CDC: 28,647 USA Heroin and Opioids Overdose Deaths in 2014

Can you believe how our media is not now saturated with the magnitude of these fatalities? I have had a severe alcohol addiction in my younger life. It basically emerged from my poor upbringing and my inherent weaknesses. The hardest years I ever had was the first five years after quitting drinking. So here is my analysis of this problem. Whether its heroin or alcohol, about twenty percent of population gets addicted. Course, heroin is a lot more additive than booze.  

We brought up a significant percentage of our population who is highly sensitive to addictions. This particular addiction changes the pleasure controlling areas of our brains almost like no other drug or chemical. Their brains are severely damaged. Some will recover, but a high percentage will never be recoverable. That is what you see in AA. But heroin in magnitudes worst.

 

The addictiveness of a drug is basically on a continuum. Some drugs create more addiction and economic damage than others. The drugs like pot and coffee are hardly addictive. Cigarettes are viciously addictive and dangerous. It will be years before you or society feels the damages caused by smoking cigarettes. Heroin and opioids are highly addictive. The Cape Cod HBO movie on heroin addictiveness expresses this very well. We are bombarded with heroin lawlessness on a daily bases. The alcohol early deaths, all the suffering and all the economic damage to our nation, the courts, jails and legal bills from alcohol dwarfs all the other addictive drugs. Alcohol just touches a higher percentage of our population. We are not going to fix this problem by putting all the addicts in jail. We got create a severe shortage of heroin on our streets. Drive up the price of the drug. That will drive them into rehab.

 

1) If 20% of the population of heroin users become addicts and we see the magnitude of the size of the heroin problem as only in overdoses...the user population who don't become addicted is much bigger than portrayed. We are only seeing the tip of the iceberg with our national problem with heroin. 

 

2) The cost of heroin addiction is like a giant tax on all of us. Heroin is a very expensive addiction. It is very expensive with extra police services, courts, jails, repeated rehabs, their kids...unrecoverable wrecked human lives all around us. What expenses am I missing. The Boston "Baby Doe" murder emerged from groups of people being addicted to heroin. WE are having increasing drug gang murder rates in big cities. The profits from heroin is feeding all of this gang activity. How much money of this intensified gang action costing us? How many innocent homes were broken into to the feed the heroin addiction? 

This fixation with rehabbing addicts is sometimes a scam to limit governmental expensive to the addicts by the politicians. This only makes the situation worst. Our priority should be getting these drugs off our street now. It is a grave national security issue now. 

3)28,647 opiate overdoses in 2014 It has exploded in 2015. Is it at a doubling rate per year? What does the rate depended on?   

• 28,647 deaths in 2014

• 56,494 deaths in 2015 This a Vietnam war level event in two years. It took a decade of war to create 50,500 American deaths.      

• 112,988 deaths in 2016

If you want to get a take on how immoral a country has become, this is the issue. This is like a terrorist setting off a small atomic bomb in our country and letting them get away with it. What would we do if a terrorist killed 28,000 Americans in on swipe?

A tremendously increasing percentage of our population is being directly exposed to the sorrows of heroin addiction. Exponentially more people not directly exposed to the sorrows, neighbors and word of mouth...the increase of stories in the media...huge segments of our society are unnerved by heroin problems. The white conservative segment of society took advantage of heroin addiction in the black ghettos in the 1960s and 1970s. Lots of politicians improperly got elected through exaggerating the threat of this. Lawlessness is rampant in our nation, elect me and I will put them all jail. This is mostly a white addiction today.

I don't understand why the politicians aren't unnerving the populous with all our current heroin lawlessness. Gaining a political advantage?      

2) The international security strategy should go like this. Pick the three largest countries who produce heroin poppies and make heroin. Choose the weak link out of the three options. It is called deterrence. Military and economically embargo the evil country. Make a example out of them. Say, we will squeeze the life out of your country if you don't put a stop to producing poppies and making heroin. If heroin continues to leak out of your country into our country through any means, then we will bomb specific targets in your country. Make the knees of the rest countries who produce and distribute heroin tremble with just the whisper the word USA. Regret they ever were born.           

   

Increases in Drug and Opioid Overdose Deaths — United States, 2000–2014 Weekly 

January 1, 2016 / 64(50);1378-82

Rose A. Rudd, MSPH1; Noah Aleshire, JD1; Jon E. Zibbell, PhD1; R. Matthew Gladden, PhD1

The United States is experiencing an epidemic of drug overdose (poisoning) deaths. Since 2000, the rate of deaths from drug overdoses has increased 137%, including a 200% increase in the rate of overdose deaths involving opioids (opioid pain relievers and heroin). CDC analyzed recent multiple cause-of-death mortality data to examine current trends and characteristics of drug overdose deaths, including the types of opioids associated with drug overdose deaths. During 2014, a total of 47,055 drug overdose deaths occurred in the United States, representing a 1-year increase of 6.5%, from 13.8 per 100,000 persons in 2013 to 14.7 per 100,000 persons in 2014. The rate of drug overdose deaths increased significantly for both sexes, persons aged 25–44 years and ≥55 years, non-Hispanic whites and non-Hispanic blacks, and in the Northeastern, Midwestern, and Southern regions of the United States. Rates of opioid overdose deaths also increased significantly, from 7.9 per 100,000 in 2013 to 9.0 per 100,000 in 2014, a 14% increase. Historically, CDC has programmatically characterized all opioid pain reliever deaths (natural and semisynthetic opioids, methadone, and other synthetic opioids) as "prescription" opioid overdoses (1). Between 2013 and 2014, the age-adjusted rate of death involving methadone remained unchanged; however, the age-adjusted rate of death involving natural and semisynthetic opioid pain relievers, heroin, and synthetic opioids, other than methadone (e.g., fentanyl) increased 9%, 26%, and 80%, respectively. The sharp increase in deaths involving synthetic opioids, other than methadone, in 2014 coincided with law enforcement reports of increased availability of illicitly manufactured fentanyl, a synthetic opioid; however, illicitly manufactured fentanyl cannot be distinguished from prescription fentanyl in death certificate data. These findings indicate that the opioid overdose epidemic is worsening. There is a need for continued action to prevent opioid abuse, dependence, and death, improve treatment capacity for opioid use disorders, and reduce the supply of illicit opioids, particularly heroin and illicit fentanyl.

