Posts from — June 2011

The Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant is not in any danger of melting down. It has been in cold shutdown since early Spring for maintenance and wasn’t restarted because of the floods. The fuel is not in the reactor, it is in a fuel pond outside the reactor. Any kind of pump can circulate the cooling water for the fuel pond, as it isn’t a high pressure system that is used in reactors.

They only need one back-up generator to supply power to the facility, and they have three on site.

The FAA didn’t place a flight restriction over the Fort Calhoun site, they reminded people that there have been flight restrictions imposed over all nuclear sites following 9-11. It was a reaction to the media violating those restrictions to get video of the plant.

As an additional safety measure, they installed a giant temporary berm that is a large plastic and fabric tube filled with water. Someone punctured it with ground equipment and the water leaked inside. As the water was approaching an electrical transformer, they switched to a back-up generator while they fixed the berm and cleaned up the water.

Fort Calhoun is probably the safest nuclear facility in the world at the moment. They have a team of NRC inspectors on site, and they have other resources in the area, that are well in excess of what was available to Japan. The Strategic Command is headquartered at Offutt AFB south of Omaha, and there are rumors that they have nuclear accident response capabilities for some reason.

If this flood had occurred last year, Fort Calhoun would have been a major concern because they had been dragging their heels at fixing a lot of deficiencies. That is why they have NRC team on site. Fort Calhoun was required to fix everything and pass an in depth inspection before it would have been allowed to restart. That is why it is probably the single most prepared facility in the US for flooding, and why they have three back-up generators, instead of two.

Yes, you need high ground clearance and hip-waders if you drive to the plant because the parking lot is flooded, but that is the worst of their problems.

OK, I’ll try to keep it down, but the 2011 Women’s World Cup in Germany started today. ESPN is carrying the games on cable and on the ‘Net. It is really good football [soccer for Americans], with more finesse than the male version.

It was Germany 2-1 Canada and Nigeria 0-1 France in Group A today.

There are only 16 teams, so it doesn’t take as long as the Men’s version. There are only four groups, and in the first round each team has to play the other three teams in their group, with the top two teams going on to the next round which is single elimination.

I was extremely busy yesterday and missed posting for the first time in months but a few things stuck with me.

Elayne has a great chart on the Effects of Gay Marriage, in reference to the recent vote in New York that said that any two people may enter into the partnership agreement known as marriage.

There will be a nice secondary effect of the law – a lot of weddings. From an economic standpoint it is a great stimulus program. People don’t understand how much is actually spent on weddings until they have to come up with the money for one. This will be very good for business in New York, and New York needs all the help it can get as it is in the grip of austerians.

I was thrilled to learn that people in California finally did something useful with the power of the initiative. CBS reports that Amid budget impasse, Calif. pols lose paychecks.

Apparently the voters were fed up with the politicians playing games with the budget process, and passed an initiative that costs them their pay and expenses for every day the budget is late. This is a pure loss; there will be no lump sum payment when they pass a budget. The legislature now has a real stake in doing their job and the state saves money every day the budget is delayed.

Of course, it would be better if they treated politicians like the public employees in New York. If a public employees in New York go on strike, they lose two days pay for every day of the strike.

Dr. Jeff Masters has a long post exploring the possibility of 2010 – 2011: Earth’s most extreme weather since 1816?

This isn’t good – the cable box and DVR use more electricity than a new 21 cubic foot refrigerator.

I had to order a modem over the ‘Net because none of the local stores carry a modem that works with the local DSL system. Understand, they have DSL modems, but none of them work with the local system. Apparently the inventory decisions are made elsewhere, with no attempt to review applicability in the local market.

What Are You Doing?

Why did you stop?

[Editor: Tip wonders what I’m up to as I stopped to take her picture instead of continuing to the second feeding station where she prefers to eat, away from the Underhouse clan.]

Friday Ark

The BBC carried this item: EU leaders pledge to do what is needed to help Greece

European Union leaders have reaffirmed their commitment to help Greece out of its current debt woes and maintain EU financial stability.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said there was “a real will of the member states to do what is necessary”.

His comments came at the end of the first day of an EU summit in Brussels.

