The NRC is feeling good about itself.Sounding pumped, like a lean mean nuclear regulatin’ machine on their “blog” where they declare:

“When the NRC says we consider new and significant information, we mean it.”

The story is, errors in recently submitted information were found during a review process for equipment replacement at an existing plant in the Southern US. Based on this new significant information the NRC found that designs for a new Economic Simplified Boiling-Water Reactor (ESBWR) plant might have similar errors. What’s the upshot of these NRC discoveries?  It could mean the NRC must revise reports and/or have the applicants make changes to design control documents which will delay their final decision on design certification. New information comes to light, consideration given to the new facts, followed by regulatory action. Has a watchdog stirred?

more after the fold

“We mean it” yips the NRC watchdog. Well, ok calm down. So let’s say significant new information about potential seismic activity near an existing plant (let’s call it Indian Point-which rhymes with Vermont Yankee) was readily available; the NRC would of course considerate it in the ongoing re-licensing process.

Well not exactly as a former oil industry geologist writing in a Vtdigger.com opinion piece points out:

Judging by Indian Point, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission may be forcing us to base Vermont Yankee’s geologic risk analysis on antiquated data:“Much new seismological information is available since their initial approvals (of Indian Point) in 1973 and 1975. Nevertheless the US NRC, so far has not permitted any new information to be used or old information on which the original licenses were granted to be contested in considering extension of licenses,” according to a 2008 study by researcher Lynn Sykes.

New York State has an aggressive attorney general who has called upon the NRC to do a comprehensive seismic review as part of their Indian Point relicensing process. The New York AG must have considered significant the findings from 2008 by Columbia University seismologists. They found that two intersecting fault lines near Indian Point were capable of creating a 7.0-magnitude earthquake. Despite this, none of this significant information is incorporated into the current NRC process.

Now remember clearly the NRC claims:

“When we say we consider new and significant information, we mean it”.

Well, except when there are significant fault lines involved.  

 Inattentional blindness, a term for when a person fails to notice and react to stimulus that is in plain sight came to my mind while reading a rundown of last week’s SOPA/PIPA drama.  

The demise of the dual Senate and House internet piracy bills is the latest in an ongoing almost traditional battle by two sides competing to influence policy. Thrown into this struggle of money power and influence is the capacity of the internet to quickly inform and gather opposition.

Supporters of the bills and notably some powerful congressional players appear to have been thoroughly blindsided by this capacity. A Reuters reports says:

Some Hollywood executives acknowledge their own flat-footedness in trying to marshal public opinion as opposition mounted. While technology companies brandished the power of the Internet, Hollywood relied on old-media weapons such as television commercials and a billboard in New York's Times Square. It proved to be too little, too late.

One entertainment-company lawyer complained that opposing arguments were often inaccurate but spread like wildfire anyway on the Internet, leaving supporters scrambling to correct the information without the benefit of a strong online network.

"We do some of that (online) stuff, but it has to go through a committee of 14 people," he said. "The other side doesn't have conference calls. They just put stuff out there."

Where have the Hollywood entertainment industrial complex lobbyists been hiding?

An amazing remark when you consider the Arab spring events and more recently the ongoing Occupy movements (or simply the last ten plus years of media upheaval) amply demonstrated the applied power of internet. Even the regular TeeVee news and radio broadcasters reported this for all to see -not sure if it was posted on any billboards.

“Imagine if you will” says the voice over “a world where television commercials and the Times Square billboards can’t turn the tide!”

 The co-founder of the Carlyle Group equity fund will donate $7.5 million for repairs needed to the Washington Monument after last August’s earthquake. National Parks Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis reportedly planted the idea in the head of the co-founder of the Carlyle Group David Rubenstein

"I told him I thought it important that the monument be opened as quickly as possible, and if I could help in any way, I'd be pleased to do so," Rubenstein said. Deputy Secretary of the Interior David J. Hayes described Rubenstein as having a "generous and patriotic spirit."