In 2014, 61% (28,647, data not shown) of drug overdose deaths involved some type of opioid, including heroin. The age-adjusted rate of drug overdose deaths involving opioids increased significantly from 2000 to 2014, increasing 14% from 2013 (7.9 per 100,000) to 2014 (9.0) (Figure 1). From 2013 to 2014, the largest increase in the rate of drug overdose deaths involved synthetic opioids, other than methadone (e.g., fentanyl and tramadol), which nearly doubled from 1.0 per 100,000 to 1.8 per 100,000 (Figure 2). Heroin overdose death rates increased by 26% from 2013 to 2014 and have more than tripled since 2010, from 1.0 per 100,000 in 2010 to 3.4 per 100,000 in 2014 (Figure 2). In 2014, the rate of drug overdose deaths involving natural and semisynthetic opioids (e.g., morphine, oxycodone, and hydrocodone), 3.8 per 100,000, was the highest among opioid overdose deaths, and increased 9% from 3.5 per 100,000 in 2013. The rate of drug overdose deaths involving methadone, a synthetic opioid classified separately from other synthetic opioids, was similar in 2013 and 2014.

My Old Bridge And a New Vision of Island Park

There is the outline of the old Island Park before the 1920s and 1930s floods. The Vernon Dam caused this. I'd like a elevated nature trail or bike trail between the railroad tracks and the Connecticut River red lined on the Brattleboro side. 

Hinsdale, N.H., bridge to be started two years ahead of schedule

Hinsdale to Brattleboro bridge project two years early?

By Robert Audetteraudette@reformer.com @audette.reformer on Twitter

Posted:   02/01/2016 10:22:09 AM EST0 Comments

Updated:   02/02/2016 07:33:37 AM EST

This aerial picture shows the Anna Hunt Marsh Bridge, which, with the Charles Dana Bridge, connects Hinsdale, N.H., to Brattleboro, Vt. (Kristopher Radder — Reformer Staff)

 

HINSDALE, N.H.— The historic Vilas Bridge linking Walpole to Bellows Falls is crumbling into the Connecticut River, closed in 2009 with no real plan to replace it.

Meanwhile, traffic across the Anna Hunt Marsh and Charles Dana bridges, which link Hinsdale to Brattleboro, Vt., continues unabated.

The bridge in Walpole is not on New Hampshire's 10-year plan because a perfectly suitable bridge crosses the river just a few miles north, reasons the Granite State's Department of Transportation. But the bridge in Hinsdale is one of the busiest in the region. It's also one of the most narrow — just one semi-truck short of a snarl that could lock up traffic for hours. In the state's 10-year plan, construction to replace those bridges is scheduled to start two years earlier — 2017 — than in the previous 10-year plan, which is updated every two years.

"The 10-year plan is never written in stone," said Bill Boynton, spokesman for the N.H.

What he is talking about is dirty politics independant of facts and transparency. Ask Mr. Boynton if the NHDOT has been starve by funding problems for decades in crazy NH. 

DOT. "It is based upon available resources. Projects move up in the line or are removed if they are not necessary."

While the Vilas Bridge is not in the newest plan, he said, it doesn't mean the state has abandoned the idea of replacing it.

"We don't want to minimize the concerns that have been expressed by the community. We understand the bridge is very important to them, but the fact is there is another bridge in close proximity and that changes the nature of prioritization."

The Hinsdale-to-Brattleboro bridges however, serve a unique purpose that can't be substituted by other river crossings. It's either drive north to Chesterfield and cross the

I love that bridge...those curved huge and massively thick beams on top of the new bridge. Couldn't win any war without the US Navy Seabees. The uniqueness and the fragility of the two communities has been with us for many decades with the bridge. Why does all of a sudden the NHDOT yank out the uniqueness card? Why hasn't the NHDOT been advocating our uniqueness for decades. Replacing bridges has always been about vote getting in the eastern high population areas. I wouldn't be surprised if senator Shaheen is behind the lone?    

United States Navy Seabees Bridge at the Exit 3 roundabout, or travel south to Northfield, Mass., cross the river there and then travel north to Brattleboro on Route 142 or Interstate 91.

