Pilgrim, Blobs of Black Oil, Fusion Part 20

We always have time for some good news:

A three-judge panel at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) denied a filing by Massachusetts to stop the relicensing of Entergy's 685-megawatt Pilgrim nuclear power plant in Massachusetts.

This had never seemed a good bet for Massachusetts, which had based its contention on events at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi. Since the NRC is working to apply lessons learned from Fukushima to the American fleet, the state’s contention seemed irrelevant. But – there are further steps to be taken:

The NRC said the state could appeal the ASLB ruling against its Fukushima contention to the five-member, presidentially appointed Commission that oversees the NRC.

The ASLB is is the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, which handles these issues. It was the ASLB that created a minor tempest when it ruled the Department of Energy could not withdraw its license application for Yucca Mountain from the NRC. This is smaller in scope, but an important step to (re)establishing where the state’s authority over nuclear facilities ends.

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A little news from Durban, South Africa, where the United Nation’s climate change conference (COP17) is taking place:

Blobs of black oil have mysteriously surfaced on the beaches north of Durban, threatening to spoil them for holidaymakers ahead of the festive season.

Residents began noticing pockets of oil on the shores of Zinkwazi, Salt Rock, Zimbali and Blythedale beaches.

Not very climate changey. Anything else?

As COP17 kicked off on Monday in Durban, several people were reported dead following flooding over the weekend.

The eThekwini Municipality said 10 fatalities were reported, with five of the cases having been confirmed following flooding that resulted in damage to property and infrastructure in Umlazi on Sunday.

The worst-hit area is the central region, with 19 reports of flooding affecting shacks at Quarry road and Puntan's Hill.

Any questions?

(h/t ThinkProgress)

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And now, for something completely different:

In the race against world governments and the wealthiest companies to commercialize a nuclear fusion reactor, a small, innovative Canadian firm is hoping to bottle and sell the sun's energy.

In a laboratory in this Pacific Coast city [Burnaby, Vancouver], General Fusion physicists and engineers in bright red smocks are busy assembling an experimental reactor.

They hope to test a prototype in 2014 and eventually become the first to commercialize the technology, offering a safe, cheap, pollution-free and virtually inexhaustible source of energy.

Ah, sweet mystery of fusion, never to die. The main problem with fusion, as the story notes, is that it takes a cup full of electricity to produce a thimble full. Forget about economy of scale – there’s no economy whatever.

But you’ve got to admire people who look at the sun and think, I can do that, and then try to do that. The only drawback is that it leads to tears – again and again.

General Fusion admits its chances of success are slim -- but backers believe in its proposal, and are pouring CAN$30 million into the project.

Good work if you can get it. Can’t help but wish General Fusion well.

One detail in the story produced a sour burp:

"The central challenge is still that fossil fuels -- getting them out of the ground and burning them -- is still so cheap to do that there is not an adequate incentive to invest in renewables or other low carbon technologies," said Matt Horne, director of the Pembina Institute.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with Pembina, a Canadian think tank – it doesn’t like nuclear energy very much, but you can’t have everything - but I do think there’s plenty of incentive to invest in low carbon technologies. In any event, it’s an odd argument from a Canadian outlet – the country generates almost 60 percent of its electricity from hydro. Go figure.

Blobs of black oil - in New Zealand, in this instance.

Wednesday Update

From NEI’s Safety First web site:

Japanese Government Increases Radiation Testing for Rice Crops

November 30, 2011

Industry/Regulatory/Political

• Fukushima Prefecture is stepping up its testing of rice crops, now that more radioactive cesium has been found in harvested samples. Government officials measured twice the allowable radiation limit in rice from farms in Date City, about 30 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy facility. The prefectural government is expanding radiation testing to more than 2,300 nearby farms.
• Researchers in Japan have created an academic society to provide recommendations for the removal of radioactive materials released by Fukushima Daiichi. Members of the society have backgrounds in nuclear energy, environmental restoration and other specialties.
• Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the Fukushima Daiichi facility, forecasts that it will generate enough electricity over the winter to meet demand, with a small reserve margin. The utility warned that unplanned shutdowns of generating stations and rapid changes in temperature could affect continuity of supply.

New Products

• Nuclear energy facilities on the East Coast weathered Hurricane Irene by thoroughly planning for the August storm. Details are in a new article posted this week on NEI’s Safety First website.

Media Highlights

• Dow Jones reports that a TEPCO analysis indicates the fuel in reactor 1 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy facility melted through the reactor pressure vessel and may have eroded part of the way through the concrete base of the containment. TEPCO officials said the erosion of the containment has stopped and the temperature is below the boiling point.

Upcoming Events

• Staff of the independent Nuclear Regulatory Commission will conduct its first meeting with stakeholders on strategies the agency is considering to address the recommendations of the near-term Fukushima task force. The meeting will be held Dec. 1 in the NRC’s Rockville, Md., offices. To view the meeting by webcast, visit http://video.nrc.gov.

The Latest Worldwide Meteor/Meteorite News 30NOV2011

NY / NJ Green Meteor Fireball 24NOV2011 - Latest Worldwide ...Glen Cove ,New York Observed in the north east sky .....stating at about one o' clock to about two o'clock in the sky...large pronounced green fireball lasted about ...lunarmeteoritehunters.blogspot.com/.../new-york-green-meteo...


Latest Worldwide Meteor/Meteorite News: Sighting Reports Will be ...By LunarMeteorite*HunterMeteor 

NOVEMBER 2011 Meteor/Fireball Sighting Reports File (incomplete)

Meteor Sighting Reports for 2012 Will be Changing Format and New Meteor Reporting Form semi-Completed 30NOV2011

The meteor sighting reports below were received in the past 20 hours; I simply cannot manually input and update my site 20 hours per day like I have been for the past 3 years. Anyone willing to help me complete this automation (someone familiar with Google Docs Applications - simply

Woburn, MASS. Meteor? 28NOV2011

Woburn, MASS. Meteor? ~5:00 pm 28NOV2011
My husband and I were pulling into Whole Foods Parking lot in Woburn, MA at approx 5 p.m this evening 11/28/11 and saw a falling star or whatever it was...not sure. . The direction it was going easterly maybe??.. just know that it was very bright, a good size, and was the fastest travelling thing I ever saw! Amazing and beautiful! It was large at it's

Austin, Texas Meteor 28NOV2011

Austin, Texas Meteor ~9:25 pm CST 28NOV2011
Approx 9.25pm tonight I viewed something I have never seen headed west to east above Cedar Park and Austin Texas.
I googled to see if anyone has seen this and found your site and a post from someone describing what they saw today and the description is the same except the post they sent is logged from this morning.  This thing was visible for a second

The Latest Worldwide Meteor/Meteorite News 29NOV2011

'Extra-terrestrial' matter sent for tests
Times of IndiaWhen a meteoroid enters the atmosphere, pressure causes the body to heat up and emit light, thus forming a fireball, also known as a meteor or shooting star. The term bolide refers to either an extraterrestrial body that collides with the earth, ... [Appears to be a hoax; Dehli, India 27NOV2011 meteor/meteorite hoax]




Dundee the new home

Angleton, Brazoria County, Texas, USA Fireball Meteor 28NOV2011

Angleton, Brazoria County, Texas, USA Meteor 12:30 AM CST 28NOV2011
Fireball south of Angleton, Texas spotted. It seemed unusually close and it's color was green at the tail and orange/red at the front. Movement was from west to east and was observed for less than two seconds. It was much more luminos than any stars around it. -Johnathan  Thank you Johnathan!


Any other sighting reports? Please

Monday Update

From NEI’s Safety First web site:

Fukushima Town to Test Waste Reduction System

November 28, 2011

Industry/Regulatory/Political

• The town of Hirono in Fukushima prefecture plans to test a system that would reduce the volume of radioactive debris requiring disposal by up to a factor of 300. The equipment would heat-treat the materials in an oxygen-free environment and use a ceramic powder to absorb radioactive materials.

Plant Status

• Tokyo Electric Power Co. is planning to address any buildup of hydrogen inside the pressure vessels of Fukushima Daiichi reactors 1 through 3 by directly injecting nitrogen into the vessel. Nitrogen injection is expected to begin early December. Meanwhile, in order to increase the amount of steam in the vessels and decrease the relative buildup of hydrogen, TEPCO is reducing the flow rate of cooling water injection into the reactors. The temperatures within all three reactors are well below the boiling temperature, TEPCO reports.

Media Highlights

• A pair of articles in the Japanese media analyzes the export market for Japanese nuclear components. Yomiuri Shimbun reports on Toshiba’s U.S. orders for turbine equipment for the nuclear energy facilities being built at the Vogtle site in Georgia and the V.C. Summer site in South Carolina. The Japan Atomic Industrial Forum notes that Japan Steel Works has forecast more than $640 million in orders from China and France for large forged components for nuclear power plants.
• An article in The New York Times discusses how the post-Fukushima environment is changing national discussions on used nuclear fuel management.
• Mainichi Daily News reports on the difficulty that Japan’s power industry is having in meeting its carbon dioxide reduction targets now that electricity production at nuclear energy facilities has dropped since the Fukushima accident. Kyodo News points out that Kansai Electric Power Co. is planning to restart an oil-fired plant that had been mothballed for 10 years.

“Nuclear plants are too inflexible… ?”

A certain cognitive dissonance:

Building new nuclear power stations will make it harder for the UK to switch to renewable energy, said one of the top German officials leading the country's nuclear energy phase-out.

And why might that be?

