Timeline: How the recent Ebola epidemic turned into the worst yet

First published on Aug 6

Remember those infected and recently disclosed as dead had gotten infected two, three and four weeks ago...

Vex:
Dakar, Senegal: Below are the main developments since the worst-ever epidemic of the haemorrhagic fever Ebola emerged in west Africa at the start of the year, fuelling fears it could spread to other continents.

March 2014

- 22: Guinea identifies the Ebola virus as the source of a highly contagious epidemic raging through its southern forests, as the death toll rises to 59.

Experts had been unable to identify the disease, whose symptoms were first observed six weeks ago, but scientists studying samples in the French city of Lyon confirmed it was Ebola.

- 27: Ebola spreads to Guinea's capital Conakry.

- 31: Liberia confirms two cases of the virus.

April

- 5: West African countries mobilise against an epidemic of haemorrhagic fevers, including Ebola. The measures include the deployment of medical teams at Conakry airport.

- 8: The UN's health agency, the World Health Organization, says the Ebola outbreak is among the "most challenging" for health workers since the deadly disease emerged elsewhere in Africa four decades ago.

- 10: International aid organisations launch a series of emergency measures across west Africa in a bid to contain the outbreak.

May

- 26: Sierra Leone confirms its first death from Ebola and said it is restricting travel in some areas to stop the fever from claiming more lives.

June

- 18: Fresh data from the WHO confirms the outbreak to be the deadliest ever, with 337 deaths since January, a 60 percent increase in two weeks.

- 21: The WHO says the recent rapid spread of Ebola in the three countries has come in part because efforts to contain the deadly virus have been relaxed.

- 23: The outbreak is now "out of control" with more than 60 outbreak hotspots in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the medical charity Doctors Without Borders says.

July

- 3: The WHO says at the close of a regional summit of health ministers on the crisis it expects the Ebola outbreak to continue for at least "several months".

- 25: The virus spreads to Africa's most populous country Nigeria, as a Liberian national dies in quarantine in Lagos. A day later the country places its ports and airports on alert.

- 27: A woman suffering from the first confirmed case of Ebola in Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, dies.

- 29: After Nigeria's main airline Arik, pan-African airline ASKY suspends all flights to and from the capitals of Liberia and Sierra Leone.

- 30: Doctors Without Borders warns there is a risk of Ebola spreading to other countries.

Liberia announces it is shutting all schools and placing "non-essential" government workers on 30 days' leave.

- 31: Countries across the world announce stringent new security measures to contain the epidemic.

Sierra Leone declares a state of emergency.

The WHO raises the death toll to 729.

The United States, Germany and France issue warnings against travel to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, while Paris also includes Nigeria.

August

- 1: The head of the WHO and presidents of the countries involved meet in Guinea to launch a $100 million emergency response, involving the deployment of hundreds of medical personnel to help overstretched workers and facilities.

WHO chief Margaret Chan tells the leaders the outbreak is "moving faster than our efforts to control it".

Dubai's Emirates airline says it is suspending flights to Guinea.
(Me)

First known Ebola death outside West Africa

 - 6: A Saudi national, who fell ill after returning from Sierra Leone, died early Wednesday in his hospital isolation ward where he was being tested for the Ebola virus, said the Saudi Health Ministry.

- 6: GENEVA The World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday began a two-day emergency meeting on West Africa's Ebola epidemic, with the UN agency deciding whether to declare it an international crisis. The closed-door session is tasked with ruling whether the outbreak constitutes what is known in WHO-speak as a "public health emergency of international concern".

-6: CDC raises Ebola alert to hightest level (red) and presidential news conference at the State Department on it.

Dr. Tom Frieden, the director of the United States Center for Disease Control, announced this afternoon that the agency has elevated its response to the Ebola virus to Level 1-- the highest possible response level. The CDC heightened the level today in response to multiple new diagnoses and scares around the globe.

Here comes the quickening?

-7: Congressional Hearing
 
Tom Friedman CDC Director: "The infection and death numbers are a fog of war situation."
 
Ken Isaacs Samarian Purse: "The data is at least undercounted by 25% to 50%."