Even though that bridge project has been moved up to 2017, said Boynton, there are still some details to be ironed out. The Anna Hunt Marsh and Charles Dana bridges may

The island between the bridges is named Island Park I believe. I know people all over the states of NH and Vt...indeed all through the region and visitors from other countries. They love walking across my bridges. Why deny them this pleasure. We should refurbish the whole island. Knock down all those ugly scrub trees. Clean out all the garbage and brush.  Bring in a little filler dirt. Turn this Island into into a beautiful green lawned park right up to the water line. God it would be so beautiful and functional. It would be a lot safer for everyone if all the areas of the park could be easily seen by road. It would be a perfect fishing area. Put in picnic tables and park grills. Brattleboro is starved for downtown parking spaces. Put in parking spaces. With Wantastiquet Mountain and the stunning Connecticut River in the background, it would be spectacular meeting space. Wouldn't your kids love it: everyone's kids. It would take your breath away forever and honour our ancient forefathers who built the Park at the turn of the 20th century. Can't you just hear the faint train whistle from the distance approaching our locale. They made us who we are. It would broadly add to the health of our community with be a pretty walking and exercise area. It would get rid of the dangerous homeless and druggy problem on the island. It would add much value to our states of NH and Vermont. Added value to Brattleboro and Hinsdale. 

My god man, park on the New Island Park and walk up to the top of Wantastiquet Mountain? Would people spend more money in Brattleboro and Hinsdale? Could you advertise it as tourist attraction jewel. Eating at a restaurant in Brattleboro and then taking a spectacular walk to Island park. You are going to need some benches to sit on and appreciate our beauty? I believe this Island is owned by the Vernon Dam people Transcanada.
 
Design the Island to be easily repairable after our big floods. Do you believe in the power of mankind to make a better earth?        

remain for pedestrians or they may be demolished altogether. And then there is a question about the landing of the new bridge in Vermont. The plan calls for it to be built at the flashing traffic light at George's Field on the New Hampshire side, connecting to Route 142 just south of the Marlboro College Graduate Center. Boynton said issues with the railroad and propane tanks have to be dealt with before the plans can be finalized.

In Bellows Falls, an offer was made two years ago by Vermont to finance the bridge's rehabilitation, as long as the state of New Hampshire would agree to pay for repairs to all other bridges spanning the Connecticut River, up to the total cost to rebuild the Vilas Bridge. The Granite State declined the offer.

The bridge project in Hinsdale is expected to cost more than $40 million and would be financed with Grant Anticipation Revenue Vehicle — or GARVEE — bonds issued by the U.S. Department of Transportation. According to the DOT's website, a GARVEE "is a type of anticipation vehicle, which are securities (debt instruments) issued when moneys

I'd like to know a little more about the federal aid grants.

are anticipated from a specific source to advance the upfront funding of a particular need. In the case of transportation finance the anticipation vehicles' revenue source is expected Federal-aid grants."

Despite the assurances from New Hampshire, Chip Stearns, the municipal manager for Rockingham, doesn't believe the bridge will ever be fixed or replaced.

"It's got to be important to New Hampshire before they fix it, but like everybody else, they are so far behind in infrastructure repairs," he said. "Someone over in Concord is not going to be concerned about Bellows Falls while just north of the Vilas Bridge is a new bridge that can be used to cross the Connecticut River."

However, said Stearns, what is being missed — or ignored — by the Granite State, is a sewer line attached to the bridge that delivers septage from Walpole to the waste water treatment plant in Bellows Falls. "It belongs to the town of Walpole and the state needs to have an emergency plan in case the bridge collapses and the pipe spews sewage into the Connecticut River. Someone ought to be concerned."

Bob Audette can be contacted at 802-254-2311, ext. 160.

Oooh, My God: River Bend is at 58% Power Last Night

This guy has got to be a money maker for Entergy. What is it, a three week shutdown.

I believe this plant is a regulated plant. They get paid big bucks to make spectacular screw-ups! In other words, the state regulators (buddies) makes the ratepayers pay big bucks for the screw-up plus a godly profit markup.

update 2/3: It greatly disappointing River Bend is only at 57%.

2/4:  cha ching- only at 78% last night?

Columbia Fuel Defects

That is all we get on the fuel pin defects in the new inspection report?

SUBJECT: COLUMBIA GENERATING STATION – NRC INTEGRATED INSPECTION REPORT 05000397/2015004  

November 8, 2015, power suppression testing to identify fuel defects

Columbia Nuclear Plant's Fuel Failure Problem

We need a timeframe on these event.

I believe in our pin steam explosion, this was a 2nd or 3rd time in the core. So it was leaking, then went through a outage and restart...then the pin popped.

When I first arrived at VY, the primary system was pretty clean. In the early startup period (1970s), they have severe fuel leakage. This is how we got the AOG building. It was the pellet-clad interaction. We replaced our recirculation pipes in my early years. They chemically cleaned the primary system to reduce radiation for that. As a AO, I had to enter many high radiation rooms. Lets talk the clean up rooms and clean up heat exchanger room. I was required to enter these rooms in cloth cotton cloves, a lab coat and plastic booties. It was minimal radiation protection. All I had on me was my TLD to measure radiation. It took a minute to put my gear on and there was minimal rad protection bureaucracy to back me up. This is what you can with minimal radiation and contamination.

As I was leaving, I had to use a double full radiation suit on and a respirator. It take me about hour to get all dressed up. This was a result from our fuel failures. It was rad protection department intensive. A lot more of my precious time was devoted to getting dress up in full rad protection suits and getting undressed. There was a lot more plastic rad waste as a result. Cycle this through our plant and the industry in general in all the radiation jobs...the was a huge waste of money. You lost big time profits over this. It was a tremendous waste of resources. Remember if you contrast say a simple mechanical job in non radiation environment and same job in a radiation environment...we are talking about a huge expense. The contractor who does the job is going charge VY a lot more money for the job independent of the RP bills.    

