Oconee Nuclear Station unsafe

At left: The Oconee Nuclear Station is right around the proverbial corner from me, so now I am damn nervous.

There is also the fact Duke Energy is run by money-grubbing liars and it is therefore impossible to trust anything they say. (This has been true since... well, when HASN'T it been true?)

In a report on Huffington Post, the vulnerability and instability of the Oconee plant has been outlined, thanks to a letter from whistleblower Richard Perkins, an engineer. Perkins was one of the authors of a report to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, detailing the problems at Oconee and similar plants.

Oconee was singled out as particularly vulnerable.

According to the above-linked Huffington Post piece:

[The] vulnerability at one plant in particular -- the three-reactor Oconee Nuclear Station near Seneca, S.C. -- put it at risk of a flood and subsequent systems failure, should an upstream dam completely fail, that would be similar to the tsunami that hobbled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility in Japan last year. That event caused multiple reactor meltdowns.

In the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Huffington Post, Richard H. Perkins, a reliability and risk engineer with the agency's division of risk analysis, alleged that NRC officials falsely invoked security concerns in redacting large portions of a report detailing the agency's preliminary investigation into the potential for dangerous and damaging flooding at U.S. nuclear power plants due to upstream dam failure.

Perkins, along with at least one other employee inside NRC, also an engineer, suggested that the real motive for redacting certain information was to prevent the public from learning the full extent of these vulnerabilities, and to obscure just how much the NRC has known about the problem, and for how long.

"What I've seen," Perkins said in a phone call, "is that the NRC is really struggling to come up with logic that allows this information to be withheld."

Perkins was the lead author of the report, which was completed in July of 2011 -- roughly four months after an earthquake and subsequent tsunami flooded the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan, cut off electric power to the facility and disabled all of its backup power systems, eliminating the ability to keep the reactors cool and leading to a meltdown.

In addition to the Oconee facility, the report examined similar vulnerabilities at the Ft. Calhoun station in Nebraska, the Prairie Island facility in Minnesota and the Watts Bar plant in Tennessee, among others.

According to the report, dam-failure occurring upstream from these plants "may result in flood levels at a site that render essential safety systems inoperable." All power sources (including backup batteries, generators and grid power) could be compromised by high floodwaters.

In response to the report, the NRC launched an expanded investigation, which is ongoing. It also folded the dam failure issue into the slate of post-Fukushima improvements recommended by a special task force formed in the aftermath of that disaster. But in a press release dated March 6 of this year, the agency said the report "did not identify any immediate safety concerns."

The NRC made a heavily redacted copy of the report publicly available on the NRC website the same day.

"Nuclear power plant designs include protection against serious but very rare flooding events, including flooding from dam failure scenarios," the agency release noted.

Very rare events! Nothing to worry about!

And where have we heard THAT before?

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff may be motivated to prevent the disclosure of this safety information to the public because it will embarrass the agency," Perkins wrote in his letter. "The redacted information includes discussion of, and excerpts from, NRC official agency records that show the NRC has been in possession of relevant, notable, and derogatory safety information for an extended period but failed to properly act on it. Concurrently, the NRC concealed the information from the public."

In a conversation with The Huffington Post, Perkins elaborated on the redacted material. "My estimation is that if people saw the information that we have, and if they knew for how long we've had it, some might be disappointed at how long it's taken to act, and some might be disappointed that, to date, we haven't really acted at all."

What is darkly humorous is how many rich people live up on Lake Keowee. Maybe THAT will force them to act? They are right in the line of this possible future-disaster.

At the least, their property values have just plummeted.

Will their GREED railroad the NRC into action, if nothing else? Will property-owners and real-estate developers succeed where other mere humans (and concerned engineers) have failed?

Meanwhile, [Perkins] is among several nuclear experts who remain particularly concerned about the Oconee plant in South Carolina, which sits on Lake Keowee, 11 miles downstream from the Jocassee Reservoir. Among the redacted findings in the July 2011 report -- and what has been known at the NRC for years, the engineer said -- is that the Oconee facility, which is operated by Duke Energy, would suffer almost certain core damage if the Jocassee dam were to fail. And the odds of it failing sometime over the next 20 years, the engineer said, are far greater than the odds of a freak tsunami taking out the defenses of a nuclear plant in Japan.

"The probability of Jocassee Dam catastrophically failing is hundreds of times greater than a 51 foot wall of water hitting Fukushima Daiichi," the engineer said. "And, like the tsunami in Japan, the man‐made 'tsunami' resulting from the failure of the Jocassee Dam will –- with absolute certainty –- result in the failure of three reactor plants along with their containment structures.

"Although it is not a given that Jocassee Dam will fail in the next 20 years," the engineer added, "it is a given that if it does fail, the three reactor plants will melt down and release their radionuclides into the environment."

David Lochbaum, a nuclear expert with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said a key concern was that the NRC has failed to appreciate and tackle this risk for so long. "NRC can, or may, resolve the flooding issues," Lochbaum said. "But if it doesn't step back and review when those problems could have been exposed sooner, it won't make the programmatic fixes needed to become a more effective regulator.

I've been sleeping well lately, but tonight? Don't know if I will.

Does Arianna really need the money?

Another great one via Yellowdog Granny!



NPR asks a question I am also asked from time to time: Is Writing Online Without Pay Worth It? I usually answer, well, is listening to music worth it? Is TV worth it? Are movies worth it? Is any form of entertainment "worth it"? Obviously, the intrinsic "worth" of these activities depends on who you are and what you enjoy. And let's face it, if one enjoys writing, we are basically entertaining ourselves by blogging. It's very nice to have readers and to feel appreciated, but many of us would do it even if we didn't have any (and have gone for long periods with negligible numbers of readers/feedback).

