is the object failure of the democrats. Generally they are “no nukes”…this disconnects them from having any effective influence in the nuclear industry. No wonder the nuclear establishment has been backed into the conservative republican corner. No nukes means no influence to effect the levels of safety in these nuclear plants…all you have is the power to shut down a plant and withdrawal income from the communities.
I feel sorry for the nuclear industry...in that they don’t have any effective advocator on the democrat’s side. There is just no way to inject the democrat’s ethics of transparency, truthfulness and safety into the nuclear industry under the current system. The nuclear industry is trapped into leaning on the right. We gave them no choice. So I would say the framework of the nuclear industry is just a much a fault of the democrats as the republican’s, because they defaulted into letting the republicans politically manage the industry.
It sure looks to me the nuclear industry has morphed into something bigger than providing electricity to the public. Is it political welfare, or corporate welfare, or voter welfare rewards system? It seems to me it is a white and rich old man’s hobby….rebuilding the 1957 Chevy….are they trying to recapture their youth. I mean the south has been benefited by the renaissance more than any other region. Are they getting rewarded with nuclear candy as the means of voting for the republicans? It certainly will be a huge short term burst of economic activity with 400,000 new jobs and 30 billion dollars a year…what will it turn out long term? If it is a political rewards system…does that ask if it is in the public good, will it be managed for the public good …and will it be built in the public good? If it is a political rewards. Will it be built and maintained under political campaign contribution plastic engineering standards or though public needs and safety standards. You see how slippery this becomes?
I don’t think the infrastructure of the nuclear renaissance is based on democratic principles…its base on a limited regional effort and on one political party. How come there is no new nuclear plant’s proposed on the west coast? Nuclear power started off in the wide open years with the Camelot years of Kennedy and the great society of Lyndon Johnson….it was a broad based accepted by most of society. One should notice the troubles showed up in the Nixon/Ford years…I don’t think you can call the ineffectual Carter years as a true democrat, their inapt handling with overseeing the nuclear industry until 1979 …then we had the near death experience of the nuclear industry in the Reagan years. Don’t forget the Davis Besse had its first near meltdown in 1985, with the accident associated with cost cutting after new plant construction. Of course Davis Besse hole in the head came deep within the Bush years of 2002.
There are enormous differences with the base of political approval and public support between the early nuclear years and the renaissance years of today. It initially came through a broad based democratic administration…it was initiated from the democrats. I think it diverted to some kind cult of belief…almost un-American…in that they think they need to hide behind a shield of un-transparency.
It interesting thinking about the competence of the politician’s with overseeing a nuclear plant or the industry. Does the public of the surrounding communities need to be competent, sophisticated and cosmopolitan…do they need to know how to interact at an early stage with a declining plant? The communities and politician’s are critical with keeping the nuclear industry healthy and strong. The politician’s have the power to observe the goings on of a plant…and they can interview at an early point. In many ways they are more powerful than the federal regulator. If need be, they can drag the public into troubles of a declining plant through a host of governmental tools…and clear out the dysfunction at a incipient level.
Take a look at NRC chairmen Klein’s last 10 speeches…what organization he gave the speeches to. Is he a regulator who represents the full American public…or is he a regulator who represents the extreme pro nuclear segment of our society? How come he is not giving a speech to the opposite of Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness “Teller Lecture, INPO, the Baker Center or the American Nuclear Society. He giving speeches to the nuclear professional seminars and the extreme pronuclear groups…does this population represent our full community? How come he is not giving lectures to the flip side of “Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness’, INPO or the NEI…talking to the choir. Why doesn’t he have the courage to go into the lions’ den of their adversaries …or at least a group who is at neutral? How come he is not talking to the American public about the renaissance… to organizations that more represent the public? Does he need that amount of protection from the public? Fundamentally, he targets the content of his speech for the particular organization. Would the content of his speech change if he spoke to the selectmen or town counsel meetings of say of Hinsdale, Brattleboro or Keene around Vermont Yankee? I have real issues with content of his recent speeches…it verges distortion and lying.
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/commission/speeches/2007/s-07-051.html
“The Right Way: Steering a Course for the Future of Safe Nuclear Power”
Remarks Prepared for NRC Chairman Dale E. KleinCenter for Strategic & International StudiesNovember 28, 2007Washington, DC
Excerps:
…“The Right Way: Steering a Course for the Future of Safe Nuclear Power”
The ‘Right Way” speaks to the well known insider euphemism or code word…with saying Nuclear power will only be safe if the extreme conservative right wing republican control the political machinery of our country and the nuclear industry in general. Right, Klein is a President Bush ideologue…is he playing ideological word games like Bush!
….”Now, I would like to be clear up front that while I am happy to talk about nuclear energy—which is a subject I know something about—I am not here to “make the case for nuclear.” As a regulator, I am not an advocate for or against commercial nuclear power. My job is to ensure the safety and security of U.S. nuclear power plants and materials.”
The NRC officials’ say this all the time…but is that truthful? Who he gives speeches for tells us exactly that he is advocating for the nuclear industry. I can’t believe his lack of integrity with saying this statement with “I am not an advocator for”. All of his professional life is about advocating for nuclear power, and the organization he chooses to give recent speeches to indicate this federal regulator is advocating for the renaissance. It interesting thinking about the 1960’s and 1970’s…would we had a more healthy nuclear industry if the NRC said they were getting overwhelmed with construction problems…where they put a stop work order on a percentage of the new construction…until the NRC and utility resources matched the amount of construction work. Would Klein have the independence to put a stop work order on the renaissance? That’s why I worry about his integrity…with his word games of “I am not an advocate for or against commercial nuclear power” because it’s fundamentally not true and everyone knows it is the elite wink, wink game of telling half truths. It’s interesting thinking about where he learned this game from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Teller
Many of Teller's colleagues were irritated that he seemed to enjoy taking full credit for something he had only a part in, and in response, with encouragement from Enrico Fermi, Teller authored an article titled "The Work of Many People," which appeared in Science magazine in February 1955, emphasizing that he was not alone in the weapon's development. He would later write in his memoirs that he had told a "white lie" in the 1955 article in order to "soothe ruffled feelings", and claimed full credit for the invention.
…”You have already heard Marv Fertel from NEI and some of the other speakers’…”
I bet you she is an extreme right wing republican ideologue…with most of the big player in the organization as being male and white. You got to know within the NEI, all the player got to be an extreme republican right wing ideologue organization. So where is the equivalent on the democrat’s side of the NEIS’ Mary Fertel in Klein’s speech?
…”As you may know, that first construction boom ground to halt during the “stagflation” of the late 1970s, when the predicted demand for energy consumption leveled off.”
These regulators never want to talk about what role the utilities, nuclear construction firm and architects played in the fiasco of the 1970’s. Stagflation is but a sick rationalization…did the organization of stagflation build and mange the nuclear industry. This is all about the decision of humans to bring on a quality plant and to manage the construction of nuclear plants on a national scale. People choose to do the right think….thy don’t get conned by stagflation or by the politicians…they choose to do it the right. This stagflation rationalization, you got to figure Klein doesn’t what to anger his audience…is typical with a ideologue’s attempts to distract the dumb public away from the factors that caused our greatest technological failure of the nuclear plant national implementation. You don’t see Klein making a speech about the magnitude of the faults in construction of nuclear plant’s the 1970’s and 1980’s as in:
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/gen-comm/info-notices/2007/in200704.pdf
NRC INFORMATION NOTICE 2007-04: CONSTRUCTION EXPERIENCE RELATED TO THE ASSURANCE OF QUALITY IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF NUCLEAR FACILITIES
I don’t see stagflation mentioned in the IN or the Finnish safety report. Should we have a updated report on what went wrong with the industry in the 1960’s, 1970, and 1980’s..with Klein giving a speech on that.
…”In addition, the NRC had only recently been created, and—frankly—was not a very efficient or predictable regulator, in my view. And the only problem people had with “carbon” was that the stuff rubbed off on your fingers when you made “carbon copies” in the typewriter. The prospects for nuclear power did not appear bright. Today, of course, the situation is very different.”
What does the euphemism or code word mean of a “predictable regulator”? A “predictable regulator” is absolutely a right wing ideological tool of hating and then destroying government oversight across many economic sectors other than nuclear power. It about the selfish interest of, I have the power and let me do what I please…and not at all within the interest of our country and public interest. I could make a case that the interest with operating and constructing nuclear power plant’s…thought it was in their interest with throttling influence and resources to the developing nuclear regulators. They through that having a blinded and ineffectually nuclear regulator were in their self interest. The question is…who make the regulators unpredictable, surely not the American public…it had to come from political pressures to neuter the regulators. We should be thinking of that in the future!
…”The NRC needs to be a fair, consistent, and predictable regulator; not a roadblock. But we must also ensure that any nuclear expansion proceeds at a sustainable pace, so that safety and security concerns are adequately addressed at all times. Our standards are objectivity and sound science.”
Basically most of the above are nothing but political code words. What does being ‘fair” mean…does that mean to interpret bulky worded rules according to just some sentence structure? Fair to who, monies interest, or interest to the community and the long term interest of nuclear power? “Consistence and predictable” regulator are republican political code words, such as making the regulator follow the republican regulatory rules of non involvement even if a utility incorrectly constructs a nuclear plant through their negligence…back fit rule. You got to follow the rules of regulatory non involvement…event if they don’t make the utility fix their construction problems.
Edward Teller discussing the problem of Oppenheimer: If it is a question of wisdom and judgment, as demonstrated by actions since 1945, then I would say one would be wiser not to grant clearance.
What does being objective mean for the nuclear industry and NRC? Teller isn’t objective and evidence based here?
