Legalectric

Thanks to a reporter (THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!), I’ve got the recently release Sandia report:

Granite Disposal of U.S. High-Level Radioactive Waste – Sandia National Laboratories

This was released in August 2011.  It’s making the rounds now.

Here’s the part that really scares me, right there on the first page:

Unlike the safety analyses for disposal in salt, shale/clay, or deep boreholes, the safety analysis for a mined granite repository depends largely on waste package preservation. In crystalline rock, waste packages are preserved by the high mechanical stability of the excavations, the diffusive barrier of the buffer, and favorable chemical conditions. The buffer is preserved by low groundwater fluxes, favorable chemical conditions, backfill, and the rigid confines of the host rock. An added advantage of a mined granite repository is that waste packages would be fairly easy to retrieve, should retrievability be an important objective.

Yes, it’s on page one (do I even want to read past page one? NOOOOO).  What’s scary about that?  Well, back in “Nuclear Waste Daze” representing Florence Township,  I learned more than I wanted to know about “waste package preservation,” specifically a lot about weld flaws, about loading “ignition events”because they hadn’t considered the impacts of zinc and boric acid:

On May 28, 1996, a hydrogen gas ignition occurred during the welding of the shield lid on a ventilated storage cask (VSC-24) multi-assembly sealed basket (MSB).  The gas ignition displaced the shield lid (weighing about 2898 kilograms [6390 pounds]), leaving it in place but tipped at a slight angle, with one edge about 7.6 centimeters [3 inches] higher than normal.

The loaded VSC-24 multi-assembly transfer cask (MTC), a shielded lifting device used to transfer the MSB loaded with spent fuel to the ventilated concrete cask, had been placed in the cask decontamination work area in the auxiliary building.  Approximately 114 liters [30 gallons] of borated spent fuel pool water had been drained from the MSB to facilitate welding of the shield lid, creating an air space below the lid.  The hydrogen gas ignition occurred during the initiation of the shield lid welding, approximately 11 hours after the loaded MTC had been removed from the spent fuel storage pool.

And then there’s the inability to unload a cask once it’s been loaded and used for storage for a while.  for a Three Stooges HILARIOUS (if the truth wasn’t so scary) report on trying to unload a cask, “oops, an assembly is warped, oops, got stuck pulling out, oops, what to do, oops, let’s just ram it back in and put the cover on” at INEL:

INEL Report – Failed attempt to unload TN-24P

The possibility of revival of the notion of storing nuclear waste in the Minnesota granite, and granite anywhere, is more than I want to think about.

Here’s a fun video with some shots that Northern States Power showed us back in the NSP sponsored “Task Force” prior to their application(we’re talking late 1994-early 1995 here), to show us how safe casks are:

Homer, you work at a nuclear plant – what do you think?

AAAAARGH, there goes PUC Commissioner (former chair) David Boyd putting out the welcome mat for nuclear power, nuclear plants and nuclear waste.  This we DON’T need…

And note that he’s claiming that the hurdles are “costs” and “public perceptions.”  Ummmm… where’s safety?  Minnesota is home to a Fukushima Dai-ichi GE nuclear reactor,  located in Monticello, north, upriver and upwind from the metro.

Safety, anyone?  But then, I’ve been to the Appellate Court about the responsibility of the PUC for assuring that the utilities provide “safe” electricity, and we were tossed out.   Power Line Task Force v. Public Utilities Commission

Addressing Nuclear Challenges

THE HURDLES OF COSTS AND PUBLIC PERCEPTIONS

Published In: EnergyBiz Magazine November / December 2011

Secondly, the federal obligation to take possession of spent fuel and place it in a repository, as dictated by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and standing contracts with the utilities, has not been fulfilled, and this inaction adds to uncertainty. The Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future has proposed policy actions to address this issue. Even with swift acceptance of the commission recommendations, it may be 12 years before any spent fuel begins to move from present storage sites. Furthermore, there remain matters of active litigation over the suspension of licensing activities for Yucca Mountain, and disputes over the Nuclear Waste Fund fees.

