US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1794

On September 11 2019 09:07 GreenHorizons wrote:


I think "chugging along" may present more vulnerabilities than it sounds like. Namely with rules and regulations falling by the wayside we're almost guaranteed to find out there's a pile of improperly disposed of nuclear waste pilling up somewhere sooner or later.



www.energy.gov

On September 11 2019 09:07 GreenHorizons wrote:


I think "chugging along" may present more vulnerabilities than it sounds like. Namely with rules and regulations falling by the wayside we're almost guaranteed to find out there's a pile of improperly disposed of nuclear waste pilling up somewhere sooner or later.



www.energy.gov

On September 11 2019 09:11 micronesia wrote:

I suspect "chugging along" means letting the people who work for him, career experts unlike him, run their respective shows. That's not preferable to a highly competent secretary, but it's a fair bit better than the picture you are painting.

On September 11 2019 09:15 RenSC2 wrote:

Probably not. Have there been any mass firings or quitting at the DoE? To my knowledge, the people at the DoE have continued as before. If the job was done before, then it’s probably being done now. Rick Perry can quietly ride out his time.

Now revisions to waste management regulations are scary and may result in nuclear waste piling up where it shouldn’t. Having said that, Hillary Clinton’s hand-picked next president can hire someone competent for the DoE and that piling waste can be properly handled again.

On September 11 2019 09:21 micronesia wrote:
To echo RenSC2, there haven't really been drastic shifts as far as environmental protection is concerned. Normally, small nuclear waste issues become huge PR nightmares before they can become big problems.

There is perhaps no better illustration of the abject failure of the nation’s nuclear waste management efforts than the accumulation of vast amounts of spent nuclear fuel in Idaho, a situation I continue to believe most Idahoans find unacceptable.

By one measure, Idaho currently hosts 308 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel from the Navy, foreign and domestic research reactors, commercial reactors and the debris from the 1979 Three Mile Island accident. This includes 900,000 gallons of particularly dangerous liquid waste that remains untreated and buried in 50-year old tanks. The waste is perched above one of the largest freshwater aquifers in the world.

On September 11 2019 09:28 GreenHorizons wrote:


Idaho begs to differ. We still don't have a place to permanently store nuclear waste btw.

On September 11 2019 09:32 micronesia wrote:

Can you elaborate on the first part (edit to your edit: reading now).

For the second, part, you don't seem to be using the term "nuclear waste"properly. The U.S. does not have a permanent repository for high level waste, i.e., spent nuclear fuel. There is a large amount of low level waste which is the only type of waste it makes sense you were referring to with your previous posts.

The Trump administration announced on Wednesday that it is moving forward with plans to reclassify toxic nuclear waste from Cold War weapons research, downgrading some of it from the highest level, in order to cut costs and quicken the disposal process.

edit 2: Okay, I see what you are referring to. What is your concern, and how does it relate to Rick Perry being Secretary of Energy?

On September 11 2019 09:34 GreenHorizons wrote:


Which is why it's easier to just change high level waste to low level wast with a pen.



www.newsweek.com



That "chugging along" isn't that great and rather than push back on something as absurd as simply reclassifying the waste to make disposal cheaper, Perry is "chugging along" and keeping his job.

Currently, DOE treats most of its radioactive waste as "high-level" (HLW) because of how it was made rather than classifying it by its characteristics, such as radioactivity. HLW must be buried deep underground when it is disposed of.

DOE said in a release that this "one size fits all" approach to waste management has caused delays to permanent disposal, leaving toxic waste stored in DOE facilities, which causes health risks to workers and costs the taxpayers billions of unnecessary dollars.

Now, DOE will seek to lower the classification of waste of lesser radioactivity, meaning it can be disposed of with greater ease because it does not need to be stored deep below ground—and both sooner and at a lower cost.

On September 11 2019 09:51 micronesia wrote:

Okay so the two issues raised were a permanent repository, and reclassification of some high level waste. For the former, I'm not sure if Rick Perry being SECENG is really a significant factor. There are plenty of people to blame for that problem, and he isn't really one of them. I'd start with Harry Reid.

For the other, from the article you linked:

Earlier I spoke very generally when I said high level waste is "spent nuclear fuel." In actuality, the country has some real problems with waste classification not making sense. In general, disposal criteria for waste should be determined by the hazards it poses and its characteristics, not the circumstances of its generation (with some exceptions). Just because the Department of Energy intends to save money on disposal of certain waste by reclassifying some high level waste that meets specific criteria as low level waste does not necessarily mean that the new controls will be insufficient or unwarranted. The goal is a move more towards technically appropriate requirements for disposal criteria than blanket policies which are overly conservative in many cases. The reason why these seemingly inappropriately conservative requirements weren't fixed earlier was either because there wasn't yet the financial incentive to go fix it, or fear and superstition was too rampant to make it worth trying.