“Objectivity” is another codeword… of the Three Wise monkeys http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_wise_monkeys “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil". Where as example, even if you got your hands over you eyes…the kind of objectivity they speak, you must perceive a problem through your eyes and you must exactly interpret our impossible rules…in order to force a utility to fix an incipient problem that’s going to cost them money. In other words, you never gather the visual objective evidence that is necessity to take action…you have to have accident…because they forced you to cover your eyes, you need to see the visual evidence because of their rules of objective and absolute sterol logic, according to their crazy system of being republican. I am just saying objectivity become a very high hurdle…you need to prove a plant is unsafe instead of being able to prove a safety barrier has a unproven level of uncertainty. They spend tons of money on reducing the margin of safety on a barrier so that a company can make profits…while not spending a equivalent amount of money on testing for uncertainty. Another one is, the industry won’t fund an equivalent oppositional force to the special interest of the NEI or INPO…so the utilities and our political system see’s the full complexity of a nuclear problem…instead of seeing a self serving incomplete side of a problem that favors campaign contributions.
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/commission/speeches/2007/s-07-052.html
Remarks Prepared for NRC Chairman Dale E. Klein
Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness “Teller Lecture”
November 29, 2007
Augusta, GA
The fast are, that Edward Teller is a right wing pronuclear extremist…he sits way outside the middle of America on nuclear safety. So why isn’t Klein giving a speech in the main office of Green Peace, the UCS or the New England Coalition? How about the radical idea of speaking at a local selectman’s meeting or state governmental function. Where is the balance, Klein speaks of being balance…but his action speaks toward the extreme right wing pronuclear types. Is he a federal regulatory for the extreme right wing pro nuclear types…or is he a federal regulator speaking for all segments of the American public.
…”It is an honor to be here—and follow in the footsteps of such eminent figures as Howard Baker, Pete Domenici, and Edward Teller himself—to deliver the annual Teller lecture before this distinguished audience.”
Has Klein ever spoken in the terms of “followed the footsteps of such eminent figures” with any democrats or other political party members in his term of being a NRC commissioner? We know that Domenici and Teller can be looked at as being a pro republican nuclear extremist…with Baker being somewhat more moderate. Where is he sending signals that his agency is politically balanced? Where is he constantly telling the extreme left wing and right wing that our agency is going to be politically balanced…he talks about it in his speeches, and talk is cheep. Where is he actually demonstrating that his agency is going to be politically balance…that he respects our system of multi political party’s?
…“My focus is the safety and security of nuclear facilities and materials. But in that capacity, I do have interest in seeing that the general public has a fair, informed, and balanced understanding of radiological and nuclear issues. That was also a lifelong concern of Dr. Teller’s.”
You just get the idea that Klein is talking on two levels with his speeches, one to the extreme pro nuclear advocates, and then with mindless platitudes to the American public. You get that idea with his “perception is reality”…if you gives an incomplete and pleasing platitude about a organization or person’s beliefs…the public will just internalize it without the facts. What about Teller’s troubles with Oppenheimer, and his idea of digging a harbor with a hydrogen bomb or withdraw Petroleum of the oil sands of Alberta with another hydrogen bomb. All of this was unsafe and threaten our domestic nuclear industry at its heart. Does Klein think Teller would have made a good NRC commissioner chairman? I get the feeling working under Teller…the little guys wouldn’t be listened to and there would be no fundamental human rights with nuclear plant employees to report nuclear problems.
…”After the Three Mile Island accident there were a lot of popular misconceptions about what had happened, and the degree to which public health and safety were or were not jeopardized. But Teller used to say that the only casualty from Three Mile Island was himself; because he had a heart attack—which he survived—from criss-crossing the country explaining to people what had really happened! So I think Dr. Teller would appreciate that there seems to have been a real shift in public opinion, and a better understanding of these issues.”
Again, this whole paragraph is an extreme Republican code word or phrase. I mean, Klein is giving the extremist the misimpression that TMI is all about a giant popular misconception. Is he saying the public has a better understanding of these issues because TMI is now all about a lot of population misconception about what happened? What about the lessens learned coming from TMI, Davis Besse 1 and 2. How come we have to keep relearning over and over again from the lesson’s of the past. Believe me, they are pertinent today… How come Klein and his boys are reinterpreting history in a shiny new shell of irresponsibility?
How come Teller didn’t use his vast influence to get a more complete vision of what is going on in the nuclear industry and AEC pre TMI? How come he didn’t propose vast changes in the industry before the accident…risk his status and influence…put his face into the media…in order to correct the well known dysfunction in the industry? Why do these guys always come around after the accident…they always tell us the accident was all about our misconceptions and minimize the corrective action of the lessen learned. How come we spend enormous sums on money, much like this guy Teller…with realms of after accident investigation and corrective actions…and nobody has the courage to get their feet wet in the uncertainty of a pre accident organizational accident. Does everyone understand…you throw these big after accident investigation at the public…you talk it up all the dysfunction discovered in the investigation…and this is all designed to divert your attention to the clear signals that the system ignored before the accident happened. I mean you talk about that a flat tire that caused the accident….but nobody ever admits that you knew that you were riding on unstable tires and the accident could clearly be seen in your minds eyes…everyone eyes…but you knowly choose to accept this risk. I mean you talk about discovering the flat tire that cause the car crash…but nobody has the courage to admit what they knew in their minds before the accident.
It’s the Edward Teller effect…you only advocated for nuclear power in the shadow of an after a nuclear catastrophe, when you can make money and gain influence from the pro nuclear extremist with minimizing the known factors that set up the accident. You never consume your status, money and influence, in the uncertainty of the factors before the accident in trying to interrupt a known coming accident that damages the industry’s public credibility. You get into obscene game of absolute evidence, republican conservative objectivity and playing untransparency games with rules…and driving your car by only by looking through the rear view window.
I feel sorry for the nuclear industry...in that they don’t have any effective advocator on the democrat’s side. There is just no way to inject the democrat’s ethics of transparency, truthfulness and safety into the nuclear industry under the current system. The nuclear industry is trapped into leaning on the right. We gave them no choice. So I would say the framework of the nuclear industry is just a much a fault of the democrats as the republican’s, because they defaulted into letting the republicans politically manage the industry.
It sure looks to me the nuclear industry has morphed into something bigger than providing electricity to the public. Is it political welfare, or corporate welfare, or voter welfare rewards system? It seems to me it is a white and rich old man’s hobby….rebuilding the 1957 Chevy….are they trying to recapture their youth. I mean the south has been benefited by the renaissance more than any other region. Are they getting rewarded with nuclear candy as the means of voting for the republicans? It certainly will be a huge short term burst of economic activity with 400,000 new jobs and 30 billion dollars a year…what will it turn out long term? If it is a political rewards system…does that ask if it is in the public good, will it be managed for the public good …and will it be built in the public good? If it is a political rewards. Will it be built and maintained under political campaign contribution plastic engineering standards or though public needs and safety standards. You see how slippery this becomes?
I don’t think the infrastructure of the nuclear renaissance is based on democratic principles…its base on a limited regional effort and on one political party. How come there is no new nuclear plant’s proposed on the west coast? Nuclear power started off in the wide open years with the Camelot years of Kennedy and the great society of Lyndon Johnson….it was a broad based accepted by most of society. One should notice the troubles showed up in the Nixon/Ford years…I don’t think you can call the ineffectual Carter years as a true democrat, their inapt handling with overseeing the nuclear industry until 1979 …then we had the near death experience of the nuclear industry in the Reagan years. Don’t forget the Davis Besse had its first near meltdown in 1985, with the accident associated with cost cutting after new plant construction. Of course Davis Besse hole in the head came deep within the Bush years of 2002.
There are enormous differences with the base of political approval and public support between the early nuclear years and the renaissance years of today. It initially came through a broad based democratic administration…it was initiated from the democrats. I think it diverted to some kind cult of belief…almost un-American…in that they think they need to hide behind a shield of un-transparency.
It interesting thinking about the competence of the politician’s with overseeing a nuclear plant or the industry. Does the public of the surrounding communities need to be competent, sophisticated and cosmopolitan…do they need to know how to interact at an early stage with a declining plant? The communities and politician’s are critical with keeping the nuclear industry healthy and strong. The politician’s have the power to observe the goings on of a plant…and they can interview at an early point. In many ways they are more powerful than the federal regulator. If need be, they can drag the public into troubles of a declining plant through a host of governmental tools…and clear out the dysfunction at a incipient level.
Take a look at NRC chairmen Klein’s last 10 speeches…what organization he gave the speeches to. Is he a regulator who represents the full American public…or is he a regulator who represents the extreme pro nuclear segment of our society? How come he is not giving a speech to the opposite of Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness “Teller Lecture, INPO, the Baker Center or the American Nuclear Society. He giving speeches to the nuclear professional seminars and the extreme pronuclear groups…does this population represent our full community? How come he is not giving lectures to the flip side of “Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness’, INPO or the NEI…talking to the choir. Why doesn’t he have the courage to go into the lions’ den of their adversaries …or at least a group who is at neutral? How come he is not talking to the American public about the renaissance… to organizations that more represent the public? Does he need that amount of protection from the public? Fundamentally, he targets the content of his speech for the particular organization. Would the content of his speech change if he spoke to the selectmen or town counsel meetings of say of Hinsdale, Brattleboro or Keene around Vermont Yankee? I have real issues with content of his recent speeches…it verges distortion and lying.
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/commission/speeches/2007/s-07-051.html
“The Right Way: Steering a Course for the Future of Safe Nuclear Power”
Remarks Prepared for NRC Chairman Dale E. KleinCenter for Strategic & International StudiesNovember 28, 2007Washington, DC
Excerps:
…“The Right Way: Steering a Course for the Future of Safe Nuclear Power”
The ‘Right Way” speaks to the well known insider euphemism or code word…with saying Nuclear power will only be safe if the extreme conservative right wing republican control the political machinery of our country and the nuclear industry in general. Right, Klein is a President Bush ideologue…is he playing ideological word games like Bush!
