Odd changes in Entergy’s J. Wayne Leonard’s compensation package according to the April 14 issue of Forbes.
I’ve been so busy worrying about the accident at Japan’s Fukushima reactor, that I almost forgot about Vermont Yankee and all the doins here in Vermont. Although I haven’t forgotten that VY is the same age and make as Fukushima.
An out-of-state friend was reviewing the compensation packages for utility execs in Forbes magazine and sent me this little gem today, and I just had to share it with Vermonters since the state is also being sued by Entergy.
J Wayne Leonard has been CEO of Entergy (ETR) for 12 years. Mr. Leonard has been with the company for 13 years. The 60 year old executive ranks 2 within Utilities
Leonard also ranks 65 in compensation compared with other corporate execs. Wow.
In 2009, the Vermont Yankee Public Oversight Panel recommended that Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee (ENVY) buy a new condenser for its reactor. Well, actually ENVY’s own staff recommended that VY needed a new condenser all the way back in 1999. ENVY has claimed it does not have the $100 Million needed, but they did have the $100 Million to pay out over 5 years in a special compensation package for Entergy CEO J. Wayne Leonard!
Wow – Leonard could buy VY its condenser and still have more than $1 Million in compensation. Leonard could make a significant donation and ease VY’s reliability issues and still be left with a pretty hunk of change. Of course, he still couldn’t change VY’s Fukushima Mark 1 BWR design.
“We cannot just go back to business as usual,” [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel said, adding that events in Japan “teach us that risks that were thought to be completely impossible cannot in fact be completely ruled out“.
Just when I thought it could not get any worse, it got worse.
As you all know, one nuclear plant had the top blow off and began to leak radioactivity into the air (Unit 1, built in 1970). Then a 2nd one it exploded yesterday (Sunday) (Unit 3 built in 1974) Tonight we received word at 8 pm that Unit 2 exploded (built in 1972 – the same year as Vermont Yankee). Each explosion has gotten worse, and the third explosion has severely damaged the containment building.
By the way, the 2nd reactor to blow – Unit 3 is burning MOX fuel – mixed oxide fuel, which has plutonium added. Did you know that plutonium is named after Pluto the god of hell?
Now Unit 4 has a fire in spent fuel pool caused by exposed fuel and burning hydrogen. A burning fuel pool fire is worse than a meltdown because the uranium and plutonium vaporize.
By the way, all 4 Japanese nuke plants in trouble are the same vintage, design, & model as Vermont Yankee, Oyster Creek (NJ)(Exelon owned), and Pilgrim (MA – just south of Boston) (another Entergy plant)
It is very, very late Monday night, no early Tuesday morning. I am exhausted. Yesterday (Sunday) we researched and prepped for several radio shows and NY Times, Washington Post, and WSJ. This morning began with Chicago radio, where Illinois has 11 working nukes – 4 of its oldest units are like Fukushima. All the Illinois nukes are owned by Exelon, the corporation that was President Obama’s biggest campaign donor.
Next Arnie interviewed w/ a Miami station. It always bothers us to do press in Florida, where we already did a nuclear case with a cancer cluster of 42 families exposed to illegal radioactivity from a nuclear power plant that was covered-up by the NRC.
After those two radio shows Arnie was on Democracy Now & will be again on Tuesday morning @ 8:10 a.m.
After Democracy Now, Arnie did an interview with Mark Johnson, VPR – John Dillion, Dave Gram at AP, and numerous other radio, TV, and print media.
[I’d love it if anyone posts those links in the comment section].
Arnie’s interview here in the Global Postwas spot on regarding a reactor core melt and containment failure.
GlobalPost: The ultimate risk in any nuclear accident is that the heat can grow so intense that the steel containment vessel is ruptured, releasing a large amount of radiation. You say there’s a 50-50 chance of this happening. What kind of health effects can we expect?
Gundersen: First, it’s important to know that this steel containment is about an inch thick. It’s not some massive battleship of steel. The reactor is already open, because the pressure relief valves have to stay open.
On top of that, these containments have already breached. We saw iodine and cesium in the environment before the first unit exploded. When you see that, that’s clearly an indication that the containment has breached.
Now, is it leaking 1 percent a day? Probably. Is it leaking 100 percent a day? No. I think for the neighboring towns out to 2 miles, they won’t have anybody back in them for five years. Out to 15 miles, I doubt you’re going to see anyone back for six months. And that’s in the best case, without a meltdown.
If we have a meltdown, I don’t think anyone will be back within 20 miles for 10 or 15 years.