"Is we don’t make a stand in West Africa, then we will be making a stand in all the capitals of the world. But I am afraid the cat is already out of the bag."

"Ken Isaacs Samarian Purse: We are going to see death tolls that are unimaginable."
 
"Dr Frank Glover: People are getting infected because they don’t have gloves." 

U.S. orders diplomats' families to leave Liberia as Ebola spreads.

-8: Ebola in Binin.

CNN -- Global health experts on Friday declared the Ebola epidemic ravaging West Africa an international health emergency that requires a coordinated global approach.

Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone are battling the Ebola virus, which has also spread to Nigeria. More than 930 people have died.

NYT--W.H.O. Declares Ebola in West Africa a Health Emergency
LONDON — Facing the worst known outbreak of the Ebola virus, with almost 1,000 fatalities in West Africa, the World Health Organization declared an international public health emergency on Friday, demanding an “extraordinary” response — only the third such declaration of its kind since regulations permitting such alarms were adopted in 2007.

-27 CNN) -- "It's even worse than I'd feared," Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Wednesday of the Ebola outbreak rampaging through West Africa. "Every day this outbreak goes on, it increases the risk for another export to another country.

-28 NYT-Ebola Could Eventually Afflict Over 20,000, W.H.O. Says

-29 New college students being screened for Ebola as Senegal reports its first case Universities are taking precautions with students coming to school from Africa. Senegal is now the fifth country affected in the West African region.

Sept
 

-2 WHO: Ebola death toll tops 1,900.

-9 The Ebola virus is spreading exponentially across Liberia as patients fill taxis in a fruitless search for medical care, the World Health Organization said Monday.

-30 History in the making...you knew it was on the way. So the panic started in Dallas...he caught it two to three weeks ago. I better not hear New Orleans anything!  

UPDATE: The Dallas-Fort Worth CBS affiliate is reporting that a patient who was being evaluated for Ebola has tested positive for the virus. According to Reuters, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the case -- the first time Ebola has been diagnosed in the United States.

Any Excuse To Gouge Us Over Electricity Prices!

"All of the above" really means any excuse To gouge us over electricity prices'!  

It is just a huge institutional failure for our government with managing energy, the grid and electricity. 

Whether its inadequate natural gas pipelines, inadequate state and federal oversight/regulation of natural gas used to make electricity, the shutdown of obsolete coal or nuclear plants, green or global warming electricity and the polar vortex that happens every few years…they have any excuse in the world to raise the price electricity or blackmail us over an unstable grid.

Your freaken dummies, you go right ahead and hate government!!! 

Yep, and the newspapers just don’t have the resources to adequately report on the stories...our electric utilities and our grid aren’t popular discussions in our society today.

Remember, “all of the above” means the highest priced electricity sets the price for all the less expensive electricity symbolizing massive collusion of the energy sources against the public.

Electric rates in Mass. set to spike this winter

Massachusetts consumers will pay significantly higher electric bills this winter as a persistent shortage of natural gas for generating plants drives power prices to record levels.

The cost for a typical household could top $150 a month, based on an announcement this week from one of the state’s two dominant utilities, National Grid. It said its rates will increase by a whopping 37 percent over last winter’s, solely because the cost of buying electricity from power plants has soared to the highest level in decades, according to a company spokesman.

Other utilities, including NStar, are also warning customers to brace for higher electric bills this winter, but they have not determined final rates for the winter.

“This is pretty bad, and it’s going to really have a bearing on a lot of Massachusetts households’ abilities to just make ends meet this winter,” said John Howat, senior energy analyst at the National Consumer Law Center in Boston….

Mike Mulligan Asking to Be Put On VY Decommission Panal

Updated: Sept 28

Brattleboro Reformer: "Entergy details staff cuts, spent fuel plans at Vermont Yankee"

This is me on the front page of the Reformer's weekend paper.

They are dam lucky I forgot to wear my halo! Everyone rememebers me demonstrating my giant Brattleboro bridge rust chips.(Cause For Concern). Should have pulled up that giant rust chip and said this is the reactor building in 50 years. I know, I am mixing metaphors.

The important people in this know this is me (Entergy) and they clearly understood my message.