Jochen Flasbarth, president of the Environmental Protection Agency in Germany, who advises the German government, said: "We are not missionaries, and every country will have to find its own way in energy policy, but it is obvious that nuclear plants are too inflexible and cannot sufficiently respond to variations in wind or solar generation, only gas [power stations] do."

“Too inflexible.” That’s a new one. What Flasbarth is trying to say is that nuclear energy doesn’t give renewable energy enough room to play a significant role in energy policy, but what he actually conveys is that nuclear energy provides many of the benefits of renewable energy, but can run at 90 to 92 percent capacity rather than the 30 to 35 percent capacity managed by renewables.

Leaving aside the other upsides and downsides of nuclear and renewable energy sources for a moment, Flasbarth is saying that nuclear energy, because it works virtually all the time, doesn’t need renewable energy sources. He knows this because Germany has until recently been a big supporter of nuclear energy.

Given Flasbarth’s formulation, you might not want nuclear energy on the same portion of the grid as renewable energy, but you can use natural gas instead and live with some carbon emissions in exchange for being able to use non-emitting renewable energy sources 35 percent of the time. You can then site nuclear energy facilities where renewable energy sources cannot function well. That’s fine.

But here’s the thing: Great Britain can organize its energy policy around these choices and use nuclear energy, wind and solar and gas wherever they work best. Germany, quite famously, can’t do this anymore.

Jochen Flasbarth – making the best of a bad situation. It’s almost a cry for help, isn’t it?

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You may want to know that COP17 is happening in Durban, South Africa right about now. The Guardian has up an informative Q&A about the United Nations’ climate change conference. A taster:

There seems little possibility that the summit will produce an emissions reduction agreement, meaning the world will soon lack any binding CO2 targets when Kyoto's first commitment period expires at the end of 2012. At best, diplomats will agree on other details, such as a "green climate fund" designed to channel billions from wealthy to poor countries to fund environmentally friendly economic development there. But with rich countries facing a financial crisis it is unclear where the money should come from.

But the burning question is: How much criminal activity has there been at this year’s conference? Very little, it turns out,

There were no climate change summit related crimes on Monday, police said on Monday afternoon.

"Everything is going smoothly so far. Not... a single conference-related crime report has been given to me today," Colonel Vish Naidoo said late on Monday afternoon.

Whew! The roving bands of climatologists have been quelled at long last. Their sociopathic behavior almost trashed Cancun last year. Speaking of sociopathic:

Climate scientists have mounted a robust defense of their work and debates over science after more than 5,000 personal emails were leaked onto the internet in an apparent attempt to undermine public support for international action to tackle climate change.

As Rocket J. Squirrel says to Bullwinkle J. Moose when the latter threatens to pull a rabbit out of his hat, “Aw, that trick never works.”

Although the conference is not expected to carry much significance for the outside world – that would take a successor to Kyoto - the issue of climate change is no longer vulnerable to dirty tricks. Denying it at this point is just a self-indulgence.

The COP17 logo. Meant to evoke the big tree in Avatar? That didn’t end well for the big tree.

The Latest Worldwide Meteor/Meteorite News 28NOV2011

Piece Of Burnt Meteorite Falls On East Delhi Housetop
indiatvnews.comNew Delhi, Nov 28: A burning piece of space debris, probably a meteorite, fell on the roof of a house in East Delhi's Gandhinagar area on Sunday evening. The house owner immediately poured water on the burnt piece after which it broke up into small ... [Story sounds dubious and material does not appear to be meteorite!]



US: A

North Venice, Florida Meteor 27NOV2011

North Venice, Florida Meteor between 9:30-10:30 pm EST 27NOV2011
I live in North Venice Florida ... on Nov 27 2011 sometime between 930 and 1030 pm I saw something in the sky, It almost seemed to drop straight down but if I had to choose it would have been traveling NorthWest to SouthEast (from left to right but barely)　It was all white, no tail or trail after it. It seemed more wide than tall

Santa Fe Springs, CA Meteor 27NOV2011

Santa Fe Springs, CA Meteor ~1:00 am PST 27NOV2011
November 27, 11 at approximately 1:00 AM in Santa Fe Springs, CA, southeast of Los Angeles. The meteor was very high in the sky, it shot eastward and disappeared.The event lasted only for a couple of seconds. It was amazingly orange and red, it was very bright compared to other celestial objects. Myself and my two friends all happened to be

Taunton, Massachusetts Meteor 27NOV2011

Taunton, Massachusetts Meteor ~7:45 pm 27NOV2011
My daughter and I saw what we think to be a meteor tonight. We were travelling on 24 North almost to 495 North outside of Taunton, Massachusetts at approximately 7:45 pm EDT. It was white, no other colors noted, no trail or anything noted. It came from the north east heading downwards southwest. It was coming in really fast. We only saw it for a

Ocala, Florida Meteor 27NOV2011

Ocala, Florida Meteor ~1:00 am EST 27NOV2011
Meteor was red and burning very bright it shot northwest to southeast
lasting about 2 secs. IT was the first time ever that I saw a real
meteor burning through the atmosphere.-Lawrence Bryant  Thank you Lawrence!

Any other sighting reports? Please report: Date and Time of event? Location name (town,city) where you were when saw the meteor? Start and

Guernsey, UK Meteor 27NOV2011

Guernsey, UK Meteor 6:50 GMT 27NOV2011
On Nov 27 I saw a green flash with an orange trail in the sky. The flash was moving very fast and was very low just over the road for about 3 seconds. This was in st.peter port on a small island called guernsey in the English channel. Occurred at 6:50pm GMT. Please can you explain what it could have been? Regards -Tristram

Any other sighting reports?

Yona, Guam Bolide Meteor 27NOV2011

Yona, Guam Bolide Meteor ~9:15 -9:30 pm 27NOV2011
Here is the info of the meteorite that I saw tonight...
Nov 27th 2011 approx 915-930pm Yona, Guam East over the ocean straight above
Went straight down then broke up 3 seconds Very bright. Lit entire area as if it were daytime
No sound just a bright white light then as soon as it broke up had a flare effect in the sky and quickly dimmed. I am in

MBIQ (Meteor Bot Internet Query) Bot Detects NSW / Queensland, Australia Meteor 27NOV2011

MBIQ (Meteor Bot Internet Query) Bot Detects NSW / Queensland, Australia Meteor 27NOV2011
We need your reports to confirm; thank you!

Brisbane, Queensland, Australia Meteor 7:50pm 27NOV2011
Was walking east and saw this orange/reddish shooting star heading south only saw it for 3seconds, then disintegrated. That was on 27/11/11 between 740pm & 800pm. -Samantha D.  Thank you Samantha!


Warwick,

California Meteor 26NOV2011

Camarillo, CA Saw Meteor! between 8:00- 8:30 p.m. 26NOV2011
I had just parked my car and collected mail from the mailbox, then walked up the driveway to enter my home and looked to my left which is west facing toward the Pacific Ocean. I’m not certain on the exact time because I was off my regular schedule, but think it was easily between 8:00-8:30 p.m. this evening. It was quite a large white

Riverside, CA Meteor 26NOV2011

Riverside, CA Meteor just before 7 PM Pacific Time 26NOV2011
At about 6:55 PM I saw a shooting star in the southern sky while taking my daughter out to see Venus.  Venus is very bright but I couldn't find the moon right off. So we went out in front of our house and as we turned to look South we saw a very bright meteor fall - It was the same relative size as venus if not larger and fell from 

Adelaide, Australia Meteor 26NOV2011

River Murray, near Adelaide, Australia Meteor 23:45 local 26NOV2011
Sitting out camping by the River Murray, 2 hours out of Adelaide ( South Australia ) one of us noticed a very slow shooting star moving in the Northern Western part of the sky (heading towards Orion’s belt).
After notifying the rest of us we all looked around (expecting it to have disappeared) to see this asteroid / meteor

Berwind, West Virginia Meteor 25NOV2011

Berwind, West Virginia Meteor between 19:00-19:30 25NOV2011
Friday, 11/25/11 between 19:00 and 19:30 my family and I was treated to the sighting of a large bright blue meteor moving across the sky of a small town called Berwind. The town is located on the very southern tip of West Virginia. We watched the meteor for 10 - 15 seconds before it passed behind the mountains. I'm guessing it was

Wilmington, Delaware Meteor 25NOV2011

Wilmington, Delaware Meteor shortly after 8:00 pm EST 25NOV2011
November 25, 2011 shortly after 8pm, I was stepping out to get ready to leave for some black friday shopping when I noticed a bright flame shooting across the sky. It wasnt as fast as a shooting star, it seemed pretty big, I believe it was going NW, from Wilmington, Delaware. -Tiffany S.  Thank you Tiffany!

Any other sighting

The Latest Worldwide Meteor/Meteorite News 26NOV2011

Latest Worldwide Meteor/Meteorite News: Melbourne, Australia ...Good evening, About 9:20ish pm tonight 16-11-2011 I saw a what I think was a meteor, very large & fast moving- bright white-yellow, in the south western sky. ...lunarmeteoritehunters.blogspot.com/.../melbourne-australia-m...


Meteor Shower Visible over Indianapolis | Indy's News Center - 93.1 ...The meteor shower was visible in the

Mahad, Maharashtra, India Meteor 25NOV2011

Mahad, Maharashtra, India Meteor ~22:50 local 25NOV2011Nearly at 22:50 there was a flash light falling all over illuminating the dark sky. I don’t know what it was but it was extremely bright, leaving a shiny trail behind it which lasted for few seconds. I am in Mahad, Maharashtra, India.-feelipkd  Thank you!