My late mother, a singer, used to tell me that the world was filled with good singers and good writers, so get used to it. She was right, and I have.

But the NPR piece pointedly reminds us who benefits from our work, for whatever reasons we decide to do it (hint: not us):

Last week, AOL agreed to buy The Huffington Post for $315 million. The sale will undoubtedly make some people rich.

But David Carr, the media columnist for The New York Times, posed this observation in his column on Monday: "The funny thing about all these frothy millions and billions piling up? Most of the value was created by people working free."

Thousands of unpaid writers' work fills the Internet — on websites and social networking platforms.

"As we all twitter away and type away and update our Facebooks, we're creating the coal that sort of fires this oven," Carr tells NPR host Renee Montagne. "And they continue to own the land."

Aye, that's kinda brutal.

What to do?

Sree Sreenivasan tells Renee Montagne of NPR that the important thing in the ongoing media-upheaval is to "stand out":

In a very crowded Internet space where there's so many voices, I think the voices that have some specific point of view, as well as, you know, a reputation that they've built online or elsewhere are going to stand out. And this is - can be a development seen for better or for worse, but that's the situation. So you're seeing that the importance of being able to standout among many, many voices, commentary is one way to go.

I suppose so, but as many of you already realize (since you are on the net reading blogs, and you are here reading mine)--any fool can "stand out"--and some online folks have sold their souls to "stand out" as surely as any rock star ever did. Bloggers traffic in eyeball-time and numbers of page-views/hits, and if an ugly brawl or something dirty brings the traffic? Well, who cares, it's still traffic and it still translates into popularity.

My question is, who is going to do the "real" journalism? Meaning, who will "pound the pavement" and do all that is necessary (and time-consuming) to bring us FACTS and news stories from "on the scene"? Many bloggers try hard and perform splendidly, but simply don't have the resources and/or connections to follow stories around as a paid journalist can.

And why IS mainstream journalism on the skids? What is it about commentary that is so intoxicating to us, vs those boring old 'facts'? Are 'facts' in jeopardy, as a result?

Is it going to be harder and harder to find out what is REALLY going on? Will there be more and more words (from bloggers and TV-busybodies) spilled over fewer and fewer available facts?

What do you think?

Lt Gov Andre Bauer accused of being closeted gay

Photo of our esteemed Lieutenant Governor is from 67 Degrees.


Wow, I thought it would be, you know, SOME OTHER SOUTH CAROLINA POLITICIAN ((whistles dixie, looks heavenward))) accused first.

Andre Bauer?

Well, damn.

After I got some emails about this story and I learn that HuffPo is going with it, I have decided to report what THEY are saying. I see Bauer every day, or close to it, since he moved to Thornblade... and I don't want him charging at me like some mad raging bull!

Practices whiny refrain: "I don't make the news, I just cover it!"

So, I am officially agnostic on the rumors. I will note that Andre Bauer has never been married, which is unusual for a South Carolina politician ((except for... commences whistling dixie again))... And consequently, there has been near-constant speculation that he is a "player" (womanizer) as well as gay. I have personally observed him with his girlfriend, nuzzling her, being all cozy, kissy and friendly. Which I suppose could be a fake-out, or not.

Anyway, here is what they are reporting. From BlogActive:

...I am now able to confirm a rumor that has circulated in South Carolina for years. South Carolina Lt. Governor Andre Bauer is a closeted anti-gay politician who stands to replace Mark Sanford should Sanford resign or be impeached (a real possibility as Sanford is caught in his own sex scandal.)

So, what is the deal with Bauer? I have confirmed and spoken to four individuals who I have no doubt are telling me the truth. These men have been hit on by Bauer, with one of them telling me it happened at least five times since Bauer's election in 2003. To a varying degree I have met with and believe the sources. [...]

[Another] call came in and I met with the source while he was visiting DC recently. "He's gay," the source told me.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"Because I've had sex with him on two separate occasions."

That too, was not enough for me to report on without confirmation from others. I was led on a path to chatting with acquaintances of the source and two former employees of Bauer who served on his staff between 2004 and 2007. They reported to me that on a total of three occasions Bauer spent hours alone with men in hotel rooms. Each of them explained that the visits were with younger men who were not on the staff of the Lt. Governor nor had any official reason to be with him. The two men each confirmed that they had not known each other and each described similar circumstances under which these interactions occurred. One of them confirmed that he was told by the Lt. Governor's visitor he had a sexual encounter with Bauer.

The combination of the reports and the first hand experiences were what I need to maintain my 100% record of being right in my reporting on this site.

This case is particularly interesting because the governor Bauer serves has a little sex issue himself. It was Mark Sanford (a former resident of the now famous C-Street House) who decided it was appropriate to use the state's resources to fly to South America to rendezvous with his "soul mate." As you can imagine, this did not go over too well with Sanford's wife, who moved out of the governor's mansion. (I give her credit, she was not one of the fools who stood by on TV as her husband confessed his sins (see: Craig, Suzanne and McGreevy, Dina).

His record? The bachelor is a right wing Christian conservative. He's done everything from defend the state issuing "I believe" license plates (complete with a cross on them) to defending the right of schools to use corporal punishment. In the presidential election he supported Mike Huckabee.

There have been many rumors over the years about the Lt. Governor [...]

Let there now be no doubt.

Well, I do have doubts.

However, in the interests of free speech, tarring and feathering the far right, and other cherished beliefs, let the games begin.

And props to Robert at Blue Heron Blast, for being on the case!

I like this one better!

Courtesy of the Huffington Post:

Here is some excellent commentary from Alas, on the original New Yorker cover that inspired this comic response. (I won't be running the original cover here, except in this version.)

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Listening to: The Black Crowes - Sometimes Salvation
via FoxyTunes