….”Now, I would like to be clear up front that while I am happy to talk about nuclear energy—which is a subject I know something about—I am not here to “make the case for nuclear.” As a regulator, I am not an advocate for or against commercial nuclear power. My job is to ensure the safety and security of U.S. nuclear power plants and materials.”
The NRC officials’ say this all the time…but is that truthful? Who he gives speeches for tells us exactly that he is advocating for the nuclear industry. I can’t believe his lack of integrity with saying this statement with “I am not an advocator for”. All of his professional life is about advocating for nuclear power, and the organization he chooses to give recent speeches to indicate this federal regulator is advocating for the renaissance. It interesting thinking about the 1960’s and 1970’s…would we had a more healthy nuclear industry if the NRC said they were getting overwhelmed with construction problems…where they put a stop work order on a percentage of the new construction…until the NRC and utility resources matched the amount of construction work. Would Klein have the independence to put a stop work order on the renaissance? That’s why I worry about his integrity…with his word games of “I am not an advocate for or against commercial nuclear power” because it’s fundamentally not true and everyone knows it is the elite wink, wink game of telling half truths. It’s interesting thinking about where he learned this game from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Teller
Many of Teller's colleagues were irritated that he seemed to enjoy taking full credit for something he had only a part in, and in response, with encouragement from Enrico Fermi, Teller authored an article titled "The Work of Many People," which appeared in Science magazine in February 1955, emphasizing that he was not alone in the weapon's development. He would later write in his memoirs that he had told a "white lie" in the 1955 article in order to "soothe ruffled feelings", and claimed full credit for the invention.
…”You have already heard Marv Fertel from NEI and some of the other speakers’…”
I bet you she is an extreme right wing republican ideologue…with most of the big player in the organization as being male and white. You got to know within the NEI, all the player got to be an extreme republican right wing ideologue organization. So where is the equivalent on the democrat’s side of the NEIS’ Mary Fertel in Klein’s speech?
…”As you may know, that first construction boom ground to halt during the “stagflation” of the late 1970s, when the predicted demand for energy consumption leveled off.”
These regulators never want to talk about what role the utilities, nuclear construction firm and architects played in the fiasco of the 1970’s. Stagflation is but a sick rationalization…did the organization of stagflation build and mange the nuclear industry. This is all about the decision of humans to bring on a quality plant and to manage the construction of nuclear plants on a national scale. People choose to do the right think….thy don’t get conned by stagflation or by the politicians…they choose to do it the right. This stagflation rationalization, you got to figure Klein doesn’t what to anger his audience…is typical with a ideologue’s attempts to distract the dumb public away from the factors that caused our greatest technological failure of the nuclear plant national implementation. You don’t see Klein making a speech about the magnitude of the faults in construction of nuclear plant’s the 1970’s and 1980’s as in:
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/gen-comm/info-notices/2007/in200704.pdf
NRC INFORMATION NOTICE 2007-04: CONSTRUCTION EXPERIENCE RELATED TO THE ASSURANCE OF QUALITY IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF NUCLEAR FACILITIES
I don’t see stagflation mentioned in the IN or the Finnish safety report. Should we have a updated report on what went wrong with the industry in the 1960’s, 1970, and 1980’s..with Klein giving a speech on that.
…”In addition, the NRC had only recently been created, and—frankly—was not a very efficient or predictable regulator, in my view. And the only problem people had with “carbon” was that the stuff rubbed off on your fingers when you made “carbon copies” in the typewriter. The prospects for nuclear power did not appear bright. Today, of course, the situation is very different.”
What does the euphemism or code word mean of a “predictable regulator”? A “predictable regulator” is absolutely a right wing ideological tool of hating and then destroying government oversight across many economic sectors other than nuclear power. It about the selfish interest of, I have the power and let me do what I please…and not at all within the interest of our country and public interest. I could make a case that the interest with operating and constructing nuclear power plant’s…thought it was in their interest with throttling influence and resources to the developing nuclear regulators. They through that having a blinded and ineffectually nuclear regulator were in their self interest. The question is…who make the regulators unpredictable, surely not the American public…it had to come from political pressures to neuter the regulators. We should be thinking of that in the future!
…”The NRC needs to be a fair, consistent, and predictable regulator; not a roadblock. But we must also ensure that any nuclear expansion proceeds at a sustainable pace, so that safety and security concerns are adequately addressed at all times. Our standards are objectivity and sound science.”
Basically most of the above are nothing but political code words. What does being ‘fair” mean…does that mean to interpret bulky worded rules according to just some sentence structure? Fair to who, monies interest, or interest to the community and the long term interest of nuclear power? “Consistence and predictable” regulator are republican political code words, such as making the regulator follow the republican regulatory rules of non involvement even if a utility incorrectly constructs a nuclear plant through their negligence…back fit rule. You got to follow the rules of regulatory non involvement…event if they don’t make the utility fix their construction problems.
Edward Teller discussing the problem of Oppenheimer: If it is a question of wisdom and judgment, as demonstrated by actions since 1945, then I would say one would be wiser not to grant clearance.
What does being objective mean for the nuclear industry and NRC? Teller isn’t objective and evidence based here?
“Objectivity” is another codeword… of the Three Wise monkeys http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_wise_monkeys “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil". Where as example, even if you got your hands over you eyes…the kind of objectivity they speak, you must perceive a problem through your eyes and you must exactly interpret our impossible rules…in order to force a utility to fix an incipient problem that’s going to cost them money. In other words, you never gather the visual objective evidence that is necessity to take action…you have to have accident…because they forced you to cover your eyes, you need to see the visual evidence because of their rules of objective and absolute sterol logic, according to their crazy system of being republican. I am just saying objectivity become a very high hurdle…you need to prove a plant is unsafe instead of being able to prove a safety barrier has a unproven level of uncertainty. They spend tons of money on reducing the margin of safety on a barrier so that a company can make profits…while not spending a equivalent amount of money on testing for uncertainty. Another one is, the industry won’t fund an equivalent oppositional force to the special interest of the NEI or INPO…so the utilities and our political system see’s the full complexity of a nuclear problem…instead of seeing a self serving incomplete side of a problem that favors campaign contributions.
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/commission/speeches/2007/s-07-052.html
Remarks Prepared for NRC Chairman Dale E. Klein
Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness “Teller Lecture”
November 29, 2007
Augusta, GA
The fast are, that Edward Teller is a right wing pronuclear extremist…he sits way outside the middle of America on nuclear safety. So why isn’t Klein giving a speech in the main office of Green Peace, the UCS or the New England Coalition? How about the radical idea of speaking at a local selectman’s meeting or state governmental function. Where is the balance, Klein speaks of being balance…but his action speaks toward the extreme right wing pronuclear types. Is he a federal regulatory for the extreme right wing pro nuclear types…or is he a federal regulator speaking for all segments of the American public.
…”It is an honor to be here—and follow in the footsteps of such eminent figures as Howard Baker, Pete Domenici, and Edward Teller himself—to deliver the annual Teller lecture before this distinguished audience.”
Has Klein ever spoken in the terms of “followed the footsteps of such eminent figures” with any democrats or other political party members in his term of being a NRC commissioner? We know that Domenici and Teller can be looked at as being a pro republican nuclear extremist…with Baker being somewhat more moderate. Where is he sending signals that his agency is politically balanced? Where is he constantly telling the extreme left wing and right wing that our agency is going to be politically balanced…he talks about it in his speeches, and talk is cheep. Where is he actually demonstrating that his agency is going to be politically balance…that he respects our system of multi political party’s?
…“My focus is the safety and security of nuclear facilities and materials. But in that capacity, I do have interest in seeing that the general public has a fair, informed, and balanced understanding of radiological and nuclear issues. That was also a lifelong concern of Dr. Teller’s.”
You just get the idea that Klein is talking on two levels with his speeches, one to the extreme pro nuclear advocates, and then with mindless platitudes to the American public. You get that idea with his “perception is reality”…if you gives an incomplete and pleasing platitude about a organization or person’s beliefs…the public will just internalize it without the facts. What about Teller’s troubles with Oppenheimer, and his idea of digging a harbor with a hydrogen bomb or withdraw Petroleum of the oil sands of Alberta with another hydrogen bomb. All of this was unsafe and threaten our domestic nuclear industry at its heart. Does Klein think Teller would have made a good NRC commissioner chairman? I get the feeling working under Teller…the little guys wouldn’t be listened to and there would be no fundamental human rights with nuclear plant employees to report nuclear problems.
…”After the Three Mile Island accident there were a lot of popular misconceptions about what had happened, and the degree to which public health and safety were or were not jeopardized. But Teller used to say that the only casualty from Three Mile Island was himself; because he had a heart attack—which he survived—from criss-crossing the country explaining to people what had really happened! So I think Dr. Teller would appreciate that there seems to have been a real shift in public opinion, and a better understanding of these issues.”
Again, this whole paragraph is an extreme Republican code word or phrase. I mean, Klein is giving the extremist the misimpression that TMI is all about a giant popular misconception. Is he saying the public has a better understanding of these issues because TMI is now all about a lot of population misconception about what happened? What about the lessens learned coming from TMI, Davis Besse 1 and 2. How come we have to keep relearning over and over again from the lesson’s of the past. Believe me, they are pertinent today… How come Klein and his boys are reinterpreting history in a shiny new shell of irresponsibility?
How come Teller didn’t use his vast influence to get a more complete vision of what is going on in the nuclear industry and AEC pre TMI? How come he didn’t propose vast changes in the industry before the accident…risk his status and influence…put his face into the media…in order to correct the well known dysfunction in the industry? Why do these guys always come around after the accident…they always tell us the accident was all about our misconceptions and minimize the corrective action of the lessen learned. How come we spend enormous sums on money, much like this guy Teller…with realms of after accident investigation and corrective actions…and nobody has the courage to get their feet wet in the uncertainty of a pre accident organizational accident. Does everyone understand…you throw these big after accident investigation at the public…you talk it up all the dysfunction discovered in the investigation…and this is all designed to divert your attention to the clear signals that the system ignored before the accident happened. I mean you talk about that a flat tire that caused the accident….but nobody ever admits that you knew that you were riding on unstable tires and the accident could clearly be seen in your minds eyes…everyone eyes…but you knowly choose to accept this risk. I mean you talk about discovering the flat tire that cause the car crash…but nobody has the courage to admit what they knew in their minds before the accident.