Any other sighting reports? 
Please report: Date and Time of event? Location name (town

Concord, North Carolina, USA Meteor 25NOV2011

Concord, North Carolina, USA Meteor Approx. 1830 EDT 25NOV2011
Pulled into my driveway and saw about 8 deer in the field. Pulled up with my 5 y/o in backseat and shined my headlights on them to watch. About 5 minutes into watching them graze we saw an object heading earthbound on an angle traveling from NE to SW and losing altitude. The object had a sparkling vibrant blue glow that appeared to

Wallula, WA Meteor 25NOV2011

Wallula, WA Meteor ~5:00 pm PST 25NOV2011
Hi, I was driving south just past Wallula, WA around twilight (there was still a bit of lingering sunset behind Wallula Gap,) it was maybe 5ish. Just to the west of the gap (on the Columbia River) I saw a bright but small green flash which then broke into two short "tails." As far as size I guess I would compare the original flash with a pencil erasure,

Manchester, Pennsylvania Meteor 25NOV2011

Manchester, Pennsylvania Meteor 1:40 AM EST 25NOV2011
It was a ball of fire it shot across the sky and didn't last long it didn't even click to me of what it was until it was gone could you let me know if you know anything about this let me know thanks. -Nathan M.. Thank you Nathan!


Any other sighting reports? Please report: Date and Time of event? Location name (town,city) where you were when

Robinson, PA Green Meteor 25NOV2011

Robinson, PA Meteor ~7:00 pm 25NOV2011
I saw a green shooting star or I guess meteor. It was tonight a little before 7pm EST. I was driving west and saw it through my windshield. It was bright green and moved from right to left which must have meant it was going south. It lasted several seconds. There wasn't much of a trail. I thought it was just a shooting star until I googled it and came

Indiana Meteor 25NOV2011

south of Indianapolis, Indiana on State Road 37 Meteor? ~10:30 pm 25NOV2011
The only reason I found this website is because I was online looking to see if anyone else had posted anything about seeing a meteorite tonight. I was driving home to Bloomington, Indiana and saw what looking like a pale green meteorite in the sky. What is strange to me is that there was cloud cover, and so I was seeing a

Burbank, California Meteor 25NOV2011

Burbank, California Meteor between 7-8pm PST 25NOV2011
I was on the highway, and the streak was over the mountains in the north. Lasted about a second - a very short orange, fiery streak before it burned up. Not too bright.- Bella Thank you Bella!

Any other sighting reports? Please report: Date and Time of event? Location name (town,city) where you were when saw the meteor? Start and Stop

Coloma, Michigan Meteor 25NOV2011

Coloma, Michigan Meteor 12:52 a.m. EST 25NOV2011I saw a large shooting star on Nov. 25, 2011, somewhere around 12:52 a.m.. I was riding in a car on a country road somewhere around Coloma, Michigan. It was brighter than Jupiter, orange, and had a tail that was the same color. It lasted about a second at the most. I can't say for sure exactly where in the sky I saw it; my guess is it was either

Nashville, TN Meteor 25NOV2011

Nashville, TN  Meteor ~11:55pm 25NOV2011
I live in Nashville, TN - not sure exactly the time, but approx. midnight November 25, 2011 an incredibly bright blue/green meteor appeared on the northern horizon moving from east southeast to west northwest - a long tail glowing blueish appeared to hit the ionoshpere and illuminate a giant aurora appearing as if passing through an overcast sky - but the

North Carolina Meteor 25NOV2011

Greensboro, North Carolina Meteor 1:20 am 25NOV2011
I was talking on the phone around 1:20 AM Nov 25 (Friday morning) and looked up to catch a bright, red, fiery thing falling. I was looking NorthEast at an angle of about 45 degrees, and the thing seemed to be falling slightly, but mostly moving from left to right. I don't know much about astronomy, so I don't know if it was a shooting star,

Zanesfield, Ohio Meteor 25NOV2011

Zanesfield, Ohio Meteor ~7:00pm 25NOV2011
At 7 Pm EST in Zanesfield Ohio we saw a bright light shoot across the sky traveling north to south it appeared to have a tail. We were traveling south at the time We first noticed it at our 1:00 we watched it travel south until it disappeared, Less than 2 seconds, it was 10 times brighter than Venus. -Dave S. Thank you Dave!

Any other sighting reports?

Port Saint Lucie, Florida Meteor 24NOV2011

Port Saint Lucie, Florida Meteor  11:45pm EST 24NOV2011
Hi there, this is my very first time doing this and so I don’t know what to say other then, I saw a last night November 24th 2011 a huge meteor and I have never seen anything like it! It was huge going across the sky and it was big not so bright but there were a lot of clouds. It looked as though it was in the atmosphere not in space and it

The Latest Worldwide Meteor/Meteorite News 25NOV2011

Meteor lights up US skiesTelegraphTVThe skies above the American Midwest have been lit up by a mysterious fireball, thought to have been a falling meteor. ...


Latest Worldwide Meteor/Meteorite News: Texas Meteor 23NOV2011By LunarMeteorite*HunterNot sure if it was a meteor or not but there was a bright white ball flying south to north over Austin Tx around 8pm 11/23/11. There was no tail, it was

NY / NJ Green Meteor Fireball 24NOV2011

Glen Cove ,New York Meteor ~11:40 pm EST 24NOV2011
Thursday, November 24th, 2011, (thanksgiving evening) about 11:40 pm
Glen Cove ,New York Observed in the north east sky .....stating at about one o'clock to about two o'clock in the sky...large pronounced green fireball lasted about two and a half seconds, short sloppy tail, you could see it was burning. *If you held a dime at arms legnth,

Nashua, NH Meteor? 24NOV2011

Nashua, NH Meteor? 18:30 EST 24NOV2011
Noticed a small dimly lit but discernable to naked eye, object traveling slowly from east towards west. At first I thought it was a satellite, then it accelerated towards the western horizon through Cygnus at a VERY high rate of speed! The object never illuminated any brighter and did not have a tail/plasma. Bolide? Near Earth Object? -DLT  Thank you!


Any

Belleville, Ontario, Canada Bolide Meteor 24NOV2011

Belleville, Ontario, Canada Bolide Meteor 02:30 am 24NOV2011
I saw this bolide on November 24th, 2011 at 0230 exactly.
I was in the City of Belleville in Ontario, Canada. At the time of the sighting I was traveling northbound on Sidney Street in a car, so I am unsure if there had been any noises or sounds during the sighting.
I have seen quite a few bolides before, as I work nights and am in a

Western Queensland, Australia Bolide Meteor? 23NOV2011

Western Queensland, Australia Bolide Meteor? 0450 Local Queensland Time 23NOV2011
I was airborne flying over Western Queensland last night, at approximately 1850 UTS or 0450 Local Queensland Time on the morning of the 23/11/11. I and several other aircraft in the area observed a very bright series of lights descending in the sky in a cluster at the time. The brightest light was leading the

The Latest Worldwide Meteor/Meteorite News 24NOV2011

Baffling fireball reported overheadMansfield News JournalHe thinks the fireball may have landed there. Lt. Michael Vinson, of the Mansfield post of the Ohio Highway Patrol, said several agencies, including the Lexington Police Department, Troy Township Fire Department, the Richland County Sheriff's Office ...


Latest Worldwide Meteor/Meteorite News: Toronto, Ontario, Canada ...By LunarMeteorite*

Newburg, Maryland Green Meteor 23NOV2011

Newburg, Maryland Green Meteor ~8:13 pm EST 23NOV2011
I saw a green meteor go across the sky when i was out letting my dog out at about 8:13 pm . It streaked across the sky for a good 3-4 seconds before it disappeared.. I live in Newburg, Maryland. Vinny D.  Thank you Vinny!

Any other sighting reports? 
Please report: Date and Time of event? Location name (town,city) where you were when saw the

Texas Meteor 23NOV2011

Austin, TX Meteor 8pm cst -6GMT  23NOV2011Not sure if it was a meteor or not but there was a bright white ball flying south to north over Austin Tx around 8pm 11/23/11. There was no tail, it was a brighter and larger then any stars in the sky but did not have enough glow to illuminate the sky. It took less then a second from horizon to horizon.- Ryan O. Thank you Ryan!
Coppell, Texas Meteor 8

Boston/Cambridge, Massachusetts Meteor 23NOV2011

Boston/Cambridge, Massachusetts Meteor 11:50 p.m. 23NOV2011
Saw a very bright, long meteorite, looked like it was heading just about straight down when viewed from West Somerville, Mass. looking East-Southeast. I'm colorblind but it looked to be bluish with a long tail and a bright finish. It was silent, as far as I could tell, and grew brighter as it reached its conclusion.-A  Thank you Andy!

Wednesday Update

From NEI’s Safety First web site:

Japan Legislature Passes $156 Billion for Rebuilding, Decontamination

Nov. 23, 2011

Industry/Regulatory/Political

• Japan’s Diet passed legislation to provide $156 billion in disaster reconstruction aid, the third time since the March earthquake that legislators have approved supplemental funding. Of the total, $3 billion is earmarked to fund radiation decontamination efforts, with the majority of the money to be used to rebuild areas devastated by the earthquake and tsunami and to help companies build new manufacturing plants.
• Fukushima Prefecture held elections delayed from April because of the earthquake and tsunami. Toshitsuna Watanabe, the incumbent, won the mayoralty race in Okuma, the town nearest the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy facility. Watanabe favors rebuilding the town in place while his main opponent, Jin Kowata, advocated moving the entire town further inland. Evacuees from the prefecture were allowed to vote, but the total vote count was low.

