Thom Hartmann: Nuclear Power - “We Almost Lost Nebraska”
We build nuke plants in flood zones. Doesn’t that sound safe?
We almost lost Nebraska because a flood is exactly like a tsunami and 9.0 earthquake and exactly the same thing could have happened there as happened in Japan (but, well, it didn’t), and no one is paying any attention to this near disaster except for a couple of stalwart folks on YouTube…oh the humanity!
But yeah, your YouTube cite is definitely top shelf. It combines a good dollop of inuendo and scary analogy (‘It could have been just like Fukushima if the water had just rise another 2 feet…or something!’) with conspiracy theory (‘well, why DID the FAA create a no-fly zone just like they did over the BP oil spill and Area 51 if not to cover something up?? Is it aliens? Nuclear disaster? Nude jello wrestling? We don’t know because of the no-fly zone!!’).
Clearly this vital YouTube video has something important to reveal that our own media is reluctant or too cowed to tell us…we almost nearly LOST NEBRASKA! And possibly many other states as well? Possibly the entire continental US was in danger and we’d have all had to flee to Hawaii and Alaska as a last resort! And our media and government totally covered up this looming disaster! It’s a good thing that The Daily Take was on the ball!
(I’m so worked up I’m going to put in a few more exclamation points just because of how close we came to LOSING NEBRASKA!!! Here they are…!!!11!!!1!!!one!!!)
Thank you again lev for bringing this to all our attention. It’s folks like you who make sure the rest of us really know and understand the dangers of nuclear energy!
(ETA: And I simply love when this guy says that Germany has built the equivalent of 10 nuclear power plants by putting solar panels on the rooftops of businesses and homes. And that this is what is allowing them to take all their nuclear power plants down…though interestingly enough he doesn’t elaborate on the time table there. I’d love to see the cite for that! Want to take that one on, lev?)
-XT
From Wikipedia: Thom Hartmann - Wikipedia
I don’t see “Engineer” in that list. Which is OK, but nor did he cite his claim that “we almost lost Nebraska.”
However, I for one would like an explanation as to the no-fly zone. I’ve looked into it and no one I know in the government knows, and the folks I know at the plant in question aren’t talking about it.
No video, no story. It worked for Fukushima.
You’ve probably heard of Arnold Gundersen. He’s got an “engineer” behind his name and he’s always got something to say about nuke. In this youtube, he’s talking about Nebraska.
Obviously not a major network news production but what the hey:
No, not really. Other than a really impressive-sounding resume on his website (although once I saw his wife is the co-founder, that sort of tells me about the size of his operation), I’ve never heard of him in connection with nuclear safety.
I won’t say he’s not 100% correct, just that I’ve never heard of him.
[QUOTE=Una Persson]
However, I for one would like an explanation as to the no-fly zone. I’ve looked into it and no one I know in the government knows, and the folks I know at the plant in question aren’t talking about it.
[/QUOTE]
Well, doing a google search just gets me a bunch of links back to a NaturalNews story that is full of innuendo about a ‘mysterious 2 mile no fly zone’ over the plant, but that the FAA says there is nothing to worry about wink wink, nudge nudge. I’ve tried to search the FAA’s official site for ‘Nebraska no fly zone’ but I have to admit I’ve found nada there about it one way or the other.
I seem to recall that the reason for no fly zones like this in the past were to prevent incidents from private planes and helicopters trying to see what’s going on and creating air hazards. Since I don’t see a purpose or plausible reason for the government covering up the event if the nuclear plant is indeed going tits up (why would they? If it’s melting down or whatever I’d guess we’d find out about it when the radiation levels start to go off the deep end and mutant ROUS start appearing), I am going to guess that the reason is fairly mundane. My own Occam’s Razor doesn’t slice towards meaningless conspiracy theories that would be so easy to find out by simply waiting for a few days.
Admittedly I can’t even find an official document that says there IS a no fly zone in effect over the plant in Nebraska, so if anyone has a link I’d be interested in what the official reason is. Anything but yet another story from NaturalNews…
-XT
[QUOTE=levdrakon]
You’ve probably heard of Arnold Gundersen. He’s got an “engineer” behind his name and he’s always got something to say about nuke. In this youtube, he’s talking about Nebraska.
[/QUOTE]
Arnold Gunderson. Yeah, you’ve used him in cites before.
He does seem to be a nuclear engineer, though.
Fairewinds Associates doesn’t seem to have a Wiki entry and I can’t seem to get an official web page for them, but a Google search shows a number of anti-nuclear articles, including several about Fukushima. I won’t say they are an obviously biased source since I can’t find their official web page (perhaps you know it Lev?) and they don’t have a Wiki link (other than the one on Gundersen I already gave), but I would question their objectivity on what little I’ve seen so far. YMMV.
-XT
Which implies that there is something going on. And there are already FAA restrictions as to air traffic over and around things like nuclear power plants for just that purpose.