It’s the Edward Teller effect…you only advocated for nuclear power in the shadow of an after a nuclear catastrophe, when you can make money and gain influence from the pro nuclear extremist with minimizing the known factors that set up the accident. You never consume your status, money and influence, in the uncertainty of the factors before the accident in trying to interrupt a known coming accident that damages the industry’s public credibility. You get into obscene game of absolute evidence, republican conservative objectivity and playing untransparency games with rules…and driving your car by only by looking through the rear view window.
Geenpeace Dr Patric Moore is the equivelent to Edward Teller...in he doesn't want to get his hands dirty with correcting what's wrong with the nuclear industry.
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Plan to Build Reactors Is Running Into Hurdles
Did it follow the outline of my last entry?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/business/05nuke.html?ref=business
December 5, 2007
Plan to Build Reactors Is Running Into Hurdles
By MATTHEW L. WALD
WASHINGTON, Dec. 4 — For the first time in three decades, companies are getting ready to build nuclear reactors in the United States. They intend to do so under streamlined procedures meant to avoid the long delays and cost overruns that crippled the industry last time around.
But with early jockeying under way to win government approval for this new generation of plants, ominous signs are emerging that the plans may not go smoothly.
In recent years, at a time when nuclear construction was in the deep freeze, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry created a method that was supposed to simplify future planning and construction. Under it, manufacturers were to win advance government approval for a handful of reactor designs, and power companies would specify later where they would put new reactors of each type.
This cookie-cutter approach was meant to ensure that companies would not have to rip out concrete and pipes in the middle of construction to satisfy ever-changing requirements from Washington. That was one of the biggest problems when the industry foundered in the 1980s.
Now, Congress has thrown its support behind a new round of nuclear construction, and many people in the electric industry are eager to get going. Three companies have filed applications for licenses to build and operate five reactors.
But one company marched in with more than a dozen significant changes to a previously approved design. Two picked designs that have yet to win final government approval. And waiting in the wings is a fourth company that has ordered parts for a design that has not even been submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
“The good news is that there is a real need for power,” said Marvin S. Fertel, vice president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade association. “The bad news is that now we’ve convoluted” the steps for getting plants approved.
Gregory B. Jaczko, one of the federal agency’s three commissioners, said it might not have enough staff members to do now what it did in the 1970s and ’80s — supervise the construction of a couple of dozen types of reactors. The commission has been hiring rapidly to prepare for a nuclear renaissance, but officials there were counting on standardization, if not quite mass production, as a way to manage the workload.
Handling applications for incomplete designs will be an additional burden on staff members that could slow approvals, he said. “I don’t think we’ve gotten to what the commission envisioned back in the late ’80s and early ’90s when we embarked on this,” Mr. Jaczko said. A second commissioner, Peter Lyons, said, “There is no application coming in today that is exactly following the process.”
Industry executives acknowledge the problem but say they are beginning this round with designs that are far more developed than the ones begun in the 1970s. They contend that the rush to build before plans are complete is unavoidable.
The Constellation Energy Generation Group is in a partnership to build a reactor in Maryland using a design pioneered in Finland and France, a design not yet certified in the United States. “The need for lower-cost electricity and environmentally acceptable electricity from nuclear has experienced so much momentum” that the company needs to move rapidly, said Michael J. Wallace, the generating group’s president.
Ideally, certification of the reactor design would occur before the company goes forward with its plans, he said. But that would slow things down by as much as three years, and Constellation wants to have the plant on line by 2015, Mr. Wallace said, adding, “The reality is we could use the plant on line in 2011.”
The industry is painfully aware of a track record of haste making waste. In the 1960s and ’70s, it broke ground on scores of reactors with plans only 20 or 30 percent complete, and later had to rip out steel and concrete as designs and safety requirements changed during construction, adding vast costs.
The industry and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission say they are determined to avoid that if there is a new round of construction. In the 1990s, the commission reorganized its licensing procedure to try to move design questions to the forefront — before construction.
But NRG, of Princeton, N.J., applied in October to build two reactors of a type known as advanced boiling-water reactors at a site in Texas. The design was approved by the nuclear commission in 1997, but NRG wants permission for 16 design changes.
The Tennessee Valley Authority and a consortium of companies in the nuclear business applied to build a Westinghouse design at Bellefonte, Ala., the site of two abandoned reactor projects. The Westinghouse design was certified in 2006, but the company is amending it, closing gaps and making changes requested by customers.
On Nov. 28, the power company Dominion, of Richmond, Va., applied to build a new reactor adjacent to two existing reactors at its North Anna power station in central Virginia. The site itself won early approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but Dominion chose a reactor design not yet approved by the agency. A company spokesman, Jim Norville, said, “We anticipate it will be certified well before we break ground.”
Mr. Jaczko said that by now, “the designs should have been finalized.” But they are still “evolving,” he said, and design questions may linger even as the commission begins to consider approval of particular sites.
Power company executives share his concern, although they say they are far better prepared for construction now than in the last round.
Other problems are emerging in the budding nuclear renaissance. The industry had hoped to limit the number of cookie-cutter designs to two or three, but there are five already, and more on the way.
And if the industry succeeds in winning approval for as many new reactors as it wants — 31 and counting — the capacity of nuclear suppliers is likely to be strained. By most estimates, they can fabricate enough parts for only three or four reactors a year, and the United States will be competing with other countries that want to build nuclear plants.
Some of the most important parts can be cast only by a single foundry, Japan Steel Works. “The global supply chain is going to be the pacing item,” Mr. Wallace said.
Mr. Fertel, of the trade association, said that any company that wanted to have a reactor on line by 2015 would need to have ordered some parts by now. Even in the best case, some plants on the industry wish list will take as long as 2020 to be built, he said.
As of now, the industry cannot even build the simulators it needs for the complex, time-consuming task of training new nuclear operators. “You can’t build it till the design is firmed up,” Mr. Wallace said.
David Leonhardt, whose Economic Scene column normally appears on this page, is on assignment.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/business/05nuke.html?ref=business
December 5, 2007
Plan to Build Reactors Is Running Into Hurdles
By MATTHEW L. WALD
WASHINGTON, Dec. 4 — For the first time in three decades, companies are getting ready to build nuclear reactors in the United States. They intend to do so under streamlined procedures meant to avoid the long delays and cost overruns that crippled the industry last time around.
But with early jockeying under way to win government approval for this new generation of plants, ominous signs are emerging that the plans may not go smoothly.
In recent years, at a time when nuclear construction was in the deep freeze, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry created a method that was supposed to simplify future planning and construction. Under it, manufacturers were to win advance government approval for a handful of reactor designs, and power companies would specify later where they would put new reactors of each type.
This cookie-cutter approach was meant to ensure that companies would not have to rip out concrete and pipes in the middle of construction to satisfy ever-changing requirements from Washington. That was one of the biggest problems when the industry foundered in the 1980s.
Now, Congress has thrown its support behind a new round of nuclear construction, and many people in the electric industry are eager to get going. Three companies have filed applications for licenses to build and operate five reactors.
But one company marched in with more than a dozen significant changes to a previously approved design. Two picked designs that have yet to win final government approval. And waiting in the wings is a fourth company that has ordered parts for a design that has not even been submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
“The good news is that there is a real need for power,” said Marvin S. Fertel, vice president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade association. “The bad news is that now we’ve convoluted” the steps for getting plants approved.
Gregory B. Jaczko, one of the federal agency’s three commissioners, said it might not have enough staff members to do now what it did in the 1970s and ’80s — supervise the construction of a couple of dozen types of reactors. The commission has been hiring rapidly to prepare for a nuclear renaissance, but officials there were counting on standardization, if not quite mass production, as a way to manage the workload.
Handling applications for incomplete designs will be an additional burden on staff members that could slow approvals, he said. “I don’t think we’ve gotten to what the commission envisioned back in the late ’80s and early ’90s when we embarked on this,” Mr. Jaczko said. A second commissioner, Peter Lyons, said, “There is no application coming in today that is exactly following the process.”
Industry executives acknowledge the problem but say they are beginning this round with designs that are far more developed than the ones begun in the 1970s. They contend that the rush to build before plans are complete is unavoidable.
The Constellation Energy Generation Group is in a partnership to build a reactor in Maryland using a design pioneered in Finland and France, a design not yet certified in the United States. “The need for lower-cost electricity and environmentally acceptable electricity from nuclear has experienced so much momentum” that the company needs to move rapidly, said Michael J. Wallace, the generating group’s president.
Ideally, certification of the reactor design would occur before the company goes forward with its plans, he said. But that would slow things down by as much as three years, and Constellation wants to have the plant on line by 2015, Mr. Wallace said, adding, “The reality is we could use the plant on line in 2011.”
The industry is painfully aware of a track record of haste making waste. In the 1960s and ’70s, it broke ground on scores of reactors with plans only 20 or 30 percent complete, and later had to rip out steel and concrete as designs and safety requirements changed during construction, adding vast costs.
The industry and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission say they are determined to avoid that if there is a new round of construction. In the 1990s, the commission reorganized its licensing procedure to try to move design questions to the forefront — before construction.
But NRG, of Princeton, N.J., applied in October to build two reactors of a type known as advanced boiling-water reactors at a site in Texas. The design was approved by the nuclear commission in 1997, but NRG wants permission for 16 design changes.