Media Highlights

• The Financial Times reports that American investor Warren Buffett visited Iwaki, a Japanese town in Fukushima Prefecture and pronounced the area’s recovery “amazing.” The Times said the trip, Buffett’s first to Japan, acted as a tonic to Japan’s business environment.
• The Columbia Journalism Review took the Associated Press to task for needlessly alarmist reporting about cancer risk from radiation exposure near the Fukushima Daichi facility. In a blog post at the organization’s science blog, David Ropeik wrote, “Journalists often play up the dramatic and alarming aspects of the information they’ve found, and play down or leave out the ameliorative, neutral, or balancing aspects that might help do justice to the truth, but which could “weaken” the story. The AP’s article illustrates what this looks like.”

New Products

• NEI’s Safety First website continues its ongoing focus on practices that enhance nuclear safety. This week, the site features an article about the Fort Calhoun nuclear energy facility, which found itself in the middle of the Missouri River earlier this year when the river flooded. The story looks at the steps taken and equipment used to ensure the integrity of the facility. Fort Calhoun is expected to return online early next year

Powering Space; Radical Oppositions

From Digital Journal:

Engineers at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center installed a nuclear power source Thursday onto the Mars rover set to launch this month. The rover, named Curiosity, is the latest in unmanned missions to Mars, and is expected to provide new evidence about Mars history, including clues as to whether the Red Planet ever harbored life.

Worth a read. This bit gave us an evil tingle:

The nuclear source is also less affected by weather and daylight conditions on Mars, factors that have hampered previous missions, as when the twin Mars Exploration Rovers encountered dust storms that covered their solar panels while operating on Mars from 2004 to 2011.

---

The New York Time’s Green blog tries some pushback on Curiosity:

One alternative is to develop a better way to convert heat into electricity in space. The National Academy report said that the method NASA uses now is only about 6 percent efficient. A Stirling Engine system could produce five times as much electricity from each unit of heat, reducing the need for plutonium, but it has many moving parts and has not been adapted to space use.

But the response so far has been to use solar cells whenever possible. Steven W. Squyres, a professor of astronomy at Cornell who is the chief scientist for the Opportunity and Spirit rovers, said: “You always use solar when you can; it’s simpler, cheaper, just easier to do. You only use nuclear when you have to.’’

And one of those instances where you have to use nuclear is in Curiosity, because it is heavy (as in, one ton heavy) and equipment-packed and needs considerably more electricity to operate than its smaller predecessors – more than solar power can generate. (Plus there are those dust issues.) It almost feels like the pro-con debates that solar and nuclear advocates have on terra firma transferred to the depth of space.

But, well, earlier probes like Spirit and Opportunity performed well enough on solar energy and I expect Curiosity will be fine with nuclear energy (actually, the heat from plutonium-238 will be directly converted to electricity). Everybody gets a chance to shine.

---

Agence Presse-France has an interesting enough article about protests against used nuclear fuel from Germany being carted over to France. We’ve covered that before here and there isn’t a lot new in the article, but this caught my eye:

France produces a higher proportion of its power in reactors than any other country in the world, and its electricity bills are around 25 percent cheaper than in its neighbors, a boon to industry.

“A boon to industry?” Well, probably so, but it seems odd to leave out “a boon to every user of electricity in France.”

---

From the same article:

"Beyond the danger that this waste poses, we're demonstrating our radical opposition to a means of production that means we'll always need more power. We're against endless growth," said 24-year-old Anna, from Paris.

Okay. Efficiency fan, I guess.

---

See, if you don’t give your annoying relatives the power to annoy you, then you won’t be annoyed by them. You can eat as much as you want, zone out in front of the TV in grandma’s comfiest chair, play games with your little nephews and nieces (which almost always involve their bouncing off your stomach somehow), bicker with your old Republican cousin on how Stevenson was robbed in the ‘56 elections, and dream of all those sales you’ll want to avoid on Friday. And be happy. And give thanks.

Curiosity on the left, Spirit on the right.

Are U.S. Navy Diesel Engines Used at Nuclear Plants?

Investigative journalism. Works well when reporters do their homework, but is questionable when they make up their own facts.

This week I ran across an article in the San Diego Reader on an interview with Greg Palast – “corporate fraud investigator turned investigative journalist.” For those of you who always buy into anything under the veil of “investigative journalism,” I’m here to point out where it can sometimes get iffy.

In the interview with Palast, The Reader says:

Diesel engines take time to warm up before they reach full power-generating capacity. But these massive engines, with base horsepower ratings well into the thousands (and subsequently doubled by strapping on a turbocharger), need to be online and running at full capacity in 10–12 seconds after a failure occurs in order to avert disaster. Frequently harvested from retired cruise ships, the engines simply aren’t capable of firing up as required.

Frequently harvested from retired cruise ships? What? I know the industry works closely with former U.S. Navy nukes, but I didn’t think they were THAT close.

I immediately took his claim to NEI’s Principal Engineer Vijay Nilekani who straight out called it FALSE. Here’s his response:

All diesel engines in U.S. nuclear plants come from just three manufacturers (Fairbanks Morse, TransAmerica and I think the third one is General Motors). Although it is true that the same manufacturers do make diesel engines for ships, the diesels supplied to the nuclear industry are “nuclear quality grade,” which means they are very high quality and cost many times more. Also, all spare parts for maintenance are nuclear quality grade as well, coming from the original manufacturer. Unauthorized substitution of parts if not permitted by Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulations.

What about their reliability? Are they really as faulty as Palast claims? Nilekani’s answer:

Even though diesel engines are rarely used in the real world for an actual electrical emergency because the transmission systems in the U.S. are very reliable, they still undergo rigorous preventive maintenance per manufacturers’ recommendations (and usually every two years are replaced with new parts). All diesel engines are tested every month to make sure that they start within the required time, load the emergency buses, etc. Even the diesel fuel is inspected and tested to make sure that it is very high quality. There is also a lot of predictive maintenance performed, such as lubricant analysis or vibration analysis, which have helped to keep their reliability in the upper 90th percentile.

Whew! So basically, it looks like Palast’s personal agenda of “exposing” the nuclear industry for putting profit before safety has hindered his ability to actually investigate the topic and report the truth. Go ahead and count me out for buying his latest book, although, I’m sure that it would make for some very interesting reading….

Photo: Greg Palast featured in San Diego Reader

CJR Criticizes AP for Reporting on Fukushima and Radiation

Our readers may recall that at the end of September the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) published a critique of an Associated Press (AP) series on nuclear plant safety. Overnight, CJR took the AP to task again, this time for alarmist reporting about radiation releases in Japan as the result of the incident at the Fukushima Daichi nuclear facility.The critique was published over at The Observatory, CJR's science blog edited by David Ropeik. Here are a few choice quotes:

With a long-term population study of the impact of just getting under way, the AP set out to do a bit of enterprise reporting, asking what it might find with regard to cancer rates. The answer: “cancers caused by the radiation may be too few to show up” in such studies because “the ordinary rate of cancer is so high, and our understanding of the effects of radiation exposure so limited.” As the AP reported, “that could mean thousands of cancers under the radar in a study of millions of people, or it could mean virtually none.” Yet overall, its article is clearly structured to induce at least a modicum of fear. After all, scary stories sell papers.

But that's not all ...

It’s also interesting to note that, buried down in the twenty-fifth paragraph, the story cites Japanese officials as saying “mental health problems caused by excessive fear of radiation are prevalent and posing a bigger problem than actual risk of cancer caused by radiation.” Excessive fear of radiation?! I wonder where that might have come from?

It all makes for a very interesting article. Read it all right now.

The Latest Worldwide Meteor/Meteorite News 23NOV2011

Geminid meteors will "shower" WNC in DecemberMountain XpressThis is a bit unusual since most meteor showers are caused by debris from comets, not asteroids. Nevertheless, as Phaethon orbits the Sun, it sheds dust particles that remain as a trail of debris in its path. Since the Earth encounters this trail of ...


Latest Worldwide Meteor/Meteorite News: Qrendi, Malta Bright ...By LunarMeteorite*

Qrendi, Malta Bright Green Meteor 22NOV2011

Qrendi, Malta Bright Green Meteor ~21:40 22NOV2011
Massive meteor sighted over Maqluba in Qrendi Malta. date: Nov 22 2011 Time : approximate 21.40. Colour: bright green. The meteor dropped for about 2 seconds or a little more – and as it dropped it got brighter. It was quite spectacular.
Traveling from over head to the south (from 85 degrees overhead to 25 degrees south) approximate across a

NEOs Close Approach - Meteors, Fireballs, Bolides Watch from 18NOV-27NOV

NEO Asteroids Close Approach -Meteors, Fireballs, Bolides 
Watch from 18NOV-27NOV
These two just slipped by: 


(2011 WJ15) 2011-Nov-200.00672.624 m - 54 m25.226.33


(2011 WQ4) 2011-Nov-210.00512.09.1 m - 20 m27.37.57


UPCOMING CLOSE APPROACHES TO EARTH

1 AU = ~150 million kilometers
1 LD = Lunar Distance = ~384,000 kilometers

Object
NameClose
Approach
DateMiss
Distance
(AU)Miss
Distance
(LD)

NEI Confronts Politifact on Clinton Statement on Nuclear Costs

Last week, David Bradish posted his take on President Clinton's statement concerning the costs of electricity generated by wind, solar and nuclear energy. After looking at the numbers, David concluded that an analysis by Politifact that rated Clinton's statement as "half-true" was flawed and needed to be updated to "mostly false."

