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Film Review: ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’
May 17, 2018 Andrew Barker | Variety Features
Donald Glover is Lando Calrissian in SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY.
LOS ANGELES — SPOILER ALERT: The following review contains mild spoilers for “Solo: A Star Wars Story.”
The most important thing to note about “Solo: A Star Wars Story” is that, in spite of its widely-publicized behind-the-scenes turmoil, culminating with the replacement of directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller with Ron Howard several months into shooting, the film is not the disaster its production history might suggest. In fact, it’s not even close. Though burdened with a slow start and enough thirsty fan-service to power Comic-Con’s Hall H for a decade, it has a kicky, kinetic heist movie at its heart, and its action sequences are machine-tooled spectacles of the first order. Its performances, starting with Alden Ehrenreich as the young Han Solo and extending to the film-stealing Donald Glover as his wily frenemy Lando Calrissian, are consistently entertaining. And thanks to cinematographer Bradford Young, “Solo” allows for moments of real grit and something approaching interstellar realism amid all of the expectedly topnotch VFX. Say what you will about Lucasfilm’s itchy trigger finger under Kathleen Kennedy, but the team certainly has the good sense to keep their cash cows from roaming off the pasture.
And yet, maybe they could stand to be a bit more willing to fail. With Lucasfilm and Disney dead-set on monopolizing multiplexes for the rest of our natural lives, these “Star Wars Story” offshoots ought to give them ample room to let down their hair a bit and play in George Lucas’ expansive sandbox, leaving the narrative heavy lifting to the series’ numbered installments. At first glance, “Solo” seems the perfect vehicle to do so. It’s the first “Star Wars” film without a single use of the Force; the first without Anakin Skywalker or any of his descendants; the first to be largely unconcerned with broader galactic politics; and the first to contain anything that could pass as a dirty joke. But even so, “Solo” retains an almost religious reverence for the franchise’s legacy, and the free-spirited story at its center is too often larded down with the weight of the past.
It’s hard to think of many characters from the last 45 years of American filmmaking less in need of an introduction than Harrison Ford’s Han Solo, but Howard’s film spends an undue amount of its early-going running through the origin story liturgy anyway. We finally get answers to some not-exactly-pressing questions, like, how did Solo get his name? And where did he get his blaster? (If you assumed the answers were “his parents gave it to him” and “he probably bought it somewhere,” you’d be wrong, but the alternatives presented here aren’t much more interesting.)
Long before his run-ins with Luke, Leia, and the inside of a tauntaun, young Han is living in a sort of thieves den on the filthy planet of Corellia. He’s just stolen a speeder and a small vial of coaxium, a rare and valuable mineral used as starship fuel, but he has no plans of offering it as tribute to the local capo, Lady Proxima (Linda Hunt). Dreaming of becoming a pilot, and smitten with a fellow thief named Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke), he’s plotting to use it as collateral to bribe their way to freedom on an outbound ship. Complications arise, and Han manages to escape by abruptly enlisting with the Empire, leaving Qi’ra behind.
Joonas Suotamo is Chewbacca in SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY.
Flash forward three years, and he’s a grunt recruit slogging it out in some inconsequential battle on a mudbound planet. He’s been waiting for a chance to go AWOL to rescue Qi’ra, and finally gets his window when he runs across a roving band of smugglers: Jaded leader Beckett (Woody Harrelson), his hard-bitten wife Val (Thandie Newton) and pilot Rio Durant (Jon Favreau). Now also joined by friendly Wookiee Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo), Solo manages to cajole, charm, and lie his way into their uneasy graces.
Things have definitely started to drag by this point, but Solo‘s first job with his new crew finally shakes off the doldrums. Jetting off to a new planet, their target is a trainload of coaxium being transported through the mountains on a dramatically elevated rail. Shot on location in Italy’s snow-capped Dolomites, the band’s daring raid takes place in midair, yet somehow feels more grounded than the vast majority of “Star Wars'” recent setpieces, the contours of the battle vivid and tangible. Thanks to a split-second decision by Solo, the gang’s booty is lost, which leaves them in debt to a fearsome playboy gangster named Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany).
On Dryden’s floating space-yacht, complete with dueling alien lounge singers, Solo is surprised to find Qi’ra. Through some mysterious, implicitly unsavory means, she’s wound up as one of Dryden’s top “lieutenants,” and offers some subtle help as Solo makes him an offer to erase the gang’s shortfall: They’ll travel to the mining planet of Kessel, steal a batch of coaxium in its volatile raw form, and race the cargo to the planet Savareen to refine it before it blows them all into smithereens. (No points for guessing roughly how quickly he’ll have to make that run.) But first, the crew needs a ship.
It would be a waste of a movie ticket to sit through “Solo” trying to guess which pieces of the final cut belong to Howard and which belong to Lord and Miller, though there are certainly hints of the “Lego Movie” directors’ style of insouciant cultural demythification in the scenes with Lando, whom Solo and Co. seek out to try and gain ownership of his ship, the Millennium Falcon. Played by Glover as equal parts suave hustler and foppish brat, Lando gets all of the film’s best laughs – “No! That’s a custom!” he screams as one of his many capes is threatened during a fire fight – and also serves as one half of its most intriguing relationship. His droid, L3-37 (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), is engaged in a one-robot campaign to free her fellow machines of their servitude, frequently launching into Emma Goldman-style stump speeches and taking part in some charged banter with Lando that gives “Solo” its most surprising kinks.
If only Solo and Qi’ra had a fraction of that chemistry. For a film that is constantly nudging us in the ribs with allusions to the original “Star Wars” trilogy, it does “Solo” few favors to bring to mind the incendiary interplay between Ford and Carrie Fisher that gave those films so many of their standout moments. Clarke and Ehrenreich have little such spark, although that seems less the fault of the actors than the unimaginative relationship they’re given to work with. Ehrenreich in particular is enduringly watchable: He nails Ford’s cocky gait, his roguish eye-twinkle, his puffed-cheeked finger-pointing, and while the performance may initially come across as a highly skilled bit of mimicry, by the film’s end he’s managed to give the role a satisfying new spin.
Few would object if Ehrenreich were to reprise the character in future installments (“The Young Han Solo Chronicles?” “Wookiee and the Bandit?”), but a scruffy, nerf-herding smuggler like Han needs room to stretch and make trouble. After all, it took the same sort of unfettered imagination to produce both “A New Hope” and “The Phantom Menace” – if you aren’t willing to risk the latter, there’s not much chance of ending up with the former.
‘Avengers: Infinity War’ stays strong with $61 million third weekend
Lowest unemployment since 1973 as mid-Atlantic factory activity picks up
Spotify says about 2 million users blocked ads without paying
March 23, 2018 Arjun Panchadar | Reuters Features, News
NEW YORK — Spotify said on Friday it uncovered two million users of its free service who had blocked advertising without paying, highlighting a potential revenue risk for the soon-to-be public company. In an amended […]
Box Office: ‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle’ Unseats ‘It’ as ‘Lego Ninjago’ Disappoints
September 27, 2017 Seth Kelley | Variety Features
LOS ANGELES — “Kingsman: The Golden Circle” is the new ruler of the box office. The sequel from Fox is expected to earn $39 million this weekend from 4,003 locations. That’s slightly below where tracking […]
Film Review: ‘Ocean’s 8’
June 7, 2018 Owen Gleiberman | Variety Features
LOS ANGELES — In “Ocean’s 8,” Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock), a tough cookie who’s all raccoon eyes, ironically pursed lips, and long stringy black hair, gets paroled from prison with hardly a dollar to her […]
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A Scary Looking Wesen Feeds on Sleep on Grimm: Breakfast In Bed
umataro42
Filed to:TV RECAP
Friday’s Grimm was a real detective story with multiple suspects, an undercover operation, and even a red herring. Spoilers after the break.
The episode opens with a guy returning to his hotel room, after getting complaints about the noise he’s been making, from the manager and a neighbor across the hall. He goes into his room, nails his windows and doors shut and sleep with a hammer in his hand.
But it’s not enough...
The next morning, he wakes up having been attacked, and storms out of the hotel, where he ends up killing a good samaritan who was just trying to help.
After being put on the case, Nick and Hank end up at the hotel, arrest the killer, and meet some of the other residents.
There’s the manager.
The maintenance guy.
And the angry neighbor from across the hall.
And the old man in the wheelchair that hangs out at the end of the hall and maybe isn’t as feeble as he looks...
After the killer, identified as Dan Wells, is booked, he tells them about a scary creature, and even though he tries to attack Nick and Hank and is taken down, he did manage to tell his story to the only 2 detectives that would believe him.
After finding out he doesn’t have a history of violence, the boys decide to hit the books and see what kind of wesen they’re dealing with this time. And Monroe has heard of this one, it’s called an Alpe (pronounced like the Swiss Mountains), and they eat sleep, which eventually drives the victim insane, which happened to Monroe’s aunt.
Back at the precinct, Nick and Hank do some research on the hotel and find there’s a history of people driven insane to the point of murder or suicide, and surmise the Alpe has been using the Englewood Hotel as a buffet.
They then look up the name of the old man in the hallway, Charles Lynk. Middle name Herring. So he’s obviously not the Alpe.
And then Wu comes in with the name of the hotel’s owner, Beverly Garwood, and some sass.
They call Beverly Garwood and she tells them she just owns the place, but she leaves it to the manager and maintenance man to take care of the day to day operations.
Then, the Alpe claims another victim, and her insanity driven trip to death ends up a lot shorter than the last guy.
So now that they know that they’re dealing with a wesen that eats sleep, and detects sleep through melatonin, it’s time for another undercover adventure with Monroe. After Rosalee shoots him up with so much melatonin he can barely stay awake, he checks into the hotel, sets up a camera and then falls asleep pretty easily. And the trap works. Sort of.
Nick and Hank have some trouble getting to him, but once they do, it turns out each shelf has a hidden entrance behind it to a passageway that runs within the hotel. It’s better to just watch these clips than read a description of it (they overlap a little).
And as you can see at the end, Charles Lynk isn’t just a Herring by name, he’s an actual red herring wesen.
Looks like everyone else will be sleeping well that night.
Other happenings in this episode include Renard being paid a visit by the Black Claw representative he’d been speaking to on the phone and telling him their partnership is through.
He then gets paid a visit by Meisner, but this time he’s a helpful ghost. He warns him that there are 2 men waiting to ambush him in the garage and even helps take care of them.
Looks like being a ghost has its advantages...
Looks like telling Black Claw to get the hell out of his office was a good thing.
And on the “what the hell is up with that stick” side of things, Rosalee and Eve, with a little help from Monroe but mostly them, figure out the symbols on the cloth are constellations and that their positioning indicates a date. Maybe even when the stick originated from. Or so they think.
Turns out the symbols point to a date in the future! March 24th, 2017.
And that happens to be a Friday, and the air date of the 2nd to last episode of Grimm! Looks like something big is going to happen then!
Thoughts/notes:
I appreciated the red herring being an actual red herring wesen. Good on you Grimm, it’s the last season, have some fun with it.
So I guess Meisner is definitely a real ghost since he’s able to affect other people. Either that or Renard has some powers he can only use when he thinks he’s being haunted.
The Englewood Hotel’s owner, Beverly Garwood, may have been a tribute to Beverly Garland, who owned a hotel that shared her name, in Hollywood. Except she probably wasn’t an Alpe secretly eating the sleep of her guests.
I enjoyed the gradual process of elimination in figuring out who the Alpe was, and that just because the manager wasn’t one, didn’t mean he couldn’t be a Hundjager.
What did you all think?
(Gifs courtesy of dailygrimm.tumblr & Grimm Wiki, also the source for character and wesen names and that picture of the red herring).
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Book Review - Bad Blood - Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou chronicles the rise and fall of multibillion-dollar biotech startup Theranos. Theranos was started in 2003 by 19-year-old Elizabeth Holmes, a Stanford dropout and former chemical engineering student.
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News Medical Life Sciences, 2016-12-02 03:08:50
New UGA research finds pathogen's motility activates immune response
Until now, a pathogen's ability to move through the body has been overlooked as a possible trigger of immune response, but new research from the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine found that motility will indeed alarm the host and activate an immune response.
Simple exercise program improves walking performance and quality of life in dialysis patients
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UC San Diego scientists reveal surprising role for Hippo pathway in subduing tumor immunogenicity
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White deaths exceed births in 17 U.S. states, report reveals
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Monell Center receives Gates Foundation grant to support innovative global health research project
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The Korean Genocide Part 2: The US Occupation and its Imperial Context
20130328 1 Comment Uncategorized
(In the first part of this four part post, I detailed something of the history of Korea
before US partition. I showed that a strong sense of national unity among Koreans
had, if anything, only been strengthened by Japanese imperial rule. I ended by
mentioning the strategic situation which faced the Soviet Union when the US
decided to partition Korea. As I continue, readers may be surprised by much of
what I detail herein, but these are not previously unknown facts, they are simply
things that are studiously neglected by teachers and textbook writers.)
The US strategic approach to the world mutated during World War II. At first the strategic plan
for the post-War world had called for the retention of a “Grand Area” under German
hegemony. That planning changed as it became clear that the Soviets were winning against Germany, eventually transforming into an uneven global bipolar paradigm which was the basis for the “Cold War”.1 Germany was no longer to be at the centreof a Grand Area, while Russia was. Moreover, of the four Grand Areas, the three notunder Soviet control were to be a Western condominium under US hegemony. Indeed, one of the many things that the Korean War allowed the US to achieve was the stimulation of the Japanese economy desired because it was to be the centre of one of the Grand Areas.2
The strategic logic of the Grand Area strategy was that of securing strategic
resources, the same type of logic which had led the Japanese into potentially openended
imperial aggression. The “Grand Area Strategy” was not about opposing
communism, it was about US domination. It was intended to secure the “limitation of
any exercise of sovereignty” in “an integrated policy to achieve military and
economic supremacy for the United States.”3 This strategy came from planning
conducted by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) prior to the US entry into the
war. Seeing the potential disruption to trade of the nascent World War, the council
concluded that “as a minimum, the American ‘national interests’ involved the free
access to markets and raw materials in the British Empire, the Far East, and the
entire Western hemisphere.”4 Their recommendation, therefore, was for “complete
re-armament”, but as Hossein-zadeh points out they were soon thinking beyond the
defeat of the Axis powers:
Although the Grand Area was designed as a war-time economic and military
framework in reaction to Germany’s expansionist policies, the United States
also simultaneously made tentative plans for beyond the war: to expand the
Grand Area to include continental Europe once the Axis Alliance was
defeated, thereby making the Grand Area global: The Grand Area, as the
United States-led non-German bloc was called during 1941, was only an
interim measure to deal with the emergency situation of 1940 and early 1941.
The preferred ideal was even more grandiose – one world economy
dominated by the United States. The Economic and Financial Group [of the
Council] said in June 1941, “the Grand Area is not regarded by the Group as
more desirable than a world economy, nor as an entirely satisfactory
substitute.”5
The creation of a bipolar system favoured both sides, facilitating the construction of
a Soviet empire as well as that of US empire. This would certainly explain the
contradiction between Stalin’s rhetoric and behaviour. Many see Stalin as having
been obeisant to superior Western strength: “To accommodate the United States
and other Western powers in the hope of peaceful coexistence, Stalin often
advised, and sometimes ordered, the pro-Moscow communist/leftist parties in
Europe and elsewhere in the world to refrain from revolutionary policies that might
jeopardize the hoped-for chances of coexistence. The Soviet leader ‘scoffed at
communism in Germany,’ writes historian [D.F.] Fleming, ‘urged the Italian Reds to
make peace with the monarchy, did his best to induce Mao Tsetung to come to
terms with the Kuomintang and angrily demanded of Tito that he back the
monarchy, thus fulfilling his (Stalin’s) bargain with Churchill.’”6 But Stalin also threw
the first punch in the war of words which was a key element of the Cold War – if
only as a disingenuous theatrical display. Indeed, both Stalin and Churchill
preceded US officials in both declaring implacable enmity for implicit or explicit
ideological reasons in February and March of 1946.7
But Churchill spoke at the behest of US officials. Moreover, out of the public arena,
also in February, George Kennan’s “Long Telegram” was written. In this Kennan
concurred that the Soviet Union was by its very nature an enemy. Of course, the
Soviet Union had been severely battered by World War II and was not naturally as
wealthy and powerful as the US so Kennan could not actually make any claims that
such enmity constituted a military threat. He concluded, “it is not entirely a military
threat, I doubt that it can be effectively met entirely by military means.”8
Nevertheless he made the danger posed seem high and Dean Acheson
commented that ‘his predictions and warning could not have been better.’9
Acheson’s emphasis should be seen in context of his later comment that he felt it
necessary “to bludgeon the mass mind of ‘top government’ with the Communist
threat.”10 He described this process in the following terms, recalling an address in
1947: “In the past eighteen months, I said, Soviet pressure on the Straits, on Iran,
and on northern Greece had brought the Balkans to the point where a highly
possible Soviet breakthrough there might open three continents to Soviet
penetration. Like apples in a barrel… the corruption of Greece would infect Iran and
all to the east. It would also carry infection to Africa through Asia Minor and Egypt,
and to Europe through Italy and France….” Such hyperbole, as Chomsky points out,
was patently disingenuous as Acheson was in a position to know that his threats
were completely implausible.11 Fear of the Soviet threat began to make an impact in
the US news media in 1948, at a time when Soviet society, and in particular the Red
Army, was on the verge of total collapse.
The other key part of the containment paradigm under which the US was to operate
was established by the passage of NSC-68 through Congress. In Mark Moyar’s
words President Harry Truman “was reluctant to embrace NSC-68, but events –
especially the Korean War – led him to accept its main tenets by the middle of
1950.”12 Brian Bogart has this to say: “Along with then Secretary of State Dean
Acheson, and without any expertise in Russian history or Soviet affairs, Nitze
convinced – some say coerced – Truman into recognizing the Soviet Union as an
evil and imminent threat, and into signing NSC-68 and launching the Cold War. After
NSC-68 was signed, it needed the approval of Congress. Post-Cold War documents
suggest that the Korean War was triggered by Americans and South Koreans for
this purpose.”13 The Soviet Union was officially designated as an inextricably
essential enemy, eternally hostile and aggressive, who could never be negotiated
with unless they completely renounced their ideology and embraced Western norms
and systems of governance.14 This established the preeminence of the military as
the key economic consideration for US governments. It also enshrined a policy of
the perpetual maintenance of US military supremacy.15 In other words the US was
to be put in a endless state of wartime economic functioning. The espoused
ideological opposition to communism was merely a tool to facilitate a highly
militarised interventionist global hegemony. Ironically, or perhaps revealingly,
Kennan’s famous ‘X’ article (an article published in Foreign Affairs under the
pseudonym ‘X’ which many consider the ideological basis of containment) about
Soviet power made much the same observation of the instrumental motives behind
the Soviet Union’s show of adherence to Marxist-Leninist ideology.16
The fact is that the US aimed to create, almost at a stroke, the largest empire in
human history, trading on unprecedented economic and military predominance to
create permanent dominion. Where all other major industrial areas of the world had
been destroyed or crippled by the war, US industry had grown rapidly, accounting
for fully half of the entire world’s manufacturing capacity by the war’s end, and
growing to 60% by 1950.17 They had retained all of their gold reserves which had
reached 75% of the world’s total reserves in the 1930s thanks to the dogged
pursuance of debts incurred in the previous World War.18 On the same subject, they
had broken their previous record as the largest creditor state in history.19 The US
had an unparalleled degree of political capital, the cruelties of Axis occupation
making it widely seen as a liberator. Less tainted than other allies by imperialist
practices, colonial people’s viewed it as genuinely adherent to the Atlantic Charter’s
prromise to “respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under
which they will live….”20 The US was able to use such advantages to further its
dominance by creating supranational economic institutions – the Bretton Woods
institutions of the “World Bank” and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – which it
could effectively control. The US directly appoints the president of the World Bank,
while both it and the IMF were created with voting powers assigned almost
exclusively on the basis of who put the most money in. The US thus bought over
one third of the votes of the World Bank at the outset, and had a similar percentage
of IMF votes.21 (Since that time voting rights have become even more skewed in
favour of powerful states and the Bretton Woods institutions have been transformed
into a tool for allowing those powerful states to exercise effective economic
sovereignty becoming, in Naomi Klein’s words, “the primary vehicles for the
advancement of the corporatist crusade.”)22
The US also played a large role in deciding the constitution of the United Nations. In
effect the United Nations became a tool of US foreign policy. As Noam Chomsky
explains:
The dominant élite [US] view with regard to the UN was well expressed in
1992 by Francis Fukuyama, who had served in the Reagan-Bush State
Department: the UN is “perfectly serviceable as an instrument of American
unilateralism and indeed may be the primary mechanism through which that
unilateralism will be exercised in the future.” His prediction proved accurate,
presumably because it was based on consistent practice going back to the
early days of the UN. At that time, the state of the world guaranteed that the
UN would be virtually an instrument of US power. The institution was greatly
admired, though élite distaste for it increased notably in subsequent years.
The shift of attitude roughly traced the course of decolonization, which
opened a small window for “the tyranny of the majority”: that is, for concerns
emanating from outside the centers of concentrated power that the business
press calls the “de facto world government” of “the masters of the universe.”
When the UN fails to serve as “an instrument of American unilateralism” on
issues of élite concern, it is dismissed. One of many illustrations is the record
of vetoes. Since the 1960s the US has been far in the lead in vetoing Security
Council resolutions on a wide range of issues, even those calling on states to
observe international law. Britain is second, France and Russia far behind.
Even that record is skewed by the fact that Washington’s enormous power
often compels the weakening of resolutions to which it objects, or keeps
crucial matters off the agenda entirely Washington’s wars in Indochina, to cite
one example that was of more than a little concern to the world.23
Thus the Korean War served as a crucial catalyst to achieving the crucial militarised
component of US dominance, and Cumings joins those who focus more broadly on
US imperialism (Chomsky, Kolko, Hossein-Zadeh, Bacevich, Johnson and many
more) in iterating the centrality of the Korean War in transforming US society,
creating the “military-industrial complex” and facilitating global domination, because
it allowed NSC-68 to be enacted and validated, however deceptively. Cumings also
emphasises the late-1949 NSC-48 which established a “Monroe Doctrine”-like right
of intervention to prevent sovereign entities from, among other things, “general
industrialisation” which might come at the cost of “comparative advantage”.24 Thus
the Korean War was not merely a catalyst for the establishment of domestic and
international institutions of empire, it was a prime exemplar of the manner in which
military force was to be used to enforce imperial hegemony. To understand why
genocide was employed, it is necessary to examine precedents adopted by the US
from the British empire.
The use of the term “comparative advantage” is telling. Taken from the classical
economist David Ricardo, it is, consciously or unconsciously, a dishonest way of
referring to Kennan’s “pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain a
position of disparity.”25 Thus the continuity of imperial practices with those of the
British, who also utilised Ricardo as an excuse for preventing development among
dependencies. Ricardian liberalism played the role that the Friedmanite
neoliberalism and monetarism of the Washington Consensus plays today – that of
“useful foolishness” to use Hudson’s words.26 In arrogating to itself such a wide
imperium, the US had a problem. Billions of people were in the process of achieving
independence from formal colonial control, how then would the US ensure that their
resources remained at its disposal as was called for in Grand Area planning? In
order to do that one must maintain the dependency that attends colonial economic
relations. In the early 19th century Britain had already started extending such
relations without formal control as has already been described. To do so, they
employed Ricardo and Adam Smith. Korean economist Ha Joon Chang quotes
Friedrich List in 1840 who wrote:
It is a very common clever device that when anyone has attained the summit
of greatness he kicks away the ladder by which he has climbed up in order
to deprive others of the means of climbing up after him. In this lies the secret
of the cosmopolitical doctrine of Adam Smith, and of the cosmopolitical
tendencies of his great contemporary William Pitt and of all his successors in
the British Government administrations.
Any nation which by means of protective duties and restrictions on navigation
has raised her manufacturing power and her navigation to such a degree of
development that no other nation can sustain free competition with her. can
do nothing wiser than to throw away these ladders of her greatness. To
preach to other nations the benefits of free trade, and to declare in penitent
tones that she has hitherto wandered in the paths of error. and has now for
the first time succeeded in discovering the truth.27
There was a further problem for the US explained by Michael Hudson:
…[T]he U.S. balance of payments had reached a surplus level unattained by
any other nation in history. It had an embarrassment of riches, and now
required a payments deficit to promote foreign export markets and world
currency stability. Foreigners could not buy American exports without a means
of payment, and private creditors were not eager to extend further loans to
countries that were not creditworthy.
The Korean War seemed to resolve this set of problems by shifting the U.S.
balance of payments into deficit. Confrontation with Communism became a
catalyst for U.S. military and aid programs abroad. Congress was much more
willing to provide countries with dollars via anti-Communist or national
defense programs than by outright gifts or loans, and after the Korean War
America’s military spending in the NATO and SEATO countries seemed to be
a relatively bloodless form of international monetary support. In country after
country, military spending and aid programs provided a reflux of some of the
foreign gold that the United States had absorbed during the late 1940s.28
Obviously, this was not a sustainable solution – in fact it was the 2nd Indochina War
which half-forced and half-facilitated a more long-term solution. Unsustainable it
may have been, but there is a certain elegance to combining in one single
programme a massive change (the creation of the Cold War) which militarised
society and provided both the weaponry and ideological pretext for intervention in
maintaining a newly minted empire while yet addressing the unwelcome effects of
the desired economic predominance by providing currency but in such a way that,
since it came in the form of military aid, could be used to deepen dependency whilst
not providing any means for unwelcome economic development.