I think there are actually a few good examples (albeit relatively small) of what you are trying to demonstrate, but I don't think you are going to find them.

On September 11 2019 09:21 micronesia wrote:
To echo RenSC2, there haven't really been drastic shifts as far as environmental protection is concerned. Normally, small nuclear waste issues become huge PR nightmares before they can become big problems.

On September 11 2019 10:02 RenSC2 wrote:

To clarify one thing, I do think the EPA has gone to shit and with it, environmental protections. I think the DoE is running approximately how it always has, it just isn't currently capable of being run better on the areas where it could use improvement.

On September 11 2019 10:00 GreenHorizons wrote:


We've got a vat of nuclear waste in old tanks sitting above one of the biggest freshwater aquifers in the world, I don't think our old disposal system was too conservative.

I'll just say I don't share the confidence and faith you do the DOE with or without Perry (though obviously less with Perry) under the Trump administration is going to responsibly loosen these regulations any more than the ones on letting mercury into waterways or the other regulations they are rolling back.

On September 11 2019 10:02 RenSC2 wrote:

To clarify one thing, I do think the EPA has gone to shit and with it, environmental protections. I think the DoE is running approximately how it always has, it just isn't currently capable of being run better on the areas where it could use improvement.

The EPA is run by a former lawyer for the coal industry. I believe him to be malicious.

The DoE is run by a doofus. I believe him to be incompetent.

I greatly prefer incompetence to maliciousness.

I also thought we were on the Hillary Clinton is endorsing Elisabeth Warren bandwagon. Is she back to Biden now? It's almost like you (GH) posted that article to smear Warren with Clinton's name. Is Warren getting a little too close to Sanders in the polls and so you're having to attack?

I would bet that Clinton will endorse whoever wins the democratic nomination (including Sanders), even if that means changing endorsements at the end of the process. However, she probably won't endorse anyone until someone is a clear favorite after some primaries.

On September 11 2019 10:07 micronesia wrote:

Agree. I was only referring to DOE nuclear waste rules (and the topic of NRC nuclear waste rules has not come up).


You seem to be reversing your position. You seemed to criticize the DOE for working to expedite the disposal of the nuclear waste in old tanks, then you blamed the DOE for not expediting the disposal of nuclear waste in old tanks.

On September 11 2019 10:20 GreenHorizons wrote:


Not reversing. I'm doing both. I'm criticizing them for long standing bad practices and not sharing your confidence that relaxing them is the solution we needed.

On September 11 2019 10:30 micronesia wrote:

However, you did not respond to my point, and the point made in the article you referenced, that the particular relaxation in question seems warranted and experts generally prefer the modern approach. The real issue is that the current DOE and others have inherited some problems from a long time ago, and there's a lot of blame to go around on that front, but it doesn't seem support your thesis.

The problems you are pointing to are kind of linked. If you are overly conservative in one area (disposal requirements for a particular waste), then economics will dictate you need to take more risk in another area (interim storage). You can't have it both ways here without looking simply like a malcontent. That's not to say the government is blameless here... the system has been kind of screwed up for a long time, but the article you linked to about reclassification is actually one of the few recent attempts to try and fix how screwed up it is. If you think the current administration is mismanaging this effort, then you are free to read the proposed new rules and explain what is wrong with them.

"DOE is going to analyze each waste stream and manage it in accordance with Nuclear Regulatory Commission standards, with the goal of getting the lower-level waste out of these states without sacrificing public safety."

On September 11 2019 10:36 Ben... wrote:
There's currently a special election going on in a North Carolina district Trump won by 12 points in 2016. It's a dead tie right now with around 1000 votes between the Democrat, Dan McCready, and the Republican, Dan Bishop. This was the district where electoral fraud (ballot fraud specifically) was found to have occurred in the 2018 midterms and several people were charged.

Right now it's quite close for who will win, but given what happened in 2018 after a bunch of special elections looked like this one, I would think the Republicans will be concerned even if they win. This was a formerly safe district and at best they might barely squeak by with a win. This is a district the Republicans have won since the 1960s.

On September 11 2019 10:48 Introvert wrote:


Also tonight in another NC district where Trump won by 22%, the GOP candidate has won by 24%, with the margin continuing to increase. The district you mention is a little odd, with all the money spent, the fact that McCready is no longer unknown, and with the fallout of the event in 2018. It's following the usual trend at this point, rural areas moving more GOP, suburban moving Democrat.

Also interesting to note that, as in 2018, Trump stays relatively popular in these districts Democrats flipped or almost flipped. Lots of Trump approves voting for (relatively) moderate House Democrats. If they do end up losing in NC-12, they prob won't contest it again. Also, still a trend of early and absentee voters being Democrat heavy, and election day voters being more GOP favored.

If Bishop wins tonight, he will most likely be safe in 2020. And I will add my usual reminder that these results should not be taken as a sign of presidential voting.