Yesterday at the Fair…

There’s Alan at the booth, and note the guy in the green…

As you all know, I’ve got a lot on my plate, what with utility money-mongers trying to remake their world, and ours… and all this flap about “gay marriage” is what I regard as a political distraction from the harm the right is doing with their mutant and malignant capitalism.  But yesterday at the “Our State Fair is a Great State Fair” some people really got to me with their hateful and absurd agenda.  As Alan asked, “Why do you care about this?”  What is it that drives someone to sit at a little wooden booth in the sun all day to argue that someone who is gay should not be able to marry their partner?  I passed the “Minnesota for Marriage” booth in disgust, noting there was a video camera on a tripod at the southern end of the booth.  And Alan, fresh from a visit to the Republican building, wanted to have a chat.  He’s such a quiet and calm questioner, and is able to elicit the most amazing statement from people in any venue.  He did it again.  He went up to the booth and began to ask a woman there some questions.  The first, “Why do you care about this?”  And instead of responding, she said “Do you mind if I ask you a couple questions?” and he said, demeanor well depicted above, ‘Well, actually, I do, I asked you a question, why do you care about this?”

Note the guy in the green…

After I took this photo, I turned to catch the full booth…

… and the woman on the left told me I can’t take photos.  Excuse me?  I said I could and did!  She demanded to know who I was taking it for, and I said, “For me, Carol A. Overland, legalectric.org, you’ll find it there if you’re interested.”  She again said I couldn’t take photos, and that I have to get permission and fill out a form, it’s “down there” waving toward the other end.  She also said one of the others at the other end was an attorney… (drat, should have had a chat with THAT person, maybe it was the guy in green, though I think she may have meant the woman talking to Alan).  I told her I don’t have to sign anything… Then I ask whether their agenda includes outlawing D-I-V-O-R-C-E (!) and she gets pissed and hollers that I’m off point.  EH?  MOI?  OFF POINT?  I’m asking the question, and that’s my point.

The guy in the green comes over and gets very close into my space and in front of me and says “we’ve had about enough” and I’m just getting going, so I say, “OK, great, I’ll get your photo too” and got out the camera again, this time catching him with the camera and camera guy that was off to the left — what were they doing with that video camera:

So were they filming everyone who came up to the booth???  It was positioned to get the front of the booth… Hmmmmm… anyway, at this point I left to sit in the shade and catch up with Alan after he finished.

The punchline?  The woman he was talking to had been scripted to ask questions, and to get you to a point where you agreed that there should be some limits on who could marry, and actually told him, “You know, in Europe, people are marrying animals!”  He asked what country and what animals, and she didn’t know… uh-huh, right… so logically, we NEED this amendment in Minnesota so we won’t be marrying animals.  Alan missed his opportunity to tell her all about our wonderful German Shepherds who we so love…

Their “Minnesota for Marriage” website has no “About Us” information, not one name there, it’s an anonymous shell, “powered by ACT Right.com” where:

You choose your favorite candidates, causes, and actions, tell your friends, and get to work immediately helping the right people and organizations instantly. If you are pro-life, pro-second amendment, and pro-traditional marriage, want to support the Susan B. Anthony List, the National Organization for Marriage and the NRA, while helping a House candidate in Texas and a Senate candidate in Maine, you can do it at ActRight.com .

Minnesota for Marriage is registered as a Ballot Question group: Minnesota for Marriage

Here’s their 2010 Lobbying Report, via Minnesota Family Council fax.

… to put it mildly.

I’ve posted a few things about the Fukushima nuclear disaster:

Past Legalectric posts about Fukushima

And it’s just so depressing to read about this, but here we go again, finally some admission that yes, it is really that bad.  From the Washington Post:

Japanese scientist: Fukushima meltdown occurred within hours of quake

Well, DUH!  A choice paragraph from that article:

About 11 hours later, all of the uranium fuel in the facility’s unit 1 reactor had slumped to the bottom of its inner containment vessel, boring a hole through a thick steel lining, the University of Tokyo’s Naoto Sekimura told a committee of the National Academy of Sciences.

From the Mainichi Daily News:

Study says fuel at Fukushima reactor possibly melted twice

And from the Voice of America:

Japanese Nuclear Crisis Leaves Fukushima Town Broken

The International Atomic Agency’s most recent post was as of June 2:

Fukushima Nuclear Accident Update Log

adsf

Minnesota now has government shut-down.  Gee thanks.  To the Republicans, give me a break… this “Compromise” is breathtaking, bullshit beyond belief:

“Confidential Draft” (6/29/11)

Offers – 6/30/11

I won’t slave for beggars pay, likewise gold and jewels,
I would slave to learn the way to sink your ship of fools…

The bottles stand as empty, as they were full before,
Time there was and plenty, but from that cup no more
Though I could not caution all, I still might warn a few
Don’t lend your hand to raise no flag atop a ship of fools