In 2011, Rubenstein and two other founders

received  $275,000 salary, a $3.55 million bonus, and $134 million in distributions.  That's a total of $137.825 million each.

The ultimate “one percent-er” investment group, often called the ex-presidents club, the Carlyle Group is a huge private equity group that operates in the “iron triangle” of industry, government and military. Carlyle’s  stellar investors  have included George HW Bush , former British PM John Major, parts of the Bin Laden family, and a US CIA Directors and U S Secretaries of State. Carlyle will be going public later this year and there is some squawking that planned shareholder agreements will not allow class action suits by shareholders.

Some things just feel quite wrong. They may not actually be wrong in the legal or moral sense, but just represent or illustrate something more out of balance than normal. What does it say about this country at the moment that we can go, hat in hand, to solicit money from a group like this yet our congress can’t marshal the political will to raise taxes on the hyper wealthy ?

Maybe it is just bad optics? After all the Washington Monument was partly financed with private funds to start with before Congress got around supplying funding in the late 1800’s for completion.

Also location, location, location.It must be imperative for Carlyle to have an appearance of prosperity in view when looking down from their Pennsylvania Aue. office building.Can’t have shabby monument in the neighborhood.  

Entergy, according to the Times-Argus, is seeking NRC permission for Vermont Yankee to halt a currently required inspection routine.

Instead of inspecting the steam dryer every time it shuts down for refueling, on average every 18 months, as currently required, Entergy wants to inspect it every seven refueling outages, or once every 10 years or so.

This is as if Vermont Yankee, having been granted permission to drive a 40-year-old nuclear vehicle with bald tires well above the legal speed limit, has grown bored; bored with examining their old worn tires and repeatedly finding them still worn and treadless: ‘yup, still bald.’ So they want to stop the bother and expense of looking altogether. Simply put, if they ain’t looking, they ain’t finding.

[more follows after the jump]  

According to reports, as of July 2010 required VY inspections discovered a total of 65 cracks. Entergy maintains that despite these “non-relevant” cracks, the steam dryer is in “good shape”. The routine inspections are part of requirements the NRC placed on Entergy VY when it permitted the 40-year-old plant to operate at 20 percent greater power production than the original design. A steam dryer is used to remove water from steam before it enters the power plant turbine. While not officially considered safety equipment by the NRC, dryer failure can impact components that are. A test power up-rate of less than VY’s 20 percent at a similar US Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) plant resulted in major steam dryer failure.  

Not long ago in 2009 VY was happily bragging about their NEI industry trade group award-winning (cost saving) remotely operated steam dryer inspection mechanism. Certainly a clever thing but it wasn’t as if Entergy had an award-winning repair to any “non-relevant” cracks in the worrisome steam dryer. They just found a slick way to monitor the steam dryer’s aging – and naturally cut costs.

An annual reduction of 3.6 person-rem of radiation exposure is expected along with a minimum $500,000 cost reduction per outage.  

Wasn’t that long ago Entergy hired a Vermont PR firm to splash on a quick fresh coat of PR paint.

The IAMVY.com campaign and tagline – safe, clean, reliable – that resulted ring just as hollow now as in 2009 just before tritium leaks were disclosed. Now Entergy requests permission to practically stop required steam dryer inspections. I propose a new tagline for Vermont Yankee in the form of a question: VY: What could possibly go wrong?  

    To regulate:

To lay down the law. Begin controlling shit. Often By physical force/restraint.

"If he pulls that shit again, I'm gunna have to REGULATE that muh-fucka."

Urban Dictionary  

NRC Revising Approach to Japan Lessons-Learned Recommendations.

The NRC blog says they have the opportunity to improve implementation of the goals of the Japan Near-Term Task Force recommendations.Congress added specific requirements for the NRC to act “as expeditiously as possible” on these recommendations dealing with earthquakes and flooding. What offers the NRC this opportunity for improved implementation?