To understand how such a system might work it is necessary to examine some
exemplars of US “neocolonial” practices. For clients the US may often choose the
established latifundistas29 of the traditional imperialist. Galeano describes the role
of the latifundia: “Subordinated to foreign needs and often financed from abroad…
the present-day latifundio [is] one of the bottlenecks that choke economic
development and condemn the masses to poverty and a marginal existence in Latin
America today. … [I]t merely needs to pay ridiculously low or in-kind wages, or to
obtain labor for nothing in return for the laborer’s use of a minute piece of land.”30
Simultaneously, however, the US has shown a preference for two other forms of
client oligarchy – kleptocracy and militarised authoritarianism. These are not
exclusive categories, with many regimes embodying all three.
The US love of kleptocrats can be seen in their choice of whom to elevate when
overthrowing or attempting to overthrow various governments. US invasions of
Nicaragua, Cuba and Haiti led to the instalation of Batista, the Duvaliers, and the
Somozas – all notorious for corruption and brutality.31 Mobutu Sese Seko, who
came to power “in a military coup designed by the United States,”32 would steal an
estimated $5 billion in his US supported time as dictator.33 The Contras were mainly,
according to one NSC staffer, “liars motivated by greed and the desire for power,
and charged that the war had become a business for them. They attacked bridges,
electric generators, but also state-owned agricultural co-operatives, rural health
clinics, villages and non-combatants.”34 Manuel Noriega was known for certain to be
dealing drugs from 1971, but remained on the US payroll and continued to get
diplomatic support until 1986. By this stage he was no longer involved in the drug
trade.35
This is very far from a complete list of corrupt US clients, and is not because, as is
often construed, the US was completely amoral with regard to its choice of clients,
not caring if they were brutal and venal. The orthodox criticism is that the US only
cared for leaders that were friendly to US commercial interests and (during the Cold
War) were steadfastly anticommunist, without any reference to their venality or
brutal treatment of their own people. This attitude is supposedly exemplified by
Franklin Roosevelt’s comment about Somoza: “He may be a son of a bitch, but he’s
our son of a bitch.” 36 Far from being neutral on the question of venality, there is an
obvious strategic imperative which explains why, despite some political cost, the US
has preferred to extend patronage to those it knows to be corrupt, namely that the
corrupt and the greedy will put the interests of their paymasters ahead of those of
their own people.
A similar logic to the preference for venality also applied to a preference for brutal
authoritarianism. The US developed a particular facility for creating military
dependence by fostering a military élite reliant on US military aid and faced with a
hostile populace, often accompanied by varying degrees of insurgent activity or civil
war which bore the hallmarks of war systems.37 In Iran, for example, the CIA’s first
coup, considered at the time “its greatest single triumph,”38 installed the Shah
Mohammed Reza Pahlevi in a position of supreme power. The CIA “wove itself into
Iran’s political culture.”39 They created SAVAK, a notorious “intelligence” agency,
trained in torture by the CIA40 and supported by the CIA and DIA in a domestic and
international dissident assassination programme.41 Repression was at its peak
between 1970 and 1976 resulting in 10,000 deaths.42 By 1976 Amnesty
International’s secretary general commented that Iran had ‘the highest rate of death
penalties in the world, no valid system of civilian courts and a history of torture that
is beyond belief. No country in the world has a worse record of human rights than
Iran.’43 Nafeez Ahmed cites the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) who detail
an extensive police state of intense surveillance and informant networks and torture
“passed on to it” by US, UK and Israeli intelligence. Ahmed quotes the FAS on
methods including “electric shock, whipping, beating, inserting broken glass and
pouring boiling water into the rectum, tying weights to the testicles, and the
extraction of teeth and nails.”44 The US attitude to such repression can be seen in
the official reaction to the unrest developing in the late 1970s. Aside from US
officials consistently urging and praising military responses to protest action,
including inevitable massacres,45 the US ambassador objected strongly to a
reduction in repression. In June 1978 he reported his finding that, “the Shah’s new
directives to his security forces, such as instructions to desist from torture… are
disorienting.”46
Hard on the heels of Operation Ajax, which overthrew Iran’s government, was
Operation Success in Guatemala. According to Carlos Figueroa Ibarra, the US
operation was the “principle cause” of the overthrow of the Arbenz government47 –
not a communist government but in the words of Ambassador “Pistol-packing” Jack
Puerifoy, who had worked closely with the CIA, “if the president is not a communist,
he will certainly do until one comes along.”48 What followed was a 35 year “dirty
war”. As I have already pointed out the “dirty war” designation is a myth, often used
as a cover for genocide. Although there were guerillas in Guatemala the findings of
two truth commissions make it clear that this was a case of “government repression
and terror rather than guerilla warfare.”49 The UN estimates that over 200,000 were
killed. 93% of tortures, disappearances and executions were committed by
government forces; 3% by guerilla’s and 4% described as “private”. “In a majority of
the massacres committed by the state, especially by the army, the
counterinsurgency strategy led to multiple acts of savagery such as the killing of
defenceless children, often by beating them against walls…; impaling the victims;
amputating their limbs; burning them alive; extracting their viscera while still alive
and in the presence of others… and opening the wombs of pregnant women.” A
favoured way of torturing to death was to stab someone then throw them into a pit
where they would be burnt to death.50 As Adam Jones notes: “Finally, the
Commission’s report took the important step of labeling the Guatemalan
government’s campaign as genocidal. All Maya had been designated as supporters
of communism and terrorism, the report noted, leading to ‘aggressive, racist and
extremely cruel . . . violations that resulted in the massive extermination of
defenseless Mayan communities.’”51
In 1963 when the President, General Manuel Ydigoras Fuentes who was nearing
the end of a 6 year term, allowed the return of a popular reformist exile, who the US
felt likely to become the next president, the US instigated a coup to bring Colonel
Enrique Peralta Azurdia to power. Peralta inaugurated his presidency by having
eight political and union leaders murdered by means of driving over them in rockladen
trucks.52 By this time Guatemala was experiencing protest action in cities and
a small guerilla movement in the country, incorporating remnants of a nationalist
military uprising crushed in 1960, largely by the CIA’s aerial bombardment.53 The
US pushed for a military response.54 From 1960 military assistance began a steady
climb, peaking in 1963 at the time of the coup but continued at a high level
thereafter.55 In 1966 the US began taking more of an active role.56 From this point,
and through the seventies, death squads increased in number, coinciding with an
increase in US personnel – reaching 1000 Green Berets in addition to advisors,57 in
a country with an army of only 5000.58 The Green Berets gave instruction on
“interrogation”, while US pilots dropped napalm on those unfortunate enough to be
in a ‘zona libre’ – a free-fire zone.59
The “war” was conducted primarily against noncombatants, involving mainly
massacres of Mayans and “forced disappearances” or tortures and executions of
those considered politically suspect. This is true to such an extent that none of the
accounts I have read of the “war” actually mentions combat or the deaths of
guerillas.60 The initial guerilla movement was “all but wiped-out” by 1968,61 but a
stronger movement arose in 1970s.62 As with Argentina’s “dirty war” the guerillas
became the rationale for a war against the civilian population.63 The atrocities, in
turn, must surely have fuelled the insurgency. As Greg Grandin remarks,
“Guatemala was one of the first Latin American countries to develop both a socialist
insurgency and an anticommunist counterinsurgency. Practices the United States
rehearsed in Guatemala would be applied throughout Latin America in the coming
decades.”64
Guatemala went through the transition to “façade democracy” of the kind that was
to become notorious under the regime of José Napoléon Duarte in El Salvador, and
might equally be equated to Nuri al-Maliki’s sectarian terror state in Iraq. As Julio
Godoy wrote in The Nation in 1990: “In Guatemala and El Salvador the electoral
alternative that emerged during the 1980s as a response to the 1979 Sandinista
triumph in Nicaragua, and to the guerilla warfare at home, is hypocritical and empty
of democratic content. Under the electoral façade – the civilian regimes in
Guatemala and El Salvador are just a public relations game, aimed at the
international community – almighty armies rule these countries, with a discretionary
degree of public presence.”65 In Guatemala this transition saw “a passing from the
open terror that distinguished old dictatorships to the clandestine terror that was the
most popular resource amongst the military dictatorship.”66 “Clandestine terror” and
military dictatorship disguised in “façade democracy” was far bloodier than “open
terror” with the greatest single period of genocidal mass murder occurring in the
early 1980s. As Jones relates: “In just six years, some 440 Indian villages were
obliterated and some 200,000 Indians massacred, often after torture, in scenes fully
comparable to the early phase of Spanish colonization half a millennium earlier. The
genocide proceeded with the enthusiastic support of the Reagan administration in
the US, which reinstated aid to the Guatemalan military and security forces when it
took power in 1981.”67
On the surface events in Iran and Guatemala suggest that US neocolonialism
follows a materialist pattern, with events being driven by the profit motive. In Iran
events were triggered by a threat to the extremely lucrative agreement between Iran
and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Corporation. In 1950 “the AIOC earned some £200 million
profit from its Iranian operations, but only paid the Iranian government £16 million in
royalties, profit share and taxes. … In fact, the British government, a Labour
government, was receiving substantially more in taxes from the AIOC’s Iranian
operations than the Iranian government itself. And this was a company in which the
British government held a 51 percent interest. The injustice was compounded by
the fact that Iranian oil cost more in Iran than it did in Britain with the Royal Navy in
particular, receiving substantial discounts. The Iranians could buy oil from the Soviet
Union at a cheaper price than they could buy it from the AIOC.”68 Popular opposition
to the renewal of the agreements set in train events which ended with the
nationalisation of Iran’s oil industry.69 In response the UK enlisted US co-operation
in a very comprehensive and meticulous plan for destabilisation and overthrow of
the Iranian government, beginning with two years of very severe economic warfare
which dragged Iran to the edge of a precipice.70 Planning began in Nicosia,
involving both the CIA and the Security Intelligence Service (SIS, also known as
MI6)71 but was finalised by the SIS.72 The CIA’s involvement was in direct
contravention of US policy, which supported Mossadeq, and Frank Wisner, head of
covert operations, commented that at times the “CIA makes policy by default.”73
The “London Draft” of “Operation Ajax” clearly drew on more than a century of
British experience in informal imperialist manipulation. It must have been quite an
education for the CIA as it became the standard model for many future overthrow
operations. The irony is that almost none of it went according to plan. The
propaganda and economic warfare programmes were very successful but all of the
clever manoeuvres planned for the actual coup fell flat.74 The US succeeded in the
end by throwing money at the problem, hiring goons to riot,75 attack Tudeh
(communist) gatherings,76 and even to conduct false-flag riots disguised as Tudeh.77
The US bribed Mullahs78 and used a combination of threats and bribery on
officials.79 The US had learnt from the British, but had invented their own style of
using massive injections of cash and profligate violence which was not clandestine,
but was loosely deniable.
Though not intended for public consumption,80 the draft Ajax plan typified the
duplicity and Orwellianism of Cold War documents. It opened: “The policy of both
the U.S. and UK governments requires replacement of Mossadeq as the alternative
to certain economic collapse in Iran and the eventual loss of the area to the Soviet
orbit. Only through a planned and controlled replacement can the integrity and
independence of the country be ensured.”81 Of course, the circumstances which
were cited as justification were entirely and deliberately the result of the British led
economic warfare programme, but, in case the point had been missed, it continued
later: “Both governments consider the oil issue of secondary importance at this
time, since the major is the resolve for both governments to maintain the
independence of Iran.”82
In Guatemala the profit motive is even further to the fore. As mentioned, Walter
Bedell Smith and Allen Dulles, planners of both Iran and Guatemala coups, had
links to the United Fruit Company (UFC). The reformist Arbenz government
expropriated uncultivated UFC land for the purposes of land reform and paid only
the $525,000 at which the UFC had valued the land for tax purposes. The UFC
wanted $16 million.83 In the final analysis, however, maintaining a situation of
economic dependence is not only a means by which surpluses can be extracted to
the benefit of commercial interests, the neglected fact is that it is also a mode of
domination, and the ongoing decades of US intervention in Guatemala cannot be
explained by an immediate concern for the profits of the UFC, no matter how well
connected. The overthrow of the Arbenz government ended reformist, redistributive
and developmentalist programmes.84 The cost of the ensuing “war”, in both the
destruction of property and the diversion of economic resources, was estimated to
have reached 121 percent of gross domestic product by 1990.85 The burden of this
fell on the poor, and more particularly on the Mayan majority, ensuring the
continuance of the crushing genocidal poverty alluded to by Eduardo Galeano:
The slaughter that is greater but more hidden – the daily genocide of poverty
– also continues. In 1968 another expelled priest, Father Blase Bonpane,
reported on this sick society in the Washington Post: “Of the 70,000 people
who die each year in Guatemala, 30,000 are children. The infant mortality rate
in Guatemala is forty times higher than in the United States”.86
The inevitable stratification leads to a situation where the interests of landowning
oligarchs, like those of the military, are tied firmly to those of the imperial power, not
those of Guatemala. Likewise, a corrupt comprador class, not necessarily separate
from the military and landowners, receives the benefit of US “aid” by acting as local
intermediaries.87
Thus one can see that there truly was an elegance to the militarised imperial
system invented by the US. Client leaders needed the military aid furnished to them
in order to suppress populations made restive by the very economic policies forced
on them by the US. They were not only economic dependencies, but military
dependencies, not dependent to guard against foreign aggression but to guard
against their own people. At the same time, in Hobsonian fashion, the military aid
involved funnelled public monies from the US (taken as tax from the citizenry) into
the hands of military industrialists who constituted a strategic asset. When things
weren’t going the right way, as with Guatemala, the produce of the military-industrial
complex would be brought to bear in order to inflict genocide and thus weaken the
nation-state sufficiently to impose or re-impose dependence. In less drastic cases,
the US might use other strategic capabilities, particularly covert and financial, which
while not perhaps constituting genocide per se are certainly undertaken in the spirit
of genocide.
Moreover, the Korean War was not merely crucial in creating the military and
ideological institutions of imperial dominance, it was more specifically crucial in
constituting one of the Grand Areas centred on a reconstructed industrially powerful
Japan.88 Essentially they recreated exactly Japan’s imperial East Asian Co-
Prosperity Sphere after having sacrificed so much to destroy it, but this time it was a
securely subordinated dependency of the US.
As I have already detailed, however, perpetual weakness can only be imposed on
those who were already weak, and those who have access to independent power,
such as the Shah, cannot be relied on to remain faithful. Korea already had
sophisticated industry and infrastructure and an educated population. Since the
former were owned by Japan, nationalisation would be cost-free and was nigh
inevitable. As Harry Truman’s friend Edwin Pauley, would report to him in 1946:
“Communism in Korea could get off to a better start than practically anywhere else
in the world. The Japanese owned the railroads, all of the public utilities including
power and light, as well as all of the major industries and natural resources.
Therefore, if these are suddenly found to be owned by The People s Committee
(The Communist Party). They will have acquired them without any struggle of any
kind or any work in developing them. This is one of the reasons why the U.S should
not waive its title or claim to Japanese external assets located in Korea until a
democratic (capitalistic) form of Government is assured.”89
Being dominated by nationalist sentiment Korea made a poor candidate as a
dependency of the West or even, as has been discussed, of the USSR. Further,
with the political landscape being dominated by those on the left who had most
effectively resisted the Japanese, the chances of a unified Korean regime arising
which would go along with privatisation, foreign ownership of industry, and
liberalisation were about nil. Added to this was the situation in China, where the
sustainability of the feckless, corrupt, fascistic Guomindang (GMD) must surely
have been doubted by some in US policy circles.
The US occupation of South Korea began ominously. Famously the soon to be
commander of the US occupation, General Hodge, was widely, if inaccurately,
reported as referring to the Koreans as “the same breed of cat as the Japanese.”90
Ironically Hodge actually opined that Koreans viewed collaborator police as the
“same breed of cat” as Japanese police,91 but the apocryphal version would, as it
turned out, be far more truly reflective of Hodge’s future actions than his actual
words. Despite a State Department determination that Korea was a “pacific” victim
of Japan’s imperialism,92 Hodge, reflecting other opinions in Washington, declared
prior to the arrival of US occupation forces that Korea was “an enemy of the United
States . . . subject to the provisions and the terms of the surrender”.93 The US acted
to maintain the Japanese occupation of Korea, not disarming the Japanese and
thrice advancing the arrival of US forces at the behest of the Japanese in Korea.94
When Hodge announced the retention of the Japanese regime soon after arriving
on September 8, the uproar was so great that General MacArthur in Tokyo
intervened to replace the Japanese Governor-General95 and Chief of Police with US
personnel after Japanese MPs shot dead two Korean protesters on September
In August, before US forces arrived, many People’s Committees sprang up in the
south.97 This led to the declaration in Seoul of a Korean People’s Republic on
September 6 distinct from that declared in the north.98 This KPR was left-wing in
orientation but did include centrist and right-wing leaders and had a broad popular
base,99 though many conservatives refused invitations to join.100 The key figure of
this movement was Yo Un-hyong whose “political views were a mixture of
Christianity, Wilsonian democracy, and socialism.” He was popular with Koreans
and many from the US.101 Other founder members of People’s Committees included
Kim Dae Jung, the distinctly non-Communist Catholic who would later become ROK
president (his participation in a People’s Committee being one of the grounds under
which he was condemned to death by the military government in 1980).102 Hodge,
however, refused to recognise or deal with the southern KPR.103 In December of
1945 he declared war of the People’s Committees and on communism, in which
category he included “leftists, anticolonial resistors, populists and advocates of land
reform….”104
It should be remembered that years of Japanese rule had exacerbated the already
stark inequality of Korean society, the rural masses of the south, their plight greatly
worsened by war, were in 1945 in not merely a miserable state, but a desperate
one.105 The only people who opposed land reform and the redistribution of
Japanese property were a very narrow group mainly consisting of wealthy
collaborators who feared that the taking of Japanese property would lead to further
redistribution, and poorer collaborators such as those who had served in the police
forces.106 A report to Washington from September 15, 1945 reads:
The most encouraging single factor in the political situation is the presence in
Seoul of several hundred conservatives among the older and better educated
Koreans. Although many of them have served the Japanese, that stigma
ought eventually to disappear. Such persons favor the return of the
Provisional Government and although they may not constitute a majority they
are probably the largest single group.
But, as Cumings points out, they were very clearly intervening on behalf of the
smallest group, not the largest.107
Syngman Rhee was picked as presumptive leader of South Korea by some in the
US, and flown in on MacArthur’s personal aeroplane on October 16. This was done
against US State Department objections.108 Rhee in many respects can be seen as
a model of the sort of “nationalist” leader that the US would later install in Viet Nam
and Afghanistan and would attempt to install in Iraq. One can compile a list of
remarkably similar characteristics that could, with little alteration, be applied to
Ahmed Chalabi, Ngo Dinh Diem or Hamid Karzai:
1) US residency – Rhee had lived most of his long life in exile, primarily (nearly
40 years) in the US. He was educated in the US. In fact, October 1945 was
the first time he had set foot in Korea for 26 years.109
2) Intelligence ties – Rhee was transported to Korea by the Office of Strategic
Services (OSS) who wished to pre-empt the return of other exile leaders and
to circumvent the State Department.110 He was accompanied by an “advisor”
named M. Preston Goodfellow, a former newspaper owner and editor who
had been deputy director of the OSS.111 Goodfellow was retained on active
service as an adviser to Rhee.112
3) Limited political base – Rhee had headed the exile Korean Provisional
Government from 1919 until 1925 when he was impeached and expelled
from the KPG for embezzling funds.113 From then on he “haunted and
irritated Foggy Bottom”,114 alienating the State Department by falsely claiming
leadership of the ineffectual KPG.115 Some (for example Carter Malkasian)116
claim that somehow Rhee’s WWII era anti-Japanese rhetoric made him
popular in Korea. Somewhat more realistically Stueck writes: “Despite his
absence in the United States, he was widely known in Korea and highly
respected, in part because of his advanced age… which in Korea’s
patriarchal society was considered a source of wisdom.”117 What this meant,
though, was that he was suitable as a figurehead not as a leader, so much
so that even the left-wing dominated KPR named him as Chairman without
his knowledge.118 He was also that thing most beloved of all empires for
thousands of years – part of a distinct minority. He was a Christian, a
Protestant even, and, as in Viet Nam, Christians were more inclined than
others to adopt the anti-Communist cause as evidenced by the flight south of
Christians in both countries.
4) Nationalist veneer – I use the word veneer in part because there are some
who see Rhee’s entire career as a power and money grab.119 Indeed, there is
not one thing that I know of that Rhee did which could not be interpreted as
being about the advancement and enrichment of Syngman Rhee. Remember
that his vocal anti-Japanese stance first gained him power (and access to
funds) in the KPG and then was part of his incessant attempts to establish
his non-existent leadership in US eyes. His subsequent anti-Communist
stance was equally the only way of maintaining the US support which was
his only real source of power. It is true that as a young man he was a political
prisoner, but unfortunately for those who would use this to establish his antiimperialist
credentials, it was the Korean Yi dynasty which locked him up. As
mentioned, corrupt individuals are also beloved of US imperialists and
corruption militates against nationalism. Rhee had a style of corporatist
clientalist corruption akin to the “crony capitalism” of Ferdinand Marcos. By
1960 his government’s corruption (coinciding with election rigging) had
“reached unbearable levels” and protest was so widespread that he was
forced to resign.120
5) Brutal authoritarianism – This has already been discussed as a propensity,
like corruption, in the US empire’s choice of clients. Rhee’s regime and
successor dictatorships were highly repressive. Rhee himself presided over
the killing of far more of his own people than the brutal regime of the DPRK,
did (as will be discussed in Part 4 of this post). Cumings avers that:
“American policy, of course, never set out to create one of the worst police
states in Asia.”121 This is a bold but completely baseless assertion. Naturally
there are unlikely to be any documents in which officials put forward the
suggestion or imperative to create a brutal police state, but if this was a
matter of policy then one would hardly expect to find such a document
anyway. The available evidence is that the US cleaved to him when his
record of political violence was amply clear and that there is an established
pattern of preference for repressive rulers. This applies to the military
dictators who would later rule Korea, under whom the CIA created Korean
CIA (KCIA) became a watchword for torture and murder by the early
1970s.122
6) Disapprobation of US analysts – As mentioned the US State Department had
little love for Rhee. This puzzling commonality is part of a broader trend –
that of actual policy being in direct opposition to the recommendations of top
analysts. I have discussed this trend or tendency in considerable detail with
relation to Indochina. Rhee was also an early example of a client opposed by
CIA analysts. As early as March 1948 a CIA report read: “The Korean
leadership is provided by that numerically small class which virtually
monopolizes the native wealth and education of the country… Since this
class could not have acquired and maintained its favored position under
Japanese rule without a certain minimum of collaboration, it has experienced
difficulty in finding acceptable candidates for political office and has been
forced to support imported expatiate politicians such as Syngman Rhee and
Kim Ku. These, while they have no pro-Japanese taint, are essentially
demagogues bent on autocratic rule.” It was noted that the unpopular regime
was “ruthlessly brutal”, made up of “extreme rightists” who retained
“substantially the old Japanese machinery” which effected “a high degree of
control over virtually all phases of the life of the people.”123 This seeming
incoherence of contradictory views can actually be interpreted as evidence of
the strength of coherence in imperial policies which continue in a systematic
fashion with very little reference to the stated policies of those who
theoretically should be shaping actual policy, as will hopefully become ever
more obvious in the reading of this work.
Thus, early in the occupation the US had thrown it’s weight behind a small grouping
of collaborator oligarchs to which they had added Syngman Rhee and the KPG.
What this grouping had going for it was control of the police forces and of gangs of
murderous fascist-style street gangs – the most notorious of whom were made up
of exiles from the north. Opposing them were the southern Communist Pak Honyong
and the aforementioned Yo Un-hyong.124 The latter had plenty of charisma and
political appeal, but neither youth gangs or police support “both essentials for
leadership in the increasingly violent climate of South Korean politics.”125 Those who
weren’t of the right-wing also had to contend with repression by the US occupation
forces who soon became so unpopular that after a mere three months of occupation
even Hodge reported that “[t]he word pro-American is being added to pro-Jap,
national traitor and collaborator.”126 Cumings explains that “[t]he American
occupation chose to bolster the status quo and resist a thorough reform of colonial
legacies, it immediately ran into monumental opposition from the mass Of South
Koreans. Most of the first year of the occupation, 1945-46, was given over to
suppression of many people’s committees that had emerged in the provinces. This
provoked a massive rebellion that spread over four provinces in the fall of
1946….”127 The US response was brutal, and involved the first of a 7 year long
“series of massacres” that would take hundreds of thousands of lives.128
The right-wing, however, was seriously split, particularly between Rhee and KPG
leader Kim Ku.129 After a 1946 election which extended only a very limited franchise
to male property owners and in which “[p]artisan police activity ensured that Rhee’s
forces would win a sizable majority…”,130 Rhee’s faction took control of an “Interim
Legislative Assembly”. Rhee and Kim Ku, however, were still at each other’s throats.