Our full cotton radiation suits had to be washed every time. They contracted these jobs out to laundry company in Springfield Ma. Their is a lot of people who never made though high school in my home town. I grew up in Springfield. It is a perfect environment for minimum wage jobs for life. So as our radiation problem built up, this laundry establishment got in trouble for discharging radiation into Springfield's sewer system.  

All I am saying is, VY's radiation department budgets grew exponentially and especially with the foreign troops their brought in for RP protection in the outage. This justifies on a industrial scale not doing certain maintenance because our radiation levels were so high.

So here we sit on the razor's edge of profitability. I believe the huge radiation department budget is starving the safety and maintenance budgets. You can put off safety and maintenance jobs...the NRC will not let you cheap out on radiation budget. They will shut you down the job if you are skimpy and everyone knows radiation protection problems would be a big problem if it got into the papers.

I'd like to contrast the early operations of clean plant and end of operations with lots of fuel failures. Mostly you get a fuel failure, this radiation always stays in the plant...you going to be paying for the rest of the plant life.          

So I believe you are stealing/shifting money for maintenance to plow into preventable radiation protection.

The fuel pin problems I discussed here was just the emergence of later huge problem with fuel problems by the end of the 1990s and early 2000s. The NRC had to intervene. The industry as a whole wasn't investing in cladding engineering. The fuel failure industry wide was massively proliferating. This is a reoccurring theme in many other areas. Not investing money in areas that are vital to the nuclear industry.

You know, contrast the lifetime dose of the "Board of Directors and CEOs"(minuscule) against the poor knuckle dragging slobs at the plant (huge). The guys at the plant have little control and "Board of Directors" call the shots. You can minimize dose to the your troops at the plant  by spending a tremendous amount     

Nuclear fuel pin explosion at VY (in core)

 

(I wrote this in 2010. I fixed it up a little from the first draft.) 

"In the early 1990’s, I am getting a little fed up with all the fuel failures in the plant...we can see contamination and radiation levels spiking up. The radioactive step off pads throughout the plant were proliferating...it was amazing. There is long lines at the final radiation detectors just trying to leave the plant. This is something new, we are all wondering if they got something wrong with the fuel load. The 1980’s were very clean years without fuel failures.

So I am up helping doing one start-up in the control room. We are taking turns pulling rods and doing the heat up. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, where we see huge spike in radiation throughout the plant. The alarms are going off everywhere, on the main steam lines, AOG...we watch them continue to trend up. We was completely baffled with what was occurring...panicking. Where is it going to end? The shift supervisor face was ashen colored. We are just about to scram the plant when the radiation levels leveled out. They stayed high for an hour just below the scram point...then they started coming down. But radiation level throughout the plant never returned to their original levels. Ever! Nobody ever seen this before. We continued on with the startup.

We had a terrible operational period, all sorts of pin hole leaks and high radioactivity. There was an assortment of symptoms...during rod exchange just months before the outage they had another huge radiation spike out of nowhere. It was during this period where I wrote my concerns to the Vermont governor. She responded.

As we got close to the outage, about a month out from it, I made another safety concern to the state and the New Coalition Of Nuclear Pollution.

That is what I always say as a whistleblower. It is a reoccurring theme. The company won't hurt you the most if they fire and blackball you when they steal your career. It is always the responses of your friends and family who will devastate you the most. Whistleblowers got around a 98% chance of getting divorced. My stupid wife is still married to me. We fought like maniacs in the years after my firing. It took her a decade to forgive me. My saving grace is I never drank booze in this period. I have been a recovering alcoholic since 1979. I still the jerk I always was and sober maybe worst.           

England Coalition. I talked to one of the experts with the Union of Concerned Scientist. My  crazy complaint was,

So shoot me, this is my spin...

“they have fuel pellets rattling around freely in the primary coolant system”. Some fuel pellets separated from the pins. They were circulating in the coolant.

So it is about a year later. VY had canned me and I have talked extensively to the New Coalition of Nuclear Pollution. Their chairman says, I just got to tell you a story. You remember the fuel pellet story? After your teleconference with us and the Union of Concerned Scientist...the NECNP spokesman said what mike is talking about, with the fuel pellets being ejected from the pin had never happened in the nuclear industry before. That guy mike seems to be disgruntled and slightly mentally ajar (UCS). You need to stay away from him because he is untrustworthy. He is way out in space and his concern is preposterous. We at the NECNP believed him mike, the NECNP chairman said with a smile. That you are a little bit odd and fuel pellets being outside the pin. We didn't believe VY would operate in that condition. You can imagine our shock when after the first few weeks of that plant shutdown outage. The story was in a Brattleboro Reformer newspaper article. Actually the NECNP official got a call from the state nuclear engineer. We believed the UCS official that you were mentally unbalanced, but it ended up you were perfectly right. The article showed up saying a fuel pin at VY was mysterious discovered with a 8 inch gash in it. Eight fuel pellets were missing from the pin and nobody knows where they went. I told her I'd actually seen a picture of the gash from this outage. The lips of the gash were protruding out. There was a steam explosion in the pin and that expelled the pellets. The gash looked like a steam explosion!

I wanted to show everyone what I had under my hood. I made the concern known a few week before the shutdown through the state nuclear engineer, the newspaper article about the rattling loose fuel pellets in the recirc system. I wanted to get them on the record before they popped the reactor head off. VY responded to the article with ridiculing and belittled of my analysis saying it is absolutely impossible just before the outage. We know who made the complaint, he is a troubled employee. VY agreed with the Union of Concerned Scientist that it never happened before and it couldn't happen. This obviously was a very rare event.