Vermont Yankee site VP Chris Wamser is my prodigal son(identical haircuts):)

Ok, what would be my position on the board? I request make the VY decommissioning process the most transparent and participatory process of its kind in in the world. Get that new state decommission nuclear engineer on board. Be the example for all the rest of the decommissioning plants to follow.

The simple system, record everything by camera and blogging. Everything. All the management meetings and discussions…then put it up on the internet. Have a VY special room where all these discussions are recorded. We got to figure out a server where the events of decommissioning would stay into perpetuity. How about a public room on the VY site where outsiders could record their thoughts and issues. All the documents would be available. 

Basically all the documents, internal communications and videos would be in the community room and put up on the internet. Be the symbol of truth and honesty…transparency… for every other decommissioning activities in the USA. 

Set up interactive blog. All the issues could have their own heading in the blog where the public could ask questions. Like, have a panal heading for them to discuss. Make the commissioning panel itself accountable to the public at large. Be an example to the nation and the world; the safety advocates, the anti-nukes and Entergy publically cooperating, interacting with each other respectfully. Be the positive example to the world at large to see.

So the blogging example heading would be: 

“Make the Vermont Yankee decommissioning the most recorded decommissioning in USA. Be the positive decommissioning symbol for the rest of the world.

So then begin a discussion with all the players and stakeholders where the whole world could watch us with the mission statement: Entergy, the NRC, the states and the public. Make it a participatory brain storming discussion for everyone.

I told Entergy they could be the positive example for the USA…a path for them to reclaim their trust, honor and image.

You know for a fact I would holding the board's feet to the fire.

I believe this is one of the most important community policing advances in 50 years. It is the world of transparency in front of us and nobody should be afraid of it except the crooks. I submit to you transparency is the least expensive and best controller of human behavior the world has ever seen. We all change our behavior we when we think we are being watched…the roots of this is unconscious.  

Today’s Police Put On a Gun and a Camera

Officer Heidi Lambley, above, wearing a camera during a traffic stop last week in Pullman, Wash.Credit Rajah Bose for The New York Times

The Vermont state server would be the best place for this…but I wonder their if there IT will maintain the decommissioning site and actively work with decommission. You can just see it in a state budget crisis, cutting money on maintaining this site.

I have big philosophical problems with volunteerism. Most of the times it is a way for the state and corporate to shift cost away from these organization. It is a special kind of communism, everyone working for nothing in the name of altruism and the greater good. You can guaranty a low quality on the panel. If Entergy had their way, they would make the whole decommissioning a volunteer activity.  Honest work should always support the greater economy and the standard of living of the local peoples. I will always be on the side of the little guys making a decent standard of living and making a high quality government or organization who supports us all.

Oh, mike doesn't have a job...he can spend his days volunteering at the local soup kitchen or working for nothing in the greater cause of serving the community. Dignity is income and decent standard of living!

That raises another question, are local people going to play a large role at decommissioning VY or will it be distant out of staters?

And by the way, for you anti-modernity granolas, the Vermont Yankee property is a extraordinarily valuable asset and it is getting more valuable as we speak. It would be a crying shame to make that property just a park. Right, in future, we got that snaking new natural gas line going through northern Massachusetts just a few miles from the VY plant. The extraordinary value of the VY Vernon property is it could support huge new additional electric capacity or Entergy might use this property to block new grid capacity additions. All the large high voltage trnsmission lines in the region gets inter connected near the VY plant.  

Entergy could play a role to prevent new capacity additions, just make the VY property a park to make us feel like nature…jacking up the price of electricity to us all and making their buddy utilities very rich.

You know I will be blogging my ass off about Decommissioning. Nobody on the panel would have the plant experience and prior NRC licensed individual experiance as me,  as I worked in the plant for 13 years ending in 1993.

Basically I explained my interest to be on the panel at the meeting tonight. It was recorded by the Brattleboro TV station. 

What are my chances of getting it...about way less than 10%.  

(My NH state Rep)Today at 10:21 PM  

William, 

It was nice meeting your smiling face at the Brattleboro High school tonight. The last time we'd met your weren't smiling at me (the Hinsdale bridge). I got them to replace those dangerous boards through those antics. 