Each aimed to establish themselves as autocrat and in 1947 the CIA warned that
the authoritarianism of the right-wing would drive moderates into the left-wing camp,
which it duly did.131
A further election in May 1948 was opposed by leftists, centrists and many on the
right because it was a clear step towards the permanent division of Korea.
According to Stueck: “Ultimately, their failure to participate, together with the highly
partisan activities of police and youth groups, enabled Rhee and his allies to win
handily.”132 600 people were killed in the months leading up to the election and once
more major and bloody guerilla revolts broke out.
On the island of Cheju (Jeju), completely cut off from any DPRK involvement,
rebellion occurred in response to the violent repression of a political demonstration
in March of 1948.133 The response which involved US personnel, ROKA, and rightwing
paramilitaries brought over from the mainland, was one of incredible brutality.
Cheju had a population of 300,000134 and at the peak of the rebellion had only
30,000 “guerillas”.135 In fact the armed core of real “guerillas” who had firearms
numbered only 500136 the rest were peasants armed with farm implements and
sharpened bamboo resisting the widespread destruction of villages (20,000 homes
were destroyed)137 and the murders and massacres of those individuals or
communities deemed to be supporters of the rebellion.138 The normal enumeration
of civilian deaths on Cheju is given as “more than 30,000”. 33,000 was the amount
admitted to by the ROK news agency itself.139 Estimates of 100,000 deaths are not
unknown, however, and a recent study suggests 80,000 deaths, more than one
quarter of the population.140
In Yosu ROKA troops who refused to deploy to Cheju formed the basis of another
rebellion, again brutally suppressed with US involvement and supervision:141 “This
unorganized rebellion of the ROK army’s Fourteenth Regiment in Yosu was soon
suppressed under the direction of the KMAG, but the operation was also
accompanied by widespread violence by rightists against innocent civilians, as was
the case in Cheju.”142 The rebels executed hundreds of police, officials and
landlords, but even after the rebellion was quelled rightist revenge was brutal. A US
source reported that “loyal troops were shooting people who they had the slightest
suspicion… of giving cooperation to the communist uprising.”143
About 1000 Yosu rebels fled to the mountains and formed the nucleus of a more
organised guerilla movement. A CIA estimate put guerilla numbers at 3500-6000 in
early 1949, but many were armed only with clubs and bamboo spears.144 Those
small arms that were used seemed entirely of Japanese or US origin with no Soviet
weapons ever being captured.145 The methods of repression remained similar under
the continued leadership of James Hausman, who styled himself “father of the
Korean Army”.146 The US had made it clear to Rhee through Goodfellow that
continued US support was contingent on brutal repression of guerilla activity.147
Ostensibly US occupation forces left in June 1949, but there was a continuity of
“advisers” who were “constantly shadowing their Korean counterparts and urging
them to greater efforts.”148 The guerilla movement was effectively crushed by early
1950, but with links now established to the DPRK, US analysts believed there was a
likelihood of further “subversion”.149 Moreover even without communist activity there
was no long-term consolidation of even the ROK as a state and of the division of
Korea, let alone of the Rhee regime which remained as unpopular as ever. Rhee
ran the country with a fairly isolated clique, his “kitchen cabinet” being made up
primarily of people from the US and Koreans who had, like him, spent lengthy times
as residents of the US.150 On 30 May 1950, less than a month before what is
conventionally termed the outbreak of the Korean War, a comparatively “free”
election proved utterly disastrous for Rhee. By this stage his regime was already in
what Cumings describes as “total disarray”151 and the election resulted in only 49
seats out of 210 for the coalition which supported Rhee.152 Indeed, despite
restricted suffrage favouring the more wealthy only 31 of 210 incumbents were
returned. 126 independents were elected and Rhee’s own KNP only had 24
candidates of 154 elected.153 The National Assembly was now dominated by
moderates, many associated with Yo Un-hyong.154 (Yo had been assassinated in
1947 having become known as “the most shot at man in South Korea”155 and having
been refused, despite multiple requests, any protection by the US authorities.156)
During the period from World War II to 1950 major US actions had consistently
worked to create a lasting division of Korea. For example, when in 1947 a “Joint
Commission” was reconvened to consult with Korean groups over “unification” (a
word whose very usage implies that there were two distinct Koreas), the US
submitted a list of groups which must be consulted which included at least one
entirely fictional union of 1 million members and whose total membership was
calculated at about 70 million, 8 times the population of South Korea.157 The USSR,
whose strategic interests coincided to a degree, certainly seemed more supportive
of moves towards unification. This may, however, have been mostly a matter of
empty gestures required in order assuage their somewhat independent clients. It
was the continued Soviet insistence that no party who did not agree to a period of
trusteeship could be consulted by the aforementioned Joint Commission which
combined with the actions of the US and its clients to create an unbreakable
impasse.158 It was also the Soviet Union which took one of the most fateful steps of
all. When cholera broke out in the US zone in 1946 the Soviets blocked the
shipment of desperately needed chlorine south.159 This was the groundwork for the
economic separation of two fundamentally interdependent parts of a single country.
This was more profound, certainly, than the political division which would hardly
have been sustainable if economic intercourse remained. It left a North
Korea/DPRK with only 14% arable land and a relatively dense population which has
not been able to reliably supply its own people with food.160 It left the agricultural
South Korea/ROK stuck in a state of “underdevelopment”, medieval land tenure
conditions, and considerable grave poverty which a contemporary journalist
described as “primitive misery… squalor and poverty and degradation.”161
1 Ismael Hossein-zadeh, The Political Economy of US Militarism, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2006, pp 45-6.
2 Reinhard Drifte, “Japan’s Involvement in the Korean War”, in James Cotton and Ian Neary (eds), The Korean War in History, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989, pp 120-134.
3 The Council on Foreign Relations, quoted in Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival, p 15.
4 Hossein-zadeh, The Political Economy of US Militarism, pp 44-5.
5 Ibid, pp 45-6.
6 Ibid, pp 77-8, quote from D. F. Fleming, The Cold War and Its Origins ,New York: Double Day, 1961, p 1060.
7 Steven L. Spiegel and Fred L. Wehling, World Politics in a New Era (2nd ed.), Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1999, pp
136, 143.
8 Efstathios T. Fakiolas, ‘Kennan’s long telegram and NSC-68: a comparative theoretical analysis.’ East European Quarterly, Vol. 31, No.4 (Jan 1998), p 420.
10 Quoted in Noam Chomsky, World Orders Old and New. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994, p 27.
11 Noam Chomsky, ‘The Old and the New Cold War’ (1980) in Noam Chomsky, The Chomsky Reader. New York:
Pantheon, 1987, p 211.
12 Moyar, Triumph Forsaken, p 426 n 53.
13 Brian Bogart, ‘America Programmed for War’, Zmag, 25 September 2005. Retrieved 29 December 2005 from http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=8819. Note that Bogart cites as his source Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao and the Korean War, by Sergei N. Goncharov, Lewis, and Xue Litai which is generally taken as indicating the opposite conclusion. This issue will be examined further.
14 Nitze, “NSC 68: United States Objectives and Programs for National Security”.
15 Fakiolas, “Kennan’s long telegram and NSC-68”, pp 421-3.
16 Robert L. Hutchings, ‘X + 9/11: everything I needed to know about fighting terrorism I learned from George F. Kennan’, Foreign Policy, 143 (July-August 2004), p 70.
17 Stuart Bruchey, “Some Deeper Currents in the Recent Past”, in John F. Walker and Harold G. Vatter (eds), The History of the U.S. economy since World War II, New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1996, p 33.
18 Michael Hudson, Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire (2nd ed.), London: Pluto Press,
2003, p 23.
19 Ibid., p 16.
20 Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston S. Churchill, The Atlantic Charter, 14 August 1941. Retrieved 8 January 2010
from http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/atlantic.asp.
21 The Bretton Woods Agreements, 31 July 1945, Article V, Section 3; Article XI, Section 3; Article XX, Section 4. Retrieved 10 January 2010 from http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/decad047.asp.
22 Klein, The Shock Doctrine, p 163.
23 Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival, pp 29-30.
24 Cumings, The Korean War, pp 211-4 et passim.
25 ‘Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain a position
of disparity… We should cease to talk about vague and… unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of
living standards, and democratization.’ ‘Policy Planning Study 23’, 1948. Quoted in Noam Chomsky, What Uncle Sam Really Wants, Berkeley: Odonian Press, 1992, pp 9-10.
26 Hudson, Super Imperialism, p 32.
27 Ha Joon Chang, “Kicking away the ladder: globalisation and economic development in historical perspective”, in Jonathan Michie (ed.) The Handbook of Globalisation, Cheltenham and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2003, p 388.
28 Hudson, Super Imperialism, pp 24-5.
29 A Spanish term for large landowners.
30 Galeano, The Open Veins of Latin America, p 60.
31 James W. Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, New York: The New Press, 1994, p 14;
32 Blum, Killing Hope, p 158.
33 Gareau, State Terrorism and the United States, p 169.
34 Ibid, p 166.
35 Blum, Killing Hope, pp 306-8.
36 Saul Landau, “Bolivia’s Election Deserves a History Lesson,” Progreso Weekly, 15-21 December 2005. Retrieved 8 January 2006 from http://www.progresoweekly.com/index.php?progreso=Landau&otherweek=1134626400.
37 The essence of a war system is that no decision should be reached.
38 Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, London: Penguin, 2007, p 105.
40 Blum, Killing Hope, p 72.
41 Roger Morris, “The Undertaker’s Tally (Part 1): Sharp Elbows,” TomDispatch, 1 February 2007. Retrieved 2 February 2007 from http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=165669.
44 Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, Behind the War on Terror: Western Secret Strategy and the Struggle for Iraq, Gabriola Island, BC: New Society, 2003, pp 38-9.
45 Ahmed, Behind the War on Terror, pp 43-5.
46 Ibid, p 45.
47 Carlos Figueroa Ibarra, “The culture of terror and Cold War in Guatemala,” Journal of Genocide Research (2006), 8(2), June, p 192.
48 Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, p 107.
49 Frederick H. Gareau, State Terrorism and the United States: From Counterinsurgency to the War on Terror, Atlanta and London: Clarity Press and Zed Books, 2004, p 45.
50 Ibid, pp 45-7.
51 Jones, Genocide, p 77.
55 Ibarra, “The culture of terror and Cold War in Guatemala”, p 199.
60 Admittedly this is due to their focus on genocide or human rights abuses, but it is indicative of how, as with the Argentine “dirty war” actual combat was a secondary consideration.
61 Blum, Killing Hope, p 235. According to Blum this was the indirect result of the terrorism directed against the rural
63 See https://ongenocide.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/the-guardians-death-squad-documentary-may-shock-and-disturb-but-the-truth-is-far-worse/
64 Greg Grandin, “History, Motive, Law, Intent: Combining Historical and Legal Methods in Understanding Guatemala’s 1981–1983 Genocide,” in Robert Gellately and Ben Kiernan (eds), The Specter of Genocide: Mass Murder in Historical Perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p 339.
65 Julio Godoy, “Return to Guatemala: Unlike East Europe Fear Without Hope,” The Nation, 5 March 1990, p 310.
66 Ibarra, “The culture of terror and Cold War in Guatemala,”, p 201.
68 Newsinger, The Blood Never Dried, p 165.
69 Roger Owen, State, Power and Politics in the Making of the Middle East (3rd ed.), London: Routledge, 2004, p 80.
70 Engdahl, A Century of War, p 111.
71 Donald Wilber, CIA Clandestine Service History, “Overthrow of Premier Mossadeq of Iran, November 1952-August
1953,”, 1954, p 5. Retrieved 16 April 2010 from http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB28/2-Orig.pdf.
72 Ibid, p 9.
73 Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, p 95.
79 Ibid, passim.
80 It was not available to the public until 2000.
81 London Draft of the TPAJAX Operational Plan, 1953, p 1. Retrieved 16 April 2010 from
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB28/appendix%20B.pdf.
84 Gareau, State Terrorism and the United States, p 43.
86 Galeano, The Open Veins of Latin America, p 113.
87 Godoy, “Return to Guatemala”, p 309.
88 Doug Stokes, “Why the end of the Cold War doesn’t matter: the US war of terror in Colombia” Review of International Studies (2003), 29, p 585.
89 FRUS (1946). Vol. 8, pp. 706-9, quoted in Cumings, Korea’s Place in the Sun, p 199.
90 William Stueck and Boram Yi, “’An Alliance Forged in Blood’: The American Occupation of Korea, the Korean War, and the US-South Korean Alliance”, Journal of Strategic Studies, 33:2 (2010), p 184.
91 FRUS, 1945, Volume 6, p 1135.
92 Cumings, The Korean War, p 104.
93 Stueck and Yi, “’An Alliance Forged in Blood’”, p 183.
94 Cumings, Korea’s Place in the Sun, p 189.
96 William Stueck, The Korean War:An International History, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995, p 20.
99 Stueck, The Korean War, p 20.
100Stueck and Yi, “’An Alliance Forged in Blood’”, p 181.
101Cumings, Korea’s Place in the Sun, p 191.
102Cumings, The Korean War, p 114.
103Stueck, The Korean War, p 20.
105Jeon and Kim, “Land Reform, Income Redistribution and Agricultural Production in Korea”, pp 255-7.
107Cumings, Korea’s Place in the Sun, pp 193-4.
108Ibid, p 195.
109Ibid.
110Cumings, The Korean War, p 58.
112Allan R. Millett, The War for Korea, 1945-1950: A House Burning, Lawrence: Kansas University Press, 2005, p 64.
115Ibid, p 58.
116Carter Malkasian, The Korean War: 1950-1953, Oxford: Osprey, 2001, p 11.
117Stueck, The Korean War, pp 20-1.
119Lee Wha Rang, “Who Was Rhee Syngman?”, Kimsoft, 22 February 2000. Retrieved 5 October 2011 from http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/55a/186.html.
120Stephen Kotkin and András Sajó, Political Corruption in Transition: A Skeptic’s Handbook, Budapest: Central European University Press, 2002, p 171.
122Press reports began to surface in the early 1970s. The ‘revelations’ were not news to people in the ROK, but culminated in an Amnesty International report in 1975 with testimony such as: ‘I was taken to KCIA headquarters, my hands tied together and I was tied to a chair. I was not allowed to have any sleep. At night they would drag me to the basement where they would beat me with a long heavy stick, and jump on me. By morning I would not be able to walk, I would be forced to crawl back upstairs. They were trying to make me confess that I was a spy. This kind of treatment went on for several days, and for a time I was unable to use my legs. Even so, they continued to tie me onto a chair every day for five days. Of course my legs were terribly swollen. Finally I put my thumbprint on the confession they had prepared. At my trial I denied what I had confessed under torture. On cloudy days now I have a lot of pain in my body.’ (Amnesty International, Report of an Amnesty International Mission to the Republic of Korea: 27 March – 9 April 1975 (2nd Printing), London: Amnesty International Publications, 1977, p 37.) It should be understood that the exposure of these practices of torture did not bring them to an end.
123Cumings, The Korean War, pp 106-8.
125Stueck, Rethinking the Korean War, p 45.
128Dong Choon Kim, “Forgotten war, forgotten massacres: the Korean War (1950-1953) as licensed mass killings,” Journal of Genocide Research (2004), 6(4), December, p 528.
131Cumings, Korea’s Place in the Sun, p 211, n. 36.
133Halliday and Cumings, Korea, p 36.
136Kim, “Forgotten War…”, p 528.
147Ibid, pp 135-6.
152Gye-Dong Kim, “Who Initiated the Korean War”, in James Cotton and Ian Neary (eds), The Korean War in History, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989, p 40.
153Stueck, Rethinking the Korean War, p 196.
156Marilyn B. Young, “Sights of an Unseen War”, review of Bruce Cumings The Origins of the Korean War. Vol. 2: The Roaring of the Cataract, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990, in Diplomatic History, 1 June 1993, pp
157Lowe, The Origins of the Korean War, p 39.
159Millett, The War for Korea, p 50.
160John Feffer, “Mother Earth’s Triple Whammy: Are We All North Koreans Now?”, Foreign Policy in Focus, 17 June
2008. Retrieved 20 June 2008 from
http://www.fpif.org/articles/mother_earths_triple_whammy_are_we_all_north_koreans_now.
161Harold R. Isaacs, No Peace in Asia, pp 7–8. Quoted in Stueck and Yi, “’An Alliance Forged in Blood’”, p 192.
← The Korean Genocide – Part 1, Before the US Occupation.
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Persona Series Merchandise
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Since it began with the 1996 release of Revelations: Persona, the Persona (or Shin Megami Tensei: Persona) franchise by developer Atlus has built a massive and loyal fanbase. The role-playing series is a spin-off of Atlus’ Megami Tensei franchise and follows unique casts gifted with Personas, which are manifestations of their inner psyche in battle. Characters and enemies are set up on a grid-based battlefield allowing the player to use unique strategies. The talented staff to have worked on the franchise includes the creators, Kouji Okada and Kazuma Kaneko (who also worked on character design), composer Shoji Meguro, and character designer Shigenori Soejima.
Persona 5, Persona 4, Persona 3
Morgana, Joker (Persona Series), Ann Takamaki, Futaba Sakura, Haru Okumura, Makoto Niijima, Ryuji Sakamoto
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Error: The record you requested (Kingston Hockey League) exists in the database, but access to it has been restricted from this area. This record may be incomplete or waiting to be updated, the program or service may no longer be offered, or the type of service may have changed making it no longer appropriate for the record to be listed here.
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You are at:Home»Science, maths, computing and technology»Category: "Science"
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‘Asteroid was “sole driver” of dinosaur demise
Science experts from around the globe say they have solved the longstanding debate of what really killed the dinosaurs. According to a study, published in Science,…
Climate crisis: six steps to making fossil fuels history
Dr Stephen Peake, Senior Lecturer in Environment at The Open University writes for The Conversation about the climate crisis. In shouting “system change not climate change”,…
OU team gives go ahead to bring Mars’ moon pieces to Earth
A UK team led by the Open University has given the green light for Mars’ moon material to be transported to Earth as part of a…
OU technician honoured as ‘truly inspiring’ at THE Awards 2019
Dr Barbara Kunz, an Analytical Laboratory Technician at The Open University has won the Outstanding Technician of the Year category at this year’s Times Higher Education…
How one NHS anaesthetist is fighting international medical research fraud
Professor Kevin McConway, Emeritus Professor of Applied Statistics at The Open University writes for The Conversation about fraud in medical research. John Carlisle is a consultant…
OU probes new star mapping technology
OU researchers have received £570,000 from the European Science Agency for the next phase of scientific devices for mapping stars and galaxies. Dr Nathan Bush and Dr…
“It can change your life”: Pioneer student Robin shares his OU memories
When The Open University first opened its doors fifty years ago, Robin Harbour became one of the very first students. Armed with a passion for science…
IPCC report paints catastrophic picture of melting ice and rising sea levels – and reality may be even worse
Mark Brandon, Professor of Polar Oceanography at The Open University writes for The Conversation about the recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and…
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“Even when things go wrong, there are always options,” says 27-year-old OU graduate Katharine Boulton. Despite not getting the university grades she hoped she would, she…
Hard work and determination helped Kathryn achieve her goals
Kathryn was forced to drop out of traditional university due to her ongoing mental health issues; but she never lost the desire to learn and started…
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ICQKDPA 2021 : International Conference on Quantum Key Distribution and Privacy Amplification
ICQKDPA Home Aims and Objectives Important Dates Call for Papers Committee Conference Program Conference Proceedings Conference Abstracts
ICQKDPA 2021 : International Conference on Quantum Key Distribution and Privacy Amplification is the premier interdisciplinary platform for the presentation of new advances and research results in the fields of Quantum Key Distribution and Privacy Amplification. The conference will bring together leading academic scientists, researchers and scholars in the domain of interest from around the world. Topics of interest for submission include, but are not limited to:
Quantum key distribution
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What CNN just did to defend ISIS will leave any proud American furious
rg_mark
There are few people as evil as the late founder of ISIS Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
His death at the hands of the U.S. military should have been a point of celebration.
But what CNN just did to defend him will leave any proud American furious.
When President Trump announced the death of al-Baghdadi, he didn’t leave many details secret.
He pointed out that al-Baghdadi was chased by a special forces K9 into a cave, where he ignited a suicide vest, killing himself and three children.
Trump also said that he was “crying” and “whimpering,” and that he died like a coward.
But Left-wing media outlets like CNN are working overtime to try to dispel that claim, insisting that he did not die a coward.
CNN’s Brian Stelter spent an entire segment saying that Trump’s description of al-Baghdadi’s death is not accurate.
A week after ISIS founder and leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was eliminated in a raid by U.S. Special Forces at the order of President Trump, the liberal media were still desperately trying to discredit the President’s claim that the terrorist fled down a dead-end tunnel in fear while “crying” and “whimpering.” They were so reluctant to give Trump a W that CNN was defending al-Baghdadi’s reputation from Trump’s description.
During Saturday’s CNN Newsroom, host Fredricka Whitfield began the segment in a huff. “Nearly a week after the President gave a graphic and detailed account of the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, there are still unanswered questions about the accuracy of the President’s description of the terrorist’s final moments,” she whined.
Following a video of spliced together soundbites of Trump saying al-Baghdadi was “crying” and “whimpering”, she bitterly declared:
But guess what, the defense secretary, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the regional commander who oversaw the operation all say they don’t know where the President got the information about Baghdadi crying or whimpering before he detonated his suicide vest.
Stelter is simply making things up.
No government official would ever trust him with the type of information President Trump has on the raid that killed al-Baghdadi.
Nobody at CNN ever tried to argue that Osama Bin Laden was not a coward at the time of his death, making it clear that the network has become so insane that they will defend ISIS.
Do you think CNN is fake news?
Related Topics:CNNFake NewsISIS
CNN’s Jim Acosta smacked Trump with news that put a smile on Adam Schiff’s face
Trump was grinning from ear to ear after CNN got smacked with network-ending news
This top college football team made a decision that has liberals steaming mad
CNN’s latest debate scandal went from bad to worse because of this smoking gun
CNN is in hot water after this scheme to rig a debate just blew up in their face
PamS
I saw Donald Trump on the Joan Rivers Show from 29 years ago and the President said then what he says today, that the media will lie to achieve their objectives
JMichael270
WhiteFalcon
The Corrupt News Network should be thrown out of our country, and I believe they would have been back in the day when the Democrat Party was indeed an honorable organization, but that was then and this is now.
CNN is totally fake news . They are so dishonest that they were told to pack their bags several years ago and exit Isreal who replaced them with FOX. Unfortunately our airports insist on carrying this corrupt anti American fake news channel.
CNN is a big part of the deep state. Why wouldn’t they lie? To tell the truth truth would change their character entirely.
CNN is a big part of the deep state. Why wouldn’t they lie? To tell the truth would be a complete change of character for CNN.
Dennis L Ruffin
Their (CNN) comments make all three of their viewers happy.
Ronald Gunn
IT’S SAD BUT DON’T HOLD YOUR BREATH WAITING FOR THAT fake news to be taken off the air. well not as long as Soros is alive anyway.
What is more disrespectful to the USA is your disrespect to the families who were brutally murdered by this animal.Let them feel okay and have some sort of closure.Obama caused this by pulling out 10k troops and calling ISIS the JV squad.If was your family member or that other jackass Zucker maybe you might have propergandized it differently.
Martha Vincent
WE DON’T CARE HOW HE DIED, JUST SO HE’S DEAD! THANKS, PRESIDENT TRUMP !
Valli Neal-davis
Gotta say thank God for president Trump and our military thank God the snake is dead.
Nor mine I won’t this lying trash in my home or life.
Only a coward like al-Baghdadi would do like all cowards do kill them self and there kids that’s cowards way out.
Timothy Toroian
He could have been crying and whimpering out of frustration WHICH IS STILL GOOD!! Brave man, blowing up three kids, who probably hated his guts.
Quite true, Ron, which is why I NEVER watch CNN’s “Fake News” news!
Of course, I doubt that will upset anyone at CNN, but on the other hand, it will make me feel fine!
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> What is 550 Paracord (Parachute Cord - 550 Cord)
What is Paracord (Parachute Cord | 550 Cord)
550 paracord (also know as 550 cord or parachute cord) is a strong, thin, lightweight rope, usually made of nylon. (It is sometimes misspelled parachord.)
It was developed by the military and originally used for parachute suspension lines. Over time people discovered it could be used for all kinds of survival, outdoor, home and craft situations.
Today there are two primary types of paracord on the market:
Mil spec paracord certified to be up to military specifications
Commercial paracord, which is essentially the same but is not certified
Both types are the same size, have the same breaking strength and feel/look basically the same.
Paracord History
Paracord was developed as "parachute cord" - the thin strands of cord that support a paratrooper under his parachute. It was widely used by the US military during World War II.
Parachute cord is made from nylon so it is thin, strong and light weight. The military established standards for its production, with the most common type comprised of 7inner nylon strands and a nylon outter shell having a collective breaking strength of 550 pounds. Thus, most cord produced is 7-stand, 550 paracord.
Troops in the field quickly found many uses for the cord, from tying down equpment to suspending items from packs to first aid uses including tourniquets. The cord is still used extensively by the military. It has even been used in space by astronauts as they repaired the Hubble Space Telescope.