Earlier today, John Keeley of NEI's media team I shared a copy of David's analysis with reporter Louis Jacobson and editor Martha Hamilton. If and when we get a response, we'll let you know.

Hemsedal, Norway Meteor 21NOV2011

Hemsedal, Norway Meteor ~17:00 Local  21NOV2011
I live in Hemsedal, Norway. Yesterday around 17.00 a clock I saw a object flying over the sky. It lokked like a shooting star but it seemed to be very close to earth with a long, bright, fire looking tail. I was looking west when I saw the object. I was not looking at the sky at first, but the big "tail" took my attention. The date was 21/11 - 2011.

The Latest Worldwide Meteor/Meteorite News 22NOV2011

Meteor Activity Outlook for November 19-25, 2011 « The Transient ...By Carl HergenrotherAs seen from the northern hemisphere, meteor rates continue to be strong in November. While no major activity is expected this month, the two Taurid radiants plus the Leonids keep the skies active. The addition of strong sporadic rates make ...The Transient Sky - Comets, Asteroids...


Meteor Activity Outlook

Wayne County, Michigan Meteor 21NOV2011

Wayne County, Michigan Meteor between 715-730pm 21NOV2011
Driving West on Interstate Highway 94. Saw a bright object (brighter and larger than Venus) moving almost directly west from about 45 degrees above horizon straight down. Lasted a out a second and a half. Bright enough to see through windscreen with lots of lights of civilization around.  Fifteen minutes later saw another similar object

Upton, MA Meteor 21NOV2011

Upton, MA Meteor ~11:28 pm EST 21NOV2011
On 11/21/11 approximately 11:28 pm I saw a low meteor. It was
going east to west with a 1/4 moon magnitude (very bright) green and
yellow. I think this is copper and sodium so perhaps it was satellite
or booster rocket debris burning up on reentry. It lasted 2 to 2.5
seconds and I wish I had my camera or cell phone. It was very wide so
I think it was low

Toronto, Ontario, Canada Meteor 21NOV2011

Toronto, Ontario, Canada Meteor ~19:00 EST 21NOV2011
It was Monday November 21st sometime between 19:00 and 19:02 Eastern Standard Time.
It was really bright with a long tail and appeared very close, lasting for a few seconds before disappearing into pieces when it reached the atmosphere.
I am in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Hope this helps! -Celeste  Thank you Celeste!

Any other sighting

Carberry, Manitoba, Canada Four Meteors 21NOV2011

Carberry, Manitoba, Canada Four Meteors ~8:30 pm CST 21NOV2011
Last night around 8:30 pm central time, November 21, 2011 my husband and I witnessed four meteors about 10 miles south of Carberry, Manitoba, Canada on the number 5 highway. They were very bright heading southeast. These meteors very extremely bright. The first two appeared then
after 5 minutes two more appeared. These are the

Nova Scotia, Canada Meteor Fireball 21NOV2011

Nova Scotia, Canada Meteor Fireball 7:30 pm Atlantic Time 21NOV2011FIREBALL REPORT...eastern canada over nova scotia, 7:30 pm atlantic time nov 21 2011
-George Green  Thank you George!

Any other sighting reports?
Please report: Date and Time of event? Location name (town,city) where you were when saw the meteor? Start and Stop location in sky? Direction of movement? Duration of Event (seconds)?

Las Vegas, Nevada Green Meteor 21NOV2011

Las Vegas, NV. Green Luminous Meteor 3-4 second Duration between 7:15-7:20 pm 21NOV2011
It's now 7:32pm PST in Las Vegas, NV. I was out back on my patio, facing east when I saw a pale green luminous ball shoot across the sky, west to east. It was larger than all bodies visible in the night sky, except the moon. My best estimation would be approximately 1/10 size of a full moon, perhaps slightly

Devon, UK Meteor? 21NOV2011

Devon, UK Meteor? 7/8 pm 21NOV2011
Monday 21st November 2011. 7/8pm Devon UK
I saw what i thought was a shooting star only it was as big as the North Star and a tiny bit slower than a shooting star? It was around 7/8pm in Devon UK. I thought nothing of it but then on the next night 22nd November 2011 at approx 6:45 I was driving to Plymouth Devon and I saw the same kind of thing. It was a clear

Monday Update

From NEI’s Safety First web site:

Japan Cabinet Approves Decontamination Protocols

Nov. 21, 2011

Industry/Regulatory/Political

• The Japanese cabinet has approved “basic policies” to clean up radioactive contamination resulting from the Fukushima Daiichi accident. Based on recommendations made in 2007 by the International Commission on Radiological Protection, areas contaminated to dose levels within two rem per year above background will be cleaned up to reduce adult doses by 50 percent within two years and 60 percent for children, and to a long-term level of 0.1 rem/year above background radiation levels. Two rem is about the same amount of radiation exposure a patient would receive from a full body CT scan. Areas where the annual dose levels are above two rem/year will be given priority in scheduling decontamination activities.
• The Japan Nuclear Technology Institute has published a report reviewing the Fukushima Daiichi accident. The Japan Atomic Industrial Forum said the analysis of the accident is based on published facts, operational experience and knowledge of the plant design, and includes recommended safety protection measures “to prevent and mitigate severe accidents.”

Media Highlights

• The Salt Lake Tribune quotes Adrian Heymer, NEI’s executive director of the Fukushima regulatory response, on how some of the safety lessons from the Japan accident already have been incorporated in the features of new nuclear reactor designs.
• An Associated Press article explains the difficulty of measuring future health effects of the low doses of radiation resulting from the Fukushima Daiichi accident.
• A Washington Post article describes the areas around the Fukushima Daiichi plant that have remained evacuated since the March accident following the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.

Utah – the Place for Nuclear Energy?

Utah’s Governor Gary Herbert talked about the importance of nuclear energy during his State of the State address earlier this year – then the accident at Fukushima happened – then -

“The lessons we learn from that horrific situation [in Japan] must not be lost as we discuss any possible future nuclear power generation here,” he said during the release of his 10-year energy plan in March. “The disasters in Japan, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island will not preempt the debate of nuclear power — but they certainly will influence it.”

That seems sensible enough. A little more surprising:

While noncommittal about the proposed Utah project, Herbert insists that nuclear power is “safer than ever” and still up for discussion in his state.

Or maybe not so surprising:

Approximately 82 percent of the electricity produced in Utah in 2008 was from coal-fired generation, with six plants active statewide, according to the Utah Geological Survey. Natural gas accounted for the second-largest proportion at 15.6 percent. Hydroelectric provided 1.4 percent, while geothermal and petroleum each comprise less than 1 percent of net generation of electricity in Utah.

So, in Utah, the renewables and nuclear energy stand on the same patch, but at least this gives the state a lot of options going forward.

The first article linked above mentions a company called Blue Castle Holdings that wants to build the first nuclear facility in the state. Blue Castle has hired former NRC Chairman Nils Diaz to help out, so its has potent assistance in the public relations game.

We wish Blue Castle good fortune. Herbert’s support for the atom is more subdued than before but still present – which is politic - and Utah could do with broadening its electricity portfolio. Utah just might be the place.

---

CNET takes a look at the MIT Finance Forum and is surprised to find that nuclear energy still has the nerve to shove its nose through the door. Why?

"Our investors have a very long time horizon and the reason they supported it is the long-term societal implications and the potentially significant returns from that (so) we haven't seen any wavering of support," said Tyler Ellis, a project manager at TerraPower.

So that’s why there’s been no wavering of support. Writer Martin LaMonica focuses on small reactors, probably because CNET covers a lot of tech news and Microsoft’s Bill Gates is an investor in TerraPower. So it all fits together.

LaMonica provides a nice overview of the benefits of small reactors. I’ve always found some of the offered reasons a little thin:

Although none has actually been built, modular plants have a slight advantage in terms of cost: simply, financiers don't need to raise as much money, said Bob Percopo, a project finance expert who works at the energy division of AIG. "On balance, small modular reactors probably have a leg up on the financing side," he said.

In addition to being quicker to build, the smaller plants require fewer operators, which lowers the operations costs, [NuScale Power CEO Paul] Lorenzini said.

True statements all – well, the one about financing is unknown at this point. But I wonder if small reactors will be sold ultimately as an alternative to their full size peers or as supplements used for different purposes.

That isn’t completely clear yet, but I do think the better argument isn’t their cost effectiveness – though that’s a selling point – but that they can be used in all kinds of situations where full scale plants might be too ambitious – providing power to military bases when they’re cut off from the grid, providing process heat for industrial processes, etc.

After all, the flux capacitor ran a car, so if you’ve got a different form factor, devise a different use case (and admittedly, most of the small reactor companies have done this – LaMonica just didn’t pick up on it.)

Visit NuScale here and TerraPower here for more on what they can do.

From the Utah state song, Utah – This Is the Place:

Utah! People working together; Utah! What a great place to be; Blessed from Heaven above; It's the land that we love; This is the place!

Miltitz, Germany Several Meteors 20NOV2011

Miltitz, Germany Several Meteors 20NOV2011 
20.11. Cant say if usefull or not but i viewed some small meteors from Miltitz (Germany) at cloudless sky 21:07, 21:10, 21:14, 21:16 (this 4 eastern sky from my location)->traveling north and 21:21, 21:31 (western sky)-> traveling north west, all moving relatively slow, the longest were 3-5sec visibly and bright as venus.
greets -C.Diestel  Thank you C

Greenside, Johannesburg, South Africa Meteor 20NOV2011

Greenside, Johannesburg, South Africa Meteor ~7:00 pm 20NOV2011
At about 7pm on Sunday 20 November 2011, we saw a large bright fiery ball in Johannesburg, South Africa, we were in Greenside, Johannesburg CBD and it was moving very slow in a North-West direction, it almost looked like a plane on fire, saw it for about 10-15 seconds, but couldn't follow it anymore as it disappeared behind a

The Latest Worldwide Meteor/Meteorite News 21NOV2011

Large shooting star dazzles southeast Queensland
Courier MailReports of a slow-moving double-headed meteor with an orange tail have been reported from Redcliffe to the Gold Coast on astronomy blog lunarmeteoritehunters.blogspot.com. But others think it was more likely man-made space junk. ...