The Tennessee Valley Authority and a consortium of companies in the nuclear business applied to build a Westinghouse design at Bellefonte, Ala., the site of two abandoned reactor projects. The Westinghouse design was certified in 2006, but the company is amending it, closing gaps and making changes requested by customers.
On Nov. 28, the power company Dominion, of Richmond, Va., applied to build a new reactor adjacent to two existing reactors at its North Anna power station in central Virginia. The site itself won early approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but Dominion chose a reactor design not yet approved by the agency. A company spokesman, Jim Norville, said, “We anticipate it will be certified well before we break ground.”
Mr. Jaczko said that by now, “the designs should have been finalized.” But they are still “evolving,” he said, and design questions may linger even as the commission begins to consider approval of particular sites.
Power company executives share his concern, although they say they are far better prepared for construction now than in the last round.
Other problems are emerging in the budding nuclear renaissance. The industry had hoped to limit the number of cookie-cutter designs to two or three, but there are five already, and more on the way.
And if the industry succeeds in winning approval for as many new reactors as it wants — 31 and counting — the capacity of nuclear suppliers is likely to be strained. By most estimates, they can fabricate enough parts for only three or four reactors a year, and the United States will be competing with other countries that want to build nuclear plants.
Some of the most important parts can be cast only by a single foundry, Japan Steel Works. “The global supply chain is going to be the pacing item,” Mr. Wallace said.
Mr. Fertel, of the trade association, said that any company that wanted to have a reactor on line by 2015 would need to have ordered some parts by now. Even in the best case, some plants on the industry wish list will take as long as 2020 to be built, he said.
As of now, the industry cannot even build the simulators it needs for the complex, time-consuming task of training new nuclear operators. “You can’t build it till the design is firmed up,” Mr. Wallace said.
David Leonhardt, whose Economic Scene column normally appears on this page, is on assignment.
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
works in progress?
UPDATED 12/5/07
(I get my mistake now thanks to the NYT’S…I read it as Nei’s Mary not Marv Fertel. Sorry about the mistake…well, at least my mistake was based on hope? It was only one letter I misread?)
working on the teller speech?
At the top of this house of cards, it is inescapable…it is the object failure of the democrats. Generally they are “no nukes”…this disconnects them from having any effective influence in the nuclear industry. No wonder the nuclear establishment has been backed into the conservative republican corner. No nukes means no influence to effect the levels of safety in these nuclear plants…all you have is the power to shut down a plant and withdrawal income from the communities.
I feel sorry for the nuclear industry...in that they don’t have any effective advocator on the democrat’s side. There is just no way to inject the democrat’s ethics of transparency, truthfulness and safety into the nuclear industry under the current system. The nuclear industry is trapped into leaning on the right. We gave them no choice. So I would say the framework of the nuclear industry is just a much a fault of the democrats as the republican’s, because they defaulted into letting the republicans politically manage the industry.
It sure looks to me the nuclear industry has morphed into something bigger than providing electricity to the public. Is it political welfare, or corporate welfare, or voter welfare rewards system? It seems to me it is a white and rich old man’s hobby….rebuilding the 1957 Chevy….are they trying to recapture their youth. I mean the south has been benefited by the renaissance more than any other region. Are they getting rewarded with nuclear candy as the means of voting for the republicans? It certainly will be a huge short term burst of economic activity with 400,000 new jobs and 30 billion dollars a year…what will it turn out long term? If it is a political rewards system…does that ask if it is in the public good, will it be managed for the public good …and will it be built in the public good? If it is a political rewards. Will it be built and maintained under political campaign contribution plastic engineering standards or though public needs and safety standards. You see how slippery this becomes?
I don’t think the infrastructure of the nuclear renaissance is based on democratic principles…its base on a limited regional effort and on one political party. How come there is no new nuclear plant’s proposed on the west coast? Nuclear power started off in the wide open years with the Camelot years of Kennedy and the great society of Lyndon Johnson….it was a broad based accepted by most of society. One should notice the troubles showed up in the Nixon/Ford years…I don’t think you can call the ineffectual Carter years as a true democrat, their inapt handling with overseeing the nuclear industry until 1979 …then we had the near death experience of the nuclear industry in the Reagan years. Don’t forget the Davis Besse had its first near meltdown in 1985, with the accident associated with cost cutting after new plant construction. Of course Davis Besse hole in the head came deep within the Bush years of 2002.
There are enormous differences with the base of political approval and public support between the early nuclear years and the renaissance years of today. It initially came through a broad based democratic administration…it was initiated from the democrats. I think it diverted to some kind cult of belief…almost un-American…in that they think they need to hide behind a shield of un-transparency.
It interesting thinking about the competence of the politician’s with overseeing a nuclear plant or the industry. Does the public of the surrounding communities need to be competent, sophisticated and cosmopolitan…do they need to know how to interact at an early stage with a declining plant? The communities and politician’s are critical with keeping the nuclear industry healthy and strong. The politician’s have the power to observe the goings on of a plant…and they can interview at an early point. In many ways they are more powerful than the federal regulator. If need be, they can drag the public into troubles of a declining plant through a host of governmental tools…and clear out the dysfunction at a incipient level.
Take a look at NRC chairmen Klein’s last 10 speeches…what organization he gave the speeches to. Is he a regulator who represents the full American public…or is he a regulator who represents the extreme pro nuclear segment of our society? How come he is not giving a speech to the opposite of Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness “Teller Lecture, INPO, the Baker Center or the American Nuclear Society. He giving speeches to the nuclear professional seminars and the extreme pronuclear groups…does this population represent our full community? How come he is not giving lectures to the flip side of “Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness’, INPO or the NEI…talking to the choir. Why doesn’t he have the courage to go into the lions’ den of their adversaries …or at least a group who is at neutral? How come he is not talking to the American public about the renaissance… to organizations that more represent the public? Does he need that amount of protection from the public? Fundamentally, he targets the content of his speech for the particular organization. Would the content of his speech change if he spoke to the selectmen or town counsel meetings of say of Hinsdale, Brattleboro or Keene around Vermont Yankee? I have real issues with content of his recent speeches…it verges distortion and lying.
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/commission/speeches/2007/s-07-051.html
“The Right Way: Steering a Course for the Future of Safe Nuclear Power”
Remarks Prepared for NRC Chairman Dale E. Klein Center for Strategic & International StudiesNovember 28, 2007 Washington, DC Excerps:
…“The Right Way: Steering a Course for the Future of Safe Nuclear Power”
The ‘Right Way” speaks to the well known insider euphemism or code word…with saying Nuclear power will only be safe if the extreme conservative right wing republican control the political machinery of our country and the nuclear industry in general. Right, Klein is a President Bush ideologue…is he playing ideological word games like Bush!
….”Now, I would like to be clear up front that while I am happy to talk about nuclear energy—which is a subject I know something about—I am not here to “make the case for nuclear.” As a regulator, I am not an advocate for or against commercial nuclear power. My job is to ensure the safety and security of U.S. nuclear power plants and materials.”
The NRC officials’ say this all the time…but is that truthful? Who he gives speeches for tells us exactly that he is advocating for the nuclear industry. I can’t believe his lack of integrity with saying this statement with “I am not an advocator for”. All of his professional life is about advocating for nuclear power, and the organization he chooses to give recent speeches to indicate this federal regulator is advocating for the renaissance. It interesting thinking about the 1960’s and 1970’s…would we had a more healthy nuclear industry if the NRC said they were getting overwhelmed with construction problems…where they put a stop work order on a percentage of the new construction…until the NRC and utility resources matched the amount of construction work. Would Klein have the independence to put a stop work order on the renaissance? That’s why I worry about his integrity…with his word games of “I am not an advocate for or against commercial nuclear power” because it’s fundamentally not true and everyone knows it is the elite wink, wink game of telling half truths. It’s interesting thinking about where he learned this game from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Teller
Many of Teller's colleagues were irritated that he seemed to enjoy taking full credit for something he had only a part in, and in response, with encouragement from Enrico Fermi, Teller authored an article titled "The Work of Many People," which appeared in Science magazine in February 1955, emphasizing that he was not alone in the weapon's development. He would later write in his memoirs that he had told a "white lie" in the 1955 article in order to "soothe ruffled feelings", and claimed full credit for the invention.
…”You have already heard Marv Fertel from NEI and some of the other speakers’…”
I bet you she is an extreme right wing republican ideologue…with most of the big player in the organization as being male and white. You got to know within the NEI, all the player got to be an extreme republican right wing ideologue organization. So where is the equivalent on the democrat’s side of the NEIS’ Mary Fertel in Klein’s speech?
…”As you may know, that first construction boom ground to halt during the “stagflation” of the late 1970s, when the predicted demand for energy consumption leveled off.”
These regulators never want to talk about what role the utilities, nuclear construction firm and architects played in the fiasco of the 1970’s. Stagflation is but a sick rationalization…did the organization of stagflation build and mange the nuclear industry. This is all about the decision of humans to bring on a quality plant and to manage the construction of nuclear plants on a national scale. People choose to do the right think….thy don’t get conned by stagflation or by the politicians…they choose to do it the right. This stagflation rationalization, you got to figure Klein doesn’t what to anger his audience…is typical with a ideologue’s attempts to distract the dumb public away from the factors that caused our greatest technological failure of the nuclear plant national implementation. You don’t see Klein making a speech about the magnitude of the faults in construction of nuclear plant’s the 1970’s and 1980’s as in:
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/gen-comm/info-notices/2007/in200704.pdf
NRC INFORMATION NOTICE 2007-04: CONSTRUCTION EXPERIENCE RELATED TO THE ASSURANCE OF QUALITY IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF NUCLEAR FACILITIES
I don’t see stagflation mentioned in the IN or the Finnish safety report. Should we have a updated report on what went wrong with the industry in the 1960’s, 1970, and 1980’s..with Klein giving a speech on that.