The Greek parliament has to pass fresh austerity measures next week before the country can gain vital bail-out funds.

What the Greeks are being required to do is to sell the assets they need to have an economy. They aren’t even allowed to eat their seed, they are being required to sell it.

For example, they are being required to sell their public power system. The system generates income, but they are being required to sell it to make a large payment to creditors, rather than restructuring and making smaller payments over a longer period.

If a craftsman is required to sell the tools of his trade to make a payment on a debt, the debt will never be repaid, because the craftsman needs the tools to work. That is what they are requiring of Greece – to sell prime tourist areas that generate a lot of revenue over time, to make a large, lump-sum payment. The people understand this, even if the politicians don’t.

The terms of this “bailout” make default a matter of when, not if. The EU and IMF are destroying the country.

By now I would hope people have figured out that they should stop sending money to either the Republicans or Democrats, because neither of the two major parties is working for them. The major parties are wholly owned subsidiaries of Wealth, Inc. and have no interest in the problems of people.

Another group that has thrown its lot in with Wealth, Inc. is AARP. They have no intention of defending the interests of their membership from the deprivations of the überwealthy, and will cut a deal while claiming “it was the best we could do”, forgetting to add “for our bottom line”.

Two groups that are still working to protect the program that is financed by your FICA taxes are: Alliance for Retired Americans and the National Committee for the Preservation of Social Security and Medicare. Neither has currently given itself over to the siren call of the insurance industry, like AARP.

If you have some extra money, give it to your local food bank, they need it more that the media companies who profit from political campaigns.

Not exactly.

Michael Collins at the Agonist wants to know why the US has had negative job growth:

Negative job growth for eleven years is the best evidence concerning our economic troubles. There were 135 million jobs in 2000 for a workforce of 144 million. Today, there are 139 million jobs for a workforce of 154 million. That represents negative job growth when you factor in population growth.

If you look at this graph it shows that US multinationals have been hiring, just not in the US. [Please note that the graphic is on the Wall Street Journal server and based on data from the Commerce Department, not exactly bastions of rampant socialism.]

Corporations are not investing in the US. No matter how much money they get, there is no indication that they have any intention of modernizing or expanding their US facilities. Taxpayers are financing the movement of jobs to other countries.

Happy seventh blogiversary™ to Fallenmonk who is sweating in the Georgia sun, at home in the garden, and at his part-time job.

Welcome back to Lab Kat, who has been absent for a lot of good reasons in the recent past.

I’m still playing with modems. Stopping every so often to put my modem in the freezer to get it to work for a while is not exactly the service I contracted for.

Only an additional 2261 acres burned yesterday, and most of it was controlled burning as containment reached 61%.

Barring a major new development, this will be the last of my daily posts on the fire, as it is definitely moving into the end game. You can follow the fire on InciWeb, which is recommended if you are interested.

Information from the current Wallow Fire InciWeb Page

• Date Started: 5/29/2011
• Location: Apache, Navajo, Graham, and Greenlee Counties, San Carlos and White Mountain Apache Reservations, Arizona; Catron County, New Mexico
• Cause: Human – under investigation
• Size: 532,086 acres [831 miles² 2153 km²] based on infrared data
• Percent Contained: 61%
• Injuries to Date: 12
• Residences: 1,511 threatened; 32 destroyed; 5 damaged
• Commercial Property: 162 threatened; 4 destroyed
• Outbuildings: 452 threatened; 36 destroyed; 1 damaged
• Other: 1 truck destroyed
• Number of Personnel: Approximately 2,954 including 12 hotshot crews and 45 hand crews
• Equipment: 19 dozers, 161 engines, 60 watertenders
• Aircraft: 16 helicopters, 5 air tankers
• Incident Commander: Jim Loach, Area Command Team 3

[Read more →]

The BBC reports on more flooding in the Northern Prairies: North Dakota city Minot evacuates amid flooding fears

Authorities in Minot in the state of North Dakota have told roughly 12,000 residents to leave their homes immediately, as the Souris River threatens to flood.

Sirens sounded throughout the city around 1300 local time (1800 GMT), alerting residents of an impending deadline to evacuate.

“All residents must evacuate, Zones one through nine,” an announcement said.