BC / Alberta, Canada Meteor Fireball 15NOV2011I saw a fireball fall from the sky just east of Acheson

NSW / Queensland, Australia. Meteor 20NOV2011

Benowa, QLD , Australia. Meteor 7.50 pm. 20NOV2011
Really slow moving meteor, moving north. We're in Benowa, QLD , Australia. 7.50 pm. 20th dec.
Beautiful yellow / orange tail. -Ian  Thank you Ian!

Ipswich, Queensland, 19.55 AEST Sunday 20 November 2011
It was visible for about 4 seconds. -Leigh-Ann  Thank you Leigh-Ann!

Wynnum, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia Meteor 8:27 pm 20NOV2011
Saw a

Sci-Fi Movie Matinee -Meteor Time Travel in DreamTimeDownUnderLand With Alice

Alice in Wonderland (BBC 1966)
= A Meteoric Performance in a Different Dimension!!

Uploaded on YouTube by FlixUniverseMovies on 16 Jun 2011 49,995 views
*** PETER SELLERS!!! *** From 1964 to 1970, the BBC aired a weekly television program called The Wednesday Play. Each installment featured a different unrelated story, often based on stage Dramas or sometimes other sources, such as books. The

Alvin, Texas Meteor 19NOV2011

Alvin, Texas Meteor 9:45 pm CST 19NOV2011
west, by southwest of Alvin, Texas (29.390589,-95.279559), at approx. 35º angle
silent, broke through cloud ceiling (at 6,000 ft, wunderground.com), yellow (as the sun), falling vertical/parallel from viewpoint and tending northerly, disappeared at approx 15º. brilliance of non-audible lightning. duration <1.5 sec. -Timothy  Thank you Timothy!


Other

German Meteor 17NOV2011

German Meteor 22:10 17NOV2011
17.11.11
Around 22:10 yellow-white fast meteor visibly for me 1sec(roof blocked the view),
looked like staight down in north-west direction, location 01665 Miltitz ( google maps 51.104167,13.400485) , brighter than venus, the meteor was followed by a second much darker one.
Sky was realy cloudy that evening so iam lucky that i viewed it.
greets C.Diestel  Thank you C

The Latest Worldwide Meteor/Meteorite News 19NOV2011

Leonids meteor shower: Your photosBBC NewsStargazers have been observing the annual Leonids meteor shower. Most of the meteors are no bigger than a grain of sand and enter the Earth's atmosphere at speeds of about 65 or 70 kilometres per second. Matt Burt took this picture during the early ...

Moon, Mars and Bright Star Gather Early SaturdaySpace.comThis constellation has been of some interest

Thoughtful Indian Columnists

This struck me as a little funny:

The Dec. 14 hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will look at how well the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is working as it tackles high-profile reforms in the wake of Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster -- and the long-standing issue of what to do with toxic nuclear waste.

"There have been reports and information that the commission is not always working well together," a committee aide said.

No comment on the substance of the hearing, but perhaps NRC could return the favor and hold a meeting on how well Congress is getting along.

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Kuwait, Bahrain and Egypt have stalled their plans because of heightened safety concerns triggered by the Fukushima meltdown caused by a 9-magnitude earthquake and a 49-foot tsunami.

Well, that makes sense – hey, wait a minute there!

But they have also been hit by the pro-democracy uprisings that have plunged the Arab world into political turmoil and an uncertain future.

Well, there’s that, too.

---

Mind you, this comes from an Indian site called Oil Price:

Nor are the Kudankulam protests New Delhi’s only headache. In Maharashtra, locals are demonstrating against the proposed 9,900 megawatt Jaitapur Nuclear Power Plant. Even worse, the costs of such projects are coming under scrutiny, as thoughtful Indian columnists are now questioning the need for foreign reactors that are four times more expensive than indigenous ones.

Love to see those numbers.

---

Russian pragmatism at its very best (probably through Google Translate):

"Anyway, it is impossible to be expecting a global refusal from nuclear energy, as both Europe and we have winter, and everyone wants to leave (live?) with heating and light," Khaitun said.

That’s Head of the Centre of Energy Policy at the Institute of Europe of Russia's Academy of Sciences Alexei Khaitun. I must admit, there are better arguments out there.

Friday Update

From NEI’s Safety First web site:

TEPCO Reports Water in Reactor Vessel Remains Below Boiling Point

November 18, 2011

Plant Status

• Water temperatures inside the Fukushima Daiichi reactor pressure vessels remain below boiling as operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. reports on progress toward stabilizing the damaged reactors. The company expects to reach what it calls a “cold shutdown condition” in the three reactors by the end of the year, with temperatures below 212 F and radiation contained. The exact status of the fuel in the reactors is not known. But if damaged fuel has leaked from the reactors into the primary containments, TEPCO said “it is sufficiently cooled to suppress steam from being generated and [the] accompanying release of radioactive materials.” Radiation measured at the site boundary is 10 millirem per year, one-tenth of the government safety limit. The circulating reactor cooling systems continue to function, as pumps maintain the total volume of accumulated water on the site at a level that can withstand heavy rain or an extended outage of processing facilities.

Industry/Regulatory/Political

• Japanese authorities have banned rice shipments from the Oonami district of Fukushima City after detection of radiation levels above the government limit, Financial Times reports. Oonami is about 30 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy facility. This is the first time radiation levels above the safety limit have been found in rice since the nuclear accident.

Media Highlights

• If Japan doesn’t build any new nuclear energy facilities by 2035, the cost of energy will skyrocket, the International Energy Agency says in a UPI report. Only 11 of Japan’s 54 nuclear power plants are operating, most of them shut down for routine maintenance and not permitted to restart until successful completion of stress tests. With greater dependence on fossil fuel, Japan consumed six times more oil and 32 percent more natural gas in October compared to a year ago.
• Most of the radioactive materials released during the Fukushima Daiichi accident fell into the Pacific and have spread into other oceans around the world, scientists at Japan’s Meteorological Research Institute said. In a report in the Herald Sun, an Australian newspaper, the scientists said the radiation has been widely dispersed and is well below the levels affecting humans.

In Attack on AP-1000, Anti-Nuke Gundersen Hits a New Low

Late last week, anti-nuclear gadfly Arne Gundersen took to the Web to attack the safety of Westinghouse's AP-1000 nuclear reactor. It's all part of a larger effort by anti-nuclear activists to delay the certification of the reactor design by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

NEI's Tom Kauffman shot me a note that has asked me to share with our blog audience:

Arnie Gundersen’s claim there was an inadvertent criticality in the one Fukushima reactor is totally unfounded. A criticality is a sustained chain reaction within the nuclear fuel. There is no evidence a criticality occurred in any of the damaged reactors since the accident. Spontaneous fission of uranium atoms naturally occurs, but conditions to support criticality do not exist. The control rods are in fact in the damaged fuel. And boron, a highly effective fission control element, is mixed in the cooling water in all three reactors and all the used fuel pools thereby virtually eliminating the possibility of criticality. Gundersen knows this and is deliberately misleading people.

Gundersen’s claim that loss of the cooling water at the top of the AP1000 containment structure would be the loss of the plant’s ultimate heat sink also is false. Just like the nuclear plants at Fukushima, the ultimate heat sink of the AP1000 reactor is the cooling water source for the plant. If that is lost, multiple emergency cooling water supplies would be used to cool the reactor. If they too are lost, the water at the top of the containment could provide cooling for three days even in the event of a total loss of all electrical power. He also failed to mention that no U.S. nuclear facility faces the sudden flooding that stopped the ultimate heat sink in Japan.

His claim the fuel pool at the #4 reactor at Fukushima “blew up” is absolutely false and is fear-mongering at its worst. Video of the #4 pool and the used fuel in it along with samples of the water in the pool, are irrefutable proof there was no explosion in the fuel pool and fuel is intact. In fact, there were no explosions in any of the fuel pools. NRC Chairman Jaczko publicly confirmed this weeks ago. Likewise, Gundersen’s recent claim that molten fuel is moving into the ground beneath one plant and causing groundwater to change into steam is totally unsupported and irresponsible.

Mr. Gundersen also failed to mention that the AP1000 reactor, designed to be at least 100 times safer than existing plants due to exceptionally large safety margins, is based on 50 years of operational lessons-learned and more than 20 years of research and development. Probably the most highly engineered and analyzed nuclear plant design in the history of the U.S. (if not the world), the Westinghouse advanced passive reactor design underwent the most thorough pre-construction licensing review ever conducted by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Because of the AP1000 design’s huge safety margins, any changes needed in response to the lessons learned from the accident in Japan are expected to be manageable during plant construction.

Mr. Gundersen does not speak for the people of Georgia or South Carolina, nor their governors or public service commissions who support new nuclear facilities. He should respect their right to decide for themselves how to manage their energy supplies.

This isn't the first time Gundersen and his allies have attacked the AP-1000. Last April, a group of 12 regional anti-nuclear energy organizations called on the NRC to investigate their claims. Click here for NEI's response to that request.