…”In addition, the NRC had only recently been created, and—frankly—was not a very efficient or predictable regulator, in my view. And the only problem people had with “carbon” was that the stuff rubbed off on your fingers when you made “carbon copies” in the typewriter. The prospects for nuclear power did not appear bright. Today, of course, the situation is very different.”
What does the euphemism or code word mean of a “predictable regulator”? A “predictable regulator” is absolutely a right wing ideological tool of hating and then destroying government oversight across many economic sectors other than nuclear power. It about the selfish interest of, I have the power and let me do what I please…and not at all within the interest of our country and public interest. I could make a case that the interest with operating and constructing nuclear power plant’s…thought it was in their interest with throttling influence and resources to the developing nuclear regulators. They through that having a blinded and ineffectually nuclear regulator were in their self interest. The question is…who make the regulators unpredictable, surely not the American public…it had to come from political pressures to neuter the regulators. We should be thinking of that in the future!
(I get my mistake now thanks to the NYT’S…I read it as Nei’s Mary not Marv Fertel. Sorry about the mistake…well, at least my mistake was based on hope? It was only one letter I misread?)
working on the teller speech?
At the top of this house of cards, it is inescapable…it is the object failure of the democrats. Generally they are “no nukes”…this disconnects them from having any effective influence in the nuclear industry. No wonder the nuclear establishment has been backed into the conservative republican corner. No nukes means no influence to effect the levels of safety in these nuclear plants…all you have is the power to shut down a plant and withdrawal income from the communities.
I feel sorry for the nuclear industry...in that they don’t have any effective advocator on the democrat’s side. There is just no way to inject the democrat’s ethics of transparency, truthfulness and safety into the nuclear industry under the current system. The nuclear industry is trapped into leaning on the right. We gave them no choice. So I would say the framework of the nuclear industry is just a much a fault of the democrats as the republican’s, because they defaulted into letting the republicans politically manage the industry.
It sure looks to me the nuclear industry has morphed into something bigger than providing electricity to the public. Is it political welfare, or corporate welfare, or voter welfare rewards system? It seems to me it is a white and rich old man’s hobby….rebuilding the 1957 Chevy….are they trying to recapture their youth. I mean the south has been benefited by the renaissance more than any other region. Are they getting rewarded with nuclear candy as the means of voting for the republicans? It certainly will be a huge short term burst of economic activity with 400,000 new jobs and 30 billion dollars a year…what will it turn out long term? If it is a political rewards system…does that ask if it is in the public good, will it be managed for the public good …and will it be built in the public good? If it is a political rewards. Will it be built and maintained under political campaign contribution plastic engineering standards or though public needs and safety standards. You see how slippery this becomes?
I don’t think the infrastructure of the nuclear renaissance is based on democratic principles…its base on a limited regional effort and on one political party. How come there is no new nuclear plant’s proposed on the west coast? Nuclear power started off in the wide open years with the Camelot years of Kennedy and the great society of Lyndon Johnson….it was a broad based accepted by most of society. One should notice the troubles showed up in the Nixon/Ford years…I don’t think you can call the ineffectual Carter years as a true democrat, their inapt handling with overseeing the nuclear industry until 1979 …then we had the near death experience of the nuclear industry in the Reagan years. Don’t forget the Davis Besse had its first near meltdown in 1985, with the accident associated with cost cutting after new plant construction. Of course Davis Besse hole in the head came deep within the Bush years of 2002.
There are enormous differences with the base of political approval and public support between the early nuclear years and the renaissance years of today. It initially came through a broad based democratic administration…it was initiated from the democrats. I think it diverted to some kind cult of belief…almost un-American…in that they think they need to hide behind a shield of un-transparency.
It interesting thinking about the competence of the politician’s with overseeing a nuclear plant or the industry. Does the public of the surrounding communities need to be competent, sophisticated and cosmopolitan…do they need to know how to interact at an early stage with a declining plant? The communities and politician’s are critical with keeping the nuclear industry healthy and strong. The politician’s have the power to observe the goings on of a plant…and they can interview at an early point. In many ways they are more powerful than the federal regulator. If need be, they can drag the public into troubles of a declining plant through a host of governmental tools…and clear out the dysfunction at a incipient level.
Take a look at NRC chairmen Klein’s last 10 speeches…what organization he gave the speeches to. Is he a regulator who represents the full American public…or is he a regulator who represents the extreme pro nuclear segment of our society? How come he is not giving a speech to the opposite of Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness “Teller Lecture, INPO, the Baker Center or the American Nuclear Society. He giving speeches to the nuclear professional seminars and the extreme pronuclear groups…does this population represent our full community? How come he is not giving lectures to the flip side of “Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness’, INPO or the NEI…talking to the choir. Why doesn’t he have the courage to go into the lions’ den of their adversaries …or at least a group who is at neutral? How come he is not talking to the American public about the renaissance… to organizations that more represent the public? Does he need that amount of protection from the public? Fundamentally, he targets the content of his speech for the particular organization. Would the content of his speech change if he spoke to the selectmen or town counsel meetings of say of Hinsdale, Brattleboro or Keene around Vermont Yankee? I have real issues with content of his recent speeches…it verges distortion and lying.
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/commission/speeches/2007/s-07-051.html
“The Right Way: Steering a Course for the Future of Safe Nuclear Power”
Remarks Prepared for NRC Chairman Dale E. Klein Center for Strategic & International StudiesNovember 28, 2007 Washington, DC Excerps:
…“The Right Way: Steering a Course for the Future of Safe Nuclear Power”
The ‘Right Way” speaks to the well known insider euphemism or code word…with saying Nuclear power will only be safe if the extreme conservative right wing republican control the political machinery of our country and the nuclear industry in general. Right, Klein is a President Bush ideologue…is he playing ideological word games like Bush!
….”Now, I would like to be clear up front that while I am happy to talk about nuclear energy—which is a subject I know something about—I am not here to “make the case for nuclear.” As a regulator, I am not an advocate for or against commercial nuclear power. My job is to ensure the safety and security of U.S. nuclear power plants and materials.”
The NRC officials’ say this all the time…but is that truthful? Who he gives speeches for tells us exactly that he is advocating for the nuclear industry. I can’t believe his lack of integrity with saying this statement with “I am not an advocator for”. All of his professional life is about advocating for nuclear power, and the organization he chooses to give recent speeches to indicate this federal regulator is advocating for the renaissance. It interesting thinking about the 1960’s and 1970’s…would we had a more healthy nuclear industry if the NRC said they were getting overwhelmed with construction problems…where they put a stop work order on a percentage of the new construction…until the NRC and utility resources matched the amount of construction work. Would Klein have the independence to put a stop work order on the renaissance? That’s why I worry about his integrity…with his word games of “I am not an advocate for or against commercial nuclear power” because it’s fundamentally not true and everyone knows it is the elite wink, wink game of telling half truths. It’s interesting thinking about where he learned this game from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Teller
Many of Teller's colleagues were irritated that he seemed to enjoy taking full credit for something he had only a part in, and in response, with encouragement from Enrico Fermi, Teller authored an article titled "The Work of Many People," which appeared in Science magazine in February 1955, emphasizing that he was not alone in the weapon's development. He would later write in his memoirs that he had told a "white lie" in the 1955 article in order to "soothe ruffled feelings", and claimed full credit for the invention.
…”You have already heard Marv Fertel from NEI and some of the other speakers’…”
I bet you she is an extreme right wing republican ideologue…with most of the big player in the organization as being male and white. You got to know within the NEI, all the player got to be an extreme republican right wing ideologue organization. So where is the equivalent on the democrat’s side of the NEIS’ Mary Fertel in Klein’s speech?
…”As you may know, that first construction boom ground to halt during the “stagflation” of the late 1970s, when the predicted demand for energy consumption leveled off.”
These regulators never want to talk about what role the utilities, nuclear construction firm and architects played in the fiasco of the 1970’s. Stagflation is but a sick rationalization…did the organization of stagflation build and mange the nuclear industry. This is all about the decision of humans to bring on a quality plant and to manage the construction of nuclear plants on a national scale. People choose to do the right think….thy don’t get conned by stagflation or by the politicians…they choose to do it the right. This stagflation rationalization, you got to figure Klein doesn’t what to anger his audience…is typical with a ideologue’s attempts to distract the dumb public away from the factors that caused our greatest technological failure of the nuclear plant national implementation. You don’t see Klein making a speech about the magnitude of the faults in construction of nuclear plant’s the 1970’s and 1980’s as in:
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/gen-comm/info-notices/2007/in200704.pdf
NRC INFORMATION NOTICE 2007-04: CONSTRUCTION EXPERIENCE RELATED TO THE ASSURANCE OF QUALITY IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF NUCLEAR FACILITIES
I don’t see stagflation mentioned in the IN or the Finnish safety report. Should we have a updated report on what went wrong with the industry in the 1960’s, 1970, and 1980’s..with Klein giving a speech on that.
…”In addition, the NRC had only recently been created, and—frankly—was not a very efficient or predictable regulator, in my view. And the only problem people had with “carbon” was that the stuff rubbed off on your fingers when you made “carbon copies” in the typewriter. The prospects for nuclear power did not appear bright. Today, of course, the situation is very different.”
What does the euphemism or code word mean of a “predictable regulator”? A “predictable regulator” is absolutely a right wing ideological tool of hating and then destroying government oversight across many economic sectors other than nuclear power. It about the selfish interest of, I have the power and let me do what I please…and not at all within the interest of our country and public interest. I could make a case that the interest with operating and constructing nuclear power plant’s…thought it was in their interest with throttling influence and resources to the developing nuclear regulators. They through that having a blinded and ineffectually nuclear regulator were in their self interest. The question is…who make the regulators unpredictable, surely not the American public…it had to come from political pressures to neuter the regulators. We should be thinking of that in the future!
