Who wants to be next NRC Chairman? My choice is Ostendorff?

Millstone's Dome

It seems Obama did this to inflame the Republicans. Is that what he is doing with the immigration theme? What benefits does he see by this? Maybe contrasting how the big jerks republicans are? He knows the instincts of the republicans. Is he trying to coalesce the remnants of the democrats for the presidential elections?

I hope the democrats are as good as obstructing the interest of the republicans, as the republicans have been at obstructing the interest of the democrats. I think the Democrats are going to fold. We have already seen a shift in the NRC OIG as the republicans are heading to take over the Senate.

It is certain the mainstream politicians seen the upcoming Senate takeover many months before the election. I am certain NRC chairman Macfarland and the Obama political aids seen this as she was contemplating she stepping down. Her not immediately quitting speaks volumes...putting it off till the end of the year speaks of the heavy politicalization of the NRC. It almost speaks to Obama wanting the weakest hand going into choosing the next chairman. Reid is mostly gone from the power equation. You know the Republicans have total veto power over obstructing Macfarland's replacement.

I don't know, is the nuclear industry ascending or in steep decline. I would make my choice over that one question---shaping the positive or negative direction of the agency. It it was going up, I'd want my guy in there getting my and the party's due credits. If it was going down, I'd want the republicans getting blame for it.

I have long issues with naval submarine officers as I was enlisted. I want to get even! Honestly, i'd get a lot of pleasure over Ostendorff becoming a chairman. I love to see his panties getting into wad as he tries to control this disintegrating industry. I would get a lot of entertainment seeing him clumsily dancing as chairman in this very next troubled period. 

This whole period reminds me of the Clinton years with the NRC. Basically chairman Jackson forced out as the Republicans were taking over congress in preparation of Bush coming into office.

Did the Republicans want her in office and then fired her? In her first two years there were a lot of nuclear plant operational problems.
  
1992      -I got fired from VY for raising safety issues? 

Jan 1993  -President Clinton

1993      -Paul Blanch leaves Millstone

Nov 94    -midterms, house and senate now controlled by republicans

1995      -Shirley Jackson becomes NRC chairman

June 96   -Galantis leaves Millstone and three Units shutdown 

Nov 96    -Clinton reelected with 49%

Dec 96    - Maine Yankee shuts down permanently

Nov 97    -Commonwealth Edison's whole nuclear system on fire and burning                   in chicago, largest owner of nuclear plants in nation
*1998     -Permanent shutdown of two unit Zion

1999      -Jackson run out of office

July 1    -Jackson became president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Jan 2001  -President Bush

*Atomic Insight 2011: In the mid 1990s, Commonwealth Edison, the monopoly electric utility that built and operated many of the nuclear plants that are now owned and operated by Exelon as a merchant plant operator, was having difficulty managing and maintaining its nuclear plants. They were achieving low capacity factors, appearing on Nuclear Regulatory Commission watch lists, and suffering from power struggles between labor unions and management.


Zion, like many of the other Commonwealth Edison units, had issues that culminated in a group of operators resisting management orders and taking off their shirts in the control room. There were some other complicating

It is always about labor/management issues with the NRC, the NRC especially in those days, always taking the sides of management...it is never about the NRC working in conjunction with the good employees demanding the parent company grow up.

circumstances, but the bottom line was that the company shut down both units of the plant and decided to keep them shut down. The decision allowed the company to fire or reassign the recalcitrant union members and to establish a more powerful position over the behavior of employees. At the time, replacement power was cheap since natural gas was selling for less than $2.00 per million BTU and since the midwest was shedding much of its manufacturing base, reducing the overall electricity demand. 

Senators Barbara Boxer And David Bitter Fight Over Obama Nominee

President Barack Obama is proposing that Jeffrey Baran, who he nominated for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, should continue on the commission until June 2018 following the departure of Allison Macfarlane. However, the Republicans are not happy with the proposal and now Republican Senator David Bitter and Democrat Barbara Boxer are locked in a heated battle centered on Baran.

“There are major concerns, particularly about the NRC nominee,” Vitter said. “He has no technical or scientific background. He visited his first nuclear plant this summer. Given that, and given that there is no precedent anywhere that I can find for a four-year nomination to the NRC not to have a nomination hearing before the committee, all we are asking for is a normal, routine nomination hearing.”

However, Boxer claims that Vitter’s request is nothing but a delaying tactic and that they already had a hearing when Baran first joined the commission. “What we are doing is putting him in a different seat on the same commission that has a different expiration date. He has already had a hearing, and Senator Vitter asked 56 questions,” Boxer explained. While Senators Boxer and Vitter had their arguments regarding EPA regulations in the past, the two did work together in the Environment and Public Works Committee where they managed to pass several bills.

Boxer made the news recently after she spearheaded a campaign against the Keystone XL pipeline, which aims to carry oil from Canada to the United States. The bill effectively died on Tuesday, November 18, after the Senate blocked a measure that would enable the pipeline to be built. Republicans have argued that the pipeline will be able to generate jobs. However, they weren’t able to get the votes necessary to have the bill push through.

Senator Boxer contended that the pipeline will be a massive environmental hazard and will ultimately make conditions even worse.

Millstone readies ‘the dome’ to deal with disasters

 

Published November 20. 2014 6:20PM

Updated November 21. 2014 10:15AM

By Judy Benson

Publication: theday.comWaterford — Better known as “the dome,” Building 717 is the newest structure with the newest equipment at the Millstone Power Station, yet it is the least likely to be occupied by workers during anything but training and maintenance exercises.

“It’s all loaded up and ready to be used in the unlikely event that we need it,” Ken Holt, spokesman for the nuclear power plant, said Thursday.

The light gray, 10,000-square-foot concrete structure, designed in a semi-spherical shape for added strength, was built and furnished over the last seven months on a former parking lot at one of the highest elevations at the 520-acre Millstone site, 33 feet above the expected maximum height of storm surge tides, said Tom Paulantonio, implementation project manager.

“This gives us a very robust strategy for dealing with the unanticipated,” he said, standing amid the array of showroom-shiny heavy machinery. “There is a primary strategy and an alternate strategy and a backup strategy” with all the equipment needed to support all three.

Millstone owner Dominion spent $10 million to build the dome and equip it with new tractors, diesel-powered water pumps, generators, portable lights and a mobile communication station, along with miles of firehose and cable, protective clothing and dozens of other items. All of it is labeled with “BDB” stickers for “beyond design basis,” the term used to connote equipment reserved for extreme, worst-case scenario events that would disable the two working nuclear reactors at the site.