Legalectric

From a post about 2,100 MW of new transmission:

Developers of 2,100 MW MISO-PJM transmission line choose engineering firm

Let’s think about this a bit. This is a MISO to PJM transmission project. Transmission serves what’s on the line. In MISO, (see above) it’s coal, followed by natural gas, both fossil fuel, and those two followed by nuclear, the most toxic, dangerous, and expensive generation.

Amid all the bluster about climate change, coal generation has ramped up over the last year. Factor to consider — in May of 2020, not much was happening anywhere, so increased generation from then seems likely, to be fair, we need comparison to 2019, BUT, clearly the coal plants are NOT being shut down. And with our transmission build-out over the last 20 years, they can ship and sell it anywhere. What is it going to take to get this fossil generation shut down?

And look at PJM’s mix:

And again, much of the coal in PJM was smaller plants, except for that monster in West Virginia, smaller plants that were too expensive to run, not at all marketable, so they were shut down. MISO is another story, with large coal plants, transmission to get it from any Point A to Point B, and probably the last coal plant to be built, Warren Buffet’s 700MW MEC coal plant, served by the transmission build-out through southern Minnesota and across Iowa.

Why would we need more transmission? WE don’t. THEY DO, it’s a major part of their new business plan. As Lisa Agrimonti so aptly stated in a recent Grid North Partners Conference, it used to be about NERC reliability criteria, “a pretty simple story,” but now, “we need this transmission line to deliver energy more broadly” and it’s a more complicated need story.

Yeah, that’s what they’re wanting to do, for sure!

With the change from reliability to the general “we want it” corporate greed = need, how can a project be challenged?

After wading through the bullshit last night, it feels a lot better this morning in Red Wing. Watch the video, particularly Agenda Items 7, 10C, and 10D:

Red Wing City Council Meeting – June 14, 2021

In order of appearance:

• Agenda Item 7 – Terri Cook appointed to Charter Commission, no discussion, no muss, no fuss.
• Agenda Item 10C – Recall – Brown and Buss – once again, no malfeasance or non-feasance. DOH!
• Agenda Item 10D – Shared space – Mayor Wilson does not have exclusive rights to the shared space at City Hall.

There was a call to SHOW UP and support the Council, that’s the folks in white shirts, who far outnumbered the “RECALL” folks, about the same percentages as in the Presidential votes in our fair city. Overflow crowd.

In the Republican bEagle:

4 things to know about the Red Wing City Council meeting

In the Rochester Post Bulletin:

Recall committee loses another round at Red Wing city council meeting

Can’t make it? WATCH MEETING HERE!

Here’s the AGENDA, with interesting sections (click on AGENDA for live links):

And the one that will likely again confirm that the Recall Committee has not met the malfeasance and/or non-feasance standard:

And an interesting one right after that:

Here it is:

In the Matter of the Application of Enbridge Energy, Limited Partnership, for a Certificate of Need and a Routing Permit for the Proposed Line 3 Replacement Project in Minnesota from the North Dakota Border to the Wisconsin Border.

Oh here we go again! I’ve been rummaging through files, trying to go paperless, don’t cha know (before the back half of the house falls over) and for some reason kept my dry cask files. I figure I’m one of the few people on earth who have all this … info… yeah, that’s it, information.

So far, not much in the docket:

There’s this thing about the TN-40 casks that I learned way back when, at the first NSP “Task Force” meeting in December, 1994. TN-40s have aluminum seals.

Seals need to be replaced. That was established way back when in 1994. While learning about the cask parts, I was fresh off a trip to CA, was making $$ to open my Farmington office, and those trailer seals are always leaking, so while sitting around waiting for a load, I got in the habit of taking the hub cap off, scraping it down, and putting a ring of bright silicon in there, putting the hub back on, and filling it up with gear oil. So these seals, I ask, when do the need to be replaced? Per NSP, they need to be replaced every 20 years. Well, at that meeting, we also learned that there was no unloading procedure/protocol! And how does one replace a seal without unloading it, or at least taking the cap off… in the pool, right?

About seals (note this is for a TN-68, but you get the idea), it’s not rocket science, only nuclear waste, 4 & 5 are the seals, with seal alternatives below at the end:

Have any of the TN-40 seals been replaced? They’ve been loaded for over 20 years now. Inquiring minds need to know.

Have any of the casks been unloaded? They’ll need to be unloaded to put the assemblies in another cask. Remember the 3 Stooges unloading of the TN-29P at INEL?

Commerce-DER refers to a 2009 proceeding to allow use of TransNuclear transportation frame to transport TN-40s so they’d never need to be unloaded prior to transport. What’s changed that they want to do this now? More capital expense to get a good ROI as part of their new business plan?

From TN, here’s the details on that transport option:

https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1002/ML100210335.pdf

I can’t think of a worse idea than putting casks containing embrittled and fragile old spent-fuel assemblies, and dumping them on their sides, putting the container thing around, popping on a train, and rolling down the tracks to who knows where.

Details? Can’t get there from here:

Environmentally friendly seal options: