Only 25 more days of Leukemia treatment!

February 2nd, 2024

Acute Promyleocytic Leukemia sucks, but as sucky things go, this hasn’t been so bad.

Today we had another confab with the Leukemia “fellow,” Dr. Premji, this one in person down in Rochester. She’s very cool, and we’re impressed. Alan’s been getting the best of care imaginable. He’s in the final “cycle” which will be winding up near month’s end. WHAT A RELIEF!!!

We got a look at what’s next, after finishing this EIGHT MONTH LONG round of daily treatment. It’s on a rotating basis back and forth between one cycle with 2 weeks of IV arsenic (arsenic on weekdays) and oral ATRA everyday and then 2 weeks of arsenic only (on weekdays); and the other cycle of 2 weeks of oral ATRA only and then 2 weeks off both. Eight alternating cycles, beginning in July after his June 23rd discharge, and at long last, the last infusion is February 27. TWENTY FIVE DAYS TO GO!

After treatment ends, Dr. Premji said it would be a few months until Alan’s immune system builds up after this extreme treatment, so probably June, but with COVID running rampant again, it’s a good time to be masking and isolating.

Platelets always go down a bit during an arsenic cycle, so no worries, they’ll bounce back! And what an improvement after that initial level of NINE (9) on admission. That rather freaked the doctors out! He’s been in remission since some time in that first blue spike “induction” phase ended, technically in remission on discharge June 23. Outpatient, it’s the “consolidation” phase (no idea why it’s called that), and it’s soon completed.

We’re still waiting on this month’s PML/RARa, should be back in a few days, but here’s verification of the good news, the nasty cells are down to ZERO and have been since early on:

After our March visit, he’ll be scheduled for a visit every 3 months. She said he’s been doing exceptionally well, far better than most, with almost no side effects, mindful that this is not chemo. It’s “treatment,” and always the APL treatment side effects of this are less, not at all debilitating or even uncomfortable, just some weird stuff, occasional headaches, skin falling off!!! We’ve only had one real bump in the road, pneumonia in October, with quick recovery. WHEW!

And after getting back from Rochester, another arsenic infusion today in Red Wing… Can’t wait until we’re done with these Rochester treks, and constant appointments here too, though now at least we know where we’re going in the Rochester tunnels, elevators, and we have quite a few “get out of jail free” cards for the parking lot. Red Wing always takes a long time to get the infusions going, but at least he can get them done here, that helps a lot.

Alan said he’d like another picnic at the Gonda building entrance…

He had to see his doggy, and Mayo wouldn’t let Sadie in, so when weather was good, we had an Indian feast at the door — veggie korma and palak paneer, pakora with lots of coriander chutney, and garlic naan of course. Frankly, that month-plus in the hospital was a rough time I’d rather not relive!

Yup, I’m counting the days until this is OVER! Last arsenic dose, arsenic and ATRA treatment ENDS on February 27th. Another bone marrow biopsy a week later, and meet for our “exit interview” after that.

TWENTY FIVE DAYS TO GO!!!

Posted by Carol A. Overland
Filed in Disasters, Other
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Delaware cancer rates — note 19731

July 4th, 2023

Yes, every picture tells a story, worth a thousand words… Alan Muller, Green Delaware, spent decades fighting the polluters of Delaware, concentrated in New Castle County, and the Indian River coal plant way south (and surrounded by cancer), and many other polluters in Delaware and beyond.

A few maps of Delaware cancer rates… from this article about articles in the Snooze Urinal (as Alan calls the News Journal):

Cancer Clusters in Delaware? How One Newspaper Turned Official Statistics into News

Alan’s Port Penn, DE is in this area on the bay, just south of the C&D Canal, dark red in the map above, dark blue in the maps below:

Cancer Cluster Investigations in Delaware

And from the state’s Division of Public Health:

CENSUS TRACT-LEVEL CANCER INCIDENCE IN DELAWARE, 2015-2019

Port Penn, DE is in the dark blue census tract on eastern edge, south of Delaware City, that bumps out into the Delaware Bay (166 incidence rate on map):

Posted by Carol A. Overland
Filed in Disasters, Land Use, Legislative & Policy, Nuclear, Political Sense (non?)
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Alan Muller on Bloomgate

November 5th, 2016

Bloomgate is distraction from Del.’s energy challenges

Delaware Voice Alan Muller 7:18 p.m. EDT November 4, 2016

The Oct. 30 feature on Bloomgate and the responses generated have been informative, but not so much about the central purpose of subsidizing “renewable energy.”

The point of renewable energy quotas and subsidies is to increase the use of low-carbon electricity sources. This should be an urgent policy goal for Delaware, as carbon emissions to the atmosphere drive climate change and the resulting sea-level rise. Delaware, one of the two lowest-lying states and with climate dependent industries such as agriculture and tourism, is extra vulnerable to the effects of global warming. For a long time, Green Delaware has been arguing that our state should be a leader in pushing for solutions to climate change, but there has been little response from Delaware leaders, in thrall as most of them seem to be to industrial special interests.

The Bloom fuel cells are fueled by natural gas, a fossil, not a renewable fuel. Their efficiency in generating electricity from natural gas appears to be roughly comparable to the best combined-cycle thermal power plants. Bloom claims its fuel cell emissions are lower carbon than the coal-dominated “PJM” grid energy mix. The flaw in this argument is that natural gas, while lower carbon emitting at the point of use, is probably not lower carbon than coal overall, unless we disregard the emissions associated with extracting and transporting natural gas, not to mention the nightmare that fracking has created for many communities.

It also appears that, contrary to claims made during Coastal Zone Act permitting, that the Bloom fuel cells produce significant amounts of hazardous waste. The state of New Jersey has withdrawn subsidies for fuel cell electricity generation, and the California Public Utilities Commission staff recommended likewise.

To the extent that Bloomgate enables Delmarva Power to meet its renewable quotas with fossil fuels, instead of fuels that are truly low carbon, such as wind and solar, the point of the renewable quota is defeated and climate change at least slightly accelerated. I do not know how aware the Markell administration was of these underlying realities, or if it cared, as the administration has not displayed great technical sophistication or procedural transparency. The General Assembly and the Public Service Commission have done no better.

What is certain is that Mother Nature does not care about Delaware politics – or Delaware schemes and scams. Our planet will keep on heating up regardless, unless and until we take meaningful steps to reduce climate-forcing emissions to the atmosphere.

Green Delaware has been following energy policy in Delaware since the early 1990s. It appears that Delmarva Power is making less of a contribution now than it was then. The so-called Delaware Sustainable Energy Utility appears to have been cooked up primarily to get Delmarva Power off the hook. It is possible that the SEU is finally beginning to function effectively. We hope so, but critical years of progress have been lost.

The critical need is to transition to very low carbon energy systems. The good news is that we can do it. The wholesale cost of wind power is on the order of 2-3 cents for a kilowatt hour. The cost of solar electricity is still higher than on-shore wind but dropping steadily. Storage systems can address the wind and solar generation. Investment on the demand side is an available and cost-effective option, but will not be widely implemented if energy policy remains under the control of utilities in the business of selling more, not less, electricity.

The good news for utilities is that the widespread use of electric vehicles is on the near-term horizon and this has great potential to increase electricity use while curtailing the use of diesel fuel and gasoline. This is the most credible scenario for leaving the oil and the gas in the ground, where it needs to stay while maintaining a transportation infrastructure.

Bloomgate is a ripoff of Delmarva Power ratepayers and bad energy policy. Worse, it is a distraction from what we need to be doing. The Bloomgate utility bill surcharges should be removed and the existing installations made to stand on their own if they can. It is not so hard to envision an energy policy for Delaware that would put the long-term future of the state – and the interests of residents – first. But how to get there from here, given the limitations of our political system, is less obvious.

Alan Muller is the executive director of Green Delaware.

Posted by Carol A. Overland
Filed in Disasters, Energy, Legislative & Policy, Political Sense (non?)
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Biden? A distraction, not a contender.