It’s suspicious, like the BP oil spill.
I found it earlier today.
From: http://tfr.faa.gov/save_pages/detail_1_6523.html
Etc.
Their official site is here: http://www.fairewinds.com/content/who-we-are
Fairewinds (spelled like “Renn Faire”) appears to largely consist of him and his wife.
One important note, although Fairewinds is a Vermont entity, according to the Vermont Office of Professional Regulation, neither “Arnie” nor his wife are Licensed Professional Engineers in their home state. Nor does their company have a corporate license (sort of obvious, but I had to check). Now, in my State what he’s doing by holding himself out as an “expert witness” and an Engineer serving the public and government would probably be illegal, and get him a trip to court. I don’t have the time to search Vermont’s code to see if he’s violating the law there.
Of course this doesn’t speak to the accuracy of his video, all we’re doing is attacking his Q&E in general. He could still be 100% correct.
New York Times on Arnold Gundersen: Paying The Price For Blowing The Whistle
Seems real enough to me. Oh, but we have a new standard for establishing bona fides. You have to have a wiki page.
Wikipedia: Una Persson:
Of course, I am not saying the information you sometimes provide is inaccurate. I’m not saying that. Your wiki page just doesn’t seem to support it, is all I’m saying. You could be 100% correct. 
You need to make a new post acknowledging that you’re responding to the wrong person. It was xtisme who posted about the lack of Wiki. I don’t give a rat’s ass about who does or doesn’t have a Wiki page.
All I mentioned was that there is a curious issue where he’s running a company which appears to be offering Engineering services to the public, while not being legally licensed to do such. Why do I mention that? Because as a Licensee it’s one of the things I’m supposed to report in my State. I’m not Licensed in Vermont, otherwise I might give more of a crap.
You might recall I also admitted that we were attacking the man, not his message, to try to bring this back on track. In fact, I posted the cite from the FAA supporting Gundersen’s claim. So I’m a bit confused how I’m the bad dog here.
You are right. You did not say anything about his having a wiki page, or imply having or not having one meant anything in particular. I apologize.
Thank you very much. 
FWIW, I acknowledged that I simply couldn’t find much information on the man or his company aside from the Wiki link I gave earlier and the sparse home page that Una found on the company (I couldn’t even find that much last night). I don’t see any compelling reason to trust the man, however, based on the sparse information available. The fact that he has written position papers commissioned by anti-nuclear organizations (according to his Wiki page) would indicate that perhaps he’s not an unbiased source. I don’t know how to assess the fact that he was a whistleblower in the past…that could mean additional bias, or it could indicate a number of other things.
What I can say based on the first YouTube video linked by Lev I saw is that anyone claiming that ‘we almost lost Nebraska’ is either being highly sensationalistic and hyperbolic or they don’t know what they are talking about. I’m willing to go with ‘sensationalistic and hyperbolic’ and give the benefit of the doubt, but it tends to, again, show a certain bias by even making those claims (granted, that wasn’t Arnold Gundersen).
Watching the second YouTube video linked by Lev (that has an interview by Arnold Gundersen as part of it), I’m again struck by the over the top language and ridiculous levels of comparative risk he is using. Fairly early on in his interview he makes the statement ‘what happens if one of the dams break’. This is WRT the power plant, which he says will make this disaster on par with Fukushima. Probably true enough as far as it goes…if one of the dams lets go (something that seems highly unlikely…that’s why they are allowing the water to spill through and causing the flooding after all), it will certainly be a disaster for the nuclear power plant. But lets get real here…if one of the dams lets go the nuclear power plant is going to be the least of the worries to the folks downstream. A huge freaking wall of water wiping out everything in it’s path is probably going to be a bit higher on the list of worries than what happens to the nuclear power plant. The thing that’s going to cause the most deaths and damage isn’t going to be the nuclear power plant hit by a huge wall of water but the huge wall of water.
He also makes a number of claims. One is that the dams aren’t structurally sound. I’d love to see some backup to that incredible statement. But even if it’s true I have to point out what the greater comparative risk is here…it’s not the nuclear power plant that might get hit by an ‘inland tsunami’ but said ‘inland tsunami’. I’d also like to see what credentials Arnie has to make such an assessment of all those upstream dams. Is he a structural engineer as well as being a ‘former nuclear operator’ and ‘chief consultant to Fairewinds’ (as the commentator of that YouTube video puts it)?
He’s right…the nuclear plant IS relying on those dams. So are all the other people who are down stream. And he’s probably right…if any one of them fail catastrophically then it’s likely that others will fail as well as they are all full to capacity.