Mr. Gundersen … had one maintenance task where the “stay time,” in which workers would be exposed to their yearly limit, was three minutes. He hired local farmers, trained them on a mock-up for two weeks, and then sent them in for their brief stint. “Then I’d send them home for a year,” he said.
In Japan, the plant operators do not have the luxury of time for training. “You need somebody who is familiar with the plant, because you need somebody to do it now,” Mr. Gundersen said.
Complete about face in Germany, where Chancellor Angela Merkel had overridden Germany’s own study showing the health hazards of nuclear power due to daily radiation exposure to residents living around the plants.
In Germany, where tens of thousands of anti-nuclear activists protested in a human chain this weekend, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced a three-month moratorium on plans to extend the operation of its nuclear power plants.
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“We cannot just go back to business as usual,” Merkel said, adding that events in Japan “teach us that risks that were thought to be completely impossible cannot in fact be completely ruled out”.
Switzerland suspended plans to replace five aging nuclear power plants, while Italy and Poland decided to rethink prior decisions to invest in nuclear energy.
As an long time admirer of Bev Smith, I’d like to give my special thanks to her for discussing this topic live for two hours.
I will post again, but I don’t know when. Please help by posting from our interviews. The nuclear industry is trying desperately to say that this could never happen in the US. These are the same plants of the same vintage of old nukes here. The management at TEPCO was indicted for fraud in 2002, and have been caught not doing what needs to be done – again and again! Old nukes need need lots of money invested to keep them running safely, and that is simply not happening anywhere in the world. Nor are regulators like the NRC enforcing what must be enforced.
Most of all, please pray for the people of Japan. This is the worst tragedy the world has ever seen.
The Fukushima nuclear power plant accident in Japan is a terrible tragedy for the people in Japan, and for the people in the path of the moving radioactive cloud.
The Fukushima nuclear power plant was gravely impacted by the earthquake, tsunami, and additional earthquakes and aftershocks. It has been unable to cool the reactor core, and has had an explosion that severely damaged the containment. At the very beginning and half-way through this video you will see an explosive wave that shows that the top of the containment has blown off. A second reactor is also having great difficulty cooling its reactor core.
The Fukushima nuke plant is almost identical to Vermont Yankee (VY). It has a Mark 1 (earliest) containment. The fuel pool is on the top floor, and after the explosion the fuel pool is open to the environment. Many years of spent fuel (the used fuel that is the most radioactive,) is not being cooled and is in direct contact with the air so it is beginning to release significant amounts of radiation.
As a result of this devastating accident, radioactive Cesium, which lasts in the environment for 300-years and is absorbed by muscles in the human body, especially infant hearts, has been detected in the environment around the plant. People near the plant are already receiving as much radiation in an hour as they normally receive in one year. The delayed response to the accident has put thousands of lives in jeopardy. Like Three Mile Island (TMI), significant amounts of radiation are already in the environment, and like TMI, the government in Japan has waited too long to evacuate people. See the truth about TMI here.
The Fukishima Nuclear Power Plant is a General Electric (GE) Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) with a Mark 1 containment. NRC said in 1972 that this containment should never have been built, and the design was ultimately changed, but not until at least 22 Mark 1’s were constructed in the US, and it is not clear how many throughout the world. Joseph Hendrie, inside the NRC, said, that the Mark 1 should never have been built, but he did not have the heart to shut them down (see end of post).
In response to the many emails and phone calls we have received, this post is an effort to provide sound analysis and information. Fairewinds Associates, Inc, the firm I founded, is a paralegal services and expert witness firm, and Arnie Gundersen is the chief engineer. We are not political pundits nor are we nuclear activists (pro or anti). Our work is expert testimony on nuclear engineering, reliability, and safety concerns, and we have clients throughout the US, Canada, and overseas.
What exactly happens in nuclear reaction? The Uranium in the reactor (in the fuel rods) get split. The splitting creates radioactivity called radioactive daughters. The plant scrams (has an emergency shut down) and stops the nuclear reaction, but the radioactive daughters continue to churn out heat and they must be cooled or they will cause a meltdown.
What blew off?
The above BBC footage appears to show a hydrogen explosion of a Mark 1 containment (like the containment at VY). Hydrogen is created when the zircalloy fuel clad gets too hot and chemically reacts by breaking water into hydrogen and oxygen.
What type of protection do people need? Some photos from Reuters show police and other emergency personnel wearing gas masks. The gas masks will not protect against any radiation. The particles are atomic sized and nothing the emergency personnel are wearing can protect them. The people surrounding the plant and all emergency workers there are also enveloped in a cloud of gamma radiation.
In the US, in about a week, it is possible that a cloud of radiation might reach California, and in 10 days hit VT. Wash your food and take potassium iodide (not now, wait a week until the cloud is near). Potassium iodide fills your thyroid with iodine so that it will not absorb any iodine from the radioactive cloud.