I know it is late in the game. I was wondering if you could get me on the Vermont Yankee decommissioning panel. It is noted there is no democrat and especially Hinsdale people on that panel. Could you ask the governor if she could add me to the panel.

I understand there is wiggle room on people in the panel. One more won't matter. 

I know a lot about VY, Entergy and the nuclear industry.

I will always be a gentleman and be beyond reproach if added. I well serve Hinsdale and governor well! 

Sincerely, 

Mike Mulligan

Hinsdale, NH

1-603-336-8320

He always immediately responds.

Mike, 

Thanks for your email & it was good to see you at the meeting in Brattleboro earlier this evening. I would like to see someone from Hinsdale added to the Vermont Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel (NDCAP). However, as far as I know, Governor Hassan does not have the ability to appoint any additional people to the Panel, beyond the one appointment she already made, our Democratic Senator, Molly Kelly. I may be incorrect, but as I understand the process from what I heard tonight, it is now up to the existing Panel members to recommend whether any new individuals should be appointed to the Panel, & even then, I am not sure if the Panel can directly reconstitute itself, or if a new membership structure for the Panel would have to be proposed & voted on by all of the members of the existing Panel, & then formerly introduced & approved through a change in the Vermont statute that apparently created the existing Panel.

Finally, as you probably know, back in June I decided not to run for another term in the NH House. I will finish out my current term of office which ends on December 2nd of this year when the new Reps will be sworn into their offices. However, given my circumstances, I likely have little influence, if any, with the Governor. Also, if I were to make a recommendation to her, I would probably suggest that a member of the Hinsdale Select Board be appointed (I believe that Vermont Yankee currently provides some monies for the Town of Hinsdale Emergency Planning folks, but those monies will likely not continue in the future) and/or someone from the Hinsdale School System, particularly given the proximity of the Hinsdale Schools being located just across the Connecticut River from Vermont Yankee.

I expect that I will see you again at the meeting of the Vermont NDCAP next month.

I admit I am not the best choice.

William,

Sorry about you leaving NH House...it will be a worst state without you. I am thinking about running for the selectmen next year. I thought it was a matter of nobody wanting to volunteer for the decommissioning panel. I honestly don't like Molly. She remembered my bridge prop, "you are the guy in Hinsdale showing the huge bridge rust chips". If funny what sticks in people’s minds. It is perplexing why the governor didn't call up a democrat.

Thank you for answering me and giving me an explanation. Your choices other than me make better sense.

Mike

I would run "again" for his seat, but I just don't have enough resources? Would I be "hell on wheels" advocating for a new Hinsdale bridge...I'd certainly want to be on the Transportation committee.
  

Bill just doesn't understand my knowledge and expertise with Entergy, the NRC and the nuclear industry towers over anyone in the region. I am independent from the anti nukers and the pro nukers...I just make up my own mind about a problem.

And also, the selectman thinks all the hard work leading to 2013, especially in 2013, now assures us a new bridge. I think they are overly optimistic.  

Go Navy! (nuclear)

Navy suspends most nuclear work at Norfolk

PORTSMOUTH, VA. — Two safety violations by civilian workers have prompted the Navy to suspend most nuclear work at Norfolk Naval Shipyard.

The suspension of work on Sept. 13 affects the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and the submarines USS Maryland and USS Albany, The Virginian-Pilot reported.

On two separate occasions in the past month, shipyard workers improperly handled equipment that had been used to work on nuclear reactors. The incidents violated the Navy's rules for the handling of potentially contaminated materials, shipyard spokesman Jeff Cunningham told the newspaper.

Shipyard officials paused all but the most critical nuclear operations to study the problem and to establish corrective actions, Cunningham said. He declined to say whether any workers had been disciplined.

"We work on small problems aggressively to prevent larger issues from ever developing," he said.

Cunningham said the problems "were minor and did not result in any impact to the safety of the public, the environment or employees."

It was not known when the work will be allowed to resume. Cunningham said it was not clear whether the suspension of work would influence when the three ships return to the fleet.