When gash became seen a few weeks later from inside the fuel assembly inspection the state and the NRC demanded a thorough investigation. Vermont Yankee wanted to only inspect some limited bundles. The state made them inspect them all. It delayed the start-up. I told the state inspector VY is doing a very limited inspection and there is more damaged pins in the core. They even discovered more fuel failures over this in the state mandated inspection that the wasn’t seen on the first inspection. Can you even believe these guys with all their enemies closely watching them.

It should be admitted VY spent considerable sums of money doing an investigation of me on this. They back tracked the movement of the pin and me through history to see if I had the opportunity to sabotage the fuel. Me and the pin just never crossed paths!

VY's theory was the pin developed a pin pinhole leak. The gas inside the pin escaped. It was replaced by some water. It turned into steam, then we cooled down. That created a vacuum. This drew in lots of water into the failed pin. It made the uranium pellets over moderated. We pulled a nearby rod to increase power during the startup, this severely overpowered the water filled pin with uranium pellets. It caused a rapid increase in temperature. A localized steam explosion was created leading to the pin 8 inch gash.

It was the first time this happened anywhere in the industry. I predicted it by analyzing the symptoms and what I observed in the control room. Got it written down as a safety concern in newspaper article before we could eyeball the damage.

See, I don’t know about the worth on having ever decreasing margins of safety...trying to sit on the razor’s edge between unsafe and safe behavior. I have also thought we should define a barrier limit, say the integrity of the fuel cladding barrier, or our competence with absolutely containing radioactivity with the piping system and other components. This is not rocket science...it is simple and basic engineering.

It is a really big deal to have an uncontrolled release of radioactivity into the environment. I don't care how small it is! At least it is monitored and controlled. We know it before, and the magnitude, before the leak occurred and is discharged. That is called in total control of the radioactivity.

Basically, the symptoms of competence with a nuclear organization is the ability to contain radioactivity within these barrier pipes and reliable operation of the equipment. The behavior is independent of safety related. If a nuclear plant are breaching these barriers, it may not be safety related or a health consequence. But tho barriers we set independent of safety, no radioactive substance gets past these limits. If the radioactive substance gets past the barrier, that means the competence and skills of the organization are in steep decline. We have just become careless and lackadaisical with maintaining limits. There is something big going on what is incentivizing letting down our guard with maintaining a set barrier. If we were a really professional and competent organization, we never let our bureaucracy degrade to such a pathetic state. It is a leading indicator of a future breach of a safety (actual) barrier.

So an uncontrolled leak of radiation represent a collapse of basic engineering competence not necessity a safety barrier. What we know of these events it can cascade into further and deepening of engineering and organizational incompetence and carelessness. The idea that our engineering expertise, our highly expensive training and profession education...what we know is this carelessness and lackadaisicalness has the ability to pick up steam. It numbs us as the disease progresses. The inertia and velocity of the mental sickness is so severe it blows by us without any warning. It whizzes past the safety limit sitting on the razor blade edge of being safe/unsafe. The speed is so high the employees and the regulators can’t see the breaching of the safety barrier...or the complexity of the declining dynamic system are so enormous, we never understand a safety barrier has been breach or a new type of accident is developing.

You get it. Through this I dragged in a lot of NRC, state and media activity. The next step was telegraphing to outsider we are making changes at the plant and we got this under control. I am convinced Vermont wanted me out of  the plant because I was giving the state a black eye. I am exhausted though all this activity. VY was in the process of yanking my license. Then we had the worst  accident in the life of the plant. They were doing delayed and now improper maintenance in the switchyard. They were replacing the backup power safety circuits batteries. They were taking shortcut and they botched the job. They had degraded diodes in some circuits. It tripped at transmission breakers in the switchyard. We had degraded cooling to the Emergency Diesel generator, the only source of power at the plant. We had poor control of the plant by the control room and unexspected failure of safety equipment.      

 

The problem is what if we are juggling with too many balls in the air. Then a new stressor shows up. This is when we lose track of all the balls, and they all fall to the floor.

When Entergy withholds information from the community...the first one they hide information from is the offending organization itself. You blind yourself before you blind the community. Entergy blinds themselves.

If the community can see, that means you can see?"

Entergy Going Through Chief Nuclear Officers Like Diarrhea

Entergy names 30-year industry veteran and global business leader chief nuclear officer       

Monday, Feb 01, 2016

 

Entergy Corporation (NYSE: ETR) announced today that A. Christopher "Chris" Bakken III has been named executive vice president and chief nuclear officer for Entergy Corporation, effective April 6. Bakken replaces Jeff Forbes, who announced his retirement last year. As a member of the Office of the Chief Executive, Bakken will report to Leo Denault, chairman and CEO, and he will be based at Entergy's nuclear headquarters in Jackson, Mississippi.

In his new leadership role, Bakken is responsible for executive oversight of the safe, secure and reliable operation of Entergy's nuclear plants located in New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, Michigan, Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas, as well as the company's management services to the Cooper Nuclear Station for the Nebraska Public Power District. Bakken will also be responsible for building and strengthening relationships with external stakeholders, while becoming an engaged company representative to the industry...

How Much Are You Worth?

I am waiting for the USC to work on risk perspectives and PRAs. Basically the chance of a accident or incident per year.

I'd say it corrupt by the complexity of the calculation corporations uses. The calculations are not based on science and facts, but on these official's assumption not understandable and qualified.