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Giuliani welfare record critiqued
http://www.cmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071202/FRONTPAGE/712020311
Article published Dec 2, 2007
Campaign 2008
Giuliani welfare record critiqued
By JOELLE FARRELLMonitor staff
here-->
Dec 2, 2007
Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, who often touts his record on crime reduction and tax cuts when he visits New Hampshire, said last week that he was most proud of the welfare reforms he initiated as mayor.
"We moved more people off welfare than the population of most cities in this country: 640,000 people," he said at the Politics and Eggs forum in Bedford last Monday. "And we found them jobs."
Giuliani's welfare policies drastically cut the number of people on welfare, but not all of the people who left the rolls - or were forced from them - found jobs. Many were wrongly denied benefits, including food stamps, which led more people to seek emergency shelter and food, city anti- poverty advocates said.
During Giuliani's tenure, the poverty rate declined only marginally, remaining about 70 percent greater than the rate for the rest of the country, according to the independent Citizens Budget Commission. The rate of homelessness increased from 23,431 people in the shelters each night to 34,576 people, according to the Coalition for the Homeless. About 500,000 fewer people received food stamps, forcing many to turn to food pantries and soup kitchens, said New York State Sen. Liz Krueger, who oversaw a nonprofit organization that helped poor people avoid eviction and secure emergency food during Giuliani's mayoral terms.
"The data shows that he moved them off of welfare, but he did not move them out of poverty," she said. "The easiest thing in the world to do is close a welfare case. The question is what happened to the household when you closed their welfare case. Many ended up not being able to pay their rent, putting themselves at greater risk for eviction and homelessness."
Mary Brosnahan, executive director of the New York-based Coalition for the Homeless, said it's unclear how much welfare reform may have contributed to homelessness. Giuliani also discontinued a program that gave homeless families priority for low-cost housing and tightened up standards for shelter eligibility, which worsened homelessness in New York City, she said. Homelessness continues to plague the administration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire who has put some of his own money toward poverty initiatives in the city.
"The overarching theme in his administration as it relates to poor people was get tough and crack down," Brosnahan said. "Certainly just in terms of numbers, that approach was a complete failure.
"Tonight in New York City shelters, we will have over 36,000 people, including 15,000 girls and boys," she said. "The toll it takes on those kids is just staggering. I see this as port of the Giuliani legacy."
Giuliani's campaign did not respond to requests for comment. But Jason Turner, who oversaw Giuliani's welfare policies as commissioner of the city's human resources administration, disputes the data presented by anti-poverty advocates. He said the best statistical indicator of the success of Giuliani's welfare reform comes from the U.S Census: In 1996, two years after Giuliani's reforms went into effect, 16 percent of single mothers with a high school education or less - the demographic most likely to be on welfare--were in the workforce. By 2001, that number had increased to 44.5 percent, he said.
"That's a social revolution that's never been seen before," Turner said.
Asked if those entering the workforce could still be suffering economically, working a minimum wage job, for example, Turner said that a woman with two children working a full-time minimum wage job is entitled to up to $4,600 annually with the federal earned income tax credit.
"Add food stamps, if you're still eligible, and you're above the poverty line," he said. "You have to get them on the ladder of employment and you're out of poverty. Yeah, you still have economic struggles, but this is the way out of them."
Andrew White, director of the Center for New York City Affairs, a policy institute that examines poverty issues at The New School, said wages for single mothers with only high school education decreased dramatically during Giuliani's time as mayor. People were leaving the welfare rolls, but many were still poor.
"If your measure of success is just stopping the payment of welfare, then (Giuliani's) programs were a huge success," he said. "If your measure is stabilizing families, strengthening neighborhoods and reducing poverty, then his method was too much on the inflexible and Draconian side."
Giuliani initiated welfare reform more than a year before the federal government put its own reform measures into place.
Also, the rate of welfare reduction in New York City under Giuliani was slightly lower than the national average. In New York City, welfare was reduced 58 percent, while nationally welfare was reduced 62 percent.
Working-class roots
Unlike some of the wealthy candidates running for president, Giuliani rose from working-class roots. His father, Harold, worked as janitor and a bartender. His mother, Helen, stayed home to take care of her only son, according to Wayne Barrett's biography, Rudy! Giuliani attended Manhattan College and New York University Law School before becoming a prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
His background informed his view on welfare and public assistance. He and his family worked hard to make their own way, and Giuliani believes others should do the same. He thinks giving someone a check for nothing is insulting and creates an underclass society dependent on entitlements, he has said at campaign stops.
As mayor, Giuliani aimed to crack down on welfare fraud and give people a greater incentive to seek work rather than public assistance. He also required all able-bodied welfare recipients to work 20 hours per week for the city in exchange for their welfare benefits, whether they answered phones for a city agency or picked up litter by the roadside. Welfare recipients were expected to put in another 15 hours a week searching for a job or receiving training and education in order to keep their benefits.
Giuliani renamed welfare centers "job centers" and set strict standards for welfare recipients. If they missed appointments with job counselors, they could be sanctioned from the welfare rolls. If they arrived late to a workfare site or didn't show, they could also lose their benefits.
Turner said the measures were meant to teach necessary workplace skills such as punctuality and organization so that workfare employees would succeed when they entered private employment.
"In real employment, you have to go to your job on a regular basis, and you have to please your boss and get things done," Turner said. "If you take 100,000 welfare recipients and you don't ask anything of them, then next year they will be as they were the year before."
But anti-poverty advocates say some of the restrictions were impractical for people struggling to get out of poverty.
"We would tell some woman with two young children, show up in another borough at 8 a.m. to sweep the park," Krueger said. "But we won't give you child care, so you have no place to leave your 4-year-old. But if you don't show up, we'll close your welfare case. . . . Women stopped showing up because they thought their answer was a child neglect case or a loss of their welfare case."
Rejection rates for those seeking welfare soared, according to Barrett's book. In 1998, 57 percent of those who applied for welfare were denied. A Bronx facility set a record in the first four months of 1999 by rejecting 90 percent of the 3,000 people who applied for welfare; 7 percent were granted assistance, compared with 61 percent from the previous year.
Eligibility for food stamps did not change. Yet in 1997, requests for food stamps in New York City dropped 15 percent, while requests for help from food pantries and soup kitchens increased 24 percent, according to The New York Times. The U.S. Department of Agriculture warned New York city officials that requiring a two-day application for food stamps violated federal law and, in 1999, the agency told the city to offer food stamps to applicants without delay.
Krueger said Giuliani's crackdown on food stamp recipients wasn't the right way to attack welfare fraud. She called it a "cruel and even sick philosophy."
"It's $1 per meal, per person per day," she said. "That's $3 per person. Is that what would motivate you to stay home and say, 'I'll just stay home and eat bonbons?' "
"You're hungry if you're only eating on food stamps," she said. "We're still trying to undo this unbelievable damage to the food and nutrition system in New York City."
On and off the rolls
Many welfare recipients were wrongly denied benefits and requested a hearing, winning in court at least 80 percent of the time, according to news accounts.
The welfare reforms also caused a "churning" of people on and off the rolls, anti-poverty advocates agreed. A welfare case would close, sometimes causing a person to seek emergency food or shelter while the case was reviewed. Then the person would usually regain the benefits. Some argue this allowed for artificial statistics - many who were knocked off welfare were simply waiting to get back on or seeking help elsewhere, advocates said.
Giuliani frustrated academics wanting to follow the people leaving the welfare rolls to see where they ended up. He cited privacy concerns and said he didn't want to be "Big Brother," according to The New York Times.
"He refused to allow any kind of research," White said. "If he couldn't control the message, he wasn't happy about that."
The city's human resources administration did offer some information to the Times, which showed that only 5 percent, or 256, of the first 5,300 people to enter Giuliani's city job centers found employment.
And the Work Experience Program, which required welfare recipients to work for the city, rarely led to permanent jobs, White said. Of the hundreds of thousands who were on welfare, only 35,000 ever participated in the program at any one time, he said. Critics argued that the work program placed too great an emphasis on temporary work instead of helping people gain the skills and education they'd need for a better-paying job.
No one is sure what happened to the 640,000 people who left the rolls.
"People get by," White said. "Even people on welfare, many of them have found ways to earn money. Whether it's healthy for them and their families," he added, no one knows.
When Giuliani was elected mayor, 1.1 million, or about 1 in 6 New Yorkers was on welfare.
"That was crazy; it wasn't healthy," White said. But Giuliani focused almost entirely on reducing the number of welfare recipients rather than solving the problems they faced.
In Bedford last week, Giuliani spoke about his welfare policies.
"I was accused by all the liberal media of being mean, being cruel," he said. "And I would go to those neighborhoods and I would say to people, 'I'm doing this because I love you more, because I care about you more, because I actually care about you as a human being not as some kind of a statistic.' "
He added, " 'I care about you as a person that I want to see being able to work, being able to take care of themselves.' "
------ End of article
By JOELLE FARRELL
Monitor staff
Article published Dec 2, 2007
Campaign 2008
Giuliani welfare record critiqued
By JOELLE FARRELLMonitor staff
here-->
Dec 2, 2007
Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, who often touts his record on crime reduction and tax cuts when he visits New Hampshire, said last week that he was most proud of the welfare reforms he initiated as mayor.
"We moved more people off welfare than the population of most cities in this country: 640,000 people," he said at the Politics and Eggs forum in Bedford last Monday. "And we found them jobs."
Giuliani's welfare policies drastically cut the number of people on welfare, but not all of the people who left the rolls - or were forced from them - found jobs. Many were wrongly denied benefits, including food stamps, which led more people to seek emergency shelter and food, city anti- poverty advocates said.
During Giuliani's tenure, the poverty rate declined only marginally, remaining about 70 percent greater than the rate for the rest of the country, according to the independent Citizens Budget Commission. The rate of homelessness increased from 23,431 people in the shelters each night to 34,576 people, according to the Coalition for the Homeless. About 500,000 fewer people received food stamps, forcing many to turn to food pantries and soup kitchens, said New York State Sen. Liz Krueger, who oversaw a nonprofit organization that helped poor people avoid eviction and secure emergency food during Giuliani's mayoral terms.