The Navy is swift to correct even minor breaches in nuclear safety protocol , said Chris Johnson, a spokesman for the Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington, D.C., which is responsible for oversight of the Navy's four public shipyards. He told the newspaper that safety pauses are not unprecedented.

About 9,200 civilians and 500 sailors work at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth. There also are hundreds of sailors who serve aboard ships that are undergoing maintenance there.

Exelon Nuclear Blackmailing Illinois

 Basically it is the “all the above” energy philosophy energy sources colluding and conspiring with the politicians to set the highest priced electricity as the floor price with the rest of the energy sources.

The utilities are smart enough to figure out the higher the priced consumer and commercial electricity, the bigger my cut. And they are big enough to take advantage of this philosophy.   

Exelon puts an opening price tag on nuclear rescue: $580 million

By Steve Daniels September 24, 2014

Exelon Corp. is urging state utility regulators to press for changes in power markets that would boost revenue at the company's Illinois nuclear power fleet by about $580 million.

At a Sept. 23 hearing before the Illinois Commerce Commission, Exelon Senior Vice President Kathleen Barron put a price tag on what the Chicago-based nuclear giant believes is necessary to keep at least most plants in Illinois open, the first public indication from the company of what it's asking for in dollars and cents.

Citing estimates from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on how much more nuclear plants should be paid for their output in light of their carbon-free emissions, Ms. Barron told commissioners an increase of about $6 per megawatt-hour would improve the company's financial picture in Illinois.

There remain questions about ways the state could help Exelon generate more revenue in Illinois, where some of its plants are losing money. But no one disagrees on who would supply the money: ratepayers. A $6-per-megawatt-hour increase in power prices would raise the energy price currently charged by Commonwealth Edison Co. by eight percent. Downstate, where power prices are significantly lower than in the Chicago area, the percentage increase would be significantly more.

'ECONOMIC STRESS'

The General Assembly is expected next year to take up wide-ranging energy legislation aimed at complying with the EPA's proposed greenhouse gas rule, which requires power generators to reduce carbon emissions on a state-by-state basis. The proposed rule would require Illinois to cut carbon emissions by 33 percent from 2005 over the next 16 years.

In her testimony, Ms. Barron told the ICC it was “beyond dispute” that keeping all the nuclear plants open was crucial to complying with the EPA's rule.

“EPA's recommended $6-per-megawatt-hour payment would make a big difference for challenged plants in the U.S.,” Exelon said in a statement. “In Illinois, it would offset a good deal of the economic stress on these units, which together represent almost 30 million metric tons of avoided carbon emissions per year.”

But, pressed on the matter, Exelon wouldn't commit to keeping all its Illinois plants open even with that subsidy.

“While a $6-per-megawatt-hour payment or even less would be sufficient for some units, $6 may not be enough for others,” the company said. “Each of our 11 nuclear units in Illinois has a different cost structure and different requirements.”

Exelon has said that at least two of its six Illinois stations (five of which have two units and one of which has a single unit) are losing money now. Those are its downstate Clinton plant (the single-unit station) and its Quad Cities plant.

FAIR TO CUSTOMERS?

In the past, when the state Legislature has approved legislation to spur a cleaner power mix in Illinois, it has added protections for ratepayers that capped increases at about 2 percent. A 2 percent cap on a nuclear rescue payment would likely mean no more than $300 million in additional revenue for Exelon.

If lawmakers were to approve a $6-per-megawatt-hour payment for nukes, they would have to forgo the 2 percent rate-hike cap they've used in the past.

“It's a huge amount of money,” said David Kolata, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board, a Chicago consumer advocate. “If that's going to be their ask, they'll be getting all the profits without any of the risk. That would be an awfully hard hit to consumers.”

It also raises questions as to how much ratepayer money other energy interests will seek under the auspices of complying with the greenhouse gas rule. Representatives of the wind and solar power industries testified before the ICC on how expanding renewable sources in Illinois would be key to lowering carbon emissions.