August 7th, 2015

BidenChamp

Joe Biden and Champ

I wish Joe Biden would get over himself and stop musing about a Presidential run.  He is not a contender.  Biden’s intent?  I’d guess it’s nothing more than a distraction from the strong showing by Bernie Sanders.  Bernie is the nightmare of Democratic leadership, precisely because he’s the most compelling candidate for democratic voters (small “d”), people interested in preservation, revival, of our democracy.

Biden sure isn’t what I’d look for in a candidate.  A recent post on Politico, How a Young Joe Biden Turned Liberals Against Integration, brings to light Biden’s efforts to preserve segregation.  That should be enough to take him off anyone’s potential Presidential candidate list.

Alan Muller, Green Delaware, has had to deal with Biden for a long time now, and has a lot of insight into Biden’s character based on Biden’s record and actions.  One story I’ve heard often is of a group opposing the Iraq war meeting with Biden in his office, and of Biden’s absolute and nasty dismissal of them and their concerns (expletives deleted for this PG-13 post).

Racial issues have been a struggle for Delaware, and Biden provides an example of white resistance to integration.  Delaware was a slave state.  Though it bills itself “The First State,” and though  Delaware was the first state to ratify the Constitution, it was also the first state outside the Confederacy to reject the 14th Amendment, in 1867, and Delaware was very slow to ratify the 14th Amendment — it held off until 1901, 33 years after it was approved by enough states to be added to the Constitution.

Here’s an example of Biden’s “leadership,” a reminder of Biden’s efforts as a U.S. Senator to maintain segregation:

How a Young Joe Biden Turned Liberals Against Integration

From the article, the bottom line:

Then, as a court-ordered integration plan loomed over Wilmington, Delaware, in 1974, Biden’s constituents transformed their resistance to busing into an organized—and angry—opposition. So Biden transformed, too. That year, Joe Biden morphed into a leading anti-busing crusader—all the while continuing to insist that he supported the goal of school desegregation, he only opposed busing as the means to achieve that end.

This stance, which many of Biden’s liberal and moderate colleagues also held, was clever but disingenuous. It enabled Biden to choose votes over principles, while acting as if he was not doing so.

The article is off, though, in its statements of the mechanism of busing, claiming that it was white parents afraid of busing their white children into black schools.  “White parents trembled with rage as they envisioned scenarios in which their children would be bused into African-American neighborhoods.”  Though white parents did indeed have this fear, the plans were not to bus white children, the plans were to “integrate” the white schools, and to desegregate the black schools, by moving black students to the white schools — that’s what they did not want to see happen.  Busing was most often a burden on the black students, transported to white schools, as white parents, school board and local elected officials did a George Wallace and blocked the doors.  This focus on “dilution” was evident in the court ordered Minneapolis arrangement, which was based on a bizarre definition of segregation, which in Minneapolis was that a school 35% black was “segregated,” but a school that was 100% white was not (note that in an failed effort to avoid a lawsuit, but in my experience a very educationally successful effort, Minneapolis formed the Central H.S. “Magnet School” to draw white students in from other schools to dilute the student population.)
How was Biden, and how were all the other Senators, able to couch their opposition to integration, their efforts to preserve segregation, as opposition to “busing.”  Yes, it is disingenuous, but that’s too nice a word.  Same goes for the term “neighborhood school” a thinly-veiled cry for continuation of segregation — after all, the neighborhoods are segregated.  The framing goes directly back to George Wallace and his development of the language of racism and hate that continues today (I’ve just finished reading “The Politics of Rage,” a must read to see the roots of today’s euphemisms — it’s nothing new.).  I’m glad Politico brought this to light.
Posted by Carol A. Overland
Filed in Disasters, Legislative & Policy, Political Sense (non?)
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Will Delaware, like Illinois, sue FERC and PJM?

July 30th, 2015

PJM_ArtificialIslandProjectRecommendationPJM’s Plan for Delaware

Sure hope so — they’ve got it coming.  Cost apportionment is a big issue, and for PJM, well, they’d taken their cost apportionment dream to FERC, got the FERC rubber stamp, but it seems they’ve not done a good job of it, according to the Federal Court — that’s old news:

Illinois Commerce Commission v. FERC August 6, 2009

Fast forward to today — turns out Delaware’s Gov. Markell is objecting to costs assessed to Delaware ratepayers, (though I’m not seeing any objection to the project itself coming out of Delaware).  DOH!  He’d better, this project does nothing for Delaware.