What has happened is that the nuclear fuel cladding is cracking and releasing the radiation held within the nuclear fuel pellets. Fuel pellets are the size of the joint in your pinky and there are tens of thousands of them within every nuclear reactor. The volatile radiation in the form of xenon, krypton, iodine, cesium, and strontium is already being released as a gas through the relief valves in the reactor and out the leaky containment. If you have ever used a pressure cooker, you have seen the relief valve on the top of the pressure cooker, and the feature is similar to the open valve on the top of the reactor, and that valve is fully open right now.
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Arnie has been conducting research on BWR containment leaks and containment venting because of his ongoing concerns regarding the risk of Net Positive Suction Head (NPSH) in Uprated BWR’s including VY. During his research he came across this AEC (Atomic Energy Commission) internal memo. Fairewinds is also conducting two studies on BWR’s and on industry-wide containment failures.
On September 25, 1972 (just about the time VY became operational), the AEC’s Joseph Hendrie, Deputy Director for Technical Review, wrote to the AEC’s Steven Hanauer who was a senior member of the Commission staff.
Hendrie said,
“I recommend that the AEC develop a policy of discouraging further use of pressure suppression containments.”
Previously, Hanauer had expressed concerns about the Mark 1 pressure suppression containment that GE was using at VY, Pilgrim, Millstone 1, Oyster Creek and other reactors.
The memo went on to say:
“Steve’s idea to ban pressure suppression containment schemes is an attractive one in some ways. Dry containments have the notable advantage of brute simplicity. …However the acceptance of pressure suppression containment by all elements of the nuclear field, including Regulatory and the ACRS, is firmly embedded in the conventional wisdom. Reversal of this hallowed policy, particularly at this time, could well be the end of nuclear power. It would throw into question the operation of licensed plants…. and would generally create more turmoil than I can stand.”
This quote is from Frank Von Hipple, Citizen Scientist, Simon & Schuster, p. 217, citing a Union of Concerned Scientists FOIA.
Last night’s surprising Thundersnow rattled our windows and scared the heck out of our pets. The initial rumble was a startling sound that seemed to last for at least a minute and sounded like a cross between a huge snowplow crashing with an airplane.
Read Sutkoski’s whole article detailing the rarity of Thundersnow in the eastern US!
Thundersnow is very rare, especially in Vermont, so it was interesting that it was so widespread. There was thunder and lightning here at my house in St. Albans, and people told me they had thundersnow in Colchester, Underhill, Fairfax and Littleton, N.H., so it was everywhere.
Check out the great video Sutkoski posted from You Tube of weather forecaster Jim Cantore witnessing thundersnow in Chicago.
I just received a phone call from the Vermont Department of Health, and the woman said it was a health-care survey.
Yes, for many today is a business day, and for me it is also a family day was our adult children are visiting from DC and SC, so I wanted to just hang up and say that I was not available. But, I’m a sucker for open and transparent government and imagined that this call must have some lofty purpose of generating information for universal health care. OK, I’ll do it.
The entire survey was about smoking habits in Vermont!
What a waste of taxpayer money. I was asked six different times via the telephone surveyor it we had smokers in the house. Several of the questions were worded so strangely that I had to ask to have them reread once or twice! The questions were worded so strangely that it was easy to give the wrong answer without having the questions reread two or three times. I told the surveyor that we were a household of non-smokers. There was no easy short form to allow the surveyor to move on to another call. Instead we went through the whole kit-n-caboodle.
• What will our the state department of health do with such a survey?
• How will the information be used?
• Who wrote such a poorly worded survey?
• Was it some type of push poll attempting to validate money spent by the state on an anti-smoking campaign?
• Is this a valid use of limited state funds and state employee time, or was this an outsourced contractual survey, and if so who was paid to do it right now and why?
The pace this week has been exhausting. I attended the Biden/Shumlin rally and met Vice President Biden. I worked the phones, email, and stood at the polls campaigning, and stayed at the post election count until the wee hours of the morning. And then when my candidate Peter Shumlin was announced as Vermont’s new governor, I went to the rally to acknowledge his success.
In the midst of all this effort, DPS Commissioner David O’Brien announced that Vermont Yankee is officially for sale. AP’s Dave Gram broke the story that Entergy had been denying on and off for months. After which I spent the past two days mediating in small claims court. If you think traffic court with Judge Rita Villa is interesting, you should come observe her in small claims court. Judge Villa is brilliant, insightful, compassionate, and most of all knows the law inside out. See tickets please in Seven Days.