As soldiers returned home they sought sources for paracord so they could continue to use it in everyday life. Military surplus stores have sold it for years.
Today many manufacturers produce cord to military specifications and also in a "commercial" grade. As consumers discovered the cord, demand went up and a wider variety of cord has been produced. Now we are able to offer hundreds of colors of cord in several different sizes.
The 7-strand 550 paracord is still our best selling item. Type III 550 Paracord is the commercial version of Mil Spec 550 Parachute Cord also know as Mil Spec Paracord or Mile Spec 550 Paracord. We sell some "mil-spec" cord that is certified, and it tends to be a little more expensive.
Paracord Uses
Because of its versatility, paracord has long been valued as an important item for survival kits. A roll easily fits into a kit and adds very little weight.
Ingenious people soon learned that you can weave paracord into products useful in everyday life, that can also provide a ready supply of cord for use in an emergency. For example, paracord survival bracelets have become very popular. Choose from many, many patterns and you can create an attractive bracelet that is fun to make and also to wear. Then, if needed, you can unravel the weave and have a length of cord available for use in a survival situation.
The same is true of belts and other items. In fact, when unraveled a belt may provide more useful cord than a bracelet.
Paracord is much like duct tape - it can be used for hundreds of practical applications. Many people find it enjoyable to discover new uses, and to weave or otherwise create useful items from cord. Like knitting, it can be therapeutic to create items by weaving paracord.
Many people create items from paracord that they give as gifts or sell during fund raisers. Many veterans groups, school clubs and other organizations make and sell paracord products to raise money.
Many people have developed successful businesses making and selling products using paracord. The market for finished products has become large and appears to be growing.
Here is a list of some of the more popular popular products you can make using paracord:
Wraps for handles
Paracord Types
7-strand 550 Type III paracord was the original paracord used by the US Military and it continues to be our most popular product. It has a diameter of about 4.0 mm (5/32"). Most of our 550 paracord is made in the USA but we do offer some from overseas manufacturers.
7-strand 550 paracord comes in two basic styles:
1. Nylon sheath and nylon cord
2. Polyester sheath and nylon cord
In both cases the 7 core strands are nylon and they provide the cord's strength. The two varieties have a little different feel and they respond differently when being joined or otherwise manipulated. All of our products are clearly marked so you can tell if they are nylon/nylon or polyester/nylon. Both types have a 550 lb breaking strength rating.
650 Coreless
We also offer a type of cord that does not have the 7 internal strands that provide the core strength. Our 650 coreless cord is flat, hollow, having a sheath but no internal strands. Therefore it is not as strong as regular paracord. The sheath is made of nylon and many people have found applications where is it useful. Our 650 (The 650 refers to the size of the cord - it is not the breaking strength.)
425 Tactical Paracord
Cord that is smaller than regular 550 is often referred to as "tactical." Since it is smaller, it is easier to carry, include in survival kits and/or to conceal. We offer several varieties of tactical cord.
Our 425 Tactical Paracord has a diameter of approximately 3mm or 1/8" and a test strength of 425 lbs. The 3 inner strands and the outer sheath are 100% nylon giving it excellent strength as well as UV, mold and mildew resistance. Our 435 cord is all made in the USA.
We offer 275 tactical paracord from two different manufacturers. One has a diameter of about 2.5mm and the other has a diameter of about 2.38 mm. Both have a strength rating of 275 pounds. This cord is considerably smaller than 550 paracord and is usuful when making smaller items or items where not as much strength is needed.
Type 1 Paracord
This cord has a larger diameter than Micro Cord but smaller than 275 Tactical Paracord. It is approximately 1.85 mm or 1/14 inch. Our Type 1 Paracord is proudly made in the U.S.A.
Micro and Nano Cord
We also offer nylon cord in smaller sizes. Our micro cord is 1.18 mm and our nano cord is 0.75 mm.
Our manufacturers have developed custom colors for us so we can offer hundreds of combinations and patterns. We have many cords that are reflective, some that glow in the dark and some that glow under black light.
Paracord Techniques
Most paracord products are made by braiding and weaving cord. If you braid together multiple cords of different colors you can create interesting patterns, and the resulting product is also stronger than a single strand of cords.
Our tutorials section has instructions to help you learn to do various braids to create attractive bracelets, lanyards and other items. If you search the Internet you will find hundreds of fun patterns.
Knots are important in creating paracord products. Knots can be large or small and can become part of the design of the product. Instructions for tying various knots can be found on our website, and via Internet searches.
Cord can also be joined by melting the ends together. The nylon cores fuse together to create joint that is almost seamless and quite strong. 550 cord that has a nylon sheath and nylon core can readily be fused with any similar cord. Cords that have a poly sheath and nylon core fuse different and so many people choose not to try to join poly to nylon.
Common lighters are often used to melt the cord ends. You can also use the flame from a gas stove or most any kind of burner that has an open flame.
Jigs can be used to hold cords as you work with them. Some braids are much easier to do with the aid of a jig.
Lacing needles, called fids, can be used to thread cord while making braids and tying knots. The end of the cord is trimmed an an angle and the resulting tapered end is twisted into the fid.
Many other products are available to help with paracord projects. As you watch tutorials on the
Internet, pay attention to see what is being used to held and manipulate the cord.
Strandard 550 paracord is still our best selling item. Othe sizes are blended with the 550 cord for an accent or used alone depending on the size of cord needed for the project to be done.
Paracord Hardware and Accessories
Plastic and metal buckles are perhaps the most common accessories used for paracord projects, such as bracelets and belts. Buckles come in an incredible variety of shapes, sizes and colors. Some have been tailored to provide useful functions. For example, some buckles have an integral whistle, which adds utility to a survival bracelet.
Shackles, snap hooks, rings, carabieners and other items are often used in leashes, lanyards, slings and other products.
Many kinds/colors/styles of beads and charms are available that can be used to decorate paracord creations.
Other speciality items like cord locks and ends add utility.
There is no end to the way paracord can be used, or to the accessories that can be used with it to create useful or decorative products.
Paracord As A Business
Many of our customers create paracord products that they sell on the Internet (etsy, ebay...), at swap meets and at retail shops. Most do it as a profitable hobby; a few have turned paracord into profitable full-time businesses.
We get calls virtually every day from disabled veterans who make and sell paracord items to supplement their incomes. Many others sell items as fund raisers for veterans groups, hospitals, school groups and other organizations.
Launching a small business can be challenging. In this case you can eliminate much of the risk be starting on a small scale, making things as a hobby and testing to see what you can sell, working out your sales outlets before making a major commitment to a business venture.
Be creative and the sky is the limit. We have one customer who supplies bracelets to a neighbourhood gun shop. They buy as many as he can produce and so he has a stable, profitable business.
One husband/wife team do paracord full time and travel to swap meets. They report that they sell virtually all of their inventory at every meet.
Be sure to check business regulations where you live. As with any financial venture, you need to use caution as you learn the ropes.
We wish you the best of luck.
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PodMail
There's a lot more to podcasts than just pressing play. Audio talk, by Caroline Crampton.
Let me read it first
A Substack newsletter by Caroline Crampton
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Become a paying subscriber
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A special announcement
Caroline Crampton Aug 28, 2018 5
A special announcementIt’s been just over a year since I left my staff job at a magazine, moved out of London, and started working for myself. In every way, it’s been a bril…
Caroline Crampton
It’s been just over a year since I left my staff job at a magazine, moved out of London, and started working for myself. In every way, it’s been a brilliant decision, and I wouldn’t go back for anything. This newsletter came into being because of this newfound independence and freedom. Because I’ve been working on my own, I’ve been able to say what I wanted, when I wanted — and that feels appropriate, because so much of the podcasting industry that I cover either lives outside the structures of traditional media, or represents fresh developments for existing organisations.
However, the major downside to my current setup is this very solitariness. I work on my own; if I’m sick, or tired, or busy, or lacking motivation, there’s nobody I can turn to for help. The financial side too has been difficult. Generous readers of Podmail have become paying subscribers to this thing, but the revenue I generated from that has never been enough to compensate me fully for the time I spent writing the newsletters, so I’ve constantly been trading off between better paid work that keeps the lights on with my desire to do my best work for this community. This problem has become particularly acute this summer: as I’ve become busier, the newsletter has suffered, and that doesn’t feel right.
To address this, therefore, I’m making a change. I expect many of you will already be familiar with the Hot Pod newsletter written by Nick Quah, which since it began in late 2014 has grown into essential reading for all involved or interested in the podcast industry’s development, especially in the US.
Nick and I have been corresponding about audio on and off for years as our respective work reporting on podcasting has developed. I’ve long respected him as an outstanding authority on the industry, as well as a tenacious reporter and entrepreneur.
We’ve now decided to work together to expand Hot Pod into a bigger publication that covers the global podcast industry. This means that I’ll be mothballing Podmail and instead doing my writing about podcasts for Hot Pod, mainly covering UK and Europe but also writing about US developments too. If you aren’t already subscribed to those emails, sign up here. Together, Nick and I will be writing a free newsletter on a Tuesday, and then I’ll also be taking over one of the two weekly subscriber-only emails. If you have stories or tips to share, you can always email me. You can read more from Nick about our new setup here.
I’m really excited to work with Nick, and to have all of the advantages that come with being a two-person rather than a one-person team at my disposal. I’d like to thank all the Podmail readers who have supported me this far — I really appreciate you reading and responding to what I’ve written over the past few months, and I hope you’ll continue to do that with my work over at Hot Pod. If you’re a paying Podmail subscriber, I’ll be contacting you directly very soon to discuss the new arrangements. My personal links roundup email, No Complaints, continues unchanged.
Meanwhile, if you’d like to support this new venture that Nick and I are beginning, here’s what you can do:
Sign up to receive the free Hot Pod emails.
Subscribe to Hot Pod Insider for $7/month.
Get in touch with me or Nick directly to discuss a corporate or group subscription to the newsletter.
Take out a classified listing to announce a show, a job vacancy or anything else audio related.
Thanks very much for reading! See you over at Hot Pod very soon.
© 2020 Caroline Crampton. See privacy and terms
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DeltaNews & Polls
Delta’s All-Girls Flight Celebrates Future Of Women In Aviation
by Zoe Last updated October 13, 2019
by Zoe Last updated October 13, 2019 0 comment
For the past five years, Delta has worked with girls aged 12 to 18 to expose them to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) careers at a young age. The “WING” program — Women Inspiring our Next Generation — was all part of International Girls in Aviation Day.
Delta flew 120 girls to Houston’s NASA Space Center from Salt Lake City. The Delta flight that took them there was also all female led crew from the flight deck, cabin crew, to ramp workers, and everything in between.
The airline is working to close a massive gender gap in aviation and diversify a male-dominated industry.
While still low, Delta is on par with the rest of the aviation industry with approximately 5% of Delta’s pilots who are women. In the past four years, 7.4% of Delta’s new hire pilots have been women. Delta says that the WING Flight is one way to work to drive those numbers upward.
Related: United Features Female Artists’ Paintings To Celebrate Women’s History Month
KLM’s Dutch Houses Promoted Loyalty Before Loyalty Programs Existed
Hurry: American Has Close-In First Class Award Space On Premium Transcons
The 10 Hottest Travel Topics from 2019
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Wednesday's HOT MIC
By PJ Staff 2018-03-07T05:05:19
Here is your HOT MIC for the day.
Stephen Green • 2018-03-07 15:23:26 chat 0 comments
Hey, Alexa... knock it off.
Amazon Admits Alexa Is Creepily Laughing At People.
I'm having a hard time believing this story is real, but then again I have labored hard to have zero interaction with any Bezos Spybots.
One user reportedly tried to turn the lights off in their home but Alexa repeatedly turned the lights back on, eventually uttering an 'evil laugh,' according to BuzzFeed.
Another Echo Dot owner said they told Alexa to turn off their alarm in the morning and she responded by letting out a 'witch-like' laugh.
Alexa is programmed in many voice-activated devices with a preset laugh, which can be prompted by asking: 'Alexa, how do you laugh?'
But so far, it's unclear why Alexa is laughing even when users don't ask her to.
It's my understanding that users can reboot this behavior by unplugging the device, and then plugging it back in never.
Tyler O'Neil • 2018-03-07 14:35:17 chat 0 comments
Florida considering guns in schools.
The Tampa Bay Times argued against armed teachers and school staff, pointing out 19 times that school employees have harmed or threatened students.
Supporters say the measure would make schools safer in the aftermath of the Valentine’s Day shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that left 17 people dead. That includes President Donald Trump, who has said armed school employees would be a “very inexpensive deterrent” to shooters.
“Armed Educators (and trusted people who work within a school) love our students and will protect them,” he Tweeted last month.
But the state’s own records show that isn’t always true.
At least 19 times, employees working in the “school support” roles that would make them eligible to carry a gun have been disciplined by the Florida Department of Education for threatening students or colleagues, hurting kids or using firearms illegally.
Yes, some teachers and workers abuse and threaten kids. This is why proposals to arm teachers and school workers should include a vital vetting to make sure these employees wouldn't abuse this power. No vetting is perfect, but Trump's proposal specifically mentioned vetting and only arming gun-adept teachers and workers who would not turn the weapons on students.
Consider that Richard Spencer, covered extensively as an anti-Semite affiliated with Republicans, drew less than 50 people to a speech Monday...yet Louis Farrakhan, whom reporters (including myself) almost forgot about, rallied in a 10,000-person arena last month.
— Matt Katz (@mattkatz00) March 7, 2018
Spencer is an aberration on the Right, often ridiculed but mostly ignored. Nevertheless, the press portrays him as somehow symbolic of conservatism.
Farrakhan is beloved by many on the Left, despite (or because of?) his open bigotry and racism. Nevertheless, the press portrays him -- when it can be bothered to -- as no big deal, and not at all symbolic of progressivism.
Stephen Kruiser • 2018-03-07 13:58:06 chat 0 comments
Related to my earlier post about free speech on college campuses:
ICYMI:
FIRE's 10 worst colleges for free speech: 2018https://t.co/xCahyoEKNS
— FIRE (@TheFIREorg) March 7, 2018
Sadly, my daughter's university is on this list. Fortunately for me, she's a student-athlete who doesn't have a lot of time for the SJW crowd.
Here is the complete list.
Mark Zuckerberg Finishes Morning Reading Of Favorite Devotional ‘1984’ https://t.co/yf8oEBKVcU pic.twitter.com/FYUaH8goQT
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) March 7, 2018
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Nikkei Asian Review
Japan offers $5m for refugee resettlement in Myanmar's Kachin
Bilateral development assistance / Ethnic minorities and indigenous people development funding / Japanese aid
The Japanese government announced in late December that it will launch an aid program to help internally displaced people in a conflict zone in Myanmar’s northern state of Kachin to return home. China has strong influence in northern Myanmar, including Kachin. Countrywide, Japan and China are ...
Yuichi Nitta
Southeast Asia's trans-regional corridor takes shape
Myanmar / Thailand
The opening of a new bridge between Thailand and Myanmar has pushed Southeast Asia one step closer to the realization of an East-West Economic Corridor, connecting the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean. The corridor, which passes through Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar, is set to ...
Cambodia's China-built runway irks US but locals have other concerns
Chinese Business Associations
The rural southwestern province of Koh Kong, previously off the international community’s radar screen, has drawn the global spotlight. That’s because a massive runway stretching approximately 3,200 meters appeared suddenly at a resort being developed by a Chinese company in this otherwise out-of-the-way province, about a ...
Tomoya Onishi
Thai Belt and Road project bumps into finance and liability issues
Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) / Thailand
Thailand’s government is delaying China’s ambitious high-speed railway project in the country as questions over financing and liabilities of the $9.9 billion infrastructure initiative remain unresolved. Sources within Thailand’s transport sector confirmed to the Nikkei Asian Review that behind-the-scenes negotiations between Bangkok and Beijing over the ...
Marwaan Macan-Markar
Myanmar economic zone reimagined as export hub to India
Dawei Special Economic Zone / Myanmar
Plans for an economic zone in southern Myanmar will be reworked by Japan into an export base to such markets as India, Nikkei has learned, in an attempt to kick-start the stalled project as China expands its economic influence in the Southeast Asian country. The new ...
Takashi Tsuji
Thai industrial group powers up 2 huge Vietnam solar farms
(Solar power) / Renewable energy production
B. Grimm Group, Thailand’s oldest industrial group, has won a race against time to begin operating two of Southeast Asia’s largest solar farms, both located in Vietnam. The two plants came online last month and will raise the share of solar in B. Grimm’s energy portfolio to nearly ...
Peter Janssen
Thailand's famed 'Rose of the North' is wilting
Air pollution / Environmental impact assessments / Industries
This 700-year-old city nestled in a green valley of northern Thailand has long enjoyed a story-book reputation for its myriad Buddhist monasteries and charming wooden homes, the delicate manners of its citizens and a tranquillity hardly ruffled by its temple bells. More than 10 million tourists ...
Denis D. Gray
Southeast Asia's energy majors pivot sharply to green power
Green power / Southeast Asia
Southeast Asian energy companies, long dependent on fossil fuels, are rapidly turning to renewable energy to answer the mounting demand for electricity in the fast-developing region. In Indonesia, StarEnergy looks to capitalize on native geothermal resources, made possible by the more than 100 active volcanoes that ...
Brexit and EU sanctions threaten to push Cambodia into economic crisis
Brexit / Cambodia / economic crisis / EU Sanctions / threaten
Cambodia is teetering on the verge of economic crisis, as it faces higher export tariffs into Britain due to Brexit at a time when the European Union is considering suspending duty-free access to punish Prime Minister Hun Sen for political suppression. The first wave of ...
Dams threaten traditional way of life in Mekong Basin
Community fisheries / Disaster preparedness and emergency response policy and administration / Ecological services / Hydropower dams
Cambodia / Lower Mekong River Basin
Sak Siam, 69, chief of Chnok Tru, a village in central Cambodia, is worried. The floating village of about 1,700 households is located on a tributary of the Mekong River. “The villagers will be unable to survive if the fish catch decreases further,” he said. Hydroelectric ...
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You Actually Bought One of Those Things?
Zachary Oberle
Filed to:Project Hoondy
It was 2013 and we wanted a fun car. Not primarily a fast car, though we like speed. Not primarily a corner-carver, though we like handling. It had to be reliable enough for daily driving duties and available with a manual transmission. We leaned towards having some useful interior space, but we would still entertain a strictly two-seat car as long as increased fun factor justified reduced practicality. In other words, we were open to the idea of just about anything you might call a modern, affordable driver’s car.
It all started with the love of a Volkswagen. Our 2001 Jetta VR6 with a 5-speed had us hooked on the three-pedal daily driver experience. We liked having a torqey, multi-cylinder engine that was lazy enough to prevent shifting from being a chore. We also had a ton of fun modifying the car as it responded stupidly well to near everything we did to it. KW coil-overs and a set of forged BBS wheels salvaged from a Subaru where particularly positive changes.
©Wikimedia Commons
When we scored a good job and the time came to buy a new ride, we were at first fixated on the MK4 Golf R32. Keep in mind, this was early 2012. We spent quite a while seriously shopping for one, but over time an example that felt perfect for us failed to materialize. So much time went by, in fact, that we had piled up a silly-big “down payment fund” and we found that we could afford to finance something worth up to twenty thousand dollars with plenty of room to spare.
So we broadened our horizons.
We got a little time off work, grabbed a friend, and hit the road with a smart phone packed full of car sale listings. We made a substantial loop across the Midwest, test-driving a string of interesting cars along the way. At first we felt doubtful that we’d be taken seriously, but in fact we managed to get seat time in a staggering array of fun cars simply by rolling up in our trusty Jetta and asking nicely for a drive. Granted, the ability to verify our buying power via smart phone definitely didn’t hurt.
Also, here’s a pro-tip: when shopping for manual transmission cars, it definitely pays to show up in a stick-shift ride of your own. On more than one occasion we went from receiving a suspicious eye, to being casually thrown the keys upon the seller seeing the 5-speed Vee Dub we rolled up in.
And so we drove. Our first stop was at the cheap end of the list, a 2009 Cobalt SS sitting on a dealer’s lot. That shopping experience ended quickly when it turned out the car had a dead battery, probably from all the lame after-market security and stereo equipment. Very shortly after this stop we decided to scratch nearly all the other cheaper cars off our hit-list without stopping to see them.
Our second listing was right across the street from the first, a Mazda dealer who had a very low-mileage 2010 Hyundai Genesis Coupe on their lot. The car was a 3.8 V6 model with a manual transmission and the Grand Touring package. At the time we considered a V6 car to be out of our price range and simply wanted to try a stick-shift GenCoupe. We figured if we actually bought one, it would be a four cylinder turbo model instead.
We remained convinced of this assertion right up until the moment we rolled the big V6 to an on-ramp and punched the throttle in second gear.
Thrust. Noise. The car hauled itself up to speed, engine pile-driving into the rev limiter before we had even reached for third. Lurch. Bounce. Next gear. Back on the power. Masses of variable valve timing produced a square torque curve that just shoved the car forward with, again, an eagerness for revs that made the 6500 RPM redline feel criminal. The salesman was laughing his ass off while we flirted with ninety miles an hour, having totally failed to notice the speedo.
Time for an impromptu brake test! Brakes were effective, back to legal interstate speeds and we took stock of our surroundings. The car settled right down into an effortless cruise. More time on the highway would have revealed its tendency for nervous bump-steer, but on our short drive over smooth roads we were amazed at its grand touring credentials.
We stepped out of the Hyundai impressed, but more so than that we were excited for our next stop. A dealer down the road had a 2012 V6 Mustang with a six speed manual. The Internet had informed us that the V6 Mustang was absolutely superior to the Hyundai, and in fact any car in the same price bracket. If the GenCoupe was such a laugh to drive then surely the Mustang would be a riot.
We couldn’t help but feel disappointed in the Mustang. This particular example was let down by lame styling, with black stripes over electric blue paint and those stupid fake vents tacked over the rear quarter windows. The interior was dark, cave-like, and impossible to see out of. The fake vents and tall hood-bulge took away big chunks of visibility from a car that was already visually impaired.
We decided to ignore the styling and focus on the drivetrain. We almost perfectly reproduced the drive we had made in the Hyundai just minutes earlier. Despite, or maybe because of, high expectations we were totally underwhelmed by the Mustang’s driving experience. The example we drove was nearly new with way under 10,000 miles on the clock, yet the shifter jumped around in the console under power. Gear positions were vague, and swapping between them was unpleasant.
The Mustang’s V6 power plant may have been equally potent as the Hyundai’s on paper, but in the real world it just felt like a van engine. It made very solid torque down low, but became totally defeated as it approached and surpassed 5000 RPM. It reluctantly huffed and wheezed up to speed, halfheartedly touching its rev limiter only when pressed to do so. The power band felt narrower as well, with nowhere near the eagerness in fourth and fifth gear that the Hyundai had.
Our sales bro could sense our disappointment. In what we must admit was a masterful bit of salesmanship, he walked straight from the Mustang and sent us off alone in a 2006 Boxster S.
Ho. Lee. Shit.
The Porsche just strolled through the gears. Its electrified Swiss watch of an engine screamed past 6000 RPM and towards 7200 with a haunting six cylinder howl. Every single driver input felt important with steering, brake, and shifter feel that was leagues above everything else we drove. It was a master class in How a Sports Car Should Feel. If driving pleasure was our one and only deciding factor for purchase then we would have left in the Boxster that day.
©Culver Franchising System inc
We returned from that test drive as a bundle of adrenalized nerves. It would later take the coma-inducing power of a Culver’s Butter Burger to fully calm ourselves down. We thanked our sales bro and promised to return after lunch (we didn’t).
The Porsche had totally skewed our perspective. We absolutely loved driving it, but knew maintaining, let alone modifying, a Boxter S over the long haul would drive us insane. Plus the 3.2 liter engine tended to blow up with alarming regularity. Having explored the reality of this problem, we knew that our favored solution would be to replace the grenaded 3.2 liter Boxster engine with the biggest Porsche 911 mill we could get our hands on. This would be awesomely fun, right up until the moment it killed us. Therefore we judged the Boxster S scenario to be A Bad Idea and moved on.
We needed to bring things back down to Earth, so we went to the only low-cost option left on our list: a 2004 Subaru WRX priced at a dollar under ten grand.
The Scoobie was a diamond in the rough, a near-stock car with only 3M window tinting and an after-market blow off valve as modifications. It had scabby brake hardware and peeling clear-coat, but was rust-free and in solid condition overall.
The WRX drove great, the drivetrain was full of character, and after experiencing it we feel like we “get” what all the hype over turbo Subarus is about. Midrange torque was hilariously stout for two liters of displacement and the fruity exhaust note made it the only four cylinder engine that we found equally lovable as our favorite six cylinder options.
We really enjoyed the Wrex, and it was so cheap that we could’ve dropped five grand worth of mods into it almost immediately. We were sorely tempted by this proposition, especially when the owner slashed $999 off the price to make it a square $9K. It would have been a great deal and a fantastic car, but in the end we decided we liked RWD tail-out shenanigans too much to go with the AWD Subaru.