We should all start by the maximum possible economic damages a local community and nation could face in the worst meltdown possible. 

Risk is consequences plus frequency...     

December 22, 2015

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission //

Washington, DC 20555-0001

Union of Concerned Scientists Comments on Draft NIRG-1530, Revision 1, "Reassessment of NRC's Dollar Per Person-Rem Conversion Factor Policy," Docket ID

NRC-2015-0063

Dear Ms. Bladey,

I am pleased to submit the following comments on Draft NUREG-1530, Rev. 1, on behalf of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). UCS apologizes for its late submittal and would greatly appreciate NRC consideration of these comments. 

Summary 

UCS strongly supports the proposal to update the badly outdated $2000-per-person-rem conversion factor and to develop a process for periodic review. The NRC continues to rely on a parameter that has not been updated in 20 years and is based on a value of a statistical life (VSL) far lower than the values used by other federal agencies. Use of this dated and out-of-step parameter is simply bad regulatory practice and leads to flawed analyses that undermine the credibility of NRC decisions. It is essential that federal agencies strive to achieve consistency in their respective regulatory analyses to enable meaningful assessment of federal actions that may have cross-cutting environmental and public health impacts across different sectors.

However, as a caveat, UCS does not support the use of regulatory cost-benefit analysis based on overly narrow definitions of costs and benefits and reductionist formulas to monetize the public health benefits of regulations. The federal government should undertake a comprehensive reform of these practices. However, as long as the NRC and other federal agencies continue to rely on such analyses, it is imperative that the methodology they use is rigorous and is based on technically sound quantitative data.

Derivation of conversion factor 

The proposed approach the NRC staff uses to choose an updated value of a statistical life appears generally reasonable. The best estimate value of $9 million in 2014 dollars, as well as the low and high estimates for use in sensitivity analyses, was chosen to be consistent with the current VSL values used by other agencies.

However, UCS has concerns about the NRC staff's choice of radiation risk coefficient, which is the other parameter that is used to derive the conversion factor. The underlying risk coefficient of 5.7xlO0- per rem, chosen to be consistent with International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) publication 103, is supposed to represent the weighted risk associated with both fatal and nonfatal cancers, as well as heritable effects. However, the parameter is smaller than the risk coefficient for cancer mortality alone recommended by the National Academy of

Sciences' Biologic Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR) VII conmmittee, which is approximately 5.8xlO0- per rem, and well below the BEIR VII recommendation for cancer incidence, 1.16xl0-3 per rem. Moreover, the coefficient does not take into account the risks associated with other diseases now understood to be associated with ionizing radiation exposure, such as cardiovascular disease. NUREG-l1530 Rev. 1 itself concedes that its choice of risk coefficient "may underestimate the U.S. population risk by as much as 30 percent," but does not explain why that is acceptable.

Consequently, UCS believes that the best estimate parameter for exposure to low-dose and lowdose-rate low-linear-energy-transfer (LET) radiation of $5,100 per person-rem (2014 dollars) is not clearly justified and is likely too low.

UCS also strongly endorses the adjustment of the conversion factor to take into account high dose and high dose rate scenarios, as well as exposure to high-LET radiation, where appropriate, as outlined in Appendix B of NUREG-1530, Rev. 1. NRC currently does not take these important considerations into account in its regulatory analyses. In fact, the MACCS code used in the NRC analyses does not compute separate population dose values for those exposures where a dose and dose-rate effectiveness factor (DDREF) should not be used. Thus, these analyses generally underestimate the magnitude of cancer induction associated with a given population exposure.

Periodic updating of conversion factors 

UCS supports the approach outlined in NUREG-1530, Rev. 1, to systematically review and update the conversion factors to keep them current by considering both changing economic conditions and new scientific developments. To that end, UCS agrees that the conversion factor should be expressed to two significant figures. However, the NRC staff should make clear that this choice is needed to properly account for updated values but does not reflect a technical judgment that this highly approximate concept can be quantified to such precision.

Thank you for your consideration of these comments.

Sincerely,

Dr. Edwin S. Lyman A

Senior Scientist

Union of Concerned Scientists

1825 K St, NW Ste. 800

Washington, DC 20006

(202) 331-5445

elyman~ucsusa.org

Natural Gas Plant Also Eyed In "Hinsdale, NH"

 
Originally published on 9/20/15 Republished.

Updated 1/29/2015

Keene Sentinel reporter Meghan Foley cold called me yesterday. It was ok she called me and we had a pleasant talk. She wanted to know where I got information on a natural gas plant coming to Hinsdale reported on this blog article. I told her the Hinsdale residents knows me as a crazy old loony tunes whistleblower who is always is riding his mountain bike on the town roads and trails. I told her a highly connected Hinsdale resident cued me that people were looking at town property hoping to put in a large natural gas plant in town. I reminded her these power plant speculators are alway planting bum stories in competing towns hoping to get a better deal from the hard up and depression towns. Generally I am a information hound. If you come to me for information, then I expect you to give me similar quality information back. We are trading information between us. She was pretty closed lipped about why she was looking for this information from me. God damn newspaper reporters all of them.          