Heavy rainfall has bloated the river, which flows down from Canada.

The Souris River is expected to hit nearly 1,563ft (476m) above sea level this weekend, topping the previous flood record set in 1881.

Canada has been dealing with the flooding along the Souris for weeks, so this has been a slow moving disaster.

Nothing against the people who were born and raised there, but there is an Air Force Base and ICBM missile silos outside of Minot. If you were in the Strategic Air Command, Minot AFB was the equivalent of Hell. That’s where you were sent if you really screwed up. Minot was considered a credible threat to people stationed at Shemya in the Aleutians.

I feel bad for the North Dakotans, but if the Base were seriously damaged and the DoD decided to close it, there would be a lot of happy campers in the Air Force.

Update: Dr Masters has more on the flooding and a map showing the connection to the Assiniboine which joins the Red River at Winnipeg. The Prairie Provinces have been dealing with the system since early Spring, and eastern North Dakota had to deal with the Red River going over the flood stage.

All of the reservoirs in the area are full, and there is nowhere left to hold the water.

Just read 5 Reasons Internet Access in America is a Disaster. I realize that it is on a humor site, but the Daily Show is on Comedy Central. It pretty much explains what I’m going through.

When I first got DSL, Sprint was using Earthlink, and with the DSL service you also had dial-up back-up if the DSL went down. When Sprint sold out to Embarq, Embarq used its own system, and that didn’t include dial-up. It also meant that all of your Earthlink e-mail addresses and on-line storage went away. Now CenturyLink has taken over Embarq, and the e-mail/web site shift is coming. CenturyLink has also implemented modem leasing, rather than the original policy of just giving you the modem they wanted you to use. They want to charge me $3/month in addition to the $100/month I already pay for a modem that probably costs them $25 or less, plus $14 to ship it to me.

To be fair, the $100/month includes a landline telephone with every feature the telephone company offers. The only thing connected to it is a 20-year-old Plantronic headset phone that doesn’t have the capability to use any of those features. If I had to keep the landline, I could get by with the most basic plan for telephone service they offer, as politicians and wrong numbers are the only calls I receive on the thing, but if I did that, they couldn’t give me the special rate I receive for DSL as part of a “bundle”. Oddly enough, the price is going to be $100/month no matter what I do. In another amazing coincidence, if I went with the cable company, their plan works out to $100/month. Isn’t competition under “capitalism” wonderful.

There are a lot of problems with satellites, but I have an extra $50/month to deal with them.

The spread was limited to just over 2000 acres, and containment is up to 58%. Better weather really helps the effort to control wildfires.

Also note that the number of structures that are threatened has also been reduced over the last couple of days, indicating that the lines around the populated areas are holding.

Information from the current Wallow Fire InciWeb Page

• Date Started: 5/29/2011
• Location: Apache, Navajo, Graham, and Greenlee Counties, San Carlos and White Mountain Apache Reservations, Arizona; Catron County, New Mexico
• Cause: Human – under investigation
• Size: 529,825 acres [828 miles² 2144 km²] based on infrared data
• Percent Contained: 58%
• Injuries to Date: 12
• Residences: 1,511 threatened; 32 destroyed; 5 damaged
• Commercial Property: 162 threatened; 4 destroyed
• Outbuildings: 400 threatened; 36 destroyed; 1 damaged
• Other: 1 truck destroyed
• Number of Personnel: Approximately 3,389 including 10 hotshot crews and 45 hand crews
• Equipment: 21 dozers, 189 engines, 72 watertenders
• Aircraft: 16 helicopters, 5 air tankers
• Incident Commander: Jim Loach, Area Command Team 3

[Read more →]

At a press conference following a tour of the fires in Arizona John McCain said: “There is substantial evidence that some of these fires are caused by people who have crossed our border illegally”.

Excuse me, but I have been following these fires, and wildfires in general pretty closely and the only border violation I’m aware of is the Monument Fire, which started in Arizona and then burned 1526 acres of Mexico.

Having lived in Southern California, I can tell you that the undocumented don’t do things that will attract attention to themselves, and fires in the Southwest attract a lot of attention.

Authorities are talking to two “people of interest” in the Wallow Fire, but no one has said anything about their immigration status.