"The data shows that he moved them off of welfare, but he did not move them out of poverty," she said. "The easiest thing in the world to do is close a welfare case. The question is what happened to the household when you closed their welfare case. Many ended up not being able to pay their rent, putting themselves at greater risk for eviction and homelessness."
Mary Brosnahan, executive director of the New York-based Coalition for the Homeless, said it's unclear how much welfare reform may have contributed to homelessness. Giuliani also discontinued a program that gave homeless families priority for low-cost housing and tightened up standards for shelter eligibility, which worsened homelessness in New York City, she said. Homelessness continues to plague the administration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire who has put some of his own money toward poverty initiatives in the city.
"The overarching theme in his administration as it relates to poor people was get tough and crack down," Brosnahan said. "Certainly just in terms of numbers, that approach was a complete failure.
"Tonight in New York City shelters, we will have over 36,000 people, including 15,000 girls and boys," she said. "The toll it takes on those kids is just staggering. I see this as port of the Giuliani legacy."
Giuliani's campaign did not respond to requests for comment. But Jason Turner, who oversaw Giuliani's welfare policies as commissioner of the city's human resources administration, disputes the data presented by anti-poverty advocates. He said the best statistical indicator of the success of Giuliani's welfare reform comes from the U.S Census: In 1996, two years after Giuliani's reforms went into effect, 16 percent of single mothers with a high school education or less - the demographic most likely to be on welfare--were in the workforce. By 2001, that number had increased to 44.5 percent, he said.
"That's a social revolution that's never been seen before," Turner said.
Asked if those entering the workforce could still be suffering economically, working a minimum wage job, for example, Turner said that a woman with two children working a full-time minimum wage job is entitled to up to $4,600 annually with the federal earned income tax credit.
"Add food stamps, if you're still eligible, and you're above the poverty line," he said. "You have to get them on the ladder of employment and you're out of poverty. Yeah, you still have economic struggles, but this is the way out of them."
Andrew White, director of the Center for New York City Affairs, a policy institute that examines poverty issues at The New School, said wages for single mothers with only high school education decreased dramatically during Giuliani's time as mayor. People were leaving the welfare rolls, but many were still poor.
"If your measure of success is just stopping the payment of welfare, then (Giuliani's) programs were a huge success," he said. "If your measure is stabilizing families, strengthening neighborhoods and reducing poverty, then his method was too much on the inflexible and Draconian side."
Giuliani initiated welfare reform more than a year before the federal government put its own reform measures into place.
Also, the rate of welfare reduction in New York City under Giuliani was slightly lower than the national average. In New York City, welfare was reduced 58 percent, while nationally welfare was reduced 62 percent.
Working-class roots
Unlike some of the wealthy candidates running for president, Giuliani rose from working-class roots. His father, Harold, worked as janitor and a bartender. His mother, Helen, stayed home to take care of her only son, according to Wayne Barrett's biography, Rudy! Giuliani attended Manhattan College and New York University Law School before becoming a prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
His background informed his view on welfare and public assistance. He and his family worked hard to make their own way, and Giuliani believes others should do the same. He thinks giving someone a check for nothing is insulting and creates an underclass society dependent on entitlements, he has said at campaign stops.
As mayor, Giuliani aimed to crack down on welfare fraud and give people a greater incentive to seek work rather than public assistance. He also required all able-bodied welfare recipients to work 20 hours per week for the city in exchange for their welfare benefits, whether they answered phones for a city agency or picked up litter by the roadside. Welfare recipients were expected to put in another 15 hours a week searching for a job or receiving training and education in order to keep their benefits.
Giuliani renamed welfare centers "job centers" and set strict standards for welfare recipients. If they missed appointments with job counselors, they could be sanctioned from the welfare rolls. If they arrived late to a workfare site or didn't show, they could also lose their benefits.
Turner said the measures were meant to teach necessary workplace skills such as punctuality and organization so that workfare employees would succeed when they entered private employment.
"In real employment, you have to go to your job on a regular basis, and you have to please your boss and get things done," Turner said. "If you take 100,000 welfare recipients and you don't ask anything of them, then next year they will be as they were the year before."
But anti-poverty advocates say some of the restrictions were impractical for people struggling to get out of poverty.
"We would tell some woman with two young children, show up in another borough at 8 a.m. to sweep the park," Krueger said. "But we won't give you child care, so you have no place to leave your 4-year-old. But if you don't show up, we'll close your welfare case. . . . Women stopped showing up because they thought their answer was a child neglect case or a loss of their welfare case."
Rejection rates for those seeking welfare soared, according to Barrett's book. In 1998, 57 percent of those who applied for welfare were denied. A Bronx facility set a record in the first four months of 1999 by rejecting 90 percent of the 3,000 people who applied for welfare; 7 percent were granted assistance, compared with 61 percent from the previous year.
Eligibility for food stamps did not change. Yet in 1997, requests for food stamps in New York City dropped 15 percent, while requests for help from food pantries and soup kitchens increased 24 percent, according to The New York Times. The U.S. Department of Agriculture warned New York city officials that requiring a two-day application for food stamps violated federal law and, in 1999, the agency told the city to offer food stamps to applicants without delay.
Krueger said Giuliani's crackdown on food stamp recipients wasn't the right way to attack welfare fraud. She called it a "cruel and even sick philosophy."
"It's $1 per meal, per person per day," she said. "That's $3 per person. Is that what would motivate you to stay home and say, 'I'll just stay home and eat bonbons?' "
"You're hungry if you're only eating on food stamps," she said. "We're still trying to undo this unbelievable damage to the food and nutrition system in New York City."
On and off the rolls
Many welfare recipients were wrongly denied benefits and requested a hearing, winning in court at least 80 percent of the time, according to news accounts.
The welfare reforms also caused a "churning" of people on and off the rolls, anti-poverty advocates agreed. A welfare case would close, sometimes causing a person to seek emergency food or shelter while the case was reviewed. Then the person would usually regain the benefits. Some argue this allowed for artificial statistics - many who were knocked off welfare were simply waiting to get back on or seeking help elsewhere, advocates said.
Giuliani frustrated academics wanting to follow the people leaving the welfare rolls to see where they ended up. He cited privacy concerns and said he didn't want to be "Big Brother," according to The New York Times.
"He refused to allow any kind of research," White said. "If he couldn't control the message, he wasn't happy about that."
The city's human resources administration did offer some information to the Times, which showed that only 5 percent, or 256, of the first 5,300 people to enter Giuliani's city job centers found employment.
And the Work Experience Program, which required welfare recipients to work for the city, rarely led to permanent jobs, White said. Of the hundreds of thousands who were on welfare, only 35,000 ever participated in the program at any one time, he said. Critics argued that the work program placed too great an emphasis on temporary work instead of helping people gain the skills and education they'd need for a better-paying job.
No one is sure what happened to the 640,000 people who left the rolls.
"People get by," White said. "Even people on welfare, many of them have found ways to earn money. Whether it's healthy for them and their families," he added, no one knows.
When Giuliani was elected mayor, 1.1 million, or about 1 in 6 New Yorkers was on welfare.
"That was crazy; it wasn't healthy," White said. But Giuliani focused almost entirely on reducing the number of welfare recipients rather than solving the problems they faced.
In Bedford last week, Giuliani spoke about his welfare policies.
"I was accused by all the liberal media of being mean, being cruel," he said. "And I would go to those neighborhoods and I would say to people, 'I'm doing this because I love you more, because I care about you more, because I actually care about you as a human being not as some kind of a statistic.' "
He added, " 'I care about you as a person that I want to see being able to work, being able to take care of themselves.' "
------ End of article
By JOELLE FARRELL
Monitor staff
List of the location of chairman Klein speechs....since 4/07
Who NRC commissioner Klein gave speech’s to since 4/16/07
Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness “Teller Lecture”
Center for Strategic & International Studies
INPO
Packaging and Transportation of Radioactive Materials (PATRAM) Conference, U.S. DOE, NRC and U.S. DOT in cooperation with the IAEA and INMM…who sponsored
Baker Center for Public Policy
Digital Instrumentation and Control Workshop
IAEA General Conference
Global 2007: Advanced Fuel Cycles and Systems
ANS Utility Working ConferenceAmelia Island, FL
Women in Nuclear Conference, ANCAnaheim, CA
Canberra User’s Group, Areva
Society of Nuclear Medicine
Browns Ferry Unit 1 Restart
Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism Law Enforcement Conference
NEA Forum
GE Nuclear Innovations Conference
Goizueta Leadership Center, INPO, as we call it — the National Academy for Nuclear Training, and the Goizueta Business School at Emory University
Nuclear Energy Assembly, NEI
Before the International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (Icone 15)JAIF Annual Conference…4/16/07
Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness “Teller Lecture”
Center for Strategic & International Studies
INPO
Packaging and Transportation of Radioactive Materials (PATRAM) Conference, U.S. DOE, NRC and U.S. DOT in cooperation with the IAEA and INMM…who sponsored
Baker Center for Public Policy
Digital Instrumentation and Control Workshop
IAEA General Conference
Global 2007: Advanced Fuel Cycles and Systems
ANS Utility Working ConferenceAmelia Island, FL
Women in Nuclear Conference, ANCAnaheim, CA
Canberra User’s Group, Areva
Society of Nuclear Medicine
Browns Ferry Unit 1 Restart
Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism Law Enforcement Conference
NEA Forum
GE Nuclear Innovations Conference
Goizueta Leadership Center, INPO, as we call it — the National Academy for Nuclear Training, and the Goizueta Business School at Emory University
Nuclear Energy Assembly, NEI
Before the International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (Icone 15)JAIF Annual Conference…4/16/07
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)