We left the Scoobie and crossed town to a 2009 Saturn Sky Redline. At first we were taken aback as the Sky drove like a truck in comparison with the Boxster, despite being similar in size. Everything felt very heavy as we clunked through the gears and heaved at the steering wheel. We adjusted quickly though, and soon came to enjoy the manly, athletic driving experience. We found the car eager to rotate too as the owner encouraged us to drift around a banked corner near his home. The Redline broke into a slide much more readily than the Porsche and it was easy to balance considering the short wheelbase.
Despite all the Saturn’s fun characteristics, it was at least as impractical as the Porsche, but nowhere near as magical to drive. Also, the owner actually raised his asking price from the advertised number when it came down to brass tacks, up to a whopping $16,800. We walked away from the car having enjoyed driving it, but struggling to find reasons to choose it above any other option.
We finished our loop still haunted by the Genesis Coupe. We were beginning to feel a bit crazy, wondering if that particular driving experience had biased us towards the Hyundai more than the car objectively deserved.
We looked into other options. Older Caddilac CTS-Vs (never found a stick-shift model to test drive), the then-new Scion FR-S (too expensive for its watered-down engine), and a 350Z (impractical as the Porsche). The Infiniti G35 solved the practicality problem of the 350Z, but was bafflingly expensive at the time. Plus the G35 has one of the most douchey images of any car on sale which really didn’t help its case any.
More time passed, even more money piled up, and we became dead set on the Genesis Coupe. We drove a different one in Kentucky, a black Track Pack that was also a stick-shift V6. We hated what the shorter, stiffer springs of the Track Pack did to the ride quality. The Brembo brakes didn’t feel that much more powerful than the standard units and the Torsen differential felt weak and mushy.
At the time, Track Pack cars were quite a lot more expensive than GT models on the second-hand market and we simply couldn’t justify the price difference. We also couldn’t find a Track Pack that didn’t appear beat half to death. The black one we drove had nearly 70K miles, felt like double that, and was full of abandoned DIY wiring that had apparently powered subwoofers and extra interior lighting.
So at long last we returned to the very first car we drove on our epic shopping saga. It was still sitting on that Mazda dealer’s lot. With well under 30,000 miles on the clock it had been traded in by an older gentleman on a new Mazda 6. Still wearing its factory original everything, the car had seen nothing but oil changes for its short driving life. This un-touched example with a non-problematic manual transmission was just too much for us to pass up. The fact that it still had over one year and 30K miles worth of factory warranty left on it sealed the deal.
We were able to determine that the car had sat on the dealer’s lot for nearly twelve months, which was further evidenced by its dry-rotted tires. This turned out to be a substantial bargaining tool, one we thought carried no downside. That assumption ended up costing us, but at the time all we could see it as was a point of negotiation.
We walked away from the car twice before buying it on our third visit. By that time our price on the Hoondy had fallen from above $21K down to $17K with a very attractive financing deal. We made a five thousand dollar down payment to drive our interest rate down even further and walked away feeling like we had committed a crime.
We were certainly helped by many outside factors including the time of year (October) the economy (trashed) and fuel prices (high). Just a few months later we would be offered $18,500 for the car by a different dealer we had brought it to for warranty repair. Not bad.
What was our Genesis Coupe like to live with? What did we learn about it during our first weeks of ownership? Find out next week in the continuing saga of Project Hoondy!
We'd Purchased a Genesis Coupe. Now What?
There it was. We could scarcely believe how pretty our newly acquired Genesis Coupe looked while…
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Leica Microsystems makes OCT move with Bioptigen acquisition
Highly rated North Carolina company Bioptigen has developed tools for ophthalmology and new life sciences applications.
Retinal image
Microscopy giant Leica Microsystems has made a strategic move into optical coherence tomography (OCT), with a deal to acquire US-based Bioptigen for an undisclosed sum.
The highly-rated North Carolina firm, co-founded by OCT pioneer Joseph Izatt and Eric Buckland back in 2004, has developed spectral-domain (SD) OCT equipment for ophthalmology applications and contact lens metrology. Izatt and colleagues are credited with generating the first OCT image of the eye's anterior structure back in 1994.
Leica says that it plans to assist ophthalmologists performing eye surgery by integrating OCT imaging into its existing suite of surgical microscopes.
Heinrich Dreyer, VP of the firm’s medical division, said: “Adding Bioptigen’s OCT capabilities to our surgical microscopes directly addresses our customers’ requirement for better decision-making tools. Bioptigen brings great products and expertise, and will be an important contributor to our growth in the ophthalmology market.”
Buckland, Bioptigen’s CEO, added that joining forces with Leica would help allow its SD-OCT technology to address a wider range of both research and clinical applications, and see the non-invasive interferometry technique used more extensively in the operating room.
Last year, the analyst company Lux Research identified Bioptigen as one of the leading protagonists in the field of OCT, rating the firm as “dominant” among its peers in terms of technology, business strategy and maturity.
Surgical integration
According to US Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, Bioptigen raised $1.5 million in equity in February 2011, while earlier this year it was awarded $458,000 by the North Carolina Biotechnology Center to further develop its “EnFocus” system for three-dimensional imaging during surgical procedures.
In addition, the US National Eye Institute last year allocated grants of $1.7 million to the company to integrate OCT directly into the optical train of a surgical microscope. “The work advanced under these grants will bring surgeons one step closer to realizing the full value of intraoperative OCT,” said Buckland at the time.
“Ultimately, the ability to observe sub-surface structures simultaneous with surgical manipulations will provide surgeons with a critical advance in microscopic visualization, with the goal of improving patient outcomes and reducing surgical risk,” the CEO added.
While all OCT techniques use interferometry to create cross-sectional views of different types of tissue, the SD-OCT approach offers faster scanning speeds than the earlier time-domain approach, making it more suited to real-time surgical use.
Another advantage is improved axial resolution, while even newer swept-source (SS) OCT systems, which are based around a tunable laser, promise to greatly extend OCT imaging depth for truly three-dimensional applications.
Ophthalmology represents the most mature clinical application of OCT, and the technique is used widely to detect and monitor morphological changes in ocular tissue, particularly the thickness of the retina – a critical factor in pathological conditions such as glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and diabetic retinopathy.
Bioptigen corporate video:
Bioptigen
Cancer diagnostics to drive coherence tomography market growth
Tunable VCSEL brings new depth to OCT
Under the spotlight: OCT
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orangeophelia
An exercise in self-awareness
Account Created on 18 February 2004 (#2258482) Last updated on 8 October 2016 Gift
Aly!
Carrboro, North Carolina, United States
orangeophelia@livejournal.com
Park City High School - Park City, UT (1999 - 2000)
Chapel Hill High School - Chapel Hill, NC (2000 - 2003)
Sarah Lawrence College - Bronxville, NY (2003 present)
Generated by a random number generator
Sprang from the sea foam
And my father's opened skull.
(The earlier entries in here are creepy and nonsensical. I assume no one's actually reading this, but if you are, and you'd like to know why my earlier entries are creepy and nonsensical, I'll tell you a semi-amusing story that portrays me in a relatively negative light, and also happens to explain why the earlier entries are creepy and nonsensical.)
aimee mann, alice in wonderland, applying lip balm, archives, basking, batteries, becoming a bond girl, being a geek, being a recluse, being a scientist, being awkward, being passive-aggressive, being productive, being unproductive, black phoenix alchemy lab, black unlined notebooks, bpal, chewing my fingers, coffee shops, comics, community art projects, creeks, cutting up magazines, distance, documentation, dogwoods, driving people places, dropping pennies, e. m. forster, early mornings, f. scott fitzgerald, fighting crime, fighting myself, fighting poverty, finding pretty things, fireflies, firefly, glue sticks, good pens, graduate school, graphic memoirs, graphic novels, green grass, hair brushes, handwriting, highlighters, historical markers, j. m. coetzee, joan didion, jonathan safran foer, lakes, late nights, legends, letters, lists, madeleine l'engle, making metaphors, making people be creative, meadows, merry-go-rounds, my green jacket, myths, oceans, office supplies, paint samples, perfumery, picnic tables, plane flights, political treatises, pondering books i have, ponds, pork ramen, post-its, rivers, smiling at strangers, social psychology, stories, streams, swing-sets, tattoos i'll never get, through the looking glass, trees, utopias, virginia woolf, wasting time, water, wildflowers, writing papers, yoplait whips
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OranGuide
2.1 Theoretical Frameworks
The paragraphs below I plagiarized (100%) from the paper –Exploring financing decision making in Swedish family firms!! Being Sew, Five dimensions and FIBER
2.1.1 SEW, Five dimensions
The Socioemotional Wealth by Gomez-Mejia et al. (2007) have been constructed as a differentiator of family firms to better be able to explain why such firms behave differently. The model derives from the behavioral agency theory as a general extension, where the earlier theory by Gomez-Mejia, Welbourne, and Wiseman (2000) comprise and integrate behavioural theory of a firm, agency theory and the prospect theory. Arguing when family owners facing an issue affecting the socioemotional endowment the economic logic is not the main consideration or guidance, hence decisions may be taken leading to higher risks for the firm in order to protect the socioemotional endowment. Therefore Berrone, Cruz and Gomez-Mejia (2012) have generated a five dimensional model named FIBER of SEW to provide a more intuitive understanding to why family firms make diverse strategic choices compared to non-family firms. Even though the SEW is considered still as a quite new concept it has been widely used to explain “non-financial aspect of the firm that meets the families affected needs such as identity, the ability to exercise family influence, and the perpetuation of the family dynasty” (Gómez-Mejia et al., 2007, p. 106).
Therefore the SEW is used as a framework to give the reader a better understanding of the nature of family firms in their decision making process. Hence the five dimensions that SEW is composed of is provided in section 2.6.1 to provide a profound insight.
2.1.2 FIBER
(F) Family control and influence: Strategic decisions and control are made by family members that have great influence over the firm in order to contain both the direct and indirect influence of the business, regardless of the financial considerations (Gomez-Mejia et al., 2007) Therefore the power to control from an owners perspective is prominent regarding the types of decisions that are to be made and at what time. Control itself can be utilized from different hieratical levels within the family firm, most common is the direct control implying a family member being CEO or chairman of the board (Villalonga & Amit, 2010). Having key positions within the firm allows the decision makers to appoint the top management team (TMT) members, hence being able to influence the future control of the business, but it is not unusual owners engage in multiple roles as a way to gain information and exercise authority (Sciascia, Mazzola & Chirico, 2012). The control and election of the TMT is commonly held and taken by the founder or a superior family coalition mostly to preserve the ownership and influence by the family (Bjuggren & Sund, 2012), enabling the handover to the next generation with greater ease since passing on the business is a vital long-term goal for family firms (Berrone et al., 2010), strongly linked to the fifth dimensions of SEW.
(I) Family members’ identification with the firm: The second dimension acknowledge the close identification of family members and the business. Where the owner of a family firm, especially the founder, is often inseparable linked with the identification of the firm, which also often shares the family’s name (Matherne, Waterwall, Ring & Credo, 2017).
Implying from a stakeholder’s perspective that the family firm have both internal and external interests to attain, mainly driven by the intrinsic motives (Carrigan ; Buckley, 2008). Neubaum, Dibrell and Craig (2012) comprises internal stakeholder commonly as employees, managers, shareholders, and owners that is the actors depending on the success of the business and potentially rewarded thereafter. Due to the strong identification with the firm, internally the owner and family top managers not only seek to influence the attitude of employees but also the internal processes and service management towards customers and the products the firms provide (Teal, Upton ; Seaman, 2003). Family members identifying strongly with the firm tend to be concerned to maintain a professional image to external stakeholders such as customers, suppliers, community and government (Micelotta ; Raynard, 2011), also strengthen by Gallucci,
Santulli and Calabrò (2015) stressing the importance for family members to build a strong family brand. Findings by Campopiano and Massis (2014) and Stanley and McDowell (2014) provides insights of family firms’ higher attention to corporate social responsibility (CSR) to increase their esteem from the community. But the authors also conclude that family firms are more likely to be more committed to pursue long term sustainability goals compared to non-family firms in order to enhancing the reputation and marketing from sustainable and environmental friendly actions.
(B) Binding social ties: The third dimension emphasize the social relationship and the joint benefits provided by SEW that evolves and captured in the ceased network. Where the feeling of social capital, relational trust, closeness, and interpersonal solidarity (Coleman, 1990) is considered more important compared to the financial gains that is a more common driving factor within non-family firms (Gomez-Mejia et al. 2007). Meaning that family firms consider close business partners within the supply chain as an extended part of the family ties itself (de Kok et al., 2006), since commitment, belonging, and identifying with the firm is fundamental for family members (Miller & Le Breton-Miller, 2005). Even though there is no direct economic benefit of engender a strong social relationship with members of the extended family this may explain why family firms are more engaged in their communities trying to improve the welfare in their surroundings in exchange of receiving recognition of generosity (Berrone et al., 2012).
(E) Emotional attachment: Is useful to better understand why members of a family firm acts unselfish to each other as to some extent stated in the social ties but this dimension refers rather to the emotions, moods, and attitudes from the family business aspect. Holt and Popp (2013) argues that family firms are more emotional driven by the deeper affective familial relationship, greater intimacy leading to greater individual freedom, and emotions functions as a vehicle of the succession of dynastic ambition and virtue. Berrone et al. (2010) reasons that family businesses are emotional attached and can to some extent be explained by the unclear boundaries between family life and the professional life. Therefore both positive and negative emotions emerge and affects events in the daily situations within the family business system (Gersick, Davis, Hampton &Lansberg, 1997). Emotions in family business settings have prior been studied in terms of the issues and the negative impacts of the subject and where the issues indirectly have
been focused on the family conflicts, personal relationships, and family culture. Researchers have noted that emotions in the context of family firms have long been understudied (Holt & Popp, 2013), nevertheless emotions for SEW’s fourth dimension is highly relevant to explain the decision making process within family business in order to understand why family members are altruistic to each other and why they most likely consider other family members to be trustworthy (Cruz, Gomez-Mejia ; Becerra, 2010). Berrone et al. (2010) mentions another difference between family and non-family firms regarding the dysfunctional aspect between the two. In a non-family organisation a dysfunctional relationship or negative conflicts often ends with a termination of the employee, but in a family firm where the emotions attachment is of greater impact the persistence and hope that the situation by time will eventually return to harmony between the parties involved (Fletcher, 2000).
(R) Renewal of family bonds to the firm through dynastic succession: Berrone, Gomez and Mejia’s (2010) last dimension involves the intention of handing over the business to future generations. The dynasty continuum is an important factor for family firms where owners may extract private benefits of preserving the control of the company within the family (Sacristán-Navarro, Cabeza-García& Gómez-Ansón, 2015). Making it even harder for family business owners to sell the company since they are strongly linked with family pride, heritage, and traditions (Byrom& Lehman, 2009). Also strengthened by Kellermanns and Eddleston, (2007) stating that a common goal for family firms is to maintain the business for future generations to inherit and run.
Depending on the shareholder structure and family influence the long-term view may lead to implications and conflicts within the owners regarding the succession of the business for the continuous of the dynasty (Sacristán-Navarro, Cabeza-García& Gómez-Ansón, 2015), Berrone at al. (2010) adds to the literature of the intentions to pass on the business and preserve the family values by foster a strategy of investing in the future generation to build capabilities, and learning.
2.2 Crowd-funding- I inserted this title and the paragraphs were done by Samarie using the research paper: Exploring financing decision making in Swedish family firms. However, my research questions did not cover any aspect of crowd-funding so I am not sure if we will use all – however some sections do touch base on SEW & FIBER.
In Henrik Johansson and David Tingaker’s research analysis, family firm’s financial decision making are not only monetarily considered but also considers the frameworks of Social Emotional Wealth (SEW) and values of the owners. In other words, the culture of family firms are seen both internally and externally to be driven by principles that “preserve emotional capital” (Tingaker& Johansson, 2018). Both the emotional ties and other technological, political and economic changes within a family firm are factors that helps to preserve the values of ownership and keeps the idea that there are other financing methods used in reference to family firms’ decision making. To demonstrate the theory, Tigaker; Johansson’s study looked at a different approach to financial decision making in the form of crowd-funding based on the values and social emotional wealth of the firm. According to Mollick, crowd-funding is a term used to describe funds being raised from a large number of individuals who contribute into a family firm. In order to achieve crowd equity from crowd-funding, the basis of Social Emotional Wealth (SEW) must be utilized.
Since the decision making rights are privileged to the owners/creators of the family firm, the basis of their values are implemented into the reputation of the firm. However, the term “values” in Tingaker& Johansson’s research is very broad, therefore, making it difficult to fully interpret the exact motive to crowd-funding using values. In addition, Social Emotional Wealth in Tigaker; Johansson’s research was also utilized for family firm’s decision making but still creates a limited amount of analysis since SEW is a fairly new paradigm in the family business field. Nevertheless, both values and SEW of the firm are still shown by the research to have a great non-financial motive in financial decision making, not solely on monetary gains. For instance, since one of the aspects of financial decision making is “concentrated on family culture and value to meet their goals” (Feltham, Felthan; Barnett, 2005), one of the ways decisions can be accomplished within the firm would through long term networking/relationships from other firms and also the family firm itself being trustworthy and committed within their networking/relationships to other firms. Having a close relationship using the values of the firm enables firms to “succeed in the market with a strong business brand identity linked with the family” (Le Breton-Miller ; Miller, 2006).
Although financial decision making considers plenty of other financing and economic methods, Tingaker; Johansson’s research still considers non-monetary financial decision making methods using the values of the firm’s internal personnel (such as owners and managers). This research opens the path for other methods to be considered into the financing mix of an organization.
2.2 Causes
2.2 Problem Relevant Studies
2.4 Research Framework (MindMap)
CHAPTER III – METHODOLOGY
For the purposes of this research, the research methodologies and their definitions will be constructed and referenced from the Research Onion by Saunders, et al (2009). It is an instrumental way to select an adequate approach and strategy for this research and also provides steps to follow in the process of writing this methodology.
PROJECT REPORT ROLE OF MENTAL HEALTH AND SELF ESTEEM AMONGST ADOLESCENTS FROM SRINAGAR SUBMITTED BY Saima parvaiz CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY This is certified that the proposed Research work of the Synopsis of Ph
THE EFFECT OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY ON FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE OF COMMERCIAL BANKS IN NAKURU
Preliminary Proposal HPCOS02 Student Number
Summer Internship Project On A comparative study on Employee Branding At Nirma Ltd Company Under the guidance of Rinku Singh
2000690000 BECAMEX BUSINESS SCHOOL MARKETING MIX AFFECTS CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IN SPORT SHOE INDUSTRY FINAL YEAR PROJECT BUS450 Student’s name
Advertising Effects on Consumer’s Buying Behavior towards Cosmetic Products
Posted on March 16, 2019 January 17, 2019 / 0 Categories Creative Writing
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I'm Victoria
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Send PR
(GMT) 19/01/2020 - 5:20:19 PM
Balfour Beatty Awarded Great Western Mainline Contract
News provided by Pressat Wire on Tuesday 22nd Aug 2017
Balfour Beatty, the international infrastructure group, today announces that it has been selected by Network Rail to deliver a contract to electrify a 40-mile train route as part of The Great Western Mainline upgrade.
The contract award follows successful collaboration with Network Rail during the four month Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) phase to achieve an agreed level of scope, programme and cost.
Balfour Beatty will be responsible for the remainder of the electrification on the Great Western Mainline route section 6P, 8 and 9 between Cardiff and Bristol Parkway and will utilise the latest technology and innovations in design, construction and rail plant to drive efficiencies and improve safety.
Mark Bullock, Managing Director of Balfour Beatty's UK Rail business, said: 'Our selection to deliver this important upgrade to the UK rail network builds on our partnership with Network Rail and recognises Balfour Beatty's capability and expertise.
'Balfour Beatty and Network Rail have successfully delivered the Crossrail West Outer Electrification Programme to schedule and I look forward to passengers seeing the benefits which will come when this new section of electrification is complete.'
Main works are scheduled to commence this month with completion expected towards the end of 2018. During peak construction, the project will provide employment for over 300 people.
Media enquiries to:
Louise McCulloch
louise.mcculloch@balfourbeatty.com@balfourbeatty.com
www.balfourbeatty.com | follow us @balfourbeatty
All non-media related enquiries should be directed to +44 (0)20 7216 6800 or info@balfourbeatty.com
Balfour Beatty (www.balfourbeatty.com) is a leading international infrastructure group. With 30,000 employees, we provide innovative and efficient infrastructure that underpins our daily lives, supports communities and enables economic growth. We finance, develop, build and maintain complex infrastructure such as transportation, power and utility systems, social and commercial buildings.
Our main geographies are the UK, US and Far East. Over the last 100 years we have created iconic buildings and infrastructure all over the world including the London Olympics' Aquatic Centre, Hong Kong's first Zero Carbon building, the National Museum of the Marine Corps in the US and the Channel Tunnel Rail Link.
Balfour Beatty is one of the UK's leading rail infrastructure suppliers. From feasibility studies, planning and design through to implementation and asset management, we provide multi-disciplinary rail infrastructure services across the lifecycle of rail assets. Our expertise covers electrification, track, power, civils, specialist rail plant, railway systems and technologies.
Balfour Beatty's current portfolio of rail projects includes the £170m Track Partnership for London Underground, the £50m project for track remodelling of London Bridge and Crossrail projects including the £130m Abbey Wood station, the £110m Whitechapel station and the £70m station at Woolwich.
Press release distributed by Pressat on behalf of Pressat Wire, on Tuesday 22 August, 2017. For more information subscribe and follow https://pressat.co.uk/
Construction & Property
Pressat Wire
editorial@pressat.co.uk
Alison Lancaster
alison.lancaster@pressat.co.uk
No media attached. Please contact Pressat Wire for more information.
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Redmi K30 real-life images and complete specifications leaked
By: Anvinraj Valiyathara
In: Leaks, Mobiles, News
Xiaomi’s sub-brand Redmi has confirmed that it will be holding a launch event on December 10th to announce the Redmi K30 5G smartphone. Rumours surrounding the Redmi K30 series claim that the lineup will include three devices such as the Redmi K30 (4G), Redmi K30 5G and Redmi K30 Pro 5G. It is believed that the company will unveil the Redmi K30 Pro 5G in early 2020. Ahead of the launch, a reliable leakster from China has shared a real-life image of the Redmi K30. At the same time, the entire specifications of the Redmi K30 4G phone have also surfaced.
Redmi K30 Design
Redmi K30 (left) and Honor V30 (right)
In the above image, the Redmi K30 is placed on the left whereas the Honor V30 that went official recently is on the right. Both phones are equipped with an elliptical punch-hole cutout for dual selfie snappers. The only difference between the design of the two phones is that the Redmi K30 has the cutout at the top-right corner whereas the cutout can be seen on the upper-left corner on the Honor V30.
The Redmi K30 has slim bezels around its display which indicates that it will be boasting a high screen-to-body ratio. The right edge of the phone seems to be fitted with a side-mounted fingerprint sensor.
Redmi K30 Specifications (Rumoured)
It is believed that the M1912G7BE / M1912G7BC Xiaomi phone that was recently approved by the 3C authority is the upcoming Redmi K30. The new leak reveals that the Redmi K30 4G has a 6.66-inch display with a resolution of 1,080 x 2,400 pixels and a 20:9 aspect ratio. The display will offer up to a 120Hz refresh rate. With COF packaging technology, necessary sensors like ambient light sensor will be embedded under the screen of the device. The screen will be shielded by Corning Gorilla Glass 5.
The 8nm Snapdragon 730G that powered its predecessor the Redmi K20 will also fuel the Redmi K30 handset. The base model of the phone will feature 6GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. The phone will be driven by a 4,500mAh battery and as the 3C listing revealed, it will carry support for 27W fast charging.
The Redmi K30’s dual front-facing camera setup will include a 20-megapixel main lens and a 2-megapixel depth sensor. The rear-facing quad camera system of the Redmi K30 will feature a 64-megapixel main lens, an 8-megapixel telephoto lens, a 13-megapixel ultrawide lens and a 2-megapixel sensor. MIUI 11 based on Android 10 will come preinstalled on the device. The other features that are available on the device include multi-functional NFC, IR blaster and 3.5mm audio jack.
Another tipster has shared some contradictory information on the Redmi K30. He has claimed that the smartphone has 32-megapixel + ToF dual selfie snapper, the primary lens on the rear is of 60-megapixel and it has a 5,000mAh battery. The rest of the specs are same as mentioned above.
Redmi K30 Price
The Redmi K30 4G edition is expected to arrive with a starting price of RMB 1,999 (~Rs 20,300). The leak has no information on the other phones in the Redmi K30 series. However, other sources have revealed that the Redmi K30 5G could be fueled by the forthcoming Snapdragon 735 5G mobile platform and it could cost around RMB 2,500 (~Rs 25,400). The Redmi K30 Pro is rumoured to powered by the newly unveiled MediaTek Dimensity 1000 5G chipset and it may be priced around RMB 3,000+ (~Rs 30,500).
Tags: Redmi K30Snapdragon 730Xiaomi
Redmi K30 leaked images reveal 120Hz refresh rate and 30W fast charging
Redmi K30 5G will be the first Snapdragon 765G phone; camera and display details appear
Redmi K30 rear design officially teased ahead of December 10th launch
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Commadore Conley
COMMADORE CONLEY JR.
HAMPTON – Commadore Dewey Conley Jr., 66, died Thursday, Feb. 15, in Sentara Norfolk General Hospital.