An artist's conception of the AP-1000 reactor, courtesy of Westinghouse.

Magaliesburg , Johannesburg, South Africa Meteor 18NOV2011

Magaliesburg , Johannesburg, South Africa Meteor 18NOV2011
Between about 10pm - 12pm (didn't think of looking at the exact time) on Friday evening 18th November we saw a bright light that looked like a oversized shooting star with a tail of smoke behind it(it looked like smoke). Lasted about 3-4 seconds. When it died out you could still see the trail of "smoke" for about 10 seconds after. Kind

The Latest Worldwide Meteor/Meteorite News 18NOV2011

Behind the Clouds, Leonids Meteor Shower Will DazzlePatch.comThe Leonids meteor shower is expected to peak a few hours before dawn on Nov. 18. By Elizabeth Jeffery A Perseid fireball photographed in 1997 by Rick Scott and Joe Orman. Courtesy of NASA Elizabeth Jeffery, Ph.D., is an astronomer and former ...


Leonid meteor shower due tonightYour Houston NewsThe annual Leonid meteor shower will

Into the Pea Ridge with Thorium

While doing research on a different topic, I ran into an article about a fellow named James Kennedy. He’s made a splash in Missouri for throwing money at unusual projects, such as building a smelter or buying a failing airport. One of his purchases was a shuttered mine called Pea Ridge.

Why might Kennedy find Pea Ridge a worthwhile investment?

Rare earth elements have become an urgent topic because they are needed in many high-tech products, from cellphones to laptops. They also are essential for cruise missiles, precision-guided munitions and radar systems, underscoring worry in Washington about U.S. dependency on China for strategic needs.

And Pea Ridge is lousy with rare earth metals. (They’re not that rare, actually, just not concentrated enough to be economical to mine in many cases. They inhabit slots 57 through 71 (the lanthanides) on the periodic chart, plus scandium (21) and yttrium (39), which are often found in the same ore deposits.)

But beyond scandium and yttrium, a non rare-earth metal is often found plentifully with them.

While the climate is right for selling Missouri-mined rare earth, Kennedy has encountered an obstacle: what to do with vast quantities of thorium, a naturally occurring radioactive element that is a byproduct of rare earth extraction.

Our old friend thorium! I can think of a thing or two that could be done with it, though I imagine some of Kennedy’s problem lie with the fact that it is not much used at present and not much of a market exists for it.

Energy from thorium has been tried before in the United States and abandoned. But thorium power has many advocates and is undergoing a resurgence in parts of the world, particularly India and China.

Kennedy is proposing that the government become a partner in the enterprise. He believes that building a regional storehouse for thorium is the only means to overcome liability concerns, and he is pressing for legislation that would relax rules that classify thorium along with uranium for purposes of handling.

And then:

China, India, Japan, France, Russia and the U.S. are all currently developing thorium-based reactors, with various degrees of commitment.

India is already well into its thorium fuel development. The country's three-stage nuclear power plan laid out in the '50s was designed specifically to take advantage of India's vast thorium reserves. India has taken a more conventional route, utilizing uranium-catalyzed pressurized heavy water reactors that use thorium compounds as breeder fuel to produce more uranium.

India consequently may not be a good market for Kennedy, but there is at least a suggestion that processing and storing it while getting at the rare metals might be a forward-looking idea – if thorium can gain more traction than, say, fusion.

That’s a little glib, as the thorium fuel cycle is well-understood and nothing really excludes it from consideration. The U.S. experiments with it at Peach Bottom and Fort St. Varain in the seventies were not failures. It’s lack of pickup after that time may have had as much to do with the developed uranium market as any other factor.

But…

Time has a way of catching up with you, though, and sometimes catching you short:

After nearly three years of soaring prices for rare earth metals, with the cost of some rising nearly thirtyfold, the market is rapidly coming back down.

International prices for some light rare earths, like cerium and lanthanum, used in the polishing of flat-screen televisions and the refining of oil, respectively, have fallen by up to two-thirds since August and are still dropping. Prices have declined by roughly one-third since then for highly magnetic rare earths, like neodymium, needed for products like smartphones, computers and large wind turbines.

That’s from yesterday’s news. I don’t understand the world of elements well enough to grasp its ups and downs; still, it may well be that thorium proves to be the most useful item you can extract from Pea Ridge.

Thorium. A good faith effort to make a soft black rock attractive.

Dryden, Ontario, Canada Bolide Meteor 9NOV2011 Video Re-Post 17NOV2011

Dryden, Ontario, Canada Bolide Meteor - Most recent major meteor event






Security Camera video of Ontario 9NOV3011 bolide. Video supplied by reader. NO Copy Allowed

For those of you that missed reading and seeing the video.  Please help by getting the word out to the press and public in Canada about this major meteor event.
original posting with sighting reports: http://

Auckland, New Zealand Meteor 17NOV2011

Auckland, New Zealand Meteor 23:00 NZT 17NOV2011
I saw a meteor travelling north over Auckland 17th Nov 2300nzt ,viewed from West Auckland lasting 4-5 secs.Starting from a dim white light ,Tail increasing with size ,turning yellowy gold into solid Green-Blue led type light !then a white flash as tail splits into two separate yellowy gold tails & fading .Thanks -Chris Thank you Chris!

More

Johannesburg, South Africa Meteor 16NOV2011

Johannesburg, South Africa Meteor ~8:00 pm 16NOV2011
At about 8pm on 16NOV2011 in Johannesburg, South Africa, saw an incredible Bright white - almost yellowish I would say... Just very very bright.meteor? shooting star? something... very bright light, in what may have been the eastern part of the sky. Have seen many shooting stars but nothing so spectacular - and in the middle of a city, with

Michigan / Illinois / Iowa Meteor 16NOV2011

Saint Joseph, Michigan Meteor ~5:55 pm 16NOV2011
5:55 pm saint joseph michigan - 11-16-11 I saw a fireball coming down that burnt up above my car traveling on Marquette Woods Road/M63.  I was going to pick up my son on Glenlord 5 miles away and he stated he also saw one going in the opposite direction of mine at the same time. -Becky  Thank you Becky!

M43 driving back from Kalamazoo to

The Latest Worldwide Meteor/Meteorite News 17NOV2011

Leonid Meteor Shower « CBS MinnesotaThe annual Leonid Meteor shower peaks out tonight but especially Thursday morning between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m..minnesota.cbslocal.com/2011/11/16/leonid-meteor-shower/


Leonid meteor shower set to peak Technology & science Space Space ...When the Earth passes through a cloud of debris, it sometimes produces displays known as meteorshowers. One famous annual shower

Villavicencio, Columbia Bolide Meteor Fireball 16NOV2011

Villavicencio, Columbia Bolide Meteor Fireball ~6:30-6:40 pm local 16NOV2011About 6:30 - 6:40 pm at 4 12' North 73 34' West, we (me and my wife) saw a VERY large whitish meteor (unidentified object) falling, flying from North (litle/about 10-20 degrees to the northwest) to south (southeast). It was white in color, no tail, I could swear it was like a small rectangle with rounded edges, which

Hawley, Texas SW Horizon Fireball Meteor 16NOV2011

Hawley, Texas SW Horizon Fireball Meteor 03:35 AM 16NOV2011


Hawley, Texas SW Horizon Fireball Meteor 03:35 AM 16NOV2011
/ Hawley, TX Sentinel Allsky -Kevin Palivec






Hawley, Texas SW Horizon Fireball Meteor Capture 03:35 AM 16NOV2011 
- Hawley, TX Sentinel Allsky -Kevin Palivec

Any sighting reports?
Date and Time of event? Location name (town,city) where you were when saw the meteor? Start

Wednesday Update

From NEI’s Safety First web site:

Second Japanese Utility Submits Stress Test Results to Regulator

November 16, 2011

Industry/Regulatory/Political

• Shikoku Electric Power Co. has submitted the results of first-phase stress tests for its Ikata Unit 3 reactor to the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency. The results show Ikata 3 could withstand an earthquake with ground acceleration 1.9 times as strong as the reactor’s design basis and a 47-foot tsunami, four times its design basis. Shikoku Electric is the second utility to submit a stress test result after Kansai Electric did so for its Ohi Unit 3 reactor Oct. 28.
• Chubu Electric Power Co. has begun building a 1-mile-long seawall to protect Hamaoka nuclear energy facility against tsunamis. The wall is designed to withstand a tsunami 59 feet high and will cost $1.3 billion. It is to be completed by December 2012. Of the five reactors at the site, reactors 1 and 2 are permanently shut, reactor 3 has been closed for periodic inspection since November 2010, and reactors 4 and 5 were shut down in May after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

Plant Status

• Mitsubishi Heavy Industries said Nov. 15 it is installing the first of eight 90-cubic-meter storage tanks at Fukushima Daiichi. The tanks will be used to store sludge from water decontamination operations. Installation of the tanks is to be completed by April. Tokyo Electric Power Co. told journalists last week that 77,500 metric tons of water still needs purification treatment.
• Nuclear Engineering International reported that TEPCO has sealed stairwells, hatches and other penetrations leading to the basements of turbine halls and other buildings at Fukushima Daiichi. The measure is meant to reduce the spread of radioactive dust as the company pumps water from the basements to decontaminate and recycle it for reactor cooling.