It’s Friday night, I just got home from an art show, ate a late supper, and decided to check email and the blogs.
After spending $160 million of her own fortune on a losing campaign to be the governor of California, former eBay executive Meg Whitman is hard pressed for money, and has agreed to work for commission in her attempt to sell Vermont Yankee on eBay.
I don’t do predictions. Somehow it just puts me into a negative space. For the same reason, I voted last Monday in order to get that emotional up from voting early!
I was at the polls today campaigning with Peter Shumlin when Senator Bernie Sanders and his wife Burlington College President Jane Sanders arrived to vote in Burlington’s Ward 4.
Bernie told Peter that he is looking forward to working with him on single payer health care for all Vermonters. One of the things I love about Bernie is that he never stops working for all Vermonters, which I guess is why he has such a following. As he admonished everyone yesterday at the Biden/Shumlin Rally, get out and vote, and get your neighbors out to vote. Every vote counts, he told the crowd as he reminded everyone that he was first elected Mayor of Burlington by only 10 votes!
I’ve also been looking at signs everywhere I’ve gone, and Steve Norman, inventor of the Geometric Roadster, has my favorite that I see every day on my way home.
More below the fold.
Geometric Roadster? Here’s a look at Steve’s invention. With Peter’s election, I hope Vermont will once again work to develop its own manufacturing and encourage the work of entrepreneurial inventors like Burlington’s Steve Norman. Single payer health care could go a long way to take the health care burden off of small businesses and inventors like Norman.
Here are two more shots from this morning’s campaign trail.
I am running for re-election as JP, and of course Peter Shumlin and Jim Condos, both of whom make campaigning fun.
And of course we could not campaign without the intrepid Hobbes, who has only missed one blogger picnic back in 2008 when he was recovering in from major surgery. He loves the political scene.
Joanna Cole is also in this photo, and she is a candidate for State Representative.
I have spent a lifetime attending political rallies, so I guess I was a little ho-hum about this event, hoping it was worth standing in the cold sputtering rain and snow for almost 90 minutes before the security screening. And security was tight especially given the Yemen attempted cargo plane bombings this weekend.
But quite honestly, there is nothing every day or mediocre about hearing Vice President Joe Biden speak in person about the condition of our country, the importance of mid-term elections, and his ringing endorsement of Gubernatorial Candidate Peter Shumlin.
The rally was high-energy all the way from State Auditor Candidate Doug Hoffer’s opening comments for the whole rally to VP Biden’s heartfelt sharing, gritty details about the state of the economy, Republican negativity, and his rousing call for all Vermonters to support Shumlin for Governor.
Update – this photo just in from the Shumlin For Governor campaign
More Below the Fold.
Wish I had better photos. I was having trouble finding the right setting on my camera, so only about 1/3 of the photos came out.
Hoffer was up first, followed by Secretary of State Candidate Jim Condos, and Lt. Governor Candidate Steve Howard. Each of the first three candidates were upbeat, positive, and clear on issues and turning out to vote. Howard really caught me by surprise. I have heard his stump speech before, heard him debate, and quizzed him on issues. Wow does he know how to rally a crowd. He was terrific.
Our federal delegation was the second group to come to the center podium. The positive energy, comraderie, and mutual respect among them emanated from the stage. Senator Bernie Sanders spoke first and like Biden, Bernie did not mince words on the state of the economy and the political gridlock in DC. He was clear on the legacy left by the Bush years and the significant issues facing us as Vermonter and as US citizens. Bernie then introduced Congressional Representative Peter Welch, and after he spoke, Peter introduced Senator Patrick Leahy. The crowd was really animated by that time, and chanted Leahy time and time again. Leahy quipped something like: ‘Vice President Biden always speaks to me a lot nicer than Dick Cheney used to do’. The crowd roared it approval.
Finally, Shumlin and Biden came up to the podium to rousing cheers.
Shumlin spoke first. People assume that I support Shumlin for Governor because of his stance on Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, but that only one of several key reasons. I am a Justice of Peace (so don’t forget to vote for me also tomorrow), and after two-years as a JP, I became convinced that marriage equality is a critical civil rights issue. I am proud of standing up for marriage equality, and proud of Peter Shumlin for his push to pass that legislation, at a time when many legislators would have preferred to walk away. There are many more issues that draw me to Peter Shumlin: single payer healthcare, rebuilding Vermont’s economy, and jobs and energy independence just to name a few. Lastly, as Peter said today, he is dyslexic, and so is my son Eric. I know just how tough that is. Not only has Peter Shumlin invested his time and money in Vermont, but he fights for equal education and school diversity throughout Vermont.