Mr. Conley was a native of Huntington, W.Va., and a Peninsula resident for 44 years. He was a Navy veteran of World War II. He was a member of the Loyal Order of Moose Lodge No. 1119, Newport News, Pilgrim of the Order of the Moose, Legion of the Moose and American Legion Post 25, Newport News.
Mr. Conley retired in 1981 from Newport News Shipbuilding after 35 years.
Survivors include his wife, Elaine W. Conley; a daughter, Donna Conley Cox of San Juan, Puerto Rico; two sons, Commadore Dewey Conley III of Williamsburg and Jay S. Conley of Dumfries; a stepdaughter, B. Vaughnette Cipria of Chicago; a sister, Lillian Morrison of Derby, Kan.; a brother, Robert Conley of Oak Creek, Wis.; 10 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
A funeral will be conducted at 4 p.m. Saturday in R. Hayden Smith Funeral Home by the Rev. Edward Swanson. Burial will be in Parklawn Memorial Park.
The family will receive friends from 7 to 9 tonight at the funeral home.
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Difference between revisions of "Matt Ridley"
From Powerbase
Melissa Jones (talk | contribs)
(→Affiliations)
*[[Spiked]] - shareholder
*[[Global Warming Policy Foundation]] - ‘academic advisory council’ member <ref> GWPF website (undated) accessed 8 April 2014 </ref>
*[[2020 UK]]
===Publications===
Matt Ridley, 5th Viscount Ridley, is a journalist, businessman and Conservative member of the House of Lords. [1]
Ridley was chairman of Northern Rock from 2004 to 2007, resigning after Northern Rock experienced the first run on a British bank in 150 years.
2 Critic of green movement and links to corporate-funded think tanks
3 Northern Rock
4 Affiliations, publications, contact, notes
4.1 Affiliations
4.3 Contact
Ridley studied zoology at Oxford before becoming a journalist. He was science editor and American editor of the Economist from 1983 to 1992, and was a regular columnist for the Sunday Telegraph and Daily Telegraph from 1993 to 2000. He is the author of a number of science-related books.
Ridley is chairman of the International Centre for Life, a multi-million pound 'science park and education project' to 'foster the life sciences', that opened in May 2000 in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. He is also a director of a number of companies and is on the Advisory Council of the controversial pro-GM lobby group Sense About Science. He has an association with the libertarian and anti-environmental LM network via being a shareholder of Spiked.
Critic of green movement and links to corporate-funded think tanks
Ridley's writing has contributed to the anti-Green backlash. Starting in 1995, a series of volumes based on his Down to Earth columns in the Sunday Telegraph were published as Down to Earth: A contrarian view of environmental problems; Down to Earth, Combating Environmental Myth; etc.
The first volume of Down to Earth appeared at almost the same time as Wilfred Beckerman's Small is Stupid and Richard D. North's Life on a Modern Planet. All three books attacked the environmental movement.
In Down to Earth Ridley labelled environmentalists 'Gestapo'. Like other contrarians, he attacked the science of climate change and what he termed 'ozone exaggeration'. According to Ridley, many 'green' arguments are just socialist ones in new clothing. Ridley maintained the same tone in his Daily Telegraph Acid Test columns where he railed against 'The mad mullahs of ecology'.
Like Beckermann and North, Ridley has links to London's far-right Institute of Economic Affairs, where he is a Research Fellow and which was the publisher of his Down to Earth books. In August 1999 Ridley used one of his Telegraph columns to hype a book (Fearing Food) which was edited by the directors of the IEA's Environment Unit Roger Bate and Julian Morris.
In Unsavoury facts about organic food (Daily Telegraph, 16 Aug 1999) Ridley took the opportunity to repeat Dennis Avery's E. coli myth: 'according to the United States Centers for Disease Control, people who eat the products of...[organic agriculture] are eight times more likely to contract the strain of E-coli that killed 21 people in Lanarkshire in 1997'. This in spite of the fact that Centers for Disease Control had issued a press release in response to Avery's claims stating, 'The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not conducted any study that compares or quantitates the specific risk for infection with E. coli 0157:H7 and eating either conventionally grown or organic/natural foods.'
Ridley's generalised antipathy to organic farming surfaced again in a Guardian article in April 2003 where he quoted GM propagandist, CS Prakash, 'Organic farming is sustainable. It sustains poverty and malnutrition.'
In his book Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters (2000), Ridley writes that the 'opposition to genetically modified crops' is 'motivated more by hatred of new technology than love of the environment'. Some think Ridley's motivation for supporting all things GM and attacking all things organic can best be understood as a neo-liberal technophile's hatred of those who raise criticisms and questions about his ideologically framed obsessions.
Ridley contributed an essay titled "Genetically modified crops and the perils of rejecting innovation" to the Policy Exchange report, Science vs Superstition – the case for a new scientific enlightenment (2006). The report, says the Policy Exchange, "challenges the common belief that scientific progress in today’s world inevitably entails an element of danger or moral uncertainty" and "examines several case studies of the battle of scientific progress against unsubstantiated fears".[2]
The essay, notes Edward Targett in an article for CommonDreams, was lauded by commentators as a "superb and meticulous critique of today's anti-science and anti-industrial forces".[3]
Ridley was non-executive chairman of failed British bank Northern Rock in 2007 when it was taken into administration after a run on its finances. Ridley told the Treasury Select Committee investigating Northern Rock's collapse that the bank had been hit by "wholly unexpected" events and he defended the way he and his colleagues had been running the bank.[4]
The committee however begged to differ. It concluded that:
The directors of Northern Rock were the principal authors of the difficulties that the company has faced since August 2007.
The high-risk, reckless business strategy of Northern Rock, with its reliance on short- and medium-term wholesale funding and an absence of sufficient insurance and a failure to arrange standby facility or cover that risk, meant that it was unable to cope with the liquidity pressures placed upon it by the freezing of international capital markets in August 2007. [5] [6]
Affiliations, publications, contact, notes
Sense About Science - member of advisory council as of 2009
Spiked - shareholder
Global Warming Policy Foundation - ‘academic advisory council’ member [7]
Matt Ridley, We have a new climate change consensus — and it's good news everyone, The Spectator (front page), 5 April 2014
Matt Ridley 'Genetically modified crops and the perils of rejecting innovation' in James Panton and Oliver Marc Hartwich (Eds) Science vs superstition: the case for a new scientific enlightenment, London/buckingham: Policy Exchange//University of Buckingham Press, 2006.
The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves Published: May 2010.
Nature via Nurture: Genes, Experience, and What Makes Us Human Published: May 2004.
Francis Crick: Discoverer of the Genetic Code Published: February 2008.
Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters Published: March 2000.
The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation Published: October 1997
The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature Published: October 1994
Web: rationaloptimist.com
Web: mattridley.co.uk
Twitter: @mattwridley
↑ Conservative Hereditary Peers’ By-election, February 2013: Result, House of Lords, acc 29 October 2014. The vote followed the death of Earl Ferrers
↑ "Publications", Policy Exchange website, accessed 3 April 2009
↑ Edward Targett, "Pop Science & Propaganda: The GM Debate Revisited", CommonDreams, 26 Marh 2009, accessed 3 April 2009
↑ "Northern Rock chairman steps down", BBC News Online, 19 October 2007, accessed 3 April 2009
↑ HC 56–I House of Commons Treasury Committee report 'The run on the Rock', Fifth Report of Session 2007–08, [Incorporating HC 999 i–iv, Session 2006-07, Published on Saturday 26 January 2008 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited, pp 18-19.
↑ See also YouTube video John McFall questions former Northern Rock Chairman Matt Ridley - House of Commons Treasury Committee, 16 Oct 07 Parliamentary Copyright
↑ GWPF website (undated) accessed 8 April 2014
Retrieved from "https://powerbase.info/index.php?title=Matt_Ridley&oldid=238151"
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Prabhupada Vani
Prabhupada Memories
You can get all these wonderful videos on Siddhanta's website of "Prabhupada Memories"
With the publication in video and print of Memories: Anecdotes of a Modern Day Saint, Siddhanta has made a contribution of monumental and historical proportions to our understanding of Srila Prabhupada, the modern Gaudiya Vaisnava movement, and human religiosity in general. All too often, the contemporary followers of a great religious leader have failed to adequately record his or her life and teachings, resulting in long centuries of frequently futile debate and conflict among historians and religionists alike.
Thus Siddhanta’s documentation in both video and print of the testimonies of Srila Prabhupada’s disciples about their master provides an invaluable, irreplaceable, and unique treasure of information to all those who desire today, or seek in the future, an accurate, reliable, true picture of Srila Prabhupada, the Founder-Acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.
Siddhanta’s patient, creative and professional work will surely be seen by future generations as one of our generation’s greatest contributions to the human family. Thus it is with the soundest of reasons that I acknowledge here my deep personal gratitude to Siddhanta, congratulate him on his outstanding achievement, and urge all those seriously interested, for whatever reason, in Krishna, Srila Prabhupada, ISKCON, and spirituality itself, to stock the favorite shelves of their library with the singular treasures of the Memories series.
Hridayananda das Goswami
MY FIRST CONTACT with the Hare Krishna movement came in the summer of 1969 when I saw it’s members chanting on the streets of Hollywood. My initial reaction to the shaven heads, saffron-colored robes, and seemingly strange activity, was one of bewilderment and to some degree, comic relief. It was not until a year later that I was able to appreciate the sound philosophy that stems from one of the world’s oldest religious traditions. I soon realized that there was a tremendous wealth of knowledge and logic behind the activities of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness and that it was far from being a new “hippie” cult. In fact, the information I obtained by reading my first Back to Godhead magazine answered all the questions I ever had regarding life, its purpose, and more.
It was in Dallas in 1970 when I actually came in personal contact with the author of that Back to Godhead magazine, the Founder-Acharya of the Hare Krishna movement, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada. I greeted him along with the other devotees at the airport and then followed the procession back to the temple, where Prabhupada gave a Sunday Feast lecture. What struck me most about that lecture more than anything was Prabhupada’s answer to one question that was asked of him by a member of the audience. In his lecture, Srila Prabhupada had been stressing the importance of chanting the Hare Krishna maha-mantra: Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare. The guest asked what Srila Prabhupada personally felt when he chanted this mantra. Without hesitation, Srila Prabhupada answered, “I feel no fear.” Because his response was so immediate and filled with such conviction, I immediately sensed in my heart that not only what he said was absolutely true, but that he was in direct contact with God. I obviously felt an urgency to try the same mantra meditation process myself.
Over time it became apparent to many who observed him first hand that Srila Prabhupada was steadily situated in a higher state of consciousness beyond anything that was part of our common experience. But that was not all. After a further study of the teachings in his books and observing his interactions with others, I realized that here was a person who was not materially motivated. He was not interested in mundane acquisition, exploitation, or adoration. He was also in complete control of his senses, the very foundation of all yoga practice. By his own example, he was a perfect teacher of the divine process of devotional service or bhakti-yoga. And by means of his unconditional love and devotion, he was in touch with and connected with the Supreme Being. His mission appeared to be for all of our best interests by making me, and everyone else who cared to listen, spiritually happy by engaging our mind, body and soul in serving God, Krishna. Srila Prabhupada taught that as a fish out of water cannot be happy out of its constitutional element, similarly we as spiritual beings cannot be happy simply engaging in activities meant to satisfy our material senses.
Years later, after accepting Srila Prabhupada as a pure representative of God and having taken spiritual initiation from him, I had the opportunity to personally be with him again when he visited the temple in Denver, Colorado. My previous conviction that Prabhupada was in direct contact with the Absolute Truth was further solidified when I offered flowers at his feet and our eyes met. When Srila Prabhupada looked at me, he looked right through the external me, touching the internal me, the soul. I felt naked in front of him, feeling as though he could not only read my mind but my heart as well. It was the most humbling and purifying experience of my life.
That morning during Srila Prabhupada’s daily walk, he was talking about prasadam, food offered to God before it is personally consumed. Prabhupada said prasadam is so spiritually potent that if a human being simply eats prasadam once, in his next life he will take birth in a wealthy family or a family of devotees. He then stated that if an animal eats prasadam, in its next life it will immediately take birth in the human form of life, jumping over all other species of life that a living entity would normally have to pass through before obtaining a human birth in the process of transmigration of the soul.
After this discussion, I was contemplating asking him about something that had been bothering me for some time. I had been engaged as a book distributor of Srila Prabhupada’s transcendental literature, but I had become affected by so many people I met who would say that we as devotees should get jobs and not take from society by asking for donations. I said to Srila Prabhupada, “People think we are just trying to escape material life by joining this sankirtan movement.” Srila Prabhupada turned to me, smiled, and asked, “A rich man, does he work? We are rich men. We don’t work. Any rich man, he is not working. Is he escaping? He is engaging everyone in the factory, but he is not working. So is that escaping? We are rich men. We are Krishna’s sons.”
He said the problems we have are eating, sleeping, and mating, and we can arrange for these things very easily. Prabhupada taught the philosophy of “Simple Living, High Thinking.” One can till the ground anywhere and get some food. He said, “I keep some cows, and I have got land: my whole economic question is solved.” He asked, “Why shall I make big, big arrangements for these things?” He continued, “You may do it, but why should you forget your real business? That is the defect, that you are so foolish that only for maintaining this body, you have forgotten your real business—self-realization.” Prabhupada then said, “In the spiritual world there is no question of working. You get everything. So why not endeavor to go there?”
Prabhupada then looked around the beautiful park that we were walking in, surrounded by trees, lakes, and swans. He noted how there was no one else in the park that someone had worked hard to create, and how we were the only ones who were taking advantage of the park and all its beauty. He said, “They worked so hard, yet they are sleeping. We are taking advantage.” To exemplify this situation with an analogy, he told us the story of the mouse and the snake. Prabhupada said, “The mouse builds a nice home for himself underground and lives comfortably. Then the snake comes and eats the mouse and lives comfortably in the home the mouse has built.” He finished by telling me, and the others that accompanied him on his morning walk that we can tell people that actually, “Yes, we are escaping this horrible condition of life—meat eating, drinking, and intoxication. We are escaping these things, but not happiness.”
In his kindness, Prabhupada helped me realize my foolishness to think I had to fulfill the expectations of the public by having a nine to five job. I had been affected by the negative feedback I received from the people I met, but Prabhupada reminded me that the point of life is self-realization, and our role in the varnashram scheme of things was to remind others of that fact. He had dispelled my doubts with the torchlight of knowledge.
Later on, I realized that if I had this small glimpse of truth from being with Srila Prabhupada for such a brief period of time, there had to be many more devotees who had just as much or more association with His Divine Grace who could also share their experiences and realizations. It was obvious that each devotee’s encounter would be unique and would reveal other aspects of Srila Prabhupada’s personality and boundless wisdom that were not necessarily contained within his transcendental books. I believed that these encounters with Krishna’s pure devotee not only inspired the devotees at the time but could help anyone who hears these lessons in his or her present daily lives. It is with that belief that I ventured out to acquire the stories contained in this book. These stories are not only informative but also entertaining and inspiring in the way the devotees express themselves, seemingly going into a regression type trance as they recall those times spent with Srila Prabhupada.
One poignant realization that came from one of Srila Prabhupada’s grand disciples was that through these memories we can learn about the qualities of Prabhupada and thus develop our attraction and love for him. Just as we become attracted to and ultimately love Krishna by learning about His qualities and activities from reading them in the Krsna Book, we can also develop love for Srila Prabhupada by becoming aware of his compassion, humility, wisdom, humor, wit, knowledge, determination, love and how he dealt with life in a practical Krishna conscious manner.
From a historical standpoint, it seemed important as well to record these personal instructions thinking that if someone had been able to record the recollections of the disciples of Jesus Christ, that those memories would be extremely meaningful today. So starting in 1991, the process of obtaining the oral histories of Srila Prabhupada’s disciples began through videotaped sessions and subsequently transcribed to be presented in this book form.
There are no hard and fast rules in reading this collection of memories, as they are not recorded in any chronological order or by subject matter. The memories are simply a stream of consciousness by each devotee, and therefore, can be read in a nonlinear fashion. This book is meant to be, as Srila Prabhupada stated once about his books, readable in such a way that one can start in the middle and still derive sweetness, as biting into candy anywhere will result in the same sweet taste. As there were some five thousand initiated disciples, this process has just begun, and we hope that there will be more volumes to come in the future.
We must thank Bhargava Prabhu for his photographs that appear as the cover artwork. He certainly was blessed with a great eye. This production could not be possible without the hard and diligent work of our transcribers, Dinadayadri dasi, Ram Prasad das, Mamata dasi, Kara Middleton, Sujana dasi, Renukah dasi, and Kapila das. We thank Sri Kanta Prabhu for his work in assembling the Glossary and Bhojadev das for his assistance with the Introduction. And lastly but certainly not least of all, our deepest appreciation goes to Vishaka devi dasi for her brilliant work in editing the transcriptions to a form that create a book that cannot be put down until the last page.
This publication is also now being printed and distributed in India by the wonderful devotees in New Delhi who have understood the importance of distributing these oral histories in the land where Srila Prabhupada began his journey in spreading Krishna consciousness. My heartfelt thanks go to Nandagopal Jivan das (GKG, New Delhi) of Golden Age Media for producing this Indian publication, HG Mohan Rupa das (GKG) (TP-ISKCON-Delhi) and HG Sarvasakshi das (GKG) for their encouragement and guidance, HG Vrindavan Vinod das (GKG) for his cover design work, HG Annutama Hari das (GKG) for arranging the design and layout and Sangini Radha devi dasi for her support of her husband Nandagopal Jivan in his service to Srila Prabhupada. I must also thank HH Gopal Krishna Goswami Maharaj and HH Lokanath Swami Maharaj for referring me to Nandagopal Jivan Prabhu and confirming his integrity.
This offering to Srila Prabhupada would also not be in its present form without the hard work and patience of two members of the Back to Godhead staff: Yamaraj das who formatted the book and also beautifully designed the cover as well as Nagaraja das who contributed valuable assistance in this process. I also want to acknowledge my wife, Ajita devi dasi, and daughters Kartika devi dasi and Renukah devi dasi for their emotional and spiritual support in this ongoing project. We, of course, would be remiss not to give our heartfelt appreciation to all the devotees who shared their memories of Srila Prabhupada, and we pray that we have delivered their stories accurately.
Siddhanta das (ACBSP)
'sādhu-saṅga', 'sādhu-saṅga'—sarva-śāstre kaya
lava-mātra sādhu-saṅge sarva-siddhi haya
(Cc. Madhya 22.54)
“The verdict of all revealed scriptures is that by even a moment’s association with a pure devotee, one can attain all success."
THIS BOOK OF ORAL HISTORIES is a transcription of the DVD series “Memories-Anecdotes of a Modern-Day Saint”. The interviews contained within this book are from the direct disciples, with a few exceptions, of the Founder- Acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. These fortunate souls had that all- important association with a pure devotee of the Supreme Lord, Sri Krishna. His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada, has been well recognized by scholars, religionists, and lay persons alike, as one of the most prominent ambassadors of India’s spiritual culture in modern times.
The recollections presented here are testimony to the transcendental character of Srila Prabhupada, whose purity, compassion, knowledge, humor, humility, strength, and determination seemed to be almost effortlessly exhibited on a daily basis. To get a complete picture of Krishna consciousness, it is essential to not only have the written teachings contained within Srila Prabhupada’s books, but also how he acted in so many circumstances, so that we may follow in his footsteps, as he is a true acharya, one who teaches by example. Many times Srila Prabhupada did mention that everything he wanted to tell us was in his books.
Yet oral tradition is part of every society and culture, and we can only offer as a disclaimer that the interviews documented here have been accepted at face value, with the onus of veracity left to the integrity and memory of the interviewed party. However, since the interactions described in this book, were witnessed by more than one person, we as the publisher, feel all of the accounts are genuine.
As mentioned in the preface to “Prabhupada Nectar”, the glories and pastimes of the Lord’s pure servants are seen to be as sweet and instructive as the Lord’s own unlimited pastimes. In the same mood of appreciation for Srila Prabhupada’s transcendental glories and instructions, we hope this volume will be of some value for initiates and novices alike who are thirsting for new or revisited facets of the spiritual jewel that is Prabhupada-sanga.
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GeoPet Saga - The Mobile Game
Did you know there's this new mobile game? Named the GeoPet Saga, it is one of the most sensational mobile game on Android platform now. The game was launched on 18th September 2014 and now it already reaches more than 50,000 downloads. GeoPet Saga is a product of Kingsoft Co. Ltd. who developed one of the most successful online game in South East Asia, the JX series.
Kingsoft is also one of the earliest established software developments enterprise in China with Season Studio, one of their subsidiary company is heavily invested by Xiaomi, the fastest growing Android smartphone company in the world.
Connected as one
With GPS, Kingsoft hope to reinvent the old-school online experience for a more mainstream, mobile crowd. They are attempting to create a real-time social gaming experience for their regional players. One of the many efforts for this is seen with the introduction of the Brawl System.
GeoPet Saga, explore mystical worlds
The option lets its players to search for other players in the South East Asia region to engage in a battle. Players will be able to interact with one another through this, a concept similar to MMORPG. As quoted by Mr. Simon Yan, the General Manager of Kingsoft (M) Sdn. Bhd and Overseas Department Director of Kingsoft Seasun in an interview with Mona Tan, an independent PR consultant – You can’t make friends without a fight in GeoPet Saga
Colourful bright graphics
Kingsoft aimed to covered the entire South East Asia by end of this year and they will begin to look into expanding into global regions such as Europe and North America. Kingsoft have big plans for GeoPet Saga and it aims to revolutionise the mobile gaming industry with it.
To download the game GeoPet Saga visit this link http://goo.gl/FKFEse . Do check out their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/geopetsaga to find out more!
Labels: Android, Blogger, Game, Mobile, Press Release, Sharing
Livingsocial Promotes Malaysian Tourism Hotspots
Leveraging its international network, LivingSocial launches its first regional travel campaign. From 7th to 20th May, 2012, its Asian Su...
"Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey" Premieres On Astro National Geographic Channel
This writeup is to share on the latest TV Show on Astro. A SPACETIME ODYSSEY, the thrilling new 13-part series brought to viewers from exe...
Transitions Optical Releases The New Transitions Signature Lenses
Just a quick sharing on the latest innovation from Transitions Optical. Transitions Optical has released its l atest Transitions® Signature...
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NKF Glow Run 2019
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UMW Toyota Motor Sdn Bhd (UMW Toyota Motor) launched the Toyota Tyre Safety Promotion in conjunction with the upcoming Hari Raya celebr...
New Year's Eve @ That Little Wine Bar
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Alvin Tan, Malaysian Blogger Ready To Answer Your Questions On SPOT News
AMA (Ask Me Anything) On SPOT News HOT News, this just came in my inbox, deserving a share. Mobile app SPOT News hopes to break the Int...
Be A Star Karaoke Genting
Found this rather bright and eye catching karaoke signage. It's located in Genting highlands, so the next time you feel like singing in ...
Limited Edition Tiger Beer Bottles - Tiger Jams
I got these beautiful limited edition Tiger Beer bottles! Three dynamic, and edgy Tiger Beer bottles will be available for purchase at an o...
Did you know there's this new mobile game? Named the GeoPet Saga, it is one of the most sensational mobile game on Android platform now...
The National Kidney Foundation of Malaysia (NKF) is turning MAEPS Serdang into a glowing party! The NKF Glow Run which is happening on 20 ...
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Superintendent Mo Green Resigns
Ellis Hunter, Staff Writer
On March 17th, Superintendent Maurice “Mo” Green resigned from his position with Guilford County Schools. He has worked with the GCS system for 7 plus years, but has now decided to work at the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation in Winston-Salem. Mr. Green made equal importance on academic achievemen...
Congratulations to the NJROTC Marksmanship Team!
Micah Owensby, Staff Writer
Marksmanship is a sport of precision and discipline. In order to advance one must be on marl in the marksmanship sport. The marksmanship team at Page High school shoots pneumatic air rifles and competes in the sportier class division. The rifles used shoot a small caliber (.177 cal) lead pellet which...
Welcome Mrs. Boggs!
Everyone welcome Mrs. Stephanie Boggs to the Page community as the new secretary. She is originally from Pennsylvania where she worked in the guidance office and started her work within the schooling system. She then came to Greensboro where she worked as a cashier at Sumner Elementary in the Cafeteria....
Pennies For Pasta
Harrison Kiser, Staff Writer
Once a year there, is a fundraiser called Pennies for Pasta at our school and all around the country. This fundraiser supports the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. With every penny put in, it goes towards helping fund this mission of finding a cure for this disease that affects many in our community and...
The Robin Ward Classified Employee Citation of Excellence
Robin Ward was a classified employee in Guilford County Schools, a secretary for five years. Unfortunately she passed away due to a bad car accident and in her honor an award was created. The full title, The Robin Ward Classified Employee Citation of Excellence is relegated only to the classified employees....
Congratulations to Mr. Christopher Tangredi on being Teacher of the Year here at Page! He was voted by his fellow staff members for this honor. Mr. Tangredi graduated from UNCG and has been teaching for 9 years, but first taught at Smith High School for 6 years before coming to Page. Here at Page he...
Liza Bobbitt
Please welcome new teachers, Amanda White and Asya Miller! Ms. White came from Raleigh where she taught chemistry and now teaches CP and Honors Chemistry at Page. She was born in Greensboro and her aunt and mother attended Page, therefore she knows a lot about Page and the surrounding area! Ms. White...