Media Highlights

• The International Atomic Energy Agency’s final report to the Japanese government from its October inspection of the areas surrounding Fukushima Daiichi recommends Japanese authorities take a “balanced approach” in prioritizing cleanup efforts. It also recommends local disposal of contaminated soils and other materials from remediation efforts and offers IAEA assistance if requested.
• Dow Jones reports that a panel has been set up to advise the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on the need to revise safety regulations for the country’s older nuclear reactors.
• Platts reports that as Japan’s nuclear energy utilization plummeted to a record low of 18.5 percent, the country’s 10 major electric utilities have consumed six times more oil this October than they did the same time last year.

Are Wind and Solar Cheaper Than Nuclear?

Last week on the Daily Show, former President Bill Clinton asserted that wind and solar are projected to be cheaper than coal in 2-5 years and that both wind and solar are cheaper than nuclear right now.

PolitiFact dug into the numbers and found that the President's statements were only half true. We took their analysis one step further and argue that the President’s statements were mostly false.

PolitiFact cites the Energy Information Administration (EIA).  EIA is a credible source for comparing levelized electricity costs for new generation technologies. PolitiFact is correct that solar is much more expensive than most all other generating technologies including nuclear. When it comes to the cost of wind, however, we think PolitiFact should take another look.

When delving into the numbers, PolitiFact only looked at one set of single-point cost estimates from EIA. In reality, though, the cost of building and operating power facilities falls in a range that depends on many factors such as financing, transmission requirements, available natural resources for renewables and performance of the operating companies.

Wind turbines, like all other technologies, have a range of costs based on many variables.  EIA shows that the upper end of wind’s cost range is more expensive than the lower end of nuclear’s cost range. On the bottom of EIA’s page, a range of costs for each technology is provided (chart below).

As shown above, the low end of nuclear’s cost range ($109.70/MWh) is lower than the high end of wind’s cost range ($115/MWh); therefore wind is not always cheaper than nuclear.

Further, the amount of wind that can be built is limited to specific places in the U.S. that receive adequate wind flow (see map below).

A substantial amount of wind cannot be built in places such as the Southeast due to a lack of natural resources. Areas with low wind resources will produce less electricity from installed turbines which in turn cause higher levelized costs.  Here are SCANA’s estimates for its region which show nuclear is cheaper than gas, coal, wind and solar (different incentives included for all):

Currently, 104 nuclear reactors (101 gigawatts) generate 20% of the country’s baseload power at low operating costs. This compares to 40 GW of wind and 1 GW of solar generating 2.2% and 0.0003% of the country’s electricity, respectively, at intermittent times.

The folks at PolitiFact should reconsider their conclusion about former President Clinton’s statements and change it from Half True to Mostly False.

Some Additional Context on the UCS Study on Power Plants and Water Use

Yesterday afternoon, the Union of Concerned Scientists released a study that suggested that thermoelectric power plants were contributing to stress on the nation's supply of fresh water.

For readers of NEI Nuclear Notes, this issue isn't exactly new. Back in 2006, we needed to push out some clarifying information (click here and here) in the wake of the drought that struck Europe. Back then, the angle reporters would take targeted nuclear energy in isolation (speaking of reporters, see this from NEI's Steve Kerekes), despite the fact that any steam cycle power plant has to deal with the same issues. At the time we pointed out that data from the U.S. Geological Service showed that the largest use of freshwater in the country was not electric power generation, but rather crop irrigation.

NEI's Bill Skaff wrote the following response to the UCS study.

Responsible environmental management must begin with a recognition of the water-energy nexus—large-scale electricity generation and large-scale usable water production are interdependent. We cannot have one without the other. Power plants require water for cooling, and water utilities require electricity for filtration, purification, and pumping to deliver usable water. In fact, nationwide, about 80 percent of municipal water processing and distribution costs are for electricity.ⁱ

According to USGS, residential consumption of freshwater—at 6.7 percent of U.S. total water consumption—is more than double the consumption of freshwater for electric power generation, at 3.3 percent.ⁱⁱ A typical nuclear plant supplies 740,000 homes with all of the electricity they use while consuming 13 to 23 gallons of water per day per household. By comparison, the average U.S. household of three people consumes about 94 gallons of water per day for indoor and outdoor activities.ⁱⁱⁱ

Power plants may withdraw almost as much water as farms for irrigation, but 98 percent of the water withdrawn by the electric power sector is returned to lakes and rivers, available for other uses. Since only 20 percent of irrigation water is returned, irrigation is the largest consumer of water resources.^iv Power plants observe the temperature limit of their discharge water as set by the state regulatory authority, who determines the temperature that is safe for fish and plant life.

Numerous scientific studies of power plants around the country—reviewed by state permitting authorities—demonstrate that once-through cooling systems have no adverse impact on aquatic life populations.^v This is because the miniscule number of fish lost to the cooling system, when compared to the overall population, is readily replaced by prolific reproduction.^vi

Cooling towers consume twice as much water as once-through cooling systems.^vii In light of climate change modeling that indicates freshwater constraints, how can cooling towers nationwide be a sustainable choice of cooling system?

Wind and solar energy use very little water, but their electricity output is variable—wind changes speed and direction, clouds block the sun—and intermittent—the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun shine. An electricity grid can only balance a limited amount of these electricity shortfalls, limiting how much renewable energy can be accommodated by a grid before it becomes unstable and black outs occur. Moreover, the variable, intermittent output of these renewables is usually balanced by fossil plants, which emit carbon dioxide and air pollutants.

The electricity grid requires steady, reliable baseload electricity—the output of nuclear and fossil plants. Nuclear power plant water use is comparable to coal plants. Natural gas uses less water,^viii but produces half as much carbon dioxide as a coal plant as well as nitrous oxide, which contributes to ground level ozone formation, a cause of respiratory ailments. By contrast, nuclear power plants produce no greenhouse gases or air pollutants during operations.

Sustainable development will require electricity for quality of life and a mix of energy sources to generate that electricity—renewable, nuclear, and fossil. We must balance all environmental, social, and economic factors and make trade-offs when considering what energy source or cooling system to deploy at each of our diverse ecosystems around the country.

ⁱ EPRI, Water & Sustainability, Vol. 4 U.S. Electricity Consumption for Water Supply & Treatment, 2002, p. 1-2.

ⁱⁱ U.S. Geological Survey (Wayne B. Solley, et al.), Estimated Use of Water in the United States in 1995, 1998, pp. 6, 48-9, 40-1, 36-7, 28-9, 44-5, and 32-3. Percentages are derived from the individual sector data tables rather than the summary percentage chart (Figure 7) on p. 19. The USGS 1995 study is the most recent to include both consumption and withdrawal data.

ⁱⁱⁱ This calculation assumes a 1,000 megawatt nuclear plant operating at 90 percent capacity factor per year, the industry average of the time that a plant is actually operating compared to its operating 100 percent of the time. Average U.S. household electricity consumption is from EIA, Survey of Residential End-Use Electricity Consumption, 2001. Nuclear plant water consumption per megawatt/hour is from EPRI, Water & Sustainability, Vol. 3 U.S. Water Consumption for Power Production, 2002, p. viii. Residential water consumption per person is from U.S. Geological Survey, Estimated Use of Water in the United States in 1995, 1998, p. 24. Number of persons in an average U.S. household is from U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports; reports consulted were from 1995, 2003, and 2006.

^iv U.S. Geological Survey (Wayne B. Solley, et al.), Estimated Use of Water in the United States in 1995, 1998, pp. 48-9, 24-5, and 32-3.

^v Among the studies submitted for NPDES permit renewal: Virginia Power, Impingement and Entrainment Studies for North Anna Power Station, 1978-1983, prepared by the Water Quality Department, Richmond, Virginia, May 1985. The study’s results are presented in Dominion, North Anna Early Site Permit Application, Revision 9, September 2006, p. 3-5-54. PSEG, Salem Generating Station NJPDES Permit Renewal Application, February 1, 2006, Section 5, Adverse Environmental Impact, p. 159. LWB Environmental Services, Inc. (L.W. Barnthouse), AKRF, Inc. (D. G. Heimbuch), Van Winkle Environmental Consulting (W. Van Winkle), and ASA Analysis & Communications, Inc. (J. Young), Entrainment and Impingement at IP2 and IP3: A Biological Impact Assessment, January 2008, p. 79. Carolina Power & Light, Environmental Services Section, Brunswick Steam Electric Plant 1993 Biological Monitoring Report, March 1994, p. viii. ASA Analysis & Communication, Inc., Impingement Mortality Characterization Report, 2006-2007 [for Oconee Nuclear Station], May 2008. p. ES-2. In addition, see Electric Power Research Institute, Ohio River Research Program: Impingement Mortality Characterization Study at 15 Power Stations, June 2009, pp. v-vi.

^vi For a discussion of population dynamics, see National Research Council, Commission on Life Sciences, Committee on the Applications of Ecological Theory to Environmental Problems, Ecological Knowledge and Environmental Problem-Solving: Concepts and Case Studies (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1986), pp. 28-35.

^vii National Renewable Energy Laboratory, A Review of Operational Water Consumption and Withdrawal Factors for Electricity Generating Technologies, March 2011, p. 6.

^viii EPRI, Water & Sustainability, Vol. 3 U.S. Water Consumption for Power Production, 2002, p. viii. National Energy Technology Laboratory (G. J. Stiegel, J. R. Longanbach, M. D. Rutkowski, M. G. Klett, N. J. Kuehn, R. L. Schoff, V. Vaysman, J. S. White), Power Plant Water Usage and Loss Study, August 2005, revised May 2007, p. xiii.

Here's hoping that provides some useful context when it comes to domestic use of freshwater. Then again, something tells me that we'll probably be revisiting this story over and over again in the coming years. For more information, see this page at NEI.org.