I found a lot of this video highly suspect. From the stock footage of Fukushima (they didn’t label it as such, though on the other side of this they were constantly talking about Fukushima as Arnie made his case that this could situation could be headed towards that level of event), to the label of the video itself (the title is “Arnie Gundersen - Nebraska Nuclear Plant: Emergency Level 4 & Getting Worse - June 14, 2011”…‘level 4’ of course being a very specific level of nuclear emergency that this situation has definitely NOT reached AFAIK…it’s not even a level 2), to Arnie saying that he doesn’t believe the NRC is aware of the danger of steam or understands what’s going on (really? :dubious:). YMMV of course, Lev, but my bias BS detector was ringing pretty continuously throughout.
[QUOTE=Una Persson]
Of course this doesn’t speak to the accuracy of his video, all we’re doing is attacking his Q&E in general. He could still be 100% correct.
[/QUOTE]
I’m pretty skeptical that he’s 100% correct. He made some specific claims (such as his assertion that the dams weren’t structurally sound) and a lot of innuendo and conjecture (like his statement that he doesn’t ‘think’ the NRC understand or is aware of certain dangers).
Whenever someone states outright that it’s only through programs like this radio show that the ‘real’ news about nuclear gets out to the public my BS detector starts seriously chiming in. I suppose it could be the case that the MSM isn’t going nuts over this because they are all in the pocket of big energy or big nuclear or the federal government, or they are too stupid or shallow to understand that this is newsworthy…however, my own Occam’s says that if no one is really covering this highly interesting and vital story except for a few anti-nuclear sources (as well as local news in freaking Nebraska) then, perhaps, it’s because there really isn’t much of a story here. YMMV but I find it hard to buy into what is essentially a conspiracy theory that the national news sources (right and left) are all buying into.
Ok, I concede that it does look suspicious and for my part I haven’t been able to dig up a reasonable explanation.
-XT
The dams are not in good shape. They are earth dams. Nobody would build one like them now. They can fail, and when they do it is catastrophic failure. That there are three reactors right on the river, with no protection from a dam failure, it is a disaster waiting to happen.
Of course the solution is expensive, so it won’t be done. Solution meaning engineering and construction so that there won’t ever be a failure or multiple reactors destroyed from a dam failure. The deniers want to pretend it can’t happen. That attitude is why there are six ruined reactors in japan, four of them exploded, and a shit ton of radioactive material is bubbling under a massive amount of highly radioactive water.
And of course all the radioactivity spread around Japan. And an enormous financial loss to TEPCO. And a few dead people, but face it, we don’t even know their names.
Do you have a cite showing the dams aren’t structurally sound or are in imminent danger of failing? I’ve seen nothing to indicate either.
-XT
I said they are the kind of dams nobody would build anymore.
Embankment, rolled-earth and chalk-fill, the kind of dams that can fail, and fail in a catastrophic manner. Check the wiki articles on them. It’s not a secret.
Take Garrison Dam - Wikipedia for an example.
In June 2011, in response to the 2011 Missouri River Floods, the dam was releasing over 140,000 cubic feet per second, which greatly exceeded its previous record release of 65,000 cfs set in 1997.[4] The first use of the emergency spillway due to flooding started on June 1, 2011 at 8:00am.[5]
They have been releasing over a million gallons a second to try and save the dams. It’s actually quite serious. They don’t risk flooding nuclear power plants on a whim.
It’s a feature, not a bug.
Dams are supposed to have spillways and to be allowed to “leak” water in order to keep the forces in control, and not break the dam itself which would have much more serious consequences, and it’s for every type. Not only the embankment dams.
Honestly, I cannot find anything to show that they would be worse than other types.
I searched for a bit to find these sources regarding embankment dams:
http://www.dur.ac.uk/~des0www4/cal/dams/emba/embaf50.htm (Guide in dam engineering, embankment dams. Andrew Graham, Master of Engineering from Durham University 1997)
Just general safety and engineering points of interest here.
http://www.ferc.gov/industries/hydropower/safety/guidelines/eng-guide/chap4-draft.asp (Embankment dam safety engineering guide draft version 4"Engineering Guidelines for the Evaluation of Hydropower Project". Federal Energy Regulatory Commission)
This one is already much more interesting, though unfortunately lacking in statistics of how embankment dams generally are holding. What it has is explanation of what need to be included, to certify that the dam is safe enough, in case of different emergencies such as earthquakes.
http://geo.usace.army.mil/pgis/f?p=397:5:1891612724996994::NO
Statistics, including hazard potential from accidents. But not by type again.
I didn’t actually find anything that would show that they are more dangerous than other types
The recent Missouri floods were caused by a cool spring delaying the melt of snow on the mountains combined with really bad rainstorms. While they could reacted earlier to lessen damage, it was still an Act of God, so complaints should be directed accordingly.
Fort Calhoun got a notice from NRC by the way regarding lack of flood-protection. Some changes have been made for that reason.
http://www.omaha.com/article/20110617/NEWS01/706179913/0#nrc-no-flood-danger-at-reactor (More details regarding the steps they took)