Here’s the PJM Planning doc that tells all:

PJM White Paper Artificial Island Project

Note on the first page the statement of need, of why this project is wanted — this is really important:

PJM specified that solution proposals must improve stability margins, reduce Artificial Island MVAR output requirements and address high voltage reliability issues.

So let me get this straight — they’re having stability and reliability issues and PSEG wants to reduce Artificial Island MVAR output requirements, and want to charge Delaware ratepayers for this?  PUH-LEEZE… This is a benefit to PSEG, not Delmarva…

And look what our big-coal friends at ODEC have to say:

ODEC letter regarding Artificial Island 7-29-2015

This project taps into the new line that was built not long ago:

RTEP_DE

Delaware has no regulation of transmission need or siting — so utilities can pretty much do whatever they want.  Further, it’s a FERC tariff, so the state doesn’t have anything to say about it going into the rates, and cost apportionment.  Great, just great.  So now Markell is objecting?  It’s a little late…

Delaware needs legislation — legislation like a “Power Plant Siting Act” and a legislative requirement of a need determination for whatever infrastructure they think they want.  They need legislation specifying that only Delaware utilities can own and operate transmission in Delaware (see House Bill 387 from the 2014 session).  Here’s what House Bill 387 would have done (It would have been an effective good start, protective of Delaware!), establish that a utility wanting to construct and operate transmission demonstrate NEED!  Here’s the wording, though it would require quite a bit more, and some solid rules, to be effective:

(5)Public utility electric transmission service providers must have a certificate of public convenience and necessity for the construction and operation of any new electric transmission lines operating at 100KV or greater and located in the State or offshore waters and integrated with the State electric transmission grid.In granting such certificate, the Commission shall consider:

a.the need for the proposed transmission line;

b.the impact on the reliability of the transmission grid

c.the long term viability of the public utility proposing the line;

d.the technical engineering and operating expertise of the public utility;

e.the technology and design proposed for the new transmission line; and

f.the economic and safety impact of the proposed transmission line.

Here’s the report about this PJM approval from Jeff Montgomery, News Journal:

Disputed cost-shares remain in plan for new power line

Note this snippet:

PJM officials said regional and federal rules and precedents obliged the organization to assign 99.99 percent of costs to Delmarva’s transmission zone, mostly in Delaware and Maryland.

The total includes the cost of a $146 million power line installation under the Delaware River and $68 million worth of transformer and substation work by Public Service Electric and Gas at the Artificial Island nuclear complex along the Delaware River southeast of Port Penn.

The Delaware Public Service Commission estimated that transmission costs would increase by about 25 percent in Delaware because of the plan.

“For the average residential consumer, monthly electric bills could increase by several dollars. For the average business, the increase may be more significant,” Markell said in his objection. “Some of our heaviest users could see increases of hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

And here’s the schedule for this project going forward from the PJM Board meeting yesterday:

PJM_ArtificialIslandProjectSchedule

Seems there’s an opportunity before the FERC ALJ.  But before then?  What is Delaware going to do?  Well, take a look at what Illinois did when it didn’t appreciate the FERC Cost Apportionment scheme — they sued FERC and won, based on the notion that if they weren’t benefitting, they shouldn’t be the ones paying:

Illinois Commerce Commission v. FERC August 6, 2009

The FERC Cost Apportionment scheme was remanded, and it’s in settlement negotiations right now.  What is Delaware doing in that docket?  To review the public postings, go HERE and search for FERC Docket EL05-121.  The next settlement conference is Thursday, August 6, 2015, starting at 10:15 a.m. in a hearing room at FERC HQ.  Delaware is represented in this, at least there are Delaware PSC staff listed on the service list, Janis Dillard, John Farber, and Robert Howatt.  So what are they doing about this cost apportionment scheme?  Seems this settlement conference is just the place for raising a stink about the PJM cost apportionment scheme, to raise issues of “benefits” and “cause cost, pay” arguments.  Are they showing up and speaking up for Delaware?

Posted by Carol A. Overland
Filed in Transmission
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