Last month the Nuclear Energy Institute laid out the nuclear power industry’s “FLEX” approach to addressing several recommendations. “FLEX” would create a diverse, flexible set of strategies for counteracting the effects of severe natural events that could exceed a plant’s design limits.

With care and great consideration the NEI has thoughtfully laid out a “flexible” (and probably financially painless) strategy for the nuclear power industries own regulation.

The NRC staff believes this approach is a reasonable starting point, although more work is needed on defining these strategies. We also must ensure the NRC can inspect how plants put the strategies in place and that we can hold plants accountable for keeping those strategies ready and available.

I can’t see it but hopefully, for safety sake there is some aggressive regulatory threat of enforcement here in plain sight. However speedy implementation looks unlikely as the NRC just wagged their bureaucratic tail at the thought of a little industry “FLEX” and endless discussion.  

  Congress is a silly place.

This is a ‘Braveheart’ moment. You, Mr. Speaker, are our William Wallace,” Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.), a member of the Tea Party Caucus, said on the Fox News Channel.

Tuesday night after a lengthy closed door meeting described as “raucous,” some House Republicans likened themselves to the Scots in the movie Braveheart.

Then over take-out chicken sandwiches, [they] promised to knock down the Senate bill.

Thus fortified with chicken sandwiches our stalwart Republican Bravehearts agreed on a convoluted process that bravely avoided an up-or-down vote on the Senate compromise bill. The vote was worded, “do you disagree with the Senate bill?” So a “yes” was a vote against continuing a tax reduction for 160 million American workers and a “no” vote was in favor of the Senate bill and the tax cut.

The Braveheart moment Congressman Gingrey is channeling is from a movie about 13th century William Wallace, a Scotsman who led a revolt against English ruler Edward Longshanks. It starred actor Mel Gibson as Wallace in kilt and blue face paint.

Speaker Boehner blue in the face? Certainly-but in a kilt?

See it is just like Braveheart … but with chicken sandwiches and minus the bravery.  

NRC Chairman Jaczko and four of his commissioners have been in an extended wrangle over among other things the speed with which the NRC should act on the post Fukushima disaster safety recommendations made by the Near Term Task Force. Obama appointee Jaczko favored an expedited (by NRC standards) implementation and four of his five commissioners balked, favoring more stakeholder input and a different time frame (aka snails’ pace?). This disagreement and other ongoing spats, which Senator Bernie Sanders recently described as an attempted coup against the chairman went high profile this past week in Republican Darryl Issa’s congressional hearings when Jaczko and the NRC commissioners testified.  

So when all the dust particles settle, at what speed will the recommendations be moving?

According to the NRC's blog the Near Term Task Force’s recommendations have been handed off to a new group.

[…] The group is called the Japan Lessons-Learned Project Directorate. The directorate will support a steering committee consisting of senior agency managers to coordinate and implement the task force recommendations per with our Commission’s direction, including its goal of striving to implement the recommendations within five years.

An important aspect of our path forward is stakeholder engagement with members of the public. We will seek input through public meetings to help us determine whether changes may be required to improve safety at U.S. nuclear power plants.[added emphasis}

In 2008 candidate Obama called the NRC “a moribund agency…captive of the industry that it regulates.” It still sounds plausible enough three plus years later.

The Huffington Post reports that vocal Jaczko critic NRC Commissioner Bill Magwood did consulting work for the Fukushima plant’s owner Tepco when he was in the private sector. Not that there is anything wrong with that as the information was provided for his NRC confirmation process.

According to Ryan Grim at Huffington:

Magwood, a Democratic appointee, would be the leading candidate to take Jaczko's gavel if the coup succeeds, according to people familiar with the internal workings of the commission (as well as through a simple process of elimination: the other Democratic panel member is not considered a serious candidate for the other Democratic panel member is not considered a serious candidate for the chairmanship).