Back to VP Joe Biden, who was the last to speak. Did you know that at one time Biden almost moved to Vermont? Right after he was first elected to the Senate, his wife an daughter were killed in a car crash, and his two sons were severely injured. Today, Biden told the crowd that he came to Rutland and put an offer in for a house, and his father told him to wait a little and not make a rash decision, and after six months or so, if Biden still felt that he wanted to get away from it all, then his father would also accompany him to Vermont. Biden quipped that then he would have had to run against Pat Leahy for Senate, and he would not have won! The crowd loved it.
Biden wove his personal story and that of his work with Leahy, Sanders, and Welch throughout his edgy criticism about Bush, the loss of jobs during the Bush years, the financial debacle, and Republicans in Congress. He called today’s Republicans ‘not the Republicans of our parent’s generation’. Biden painted a clear picture of the cost of war and real estate and bank losses that are being passed on to our children and grandchildren, but are not beig paid for today.
In closing Biden urged everyone to vote Democratic and elect Peter Shumlin as Vermont’s next governor!
A friend of a friend writes the Suburban Empire blog. Occasionally I read it, more often than not, I simply look at Akira Patton’s great artwork that graces the banner. The blog itself is edgy and gritty, so if I do read, it is usually for only a paragraph or two.
Tonight’s post though is worth a read, and the photos are certainly worth a look.
Dubie’s David Dust Debut: Money Well Spent by Vermont’s GOP.
The softcore gay porn industry thanks Vermont’s Republican Gubernatorial Candidate, Brian Dubie, for his support and wishes him the best of luck! Posted October 29th, 2010 by kevin
When I first checked out the site tonight after a friend called me and I read the post about the GOP running Dubie ads on gay porn sites, all the links on Suburban Empire worked, but when I tried again just now as I got ready to post, most of the Dubie banners were down, so I don’t know what you will find.
Luckily the writer took a screen grab of the Dubie ad on the pro-abortion site. Guess Dubie has gone more than pro-choice after his Sunday rally for women in Battery Street Park. I wonder how this expenditure will sit with his conservative Republican base?
All across Vermont today Republican robo-callers were out in force. Many GMD’ers have reported the smear campaign calls by “Friends of Brian Dubie.” We’ll have the audio up soon as well!
According to Sue Prent, the gist is that Peter Shumlin is proposing to release “nearly 800 non-violent offenders into the community.” The Robo-call then alleges that Steve Howard has said that even he doesn’t agree with Shumlin’s plan.
Tonight, Steve Howard responded to Dubie’s smear campaign:
Steve Howard’s Statement on Brian Dubie’s Negative Campaign Tactics
Rutland, VT – Today, Brian Dubie did it again. After 8 years of failed economic policies that have cost too many Vermonters their jobs, Brian is trying to distract the voters from his record of losing 10,000 private sector jobs and 8 years of broken promises and misguided priorities. I will have no part in these ugly, negative Karl Rove style political attacks on my friend Peter Shumlin. The Lt. Governor ought to be ashamed of himself for bringing such despicable, fear-mongering and nasty campaign tactics to our state. Vermonters have had enough, they believe these negative tactics have no place in the State of Vermont and are absolutely shameful.
Let’s be clear, we would not even be having this discussion if the Lt.Governor had bothered to show up and participate for the last 8 years in building the infrastructure we need to keep crime from happening in the first place. This whole discussion is occurring as a result of the failure of the Douglas-Dubie Administration to lead in any meaningful way to reform our corrections system. I have spoken with Peter and we are both committed to a fiscally responsible law and order plan that locks up any criminal that is in any way is a danger to society.
Peter Shumlin and I agree that Vermont needs a greater public investment in drug treatment, mental health counseling, adult education, skill development, transitional housing and community support systems in order to get the Administrations runaway Corrections budget under control.
Peter and I are 100 percent in agreement that Brian Dubie has no plan to deal with our skyrocketing corrections budget and his plan to deal with government spending is to make across the board cuts to education and law enforcement. Brian Dubie should stop misleading and distracting voters and call back every Vermonter that he called to correct the record and explain why he refuses to talk with them about his record of failure on creating jobs for Vermonters.
Paid for by The Committee to Elect Steve Howard, Virginia McCormack, Treasurer
See GMD’s side-bar for two readers’ viewpoints on these calls.
I also received a Republican Robo-call today, but in comparison, it was certainly the ho-hum garden variety call that are usually more typical in a Vermont statewide campaign. I was asked who I would vote for when I vote for governor, lt. governor, and secretary of state, and at the end of the call the recorded voice said that this call was from the Republican Party.
I sure wish Dubie would just answer the questions and have a real dialogue.