The state's second-largest power generator, Houston-based Dynegy Inc., has said it may lobby lawmakers to shift downstate Illinois into the same regional power grid that includes northern Illinois — a move that would raise power prices downstate about 18 percent from where they are now. That would help Dynegy preserve the downstate coal-fired fleet it acquired late last year from St. Louis-based Ameren Corp.

To My WIPPs and DOE OIG buddies

I believe this emerged from a political system dysfunction.  We had had tremendous budget problems…broad-based DOE and WIPP cutbacks. So the DOE forces a competition to the lowest priced contract. Then the DOE feels they need to give back favors…maintenance and safety give backs in order that the contractors make a reasonable profit. I think the contractor place a lot of pressure on the administration and Congress…this facilitates the give backs.

But this thing at WIPPs is the whole agency in scope and I think political in nature.

The nation’s defense nuclear facilities, including Savannah River Site, are not adequately prepared to respond to earthquakes, fires and other emergencies, according to a federal nuclear safety oversight panel

In a recommendation to U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board said the federal government has become complacent on updating emergency response procedures and safety standards at nuclear weapons facilities.

Additionally, the Department of Energy did not fully integrate lessons learned from the nuclear reactor meltdown at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan into site programs, the board stated.

The recommendation, based on several years of inspections at the facilities and public hearings, was published Tuesday in the Federal Register. There is a 30-day public comment period on the report.

The response to a truck fire and radioactive material release at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, N.M., highlighted the prevalence of shortcomings at other defense nuclear facilities, the board wrote. Many sites have insufficient emergency preparedness and response programs, planning and training, it continued.

“The board is concerned that these problems stem from DOE’s failures to implement existing emergency management requirements and to periodically update these requirements,” according to the report.

At SRS, the board highlighted issues with requiring workers to “shelter-in-place” no matter the type of emergency; in some cases, more immediate evacuations could protect workers from exposure to hazardous materials.

The site has corrected procedures, however, to identify various shelter types for different emergencies, such as an earthquake instead of radioactive releases.

SRS and the Pantex Plant in Texas were two sites where emergency exercise scenarios were not challenging enough to show that the sites were adequately prepared to respond to a major emergency, according to the board. The board commended SRS, however, for a “well developed and executed” training program for emergency response personnel that is lacking at other facilities, including the Pantex Plant and Sandia National Laboratories.

The DOE must improve its oversight at nuclear facilities or risk worker and public safety should an emergency occur, the board wrote.

On March 21, 2014, and March 28,

RECOMMENDATION 2014-1 TO THE SECRETARY OF ENERGY

Emergency Preparedness and Response

Pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 2286d(a)(3)

Atomic Energy Act of 1954, As Amended

...2014, the Board communicated to the Secretary of Energy its concerns regarding shortcomings in the responses to a truck fire and radioactive material release event at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlsbad, New Mexico. The DOE Accident Investigation Board explored and documented these shortcomings in its reports. Many of the site-specific issues noted at WIPP are prevalent at other sites with defense nuclear facilities, as documented in the attached report.

...Through its participation in DOE nuclear safety workshops in response to the events at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant and its lines of inquiry regarding emergency preparedness and response at recent public hearings and meetings, Board

members have been supportive of DOE’s efforts to improve its response to both design basis and beyond design basis events. However, the Board believes DOE’s efforts to adequately address emergency preparedness and response at its sites with defense nuclear facilities have fallen short as clearly evidenced by the truck fire and radioactive material release events at WIPP.

...Based on an evaluation of the problems observed with emergency preparedness and response at DOE sites with defense nuclear facilities, the most important underlying root causes of these problems are ineffective implementation of existing requirements, inadequate revision of requirements to address lessons learned and needed improvements to site programs, and weaknesses in DOE verification and validation of readiness of its sites with defense nuclear facilities.

The NRC Doesn’t Have The Statutory Horsepower to Control the Behavior of Palisades.

Do you speak Mulliganese?
 
If I read just one more time my "stuff like that" phrase I am going to hang myself:)


Official Transcript of Proceedings
 

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

 

Title: 10 CFR 2.206 Petition Review Board RE Palisades Nuclear Plant

 

Date: Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Excerpts

 

·         MR. MULLIGAN: Thank you. Deterrents. You know, we look at deterrents as far as the NRC's activities associated with a nuclear power plant, and we see that the NRC doesn't have any, very little deterrents on the bad behaviors of other plants.