Microsoft Office Specialist Certificate
Forty two students have received their Microsoft office specialist certificate after taking an exam scoring seven hundred or higher in Ms. Yancey, Ms. Dean, Mr.Barett or Mrs. Love’s class. The exam is a crucial part for student when trying to acquire a Microsoft certificate and students are welcome...
Meagan Gutheil, Staff Writer
The Page Poet Laureate Contest is a contest for poetry lovers. By signing up for this contest you have the opportunity to enter three original poems and be recognized for your poetry if you win. Any Page student interested in poetry is eligible to enter. The winner will be announced near the end of...
Page Fundraisers During the Holiday Season
Page is helping out the community during the holiday season by having several fundraisers to help others! Page collected cans for the Can Food Drive and donated the cans to the Urban Ministry to make Thanksgiving meals for those who can not afford to make a Thanksgiving meal. 612 cans were donated! We...
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Fourth inning dooms Wings in loss to RailRiders
By Paul Gotham on August 24, 2017 No Comment
Tommy Field. (Photo: Kelsie Redburn/Rochester Red Wings)
By PAUL GOTHAM
What is it they say about a sleeping giant?
Less than 18 hours after being held without a run for more than 13 innings, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders rapped 13 hits in an 8-3 win over the Rochester Red Wings in the final weekday matinee of the regular season at Frontier Field, Thursday.
The International League’s most potent offense connected on five extra-base hits including three home runs.
Starlin Castro and Greg Bird, on MLB rehab stints, connected on back-to-back solo shots to start the fourth inning. By the time three outs were retired in the frame, the RailRiders sent 12 to the plate and pasted a seven-spot on the scoreboard.
“Not a good day,” Red Wing manager Mike Quade said. “That’s all right. We had such a good night last night, and it would have been great to follow up.”
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre entered play leading the IL in runs per game (4.71), batting average (.271), slugging (.438), OPS (.771) and triples (33). The RailRiders are tied for first with a .333 on-base percentage and are third in home runs with 138. The IL-North leaders are tied for second with 247 doubles and fifth in stolen bases with 92.
Rochester starter Chris Heston looked good for three innings. The right-hander allowed a one-out single in the first before inducing an inning-ending-double play from the next batter. He issued a two-out walk in the second but set down the next batter and faced the minimum in the third.
An error on a routine fly ball was the seventh of eight straight Scranton hitters to reach in the fourth.
“He’s a change speed/command guy,” Quade said of his starter. “Just wound up getting a little bit too much of the plate. We could have made a defensive play that really could have helped.
“You take that one inning out, and you do okay…Just one of those days on the heels of all the excitement, was kind of a lousy day to have that kind of day.”
The former major leaguer needed 22 pitches through the first two frames. Heston finished the game with 61 pitches – 26 for strikes.
Wings relievers Luke Bard, Mason Melotakis and Jake Reed combined to allow one run on five hits over six innings of work.
“The last two weeks they’ve been taxed,” Quade said of his bullpen. “The big league club has started to mix and match and do some things, so we’ve been a little thin at times. Those guys again today got us to tomorrow.”
Rochester came into the game 54-14 when scoring the first run. J.B. Shuck led the home third with a single and scored from first on an Anthony Recker double into the left field corner.
Rochester defeated Scranton/Wilkes-Barre 5-4 in the completion of a suspended game and followed with a 1-0 victory on Wednesday night.
Rochester falls to 75-56 with the loss. The Wings lead in the wild-card race slips to 3.5 (for now) with Lehigh Valley hosting Syracuse later tonight.
Playoff equation
Can the Wings go 6-5 in their remaining 11 games? Keep in mind the home nine has four games at Scranton/Wilkes-Barre next week (Monday-Thursday). There’s a good chance Castro and Bird will have finished their rehab stints by then and returned to the New York Yankees. The Wings close their current homestand with three games against Buffalo and four at home to end the regular season against Pawtucket. If the Wings can go a game over .500 that over the remaining 11 days, Lehigh Valley will have to go 10-2 to catch Rochester. The IronPigs hit the road for seven games – three against Pawtucket and four versus Syracuse. Lehigh Valley ends the season with a four-game set against Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
Familiar Battery
Heston and Recker share a place in history. Heston hurled the 17th no-hitter in San Francisco Giants history on June 10th, 2015. He hit three batters that day. One of the trio? You guessed it Anthony Recker who at that time played for the New York Mets. On a side note – Heston needed just 110 pitches in what was at the time his second career complete game in MLB.
Zack Granite will return to Minnesota. In his place, Levi Michael was transferred from Double-A Chattanooga. Granite earned his original major-league call-up on July 8th when he led the International League hitting .360 batting average. The centerfielder returned to Rochester on August 5th.
Section V Role Call
West Irondequoit high alum Cito Culver made his 41st start of the season at shortstop. The first-round pick of the New York Yankees in the 2010 MLB draft drove in a run with a sacrifice fly in the fourth – his 45th RBI of the season. Culver is one of eight former Section V athletes currently playing professional baseball at the minor league level including Chris Bostick (Aquinas), Ernie Clement (Brighton), Logan Harasta (Webster Thomas), Grant Heyman (Pittsford Sutherland), Steven Klimek (Greece Arcadia), Danny Mendick (Pittsford Mendon) and Jonathan Schwind (Hilton).
Lehigh Valley, Rochester, Starlin Castro, Syracuse
Fourth inning dooms Wings in loss to RailRiders added by Paul Gotham on August 24, 2017
View all posts by Paul Gotham →
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BUSINESS ROUNDUP: Executives promoted at Olympic Resource Management
Sun | Business
Christopher Dunagan — Feb 26th, 1999
Olympic Resource Management, a Poulsbo-based subsidiary of Pope Resources, has promoted David Nunes, vice president of portfolio development, to senior vice president of acquisitions, while Wesley Nicholson, director of operational planning and analysis, has advanced to vice president of operational planning and analysis.
Nunes is responsible for investment activities on behalf of Olympic Resource Management's third-party investor clients. Nicholson is responsible for forest planning, forest inventory, timberland appraisals, operational analysis and land records for the company's operations in the United States and Canada.
Olympic Resource Management oversees 600,000 acres of timberland and development property in Washington, Oregon, California and Canada and offers timber-based portfolios and development services to its third-party clients.
Environmentalists up in arms over forest proposal
SEATTLE (AP) -- Environmentalists in the Pacific Northwest assailed the Bush administration's plan to loosen requirements for logging national forests, while the timber industry welcomed the proposal. The White House on Wednesday announced the proposed revisions to federal land management rules, saying they ... [Read More...]
PORT GAMBLE: Mill town seeks historic designation
By the time Port Gamble celebrates its 150th anniversary this fall, it hopes to have a blueprint to ensure its survival for the next 150 years. The company that owns the historic mill town, Olympic Resource Management, is working with Kitsap County officials to ... [Read More...]
BUSINESS ROUNDUP: American Marine Bank picks VP for development
Calvin Springer has joined the staff of American Marine Bank as vice president responsible for business development of trust and investment portfolios in the Pierce and Kitsap markets. A longtime local resident with 25 years of experience, Springer will work with clients on estate ... [Read More...]
ON THE JOB
Paratransit Services has reorganized its management structure and has promoted two employees to executive vice president positions Christie Scheffer , formerly general manager of the company's Medicaid transportation program in Portland, was promoted to chief operating officer. In her new position, she will provide ... [Read More...]
BUSINESS ROUNDUP: Healy, Roy promoted at Paladin
Peggy Roy and Mary Healy have recently received promotion at Paladin Data Systems Corp. in Poulsbo. Roy, manager of Paladin's education division, has been promoted to vice president of education. As a member of the executive board, Roy will help shape the overall ... [Read More...]
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Femmes Fatales Jul 29 2013
I’ll be so famous people will completely forget about that other Marilyn. Just wait and see.
When you hear the phrase “Marilyn Walk” you probably associate it with Marilyn Monroe’s distinctive sashay. That’s a fine image, but if your name happens literally to be Marilyn Walk then that means you went down in Hollywood history unremembered. We like to imagine Walk dreaming of catching her first big break and seeing an article about herself entitled “Walk of Fame.” It doesn’t seem as if that happened, but this shot by renowned lensman Bruno Bernard, aka Bernard of Hollywood, bestows a sort of fame upon Walk all by itself by making her image a rare collectible. It was probably made around 1955. And just in case you think we’re making up her name, the reverse of the photo appears below.
Update: We now think this is Playboy model Marilyn Waltz. The look is right, the time is right, and the name is close. She was probably trying out a pseudonym to dissociate herself from her centerfold appearances, which spanned February 1954 to April 1955. We're 95% on this.
Marilyn WalkMarilyn WaltzBruno BernardBernard of Hollywood
Vintage Pulp Dec 8 2012
Aww, we can’t believe how big she’s gotten.
A naked woman in a baby crib? From our 2012 perspective we think the whole idea is a bit deviant, but in 1963 presumably this photo from Bruno Bernard, aka Bernard of Hollywood, was totally innocuous, right? No, we didn’t think so either. Nude photography runs the gamut. Sometimes it depicts women as strong or even domineering, but more often it suggests that the perfect woman is pliant and childlike, so to us at least, going the extra step and putting the model in a crib is just a bit too overt for good taste. But we were not even zygotes in 1963 so we’re not trying to judge. The photo is pretty, and that’s really all we can say. The week’s quips, with observations from poet Carl Sandburg and actor Vincent Price, are below.
Dec 8: “A baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on.”—Carl Sandburg
Dec 9: “A lot of girls who can dish it out can’t cook it.”—Vincent Price
Dec 10: Behind every successful man there’s a woman nagging him he’s not so hot.
Dec 11: “Solo: A loud passage played by the orchestra leader’s brother-in-law.”—John Doremus
Dec 12: “Every time my mother-in-law comes to sleep at our house, I have breakfast in bed. I sleep in the kitchen.”—Bobby Ramsen
Dec 13: “The modern girl marries for keeps; she keeps on working and keeps house.”—Paul Fogarty
Dec 14: There’s no economy in going to bed early to save candles if the result is twins—Chinese Prov.
Goodtime Weekly CalendarBernard of HollywoodBruno BernardCarl SandburgVincent PriceJohn DoremusPaul FogartyBobby Ramsennudity
Vintage Pulp Oct 14 2012
When she says jump you ask how high.
Some call it cheesecake, glamour, or even smut, but we prefer to call it preserving the ephemera of history. For instance, this image by the renowned mid-century photographer Bruno Bernard, aka Bernard of Hollywood, did not exist on the internet a moment ago. And now it does. See how that works? So think of us as archivists, and yourselves as researchers. That probably won’t help if someone sees you looking at this image, but hey, it’s worth a try.
Of late, when reading the Goodtime Weekly quips, we’ve been imagining them delivered as part of a stand-up show—i.e., followed by uproarious laughter. That actually helps a bit. When we obey the two drink minimum that helps even more. Next we’re going to steal a few of these lines and try them out in the real world. After all, the true test of a quip is whether actual living and breathing, flesh and blood humans laugh at it. So we’re going to give some of these a trial run and get back to you. Stay tuned.
Oct 13: Mother Nature still blushes before disrobing.
Oct 14: “Sometimes a man pulls the wool over his wife’s eyes with the wrong yarn.”—Mitch Miller
Oct 15: “Have you heard of an elephant that went on a diet? Now he’s eating like a horse.”—Peggie Castle
Oct 16: “The ten best years of a woman’s life are between her 25th and 26th birthday.”—Jerry Lester
Oct 17: “Overheard at a restaurant: ‘She promised to love, honor, and obey. Now I’d settle for only one.’”—Irv Kupcinet
Oct 18: “Every husband knows the best time to wash the dishes is right after his wife tells him.”—Paul Gibson
Oct 19: “Husbands are like furnaces. You have to watch them or they’ll go out.”—Sam Cowling
Goodtime Weekly CalendarBernard of HollywoodBruno BernardPeggie CastleMitch MillerJerry LesterIrv KupcinetPaul GibsonSam Cowlingnudity
Vintage Pulp Jul 1 2012
Hmm, maybe I should change this wallpaper.
Some well known photographers have contributed to the Goodtime Weekly Calendar, but the above image is by a true icon—Bruno Bernard, aka Bernard of Hollywood. The German-born Bernard possessed a doctorate in criminal psychology and had no formal photographic training, but after leaving Germany in 1937 was operating his own portrait studio within a year. His second studio was on Sunset Boulevard, and that’s where he worked for 25 years, along the way creating such iconic images as Marilyn Monroe’s Niagara and River of No Return promos, Lili St. Cyr’s Indian headdress and transparent bathtub shots, and portraits of virtually every star in mid-century Hollywood. The Goodtime Calendar has several other Bernard contributions, and you’ll see those as the year continues.
As a side note, you may be wondering why we’re showing you this second week of July image a week early. It’s because we’re headed off to Sevilla, Spain tomorrow for a week or so, and we won’t be posting during that time. Well, you never know. Probably we won’t. Depends on what we see. But anyway, we didn’t want our vacation to interrupt our Goodtime Weekly series, so you get this page a week early. You also get the quips a week early:
July 7: “When a man opens the car door for his wife, it’s either a new car or a new wife.”—Larry Attebery
July 8: When a pensive little thing gets married, she often becomes an expensive little thing.
July 9: “A psychiatrist is a man who doesn’t have to worry so long as other people do.”—Pat Buttram
July 10: “A Hollywood guy changes his name once, a dollar bill once in a while, and his girl once she gets wise.”—Joe Hamilton
July 11: A man is incomplete until he marries—then he’s really finished.
July 12: “Science is dandy, but what makes a world’s fair is sex and cotton candy.”—Gracie Hansen
July 13: Small town: a place where there’s no recreation for single folks once the sun goes down.
Update: Turns out the model is named Terry Higgins. We just discovered this in June 2015, but better late than never. At least you know we're always updating and refining the information on our site.
GermanyHollywoodNiagaraRiver of No ReturnGoodtime Weekly CalendarBruno BernardBernard of HollywoodMarilyn MonroeLili St. CyrLarry AtteberyPat ButtramJoe HamiltonGracie HansenTerry Higginsnudity
SEARCH PULP INTERNATIONAL
The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1915—Claude Patents Neon Tube
French inventor Georges Claude patents the neon discharge tube, in which an inert gas is made to glow various colors through the introduction of an electrical current. His invention is immediately seized upon as a way to create eye catching advertising, and the neon sign comes into existence to forever change the visual landscape of cities.
1937—Hughes Sets Air Record
Millionaire industrialist, film producer and aviator Howard Hughes sets a new air record by flying from Los Angeles, California to New York City in 7 hours, 28 minutes, 25 seconds. During his life he set multiple world air-speed records, for which he won many awards, including America's Congressional Gold Medal.
1967—Boston Strangler Convicted
Albert DeSalvo, the serial killer who became known as the Boston Strangler, is convicted of murder and other crimes and sentenced to life in prison. He serves initially in Bridgewater State Hospital, but he escapes and is recaptured. Afterward he is transferred to federal prison where six years later he is killed by an inmate or inmates unknown.
1950—The Great Brinks Robbery Occurs
In the U.S., eleven thieves steal more than $2 million from an armored car company's offices in Boston, Massachusetts. The skillful execution of the crime, with only a bare minimum of clues left at the scene, results in the robbery being billed as "the crime of the century." Despite this, all the members of the gang are later arrested.
1977—Gary Gilmore Is Executed
Convicted murderer Gary Gilmore is executed by a firing squad in Utah, ending a ten-year moratorium on Capital punishment in the United States. Gilmore's story is later turned into a 1979 novel entitled The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer, and the book wins the Pulitzer Prize for literature.
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Review : Coming of Age: The Forms of Youth: 20th-Century Poetry and Adolescence by Stephen Burt
Heather Clark
Research output: Contribution to specialist publication › Book/Film/Article review
PN Review
Clark, H. (2009). Review : Coming of Age: The Forms of Youth: 20th-Century Poetry and Adolescence by Stephen Burt. PN Review, 35(3), 61-63.
Clark, Heather. / Review : Coming of Age : The Forms of Youth: 20th-Century Poetry and Adolescence by Stephen Burt. In: PN Review. 2009 ; Vol. 35, No. 3. pp. 61-63.
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Clark, H 2009, 'Review : Coming of Age: The Forms of Youth: 20th-Century Poetry and Adolescence by Stephen Burt' PN Review, vol. 35, no. 3, pp. 61-63.
Review : Coming of Age : The Forms of Youth: 20th-Century Poetry and Adolescence by Stephen Burt. / Clark, Heather.
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Clark H. Review : Coming of Age: The Forms of Youth: 20th-Century Poetry and Adolescence by Stephen Burt. PN Review. 2009;35(3):61-63.
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Medellin Gay Hotels – The Nomadic Boys
January 6, 2020 January 6, 2020 by J. Scott Coatsworth
Medellin is Colombia’s second city. What used to be the capital of a billion-dollar cocaine industry has now transformed into an exciting, super modern and buzzing gay friendly metropolis.
The Paisas (the nickname of people from Medellin) often compete with the Rolos (the nickname given to the people from Bogota) as to who is better. A common joke is that Medellin has the best weather (the “City of Eternal Spring”) and unlike Bogota, has managed to build a successful public transport system – honestly, mention that to them and it will spark a whoooole long conversation about it!
In terms of the gay scene, however, Bogota wins for us hands down simply because of the incredible super club, Theatron! The gay scene of Medellin is just as vibrant to explore, of course, particularly around El Poblado, where the majority of the city’s best nightlife can be found.
We spent almost a year living in Medellin and during that period we were fortunate enough to try out various different places to stay. We’ve put together our 6 best gay friendly hotels in Medellin for gay travellers, where you can feel confident you’ll be welcomed as a queer traveller and won’t have any problems getting a double bed.
Where to base yourself in Medellin
The majority of the best gay bars and clubs of Medellin can be found in and around El Poblado. This was definitely one of our favourite parts of Medellin as you’re close to the main gay bars as well as to the city’s best restaurants. The majority of the best luxury hotel brands are in Poblado, but the downside is that it is not cheap: this is one of the most expensive parts of the city!
By Stefan Arestis – Full Story at the Nomadic Boys
Medellin Gay Travel Resources
Categories Accommodations, Colombia, Columnists, Gay Travel, Nomadic Boys, South America Tags gay, gay hotel, gay Medellin, gay travel, medellin, Medellin Gay Hotels, The Nomadic Boys Leave a comment
Medellin Gay Bars – The Nomadic Boys
Whilst Bogota in Colombia is home to the largest gay club in South America, Medellin is notorious for having the most beautiful guys…the famous hot singer, Maluma, is a Paisa boy…just sayin’…
The people from Medellin and the area around it are nicknamed “Paisas”.
Mmm mmm! Gimme some of that sweet Maluma sugar any day of the week
They are a proud and fun bunch who live in a city notorious for having an “eternal spring” weather throughout the year. As such, it makes it a popular base for digital nomads and startups. We based ourselves in Medellin for almost a year because of this.
Medellin also has a fun gay scene to explore. Whilst it’s not as big as the Chapinero gay scene of Bogota, there are still plenty of awesome Medellin gay bars to check out, which we’ve summarised in this article. For more, be sure to check out our comprehensive gay guide to Medellin.
Where are the Medellin Gay Bars?
The majority of the gay bars of Medellin are located in the “El Poblado” area. This is the touristic beating heart of Medellin, where the city’s best hotels, restaurants and nightlife can be found. It’s a lot of fun here. There’s always an electric and young vibe, particularly at weekends. The Paisas love to party and will quickly embrace you.
Outside of El Poblado, there are gay bars dotted around in other neighbourhoods of Medellin, particularly in the downtown “Candelaria” area and the more residential “Laureles”, which is where we based ourselves.
Categories Colombia, Columnists, Gay Bars, Gay Clubs, Gay Travel, Nightlife, Nomadic Boys, South America Tags colombia, gay bars, Medellin Gay Bars, south america Leave a comment
Gay Medellin – The Nomadic Boys
December 20, 2019 December 20, 2019 by J. Scott Coatsworth
Medellin used to be considered the crime capital of Colombia, this is the city where drug lord Pablo Escobar reigned during the 70s and 80s. However, over the past 15 years, it has undergone a huge transition to become one of the safest and most advanced places in the entire country.
Medellin is a very gay-friendly city. The paisas (people of Medellin) are very welcoming and love to meet foreigners. Whilst its gay scene is not as big as Bogota’s, there are still loads of gay hangouts, largely based in Poblado. What impressed us the most was a public sign we spotted in our hotel, which sets out the various police fines you can get: one of them was for homophobic abuse, which carries a fine of 657,000 Colombian pesos ($224). The fact that this is so prominently displayed in a public area speaks volumes about safety here for LGBTQ travellers!
We spent 4 months in Medellin, using it as a home base during our big trip in Latin America, and we loved it. This is our gay guide to Medellin featuring all our favourite gay bars, clubs, gay-friendly hotels to stay at and things to do.
Is Medellin safe for gay travellers?
Medellin is Colombia’s second-largest city. It is very modern and extremely progressive. While Colombia is a majority Catholic country, and quite conservative in some ways, big cities like Medellin are becoming very accepting towards its LGBTQ community. Nowhere is this more evident than during Medellin’s gay Pride festival where the entire community takes part to celebrate and support gay rights in a truly Latin fiesta style!
We never felt unwelcome or experienced any hostility from the locals during our time in Medellin, although be aware that some areas of the city should be avoided, particularly at night time, whether you are gay or straight.
Colombia Gay Travel Resources
Categories Colombia, Columnists, Gay Travel, Nomadic Boys, South America Tags gay Medellin, gay travel
Theotron, the Ultimate Gay Club – The Nomadic Boys
November 20, 2019 October 11, 2019 by J. Scott Coatsworth
5,000 Colombian gay boys partying away in the same club? What’s not to love…!
Theatron makes theatre out of a clubbing experience. From the castle-like architecture to the epic dancefloor production, Theatron grabs its patrons by the throat and thrusts them into an experience they’ll never forget. It’s where all the gay folk of Bogota end their Saturday evening and serves as the ultimate finale to a night out.
Read moreTheotron, the Ultimate Gay Club – The Nomadic Boys
Categories Colombia, Gay Bars, Gay Clubs, Gay Travel, South America Tags bogota, colombia, gay club, gay travel, The Nomadic Boys, Theotron Leave a comment
Gay Bogota – The Nomadic Boys
November 20, 2019 September 19, 2019 by J. Scott Coatsworth
Ever been to a club with 5,000 other gay boys with 13 rooms spread across 5 floors?
Neither had we until we went to the huge Theatron gay club in Colombia’s capital city, Bogota. The gay scene here is all about this infamous mega-club, which is the largest in Latin America. It’s like no other place we’ve ever been to and is certainly the largest gay club we’ve visited.
Read moreGay Bogota – The Nomadic Boys
Categories Colombia, Gay Bars, Gay Clubs, Gay Travel, South America Tags bogota, colombia, gay bars, gay Bogota, gay clubs, gay travel, south america, The Nomadic Boys Leave a comment
Gay Cartagena – The Nomadic Boys
Lonely Planet calls Cartagena the undisputed queen of the Caribbean coast…well that was before these two queens sashayed their way into Colombia’s most touristic city!
The fifth-largest city in Colombia, Cartagena’s old town is a UNESCO World Heritage site. We adored the city’s mix of old and new architectural design. A sprawling maze of cobblestone alleys, colourful colonial-style buildings, and vines of shrubs climbing down the sides of ancient walls could be found on one side. Towering silver skyscrapers and industrial catwalks can be seen on the other.
Read moreGay Cartagena – The Nomadic Boys
Categories Colombia, Columnists, Gay Travel, Nomadic Boys, South America Tags colombia, gay cartenega, gay travel Leave a comment
Bogata Gay Bars – The Nomadic Boys
July 19, 2019 by J. Scott Coatsworth
We will never forget the gay scene of Bogota!
One minute, we were dancing under the disco lights to Cher’s ‘Believe’, the next, we were in the adjacent room, getting down to some Latino-infused techno. Moving between 13 rooms of music, each with a different style or atmosphere, we had a baker’s dozen worth of experiences in a single night.
This is Theatron – a mega-club built from the ruins of an old cinema; where most of the Bogota gay boys end their Saturday night and party until the early hours of Sunday. After paying a visit to it, you know nothing else you do that night can top it!
But where do all the gay boys of Bogota head to before congregating at the mother of all gay clubs? After all, Theatron doesn’t really get busy until after midnight.
We found the gay scene of Bogota to be full of many excellent bars. There is something for everyone, no matter what you’re into. In this guide, we’ve put together some of the best gay bars in Bogota to head for a drink before partying the night away.
Full Story at the Nomadic Boys
Categories Colombia, Columnists, Gay Bars, Gay Clubs, Gay Travel, Nomadic Boys, South America Tags Bogata Gay Bars, bogota, colombia, gay bars, gay clubs Leave a comment
South American Gay Beaches – Travel Pulse
November 15, 2018 by J. Scott Coatsworth
With wintertime approaching here in the Northern Hemisphere, what’s a gay beachcomber to do? Why not flip the seasonal script and head south of the equator, where summer will be here before you know it? Here are six fun options for the beach-loving queer traveler to consider checking out in the coming months.
