U.S. Nuclear Fleet Has Landed

"Strength in numbers, power in solidarity." - No this isn't Northern Ireland, Poland, but right here in the USA.

Alliance of 13 US reactors is formed

01 August 2012

Following more than a year of development, STARS Alliance LLC has achieved legal identity after the chief nuclear officers of seven US plants added their signatures to official paperwork. The alliance will work together to improve operational, regulatory and economic performance.

The independently owned plants represented are all modern Westinghouse pressurised water reactors located within the same Nuclear Regulatory Commission administrative region. Despite not being part of a fleet, the STARS Alliance allows them to "leverage natural synergies" in order to "make  performance as a whole better than could be individually achieved," according to its mission statement.

Members of the alliance include Callaway Energy Center (Missouri), Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant (Texas), Diablo Canyon Power Plant (California), Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station (Arizona), San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (California) South Texas Nuclear Operating Company (Texas) and Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corporation (Kansas). Jim Becker, former site vice-president at Diablo Canyon, was appointed as the first STARS Alliance president in May, while Tod Moser serves as executive director.

Becker expressed his excitement as papers were filed with the state of Delaware yesterday, noting that the "primary focus will be on initiatives and information sharing that benefit all member companies." The major hurdle for incorporation was cleared on 3 July, when the US Department of Justice gave its formal approval.

The alliance is the latest in a trend of integration amongst the US nuclear fleet. Last month Duke and Progress completed a merger that brought 12 nuclear reactors under one banner, while Exelon and Constellation finalised their merger in March, bringing common ownership interests to some 22 reactors.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News

In the Aftermath of ...

I think our nation is sinking lower in the muck and mire, afraid to really look at where the problems lies. With each day that passes we become a more violence accepting society. Oh, we will rise up and scream about the horrors, like the recent Colorado killings but just as quickly we simmer down and go back to our every days lives, demanding no change, continuing to defend an individual rights but stopping just short of defending their right to kill.

I read an article today by D. L. Hughley in HuffPost:  It's Mourning in America where he brings up the fact we are a violence obsessed society,  and I will throw in my two cents worth - a society that cares little about correcting the situation. We have allowed almost every facet of our lives to be at the whim of politics, from healthcare to violence and back again.

He brings up an incident that occurred the '80's that I had almost forgotten about and then went on to mention the campaign and work against drunk driving.

"Some of us are old enough to remember when a madman poisoned packages of Tylenol in 1982. Seven people died, and the reaction was immediate: the entire run of the product was recalled. Packaging was changed so that the buyer would know it's safe and wasn't tampered with. Liberal or conservative had nothing to do with it. It was not treated as a political issue. No one claimed that making it marginally harder to get at those headache pills was the first step toward dictatorship. 

 Drunk driving was a similar scenario. No one argued whether it was the alcohol that was the problem, or the car. No one advocated for prohibition or for some sort of nationwide bus system in lieu of the automobile. We did not hear that drunk driving is a right enshrined in the Constitution by our founding fathers. People just got sick of losing their friends and family members due to tragic circumstances that were entirely avoidable. Ad campaigns were launched, the police cracked down, and a nationwide stigma developed."

Why is it that we continue to tolerate violence and killing in our society and are happy to let it be a political football that is passed back and forth between political parties almost at whim?

I think that is a fair question to ask. Read D. L. Hughley's article, he makes some good points.

Jay Nixon: Spokesperson for Ameren or the People of Missouri?

Missouri's governor, Jay Nixon, has been offering up a lot of Kool-Aid for the people of Missouri lately. I know its been hot, but beware of the public relations blitz that is coming out of the governor's office.


While we all love baby kittens and puppies, 'cus they are so gosh darn cute, beware of these cute little mini-reactors that are being offered up as the savior to Missouri economic dilemma. They are still nuclear reactors with the same old-let's-not-talk-about-this-problem -- spent nuclear fuel.


These new small reactors would produce about 225 megawatts of electricity, but wait...Ameren-Westinghouse says their plans are to build FIVE of these cute little kittens, by my math that equals 1125 MWe. The current Callaway Plant #1 is 1236 MWe, voila Ameren has just accomplished the "second" power plant that it has been trying to get the ratepayers to pay for all this time.


I love this from Rudi Keller's article in The Columbia Daily Tribune today: "With the federal government ready to invest $452 million in the development of the reactors, taxpayers will subsidize much of the cost of the first reactors. Ameren Missouri and Westinghouse have made a joint application for a share of that money to develop the reactors for installation in Callaway County."


Many of the same people screaming about the bailout of the auto industry and Wall Street are quite silent on this subject but we need to remember this is going to be funded by taxpayers. 


But I digress - let's get back to the same old thing I keep harping about and that is: What is going to be done about the permanent storage of spent fuel? Do we want to talk to the residents of Missouri about how they feel about being the long-term storage site for Callaway's spent fuel?


The Department of Energy tried to get Nevada to be home of all this spent fuel and someone said, "HALT." So the 104 nuclear reactors in the United States are becoming 104 long-term spent fuel storage sites. Don't scream "NOT IN MY BACKYARD" because that is exactly where the spent fuel is being stored, for now and evermore, quoth the raven.


"Care for another refreshing glass of Kool-Air my dear?" No thanks, governor, I think I will just stick to water.