Hinsdale-Brattleboro Bridge Angel

Michael Mulligan <steamshovel2002@yahoo.com> 

 

To: mfoley@keenesentinel.com

Today at 7:37 PM

 

Meghan,

I felt when you contacted me yesterday you were telegraphing to me an article you had written was coming out in the near future. Was that article the Brattleboro-Hinsdale Bridge? Politics in NH is completely broken and its harming the weak, sick and poor the most. It’s all controlled by government hating teabaggers republicans. But Hinsdale has shifted to the democrats in recent years. Go back in your the Keene Sentinel documents around 2000. Your newspaper helped me bankrupt the fourth largest paper mill corporation in the USA (American Tissue). I put out of business the Winchester paper mill. I harmed many towns in upper NH (Berlin) and threw out of work about 10,000 people. You ought to ask me someday why being a monster was worth it. The Winchester paper mill Ashuelot River pollution project turned into a $500 million dollar bank fraud case through our actions. The NHDES was corrupt as hell.   

I updated my blog on my Hinsdale NH-Brattleboro project for you. That project and pictures of underneath the bridge is all documented on my blog. The NHDOT today is just as funding starved and corrupted as the 1998-2000 NHDES. We have been to this exact position as today with the possible replacement of the bridge at least three times in the past. The NH legislature then delayed it for decades at a time. You happy people are just so naïve with what is going on all around us. 

http://steamshovel2002.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-hinsdale-nh-police-station-kangaroo.html

“The Hinsdale NH Police Station Kangaroo Court”   

This is where that ne power line is going in.

http://steamshovel2002.blogspot.com/2016/01/new-power-line-going-in-hinsdale-nh.html

“New Power Line Going In Hinsdale, NH”

I love the USA with all my heart. I know we live in the best nation on the planet and we are extraordinarily privileged to be living here. Government at the local, state and federal level is invaluable and leverages power from the wealthy/ powerful to the weak and poor. I am nonviolent and haven’t owned guns for over thirty years. People who own guns are cowards. I strongly feel its ok for the police and military to carry guns.  I am pro police and I have strenuously advocated on much more funding and training to/for my town’s police department.  

Mike Mulligan ( aka bridge angel ) 

Hinsdale, NH

Republished from 9/20/3015

Yep, they been eying a specific piece of property and doing studies in Hinsdale. A huge solar project and now a giant natural gas plant in Hinsdale's future. 

Natural gas plant eyed in Vernon, could tie in with proposed pipeline

“We’re likely not the only town in this corridor that’s thought of this,” Rasmussen said."

If it is big enough it could make up for VY and Pilgrim.

It just remind us of how we are in such a deflationary environment.

We'd be way sympathetic to a business in Hinsdale. Bet, you wouldn't have to pay taxes for a decade here?

Hint, the Vernon selectmen are erratic and extremely unreliable... they are all fruit cakes over there...can't keep their word.

Hinsdale is really hungry. 

Right, they are playing Hinsdale against Vernon... 

Just saying, what site has the shortest natural gas pipeline distance to the main line? They'd have to go back across the Connecticut River. This is really expensive :)

Looking at this area's highest interest, I am completely and utterly a natural gas electric plant proponent. It would be way better than foreign electricity from Canada. We have a American source of energy and it would be produced in the USA.

GO USA!     

Natural gas plant eyed in Vernon

Mike Faher Sep. 20 2015, 11:30 am

VERNON – In a town hit hard by the shutdown of Vermont Yankee, officials say a natural-gas plant – with development costs estimated at $750 million – may be in the works.
The optimism in Vernon is carefully qualified, however. For one thing, the plant is far from a sure bet, and it’s not yet been disclosed which sites are under consideration. Also, there have been a few recent hints of opposition from the general public, though the town government has been generally supportive of the concept so far.