·         As far as all of the issues with Palisades over the years, a recent newspaper wrote up an interesting set of articles about Palisades and all the troubles they had. And what you see over this thing is there is, one thing, the NRC doesn't have any horsepower to, you know, put fear in the eyes of these guys. And that's, basically, you know, if you go one-by-one with these regulations and stuff like that, you're going to consume all the NRC's resources stuff like that.

·         And so there's the deterrence part of the NRC's activities. You know, the utilities are going to exhaust the agency with all the nickel and dime stuff if there's not a deterrence part of this deal, if they don't fear the NRC and that type of thing.

·         We also know that -- I believe that, generally, in the last five years, as shown by the articles in the newspaper, that with all of our troubles, Palisades had better capacity factor than they had in the early years and stuff. And this is all, essentially, because of risk perspectives and reductions of regulations and all that sort of stuff. And so in spite of all their troubles and that type of thing, Palisades has been allowed to continue on in the way they've always done.

·         Palisades did a relatively good job on the control rod drive mechanisms of recent, but they had a horrible history of CRDM problems and that type of stuff. Palisades has had numerous issues of falsifying documents, intimidating employees, lying to inspectors over the recent years and that type of stuff. And, you know, like the recent issue with the security guards, they had a similar incident four or five years ago, basically the same thing: lying and falsifying documents to the NRC. And I know the NRC basically says after two or three years, we’ll just make believe that it never happened, you know, the history never really is caught up knitted together. And you don't have enough influence and power to keep a plant like Palisades straight.

·         What's happened here is really ugly. What's happened with the impellers is ugly. It's unprofessional. It makes our nation a laughing stock to all the other nations that are desperately trying to, you know, maintain their fleet safely and stuff like that.

·         And I've heard from numerous professional people in the industry basically saying they cannot believe that we allowed the Palisades plants to operate for so many years with these reactor coolant pumps and all these different kind of warnings we've had over the years and stuff and all these indications. And we're only getting, the outsiders are only getting the bits and pieces of what really went on with these impellers and stuff. You know, a lot of nations think of this as irresponsible and not worthy of a great nation when you get down to these impellers and stuff.

·         And then you've got Salem, like I talked about, the recent issues with a horrendous, all their bolts being loose and stuff like that, prior, you know, prior warnings and that type of stuff that were ignored, and the NRC really hasn't stepped in there and done what the public wants. They don't want to have a Salem. You know, a crack starts somewhere in a reactor coolant pump. They want that crack fixed. They don't want to have to deal with these problems for years and years and deal with the broken bolts and fallen down components and the pumps and stuff. That's ugly. The amount of cracked and broken impellers, it's ugly. It's unprofessional. It's an essence of an indicator,

·         you know. If they can't keep these impellers, you know, if they don't have to spend so much resource on these broken components, impellers, the tank that recently leaked, the control rod drive mechanisms, and stuff like that. You know, they're just consuming plant resources, and we fear that other safety problems aren't being dealt with adequately.

·         A lot of these kind of components breaking and stuff like that, that has a tendency to make the employees disillusioned and they know that it's wrong and stuff like that. And they know that the NRC doesn't back them. They know that, you know, we have to make they'll be up in the control room and they'll have the indications of a big blade being thrown off the pump, and everybody will sit back and not give what the public really wants the Agency to force Palisades to do, to shut down, pay a price, deterrence, deterrence, and make them pay a price so that, you know, when they're in their little rooms and they're making these decisions about, you know, well, we've got some part of the impeller cracked, we can either fix it right, put in new parts so we don't have to deal with this in the past, or the NRC is going to, down the road, if, you know, bigger parts start falling off the pump or it gets strewn about the plant, they're going to make us pay a horrendous price.

