Look! It's a Cooling Tower!
The Daily Bucket is a place where we post and exchange our observations about what is happening in the natural world in our neighborhood. Birds, blooms, bugs & more - each note is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the patterns that are quietly unwinding around us.
July 1, 2013
Nine Mile Point Nuclear Generating Station
Here's a part of my beach that is not natural, but it's always there reminding us of the modern world and our impact upon it.
Visible on the southwest horizon is the cooling tower for units 1 and 2 of Nine Mile Point Nuclear Generating Station located at the southeast corner of Lake Ontario. It's not that far away...
More below the fold
From Wiki there is this stuff:
Unit 1 - "one of the two oldest nuclear reactors still in service in the United States"
In 2006 the NRC granted 20-year license extensions to both units. Unit 1 (online 1969) is now licensed to operate until 2029 and Unit 2 (online 1988) is licensed until 2046.
In early May 2011, the operator of the plant reported that its fuel supplier, General Electric, notified it that mathematical errors were made which could resulted in reactor fuel’s getting hotter than operator thought. [sourced NYT 5-11-11]
I feel so safe.
Official site
If you follow the Safety Performance Summary, you see a page of plant performance indicators. There are all green - good to go. I suppose I could poke around and read more and find things to be concerned about, but like the rest of us along the shore, we don't think about it. Being a boiling-water reactor, there is a constant vapor cloud which becomes a point of reference. You judge fog and storm clouds by the steam.
Stepping back a bit farther , here is the usual view from the beach.
I'll close with a satellite view. Note the Ontario Bible Conference located to the west. Maybe they want to be the first to go... On the east side are county parks and forests. I imagine that the steam clouds often shade the picnickers.
Just a quick bucket for the day; something different. And The Daily Bucket is now open for your thoughts and observations...
"Green Diary Rescue" is Back!
After a hiatus of over 1 1/2 years, Meteor Blades has revived his excellent series. As MB explained, this weekly diary is a "round-up with excerpts and links... of the hard work so many Kossacks put into bringing matters of environmental concern to the community... I'll be starting out with some commentary of my own on an issue related to the environment, a word I take in its broadest meaning."
"Green Diary Rescue" will be posted every Saturday at 1:00 pm Pacific Time on the Daily Kos front page. Be sure to recommend and comment in the diary.