Power lines cut across a Vermont hillside. Photo by Josh Larkin/VTDigger

But this much is clear: Vernon Planning Commission has been meeting regularly with a coordinator and potential developer who is interested in pursuing a gas plant that would tie into the proposed Kinder Morgan Northeast Energy Direct pipeline project in neighboring Massachusetts.
“We’ve probably got four or five sites under consideration,” said Don Campbell, a Winhall resident who has experience in utility finance and is guiding the gas-plant effort. “The one that we would go forward with is the one that has the most appeal to Vernon.”
A meeting to gauge the public’s support for a plant proposal may be imminent, and those who are backing the project say time is of the essence.
“We have an opportunity to cause this to happen now,” Campbell said. “We won’t have that opportunity in another year.”
Vernon, like all of Windham County, still is in the early phases of grappling with the economic blow of Vermont Yankee’s shutdown. The workforce has been cut roughly in half since the plant stopped producing power Dec. 29, and more job losses are scheduled for 2016.
Decommissioning the plant is expected to take decades, and spent nuclear fuel will be stored on site for the foreseeable future. So those involved in the gas-plant effort are quick to say that they are not looking to redevelop the core Vermont Yankee property that will be encumbered with long-term nuclear-regulatory issues.
At the same time, the group sees value in the electrical infrastructure that served Vermont Yankee for four decades.
Bob Spencer, chair of the Vernon Planning Commission, said at a recent meeting that a natural gas plant in the vicinity of the Vermont Yankee plant is “the most-obvious choice.”
“And it’s an economical choice for the developer because of the connection to the existing power lines and the other infrastructure that’s there – whether it’s on Entergy property or adjacent property,” Spencer said.
Campbell said the town is evaluating “all the options” for reusing the Vermont Yankee infrastructure “that has continued value.”
Campbell and a partner in the venture, Brattleboro resident Hervey Scudder, are no strangers to Vernon. Last year, they sat down with the Selectboard to discuss the possibility of a biomass-fueled power plant with a possible natural-gas component.
Complications with that proposal, including the controversy that has plagued some biomass projects, led to the idea being scuttled. “We just concluded that would be too heavy of a lift,” Campbell said.
Now, attention has turned to a fully gas-powered plant. The key component of Vernon’s idea is the proposed Northeast Energy Direct gas pipeline, pursued by Houston-based Kinder Morgan as a way to bring large quantities of relatively cheap natural gas from the shale fields of Pennsylvania to the New England market.
Kinder Morgan maps show the pipeline curling out of New York state and into northwest and north-central Massachusetts before turning north into New Hampshire and ultimately terminating in Dracut, Massachusetts, on that state’s border with New Hampshire. The project has not yet received approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, but Kinder Morgan is projecting that the pipeline could be in service by late 2018.
Advocates for a Vernon gas plant can see that, on the pipeline’s route through Massachusetts, it passes tantalizingly close to the Vermont border. Campbell said a 7-mile spur running along existing utility infrastructure could reach Vernon.
Campbell said he has been in touch with Kinder Morgan, where a spokesman for the pipeline project did not respond to a request for comment. He has not yet contacted federal or state officials.
But Campbell said he has been busy assembling a “first-tier” development team for a potential Vernon gas plant including technical, financial and legal partners. He declined to name those partners but said they “are very close by. I’m going back to New York on a regular basis.”
Campbell said he is relying on his experience and expertise to piece together the Vernon proposal. He worked as an investment banker “specializing in investor and publicly owned electric and gas utilities for two decades.” He lists Kidder, Peabody & Co.; Credit Suisse First Boston; and Paine Webber on his resume. In Vermont, he has set up a company called Stonewall Energy Advisors LLC.
But those credentials, and the groundwork already laid for the gas project, may not mean much without a go-ahead signal from Vernon. Campbell repeatedly said that, without broad support in the town, the project won’t proceed, and he resists the term “developer” at this stage of the game.
“We’re supporting Vernon as facilitators,” Campbell said. “When Vernon says, ‘Now you’re charged (with pursuing a gas plant),’ then we’re wearing the developer hat.”
“If it’s right for the town, and there’s town support, then we’ll go the next steps,” he added. “We have zero commercial relationship with anybody. The only master we have is with Vernon.”
Vernon Planning Commission, given that its mission includes land-use planning and economic development, has been talking with Campbell and Scudder throughout 2015. At a recent meeting, Spencer assured Selectboard members and residents that the commission has been acting in an advisory and information-gathering role. He also noted that Vernon has no zoning regulations.
“We have no authority or approval process as a planning commission,” Spencer said. “We’re doing this more as informational and actually trying to give feedback when they ask us a question.”
While not advocating for a Vernon gas plant, Spencer and other planning commission members say they believe there is a place and a need for such a project in the area. They cite the loss of Vermont Yankee’s 650 megawatts of power generation, and they argue that renewable energy alone cannot keep the electric grid stable.
“If we’re going to achieve our (renewables) goal, we’re going to have to do things like this gas plant,” said Patty O’Donnell, a former Selectboard chairwoman who now serves on Vernon Planning Commission. “There is going to be a gas plant somewhere, because the region needs it.”
Such a project would not come without controversy. If the Vernon initiative moves forward, there will be questions about the safety and environmental impact of a gas plant, not to mention concerns about natural-gas extraction itself: Both Vermont and New York have banned the practice of hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking.
Later in the Aug. 31 Vernon Selectboard meeting where Spencer gave his presentation, resident Bronna Zlochiver flatly declared, “For the record, I am opposed to a gas-powered plant coming to Vernon.”
Officials say they expect to soon take the gas-plant proposal – with more detail than is currently available – to the townspeople. Vernon Selectboard Chairwoman Chris Howe said she believes the Planning Commission is “doing a fantastic job,” but she wants more public input soon.
“As far as the gas plant goes, I don’t have any comments to speak of one way or the other as of yet,” Howe said. “I really think, though, that it is important to let the people of Vernon decide if we should pursue this any further.”
Planning Commission member Janet Rasmussen said that’s the intent, but not before there is more to talk about. The idea is that, “when we come to the town, we can present you with as much information as we possibly can, which we don’t have yet,” she said.
Looming above the debate is the idea that, even if Vernon decides it wants a gas plant, it may not get one.

“We’re likely not the only town in this corridor that’s thought of this,” Rasmussen said.

Free Electricity On The NEISO Grid Tonight

!/31/2016: NEISO grid market prices.

End of Giant El Nino January 2016

It is crazy me on the bike. I am having a utter blast on the ice.

Snow fell on wet ice and refroze. The snow is about a quarter inch thick. My wheels have a lot of friction, but the snow is thin enough it doesn't exhaust me. This is the Connecticut River setback in Hinsdale NH. I was all over miles of this setback and it was so sweet. There is alway a bit of excitement being on ice with a bike.

We are at the end of January, with so far mostly above normal temperatures. The setback just began freezing up about three weeks ago for the first time. We had about of week of really cold weather since then. Thus the ice fishermen tell me the ice is six to eight inches thick. Plenty thick. I have been riding my bicycle this winter more than I did last summer. My resting heart beat in a day last week in the morning was 51 beats per minute.    

The sun was recently going down a depressing before 4:30 pm. It is now going down at about 5:05 pm. Got another week of warm weather ahead of us. So that is three weeks left of winter. Is the winter really over for us already? It is really sweet with that extra half hour of daylight. The pace or rate of increasing minutes per day is just starting to pick up big time.    

I am going to experience another spring green-up :)