·         Most of the people, you know, what is safety related and all that sort of stuff, you know. We think when you talk about Palisades is safe that means that you are pretty sure that they won't have a, you know, a type of severe core damage and off-site relief where you'll have a fatality. That's what you're saying when you say a plant is safe, and that's just not an appropriate standard. We don't think that's an appropriate -- we think this ugliness is a pretty good indicator of the future and that it shouldn't be tolerated. It should be nice and clean, and the operation of the plant should be nice and clean, and they're not all caught up with these degradations and broken components and all that sort of stuff. It's a clean plant. The staff is not excessively busy or the control room employees don't have all these complicated procedures in place of, you know, a well-engineered plant. And, you know, everybody is diligently paying attention to the plant, not paying attention, not worrying about the degradations.

·        We worry about Palisades, but there's a risk if a lot of plants have degradation mechanisms that the NRC doesn't have under control and, you know, necessarily what you can prove isn't the most unsafe. It's a lot of the stuff that's behind the barrier that's degraded, that's degrading in an unknown fashion, and that's a threat to the nation and to a plant.

·         So that's kind of what we're worried about with -- rules don't carry a lot of information and stuff. You know, staying within the rules doesn't have a lot of information. Usually, human intelligence and a brain can process a lot of information and that type of thing, and so that's what I worry about is a lot of these rules and stuff is designed to make us become more stupider than we really are.

 

·         I think, like I said, we worry about what's going on if regulations will tolerate this kind of ugly behavior at Palisades, certain events in the industry that are pretty concerning that are out there that kind of questions whether it's a lot more uglier than what's being portrayed by the NRC.

·         You know, it almost gets to the point of, you know, the NRC says, you know, well, cheating isn't safety related, you know. We can't -- it doesn't, it's un-safety related. It can be repaired, or it's not a big deal, or it's not modeled appropriately in all your risk perspectives and stuff like that.

·         Another issue we have is really you don't have any proof, there's no engineering proof that those reactor coolant pumps are safe. You don't have any, I don't see any model of, you know, actual building a plant, building, more or less, a prototype type of deal where you're beating the hell out of the pumps and you're getting those kind of blade failures and everybody, you know, you're experimenting a lot on a system like the Palisades pumps and its relationship to its primary coolant system and stuff like that. You don't have really any actual, I don't see any actual engineering that those pumps are safe. Studies, actual studies. It's all kind of, more or less, you know, the fallback of the NRC, it's our opinion that it's safe and stuff like that. That's the privilege of the NRC. They get to say that, basically, the professional people, they get to say, you know, a guy like me needs triplicate proof that Palisades is unsafe, even when it's all there. You guys get to say, "It's my opinion that it's safe," and you don't have any evidence to back it up.

·         So the evidence I'm talking about is, would be some engineering document showing that, you know, we've gone through all of the, you know, not necessarily intellectual kind of thing that the NRC likes to do, but we really set up a system and we've repeated the degradation mechanisms on Palisades with their PCP pumps and stuff like that, and we actually seen the results of the broken impellers and stuff like that. We have a full engineering understanding of the mechanisms of what potentially could go wrong in the future with those pumps. I don't think a lot of you guys really understand how difficult that is being in the control room and, you know -- you guys all mostly get to see a lot of this stuff in hindsight. Those guys in the control room get to see those events when equipment fails and they have no idea why it failed and why it's behaving that way. Then they get stuck with procedures that don't work. It's a terrifying situation and unnerving situation in the control room.

·         And we think, you know, with this Palisades deal being ugly and stuff, your inability to enforce integrity and truth-telling -- Palisades is not afraid to lie when they need to or be deceptive to the NRC. That's the history of Palisades and stuff like that, and we think actually that happens a lot throughout the industry.

·         And then the general stated the nuclear industry as a whole and incentives nowadays for a lot of these utilities with their economic troubles to cut back and stuff. You know, our fear is if we seen all that was going on there, we could foresee, and the NRC could behave in a different way. But there's tremendous barriers. A lot of rules are set up, you know, like in this thing here. I can't see all the documents and stuff like that.

·         And if we had all of the knowledge in front of us of what was going on, outsiders could intervene, just like if everybody seen what was going on in Fukushima and the anti-nukes could have that kind of ammunition, maybe that wouldn't have happened. Maybe we could have captured a couple of minds and consciences and not have such an ugly situation facing us in the future.