1. Punta del Este, Uruguay. The scenic coastline in this small South American country is a popular short trip from Buenos Aires, located a short flight or a ferry ride away. Queer travelers have been drawn to this well-to-do area of the country for years, but they also head west to the quieter Playa Chihuahua beach, located not far from the airport. This is also a nude beach, a testament to the open-minded society here (Uruguay legalized gay marriage back in 2013). And check out the male-only gay hotel located here, Undarius, if you’re looking for some fabulous lodging.
2. Praia Mole, Florianopolis, Brazil. Florianopolis, located between Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires, is a stunning island hugging the southern Brazilian coastline. The city is legendary for its nightlife and its beaches. Praia Mole may be one of the most beautiful — and while it’s not an exclusively queer beach, it’s a very popular gathering spot for the local LGBTQ community.
By Paul Heney – Full Story at Travel Pulse
South America Gay Travel Resources
Categories Beaches, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Gay Travel, Rio de Janeiro, South America, Uruguay Tags gay beaches, south america, South American Gay Beaches, Travel Pulse Leave a comment
Latin America Gay Pride – The Nomadic Boys
June 21, 2018 by J. Scott Coatsworth
During our travels in Latin America, we went to some pretty awesome gay pride events, particularly in Mexico, Argentina and Uruguay.
The most famous is of course in Sao Paolo, which is the largest in the world – these guys sure know how to put on a decent party. Here are our top gay pride events we discovered in Latin America during our travels, which you also need to check out.
São Paulo Pride in Brazil
In all lists about the largest gay pride events, the “Parada do Orgulho LGBT de São Paulo” always comes out top: it is famous for having the largest gay pride festival in the world, with estimates of around 5 million people attending – simply incredible!
It all began in 1997 as a modest political march by the LGBTQ “Paulistas” (local nickname for the people of São Paulo). Today the São Paulo Pride has mushroomed into one mammoth colourful pink event, whilst still retaining a strong political stance, particularly in light of the high levels of homophobic violence across the country.
São Paulo Pride takes place in June. We recommend checking their Facebook events page for the most up-to-date information about the next event.
We got excited when one of our favourite Netflix shows, “Sense8” used Sao Paolo pride for sexy Lito to come out, then publicly kissed Hernando in front of everybody. The cast even attended the 2016 parade and had their own raunchy float.
Categories Argentina, Brazil, Buenos Aires, Colombia, Columnists, Gay Pride, Gay Travel, Mexico, Mexico City, Nomadic Boys, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo Tags Latin America Gay Pride Leave a comment
Gay Bogota – New Now Next
January 15, 2018 by J. Scott Coatsworth
The latest issue of gay travel mag Elska presents the Colombian capital as a “stunning, modern, cosmopolitan, and safe city full of open and positive people.”
Each issue of Elska magazine introduces us to gay men from a different city. Past issues have focused on Brussels, Tapei, Cardiff, and even Mumbai.
But the latest issue, shot in Bogota, Colombia, is the first in Latin America—and the one editor-photographer Liam Campbell says he’s the most eager to come back to.
“I did a bit of research on LGBT rights, availability of queer spaces, and also just talked to people from the region, and Bogotá seemed to come out as the gayest city on the continent,” says Elska editor and chief photographer Liam Campbell. “So that’s why we decided to make Bogotá our first venture into the region, and it really turned out to be a great decision. It’s a stunning, modern, cosmopolitan, and safe city full of open and positive people.”
By Dan Avery – Full Story at New Now Next
Categories Colombia, Gay Travel, South America Tags bogota, colombia, gay Bogota, gay travel Leave a comment
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Fresh Blood First! New School Dominating SAMA Nods
The new face of the South African music industry takes centre stage at the 2nd Annual SAMAs.
One of the most frequent queries about the South African entertainment industry is the stagnancy of it all. But while the pace at which things have changed has been rather slow in the past, this awards season is giving us some hope. Fresh from the Metro FM Awards where new acts sweeped the gongs, the 22nd Annual South African Music Music have unveiled a nominations list dominated by new artists.
Fifi Cooper has been sweeping this awards season so long. Will her streak persist at the 22nd SAMAs? Photo: Facebook.com/FifiCooper
Much like they cornered the charts throughout 2015, the likes of Fifi Cooper, Emtee, Nathi Mankayi, Riky Rick, WTF as well as Junior Taurus & Lady Zamar are all that matters this time around!
Related: Our Exclusive Interview With Fifi Cooper
Bangers! Junior Taurus and Lady Zamar are amongst new acts at the 22nd SAMAs. Photo Credit: Facebook.com
Durban continued to emerge at the forefront at the game, but with a twist. While it’s been all about House music and Kwaito, new players like Shekhinah, Kyle Deutsch and Witness The Funk are part of the new school introducing us to Hip Hop and alternative sounds from eThekwini, and it’s been brilliant to witness. Thankfully, they all scored nominations.
Related: Emtee Tells QuenchSA All About His Big Year
Emtee already knows how the Song Of The Year gong feels like in his hands.
We would have liked to see Prince Kaybee in there too. It’s kind of bizarre that he didn’t make it despite having had one of the biggest house music anthems last year. One is also unsettled by the absence of Kwesta, following his reign with Ngud. Though fairly, that smash is still relatively new.
FULL NOMINATIONS LIST
Francois van Coke – Francois van Coke
Emtee – Avery
Nathi – Buyelekhaya
Tresor – VII
Black Coffee – Pieces of Me
Duo or Group of the Year
Desmond & the Tutus – Enjoy Yourself
Witness the Funk – Finding Nomusa
Marcus Wyatt & the ZAR – One Night in the Sun
Jazz Orchestra, Junior Taurus & Lady Zamar – Cotton Candy
Big Nuz – For the Fans
Female Artist of the Year
Judith Sephuma – One Word
Zahara – Country Girl
Fifi Cooper – 20Fifi
Karen Zoid – Drown Out the Noise
Zonke – Work of Heart
Male Artist of the Year
Riky Rick – Family Values
Newcomer of the Year
Best Rock Album
Shortstraw – Youthless
Saarkie – Reisiger
Best Pop Album
Lakota Silva – Pop: The Mix Tape
Loki Rothman – The Way Back
Can Skylark – Overdrive
Vincent Bones – Shaded Soul
Beste Pop Album (Afrikaans)
Karlien van Jaarsveld – My Hartjie
Brendan Peyper – Stop, Wag, Bly Nog ’n Bietjie
Vaughan Gardiner – Sit Vanaand op Herhaal
Pierre Rossouw – In my Bloed
Suzanne – Vuurbestand
Best Adult Contemporary Album
Watershed – Watch the Rain
Karen Zoid & Various – Republiek van Zoid Afrika Vol. 2
Kahn – Salt
Josie Field & Laurie Levine – Tigerlily
Beste Kontemporêre Musiek Album
Elvis Blue – Êrens in die Middel van Nêrens
Andriëtte – Pêrel vir ’n Kroon
Neil Somers – Hierdie Hande
Bok van Blerk – Sing Afrikaner Sing
Stiaan Reynierse – Sonde
Best African Adult Album
Dizu Plaatjies & Friends – Ubuntu – The Common String
Kabomo – Sekusile
Thiwe – Soul Therapy
L’wei Netshivhale – Mudzimu washu
Jessica Mbangeni – Busisiwe – Tribute to the African Heroines
Best Alternative Album
Petite Noir – La Vie Est Belle/Life is Beautiful
Sannie Fox – Serpente Masjien
The Plastics – In Threes
Moonchild Sanelly – Rabulapha!
Die Heuwels Fantasties – Ja. Nee. Lekker (Deluxe)
Best R&B/Soul/Reggae Album
Olwethu – Imbewu
The Muffinz – Do What You Love
Best Rap Album
Kid X – 3 Quarter Pace
Da L.E.S – North God
Zakwe – Impande
Best Kwaito Album
Dbn Nyts – Believe
Kabelo Mabalane – Immortal Vol. 3
Dj Bongz – Game Changer
Mzansi – North Coast Vibe
Best Dance Album
Mi Casa – Home Sweet Home
Mobi Dixon – Tribal Soul Special Edition
DJ Merlon – Original Copy
Junior Taurus & Lady Zamar – Cotton Candy
Best Traditional Faith Music Album
TYGC Family – The Journey Begins
Worship House – Project 12 Praise Live
Worship House – True Worship 2015
Dumi Mkokstad – Ukhona Uthixo
Women in Praise – Various Artists
Best Contemporary Faith Music Album
Ntokozo Mbambo – Spirit and Life
Mark Counihan – To the Brave Ones
Mahalia Buchanan – Redeemed to Worship
24 Skies – Endless Anthem
Benjamin Dube – Sanctified in His Presence
Best Maskandi Album
Imithente – Ichakijana
Thokozani Langa – Khuzeka Mshana
Shwi no Mtekhala – Bazali Bami
Buselaphi – Gabi Gabi
Phuzekhemisi – Woze Durban
Best Jazz Album
Marcus Wyatt & the ZAR Jazz Orchestra – One Night in the Sun
Nduduzo Makhathini – Listening to the Ground
Benjamin Jephta Quintet – Homecoming
Amandla Freedom Ensemble – Bhekisiwe
Bokani Dyer – World Music
Best Classical and/or Instrumental Album
Wouter Kellerman – Love Language
Guy Buttery – Guy Buttery
Deep South – Heartland
Cape Consort – Christoph & Sebastian
KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra – Mintirho ya SJ Khosa
Best Live Audiovisual Recording
Jimmy Dludlu – Live at Emperors Palace
Krone – Krone 2
Neyi & Omega – Friends in Praise
Dbn Nyts ft. Zinhle Ngidi & Trademark – Shumaya
Shekinah x Kyle Deutsch – Back to the Beach
AKA ft. Redsan, Burna Boy & Stoneboy – All Eyes on Me
Major League DJz ft. Cassper Nyovest, Okmalumkoolkat, Riky Rick & Carpo – Sylza Tsotsi
Khuli Chana ft. Patoranking – No Lie
Best Music Video of the Year
Jack Parow & Freshly Ground – Army of One
Riky Rick ft. Cassper Nyovest & Anatii – Fuseg
Al Bairre & PH Fat – Caviar Dreams
iFani – Ayadelela
Monark – Negatives Deluxe
Ticket sales for the 22nd Annual South Africa Music Awards taking place on Saturday, 4 June will be open to the public on Friday, 22 April at 12 noon. Tickets are R350 and available from Computicket
Related Topics:22nd Annual SAMA nominations
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sivewebhaca
Ricky matatiele is gonna murder u bru
Wanda Baloyi’s musical evolution has been a thrill to witness.
Having started out as a member of popular girl group ‘Ghetto Luv’, she quickly transitioned out of the definitive early 2000’s upbeat Kwaito era to a jazzier sound.
The songbird was raised in a musical family, a journey which was heavily influenced by her father Jaco Maria, a Cape Town singer and lead vocalist for 1980’s group Ozila. As such, it was inevitable that Wanda would sooner unleash her creative agility.
On her debut album Voices, Baloyi let go of the fierce hooks that had characterised her initial musical era, and started slowing down the tempo to showcase her beautiful vocals over delightful melodies.
And while that was almost two decades ago, the songstress maintains that music must be a platform for authentic storytelling. “Our people want to know about us”, she says. “They want to know what the issues we are dealing with are, our story, our language and our rhythm.”
After taking a breather and retreating from the trappings of popular culture and the zeitgeist, as it where, Wanda makes a triumphant to the spotlight with new music.
This season, which kicks off with ‘Umendo’, finds her content and assured in who she is.
“What’s new about me as an artist, and as a woman, is I’m more content about who and where I am. I’ve accepted things that I cannot change.”
Consistent with her commitment to telling stories that help others relate and find a sense of healing, ‘Umendo’ gives a voice to the blowback African women face when leaving marriages.
“It talks about a failed marriage and the expectations of the wife in the African cultural content, and the shame of having to go back home and face your family, face the community with that title of coming from a failed marriage”, she tells us.
In this interview, Wanda Baloyi reflects on the treasures of experiences that have shaped her new outlook on life, how she has found her voice, as well as how the new music aims to shine a light on parts of ourselves that yearn to be known.
Q: It’s always fascinating finding out about the frenzy that follows the release of new music for an artist…
Because I haven’t been doing it for a while, it feels a little bit new. But for me, it’s obviously just a process that you have to get through. So it’s fun and exciting to get people to know what you’ve been working on and what the project is about.
Q: Obviously it’s a different feeling from the day just before you release new work. What is that like, the emotions before releasing a new song?
It’s mixed emotions. There’s this anxious feeling because you’ve been creating this baby, you’ve been in studio doing whatever you can do to make this baby sound proper, and you are happy with it… you are excited!
But now taking it to the next step and to the audience… it’s like literally stripping yourself naked and expecting people to be like “Woah! Hot body!” (Laughs) So it’s a bit scary and exciting because before you let go, you, yourself are content and happy with it. If it starts with your happiness, the rest is not in your control.
Q: Is that possibly the scariest thing about being an artist?
There are many scary things about being an artist. Being an artist in itself is scary! Being able to release and let go of your projects to the world is scary. Being onstage is scary. Being unproductive and not being relevant in terms of being loyal to your craft, is scary because you feel God has blessed you with this talent, so why aren’t you doing anything with it?
That’s scary on its own. Just the fact that you are haunted by this gift on a daily basis is scary because it also affects your relationships and a whole lot of things. It’s a very selfish talent, by the way. It demands so much of you that whoever is with you is going to have to be with ya’ll.
There also many scary elements of the industry itself, but in that scariness its exciting and fun! There’s no day that you wake up with nothing to do… There’s a bit of both in it, and I think that in life, if you don’t do anything scary, you won’t do anything exciting.
Q: Your latest single Umendo. Tell us about the genesis of the song
First of all, I worked with a really amazing talent. Dr. Sipho Sithole who has worked with amazing artists in South Africa.
That’s on its own was an exciting collaboration.
I had given him the vision of what I wanted to do on the project, and I think because he was long ready to work with me, he was like, ‘I got you!’ From the first day when we recorded the first song, till the last, it was a breeze. It was an amazing experience. It was more fun than it was work.
I wanted the project to have meaning in terms of the messages we are talking about in the songs. I wanted it to have depth in the storytelling.
And not only stories that are personal to myself, but things we go through in society, in the continent, in the world. As a woman, as a black woman and as Africans. I wanted the issues to be topical.
In this case ‘Umendo’ talks about marriage. I’m not married by the way, not yet! (Laughs).
What I love about the topic is it talks about a failed marriage and the expectations of the wife in the African cultural content, and the shame of having to go back home and face your family, face the community with that title of coming from a failed marriage.
It’s about having to take your children back and having to explain. The whole issue of it being difficult for a woman to remove herself from a situation while being judged.
It’s expected for you because ‘Hawu, you are married mos. Stay there! Hold on. Fight for it!’ But there are certain things that take so much from you that you have to free yourself. Already in the country, we are dealing with gender based violence and so many issues, that the stories are not being voiced in song.
This is a song that creates and provokes conversation. It gets people to talk about it. Someone sitting somewhere will be like, ‘yo I’m in this situation and I can get out of it.’
Q: Do you feel that in the South African music industry and the space we take up in the world, that we are telling our authentic stories?
I think we are now. I’m inspired by the new talent. They are very fearless, and decisive about what they want to say in their songs. I can make an example about Samthing Soweto and Sjava. Those artists are talking about real issues.
I think what connects them to people is the audience is that realness. Someone sitting elokshini or wherever would be like ‘uSjava ukhuluma ngami’ (Sjava is talking about me), or is talking about an issue that I can deeply relate to because this is my reality.
So I think we are. We are delving into ourselves. We have revisited our roots and gone back to the source. Our people want to know about us. They want to know what the issues we are dealing with are, our story, our language and our rhythm.
Q: People completely evolve every five years. This being the beginning of a new era for you, what is new about as a person as an artist?
What’s new about me as an artist and as a woman is I’m more content about who and where I am. I’ve accepted things that I cannot change. I’m truer to myself than I was before.
I think maturing, growing and going through experiences, trials and tribulations, puts you in a space where you become a complete package of yourself. These things are not comparable to anyone else. It’s a personal space where you find contentment and fulfilment with yourself.
And I must say, I’ve become a little more spiritual and I think that brings you there. The world can be so hectic. The world can easily lead you astray if you don’t have a sense of focus and coming back to your sanity and alignment. For me it’s prayer, it’s my mom. She is a constant reminder of what I can become. Also, it’s okay for you to express yourself and tell your stories in a manner that is comfortable for you.
Q: What inspires you, ultimately?
Life. I’m inspired by life, I’m inspired by truth and I’m inspired by many things! I love coming back to my experiences, and that’s my truth. I’m inspired by pain because I relate to it, I recognise it, I’m familiar with it. That can be a little bit good, because it forces you to come out of it.
Pain in the same way as depression is a reminder of where you aren’t supposed to be, or what you don’t want. So when you feel that, go in. It’s healing, when you face your pain. I’m also inspired by people in general, by other musicians
Q: You grew up in a musical family. What was that moment for you when you knew music is certainly what you want to do?
Yes, I’m from a musical family. My dad is a musician, he’s an amazing vocalist. I think growing up in a musical family, I didn’t really know I was going to be a musician. It’s just something that was there. I was surrounded by it. I loved it and there was always some time of excitement.
As I grew older, I started to find my voice and passion and I was like, ‘This space makes me happy.’ But it wasn’t something where I sat down and decided, ‘Oh, I’m going to do this’. It just captured me.
Q: What’s been the most definitive moment in your career so far?
The realisation that I can not live without it. In whatever shape or form.
Discover New Music Music, Exclusive Interviews and Album Reviews on QuenchSA.com!
A list of 10 albums that snapped in ways that mattered the most.
2019 was a great year for the South African music industry. New highs were reached, new plaques were secured, and new genres disrupted the scene. But while many established faves did not release new works, the streets produced enough solid releases to raise the bar.
10. KHULI CHANA – PLANET OF THE HAVE NOTS
The Motswako originator, as he is affectionately known to his fans, is an alluring figure.
Although boasting a dazzling discography, which features a bunch of hits and award winning, critically acclaimed best selling albums, he has remained an elusive frame in the culture.
Perhaps it’s because he shuns the seductions of hype fuelled social media splashes that have become synonymous with the marketing tricks employed by his contemporaries.
Chana, it seems, is fine allowing the music to speak for itself, an allegiance to authenticity that informs his commitment to Motswako, an offshoot of Hip Hop that originates and represents his SeTswana culture.
The Planet of The Haves was released without any theatrics, a strategy that is fitting for the sound.
Containing 13 new songs, including the Ichu promotional single with Cassper Nyovest, the album is a throwback dive with a modern day twist.
Khuli tugs back at the heartstrings of Kwaito, using technical elements that not only gave soundtracks to the summers of the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, but also offered an arsenal of tools for the likes of Jabba and Morafe, who along with Khuli Chana, are noted for popularising Motswako.
Having applied his creative instincts to execute a major collaboration with Absolut, where he had the creative freedom to unleash visual storytelling as an element to his pioneering his art, he has expressed and conducted his business in a way that never steered from his original sound, voice and aesthetic.
The Planet of The Haves lines up back to back delights for the bonafide Khuli Chana fan.
9. MFR SOULS – THE BEGINNING
Hailing from Katlehong in Ekurhuleni, the dynamic duo has paved their way to the top with beautiful house music.
What’s more, many still don’t know that the two are considered as one of the pioneers of the now popular Amapiano house music sub-genre, which they championed and stuck to for almost a decade before everyone picked it up in the last couple of years.
Consisting of Maera and Force Reloaded, MFR Souls have delivered a slew of piano-laden house numbers through the years, focusing on refining their unique touch while also firing up their work on the decks.
They’ve also shunned the spotlight, moving subtly in underground dance music circles and building a steady footprint within township dance culture, where they’ve made a name for themselves.
Though, 2019 marked a full circle.
With the success of Love You Tonight, featuring Sha Sha, DJ Maphorisa and Kabza De Small, they decided to premiere their debut EP, The Beginning.
We first vibed to the nine track record at a private album listening session in Rosebank, Johannesburg, where they treated music industry insiders and peers to a vinyl treatment of their luxurious offering.
The Beginning is easily one of the best dance music albums to emerge from 2019. The beauty in the material is that MFR Souls have refused to incorporate elements and tricks of the more palatable Amapiano sound, which has emerged with repetitive hooks, chords and explicit lyrics.
Instead they’ve stayed true to their approach in making music, working with skilled vocalists to deliver a solid discography of dance numbers.
8. MUZI – ZENO
Muzi is an important figure to the South African music industry. He is countercultural, colourful and hella talented.
Through his experiments with a variety of sounds, spanning electro, EDM, Afro-Beats, House, Jazz and God-knows-what, he’s managed to establish a sound that thrives outside the parameters of whatever box containing outdated and limited expressions of blackness.
And in the digital age, where the vast richness and sheer enormity of blackness has never mattered as much, he pitches a tent with a lush vibe built from a bass that keeps on giving.
On Zeno, a 12 track LP that premiered ahead of his headline spot at Black Coffee’s second Music Is King show last year, Muzi gives us electro, electronic maskandi and a litany of sonic influences.
The album is both futuristic and nostalgic, a testament to how creativity can allow us to travel through time.
Samthing Soweto hovers delightful vocals and delivers a smooth Afrosoul feel on Mncane, for example.
But of course, being a Muzi production, the track at once feels distinctly African in a classical sense, while also deploying space age electronic elements to remind us the future is now.
We are going to start seeing more artists and creatives exploring varied expressions in the coming decade. You watch!
7. PRINCE KAYBEE – RE MMINO
We genuinely thought Prince Kaybee had risen to become the biggest artist in South Africa by mid-2019 when we asked him in this exclusive interview whether or he considers himself as the lion of the jungle.
It’s the year he had Fetch Your Life featuring Msaki and Gugulethu featuring Nokwazi blazing through the airwaves while Banomoya with Busiswa, and Club Controller with TNS were barely letting up their chart dominance.
All these hits would be packed on Re Mmino, his third studio album.
The tape proved to be the peak of a journey that began with stints in television presenting before the fire debut of Better Days in 2015. Since then, Prince Kaybee has been dishing back to back anthems in a manner only DJ Cleo had been able to do in the decade prior.
But while Kabelo does believe that he has reached somewhat of a ceiling in appeasing the local market, an epiphany that informed the release of the Crossover EP – which attempted to begin a chapter that sets the sails towards the rest of the planet – he did not believe himself to the leading artist.
Re Mmino is a delight for house music enthusiasts.
While not his best album critically, the 13 track offering delivered some of the biggest hits of the year, shaking the landscape and keeping the dance floors populated.
6. LADY ZAMAR – MONARCH
In 2019, Lady Zamar followed the massive success of King Zamar with the release of her sophomore studio album (it’s her third when counting the debut collaborative album, Cotton Candy with Junior Taurus).
Monarch contains 20 new songs cohesively creating a world in which the songbird hovers sublime vocals over dance instrumentals.
The album, which had fans complimenting Lady Zamar for her songwriting skills and flair for melody, also came with a studio version of Destiny, the emotional offering she first debuted on JR’s Feel Good Sessions to much applause.
RELATED: THE DECADE’S 18 BEST SOUTH AFRICAN LIVE ACTS!
Yet far from the awe-inspiring acoustic version she performed in the stripped down session, the studio version melts into the album’s dance sonic core.
Co-penned by Moonchild Sanelly, Msaki and DJ Choice, the 20 track project is a confident and vulnerable display of the singer’s rare ability to summon her own wave and ride it.
The SAMA award winning King Zamar debut album has spawned a bevy of megahits, setting the benchmark quite high not only for other female artists in the house music and pop dance scenes, but also herself.
Ducking the daggers of the sophomore slump, Lady Zamar shines even further on Monarch.
Though, fans will continue wondering how many, if any, of the new songs were inspired by the highs and lows of her former relationship with Sjava, which she detailed last year in a string of tweets.
5. AMI FAKU – IMALI
The best time to strike is when no one is looking. With the release of her album Imali, Ami Faku rose to become one of the best performing South African female artists in 2019.
By the end of the year and decade, the Eastern Cape native became the only newcomer to appear on Spotify’s Top 100 Most Streamed South African Artists, trailing behind established incumbents and digital faves Shekhinah and Lady Zamar.
She also had three songs on Apple Music’s 100 Best Songs of 2019 with Into Ingawe with Sun-EL Musician, Imali ft Blaq Diamond and Ndiyeke with Lemon & Herb.
Imali introduces us to 11 beautiful songs that showcase Ami Faku’s sultry voice and songwriting in her native Xhosa language.
She immerses herself with the rich texture of her culture and gives all a contemporary take on Afro Pop and Afro Soul blends.
4. AMANDA BLACK – POWER
There was a time, after the dust had settled from the success of her debut album Amazulu, when Amanda Black’s future was uncertain.
While fans patiently awaited the follow up to Black’s sterling 2016 debut, the powerhouse singer had secretly retreated to her hometown in Mthatha, Eastern Cape, where she had been contemplating her next move.
This dark chapter in the former Idols SA contestant came after her departure from record label, Ambitiouz Entertainment. “I’ve been in hibernation”, she told ZikhiphaniTV last year. Her departure was marked by legal drama and contractual untangling that threatened to cut short a promising career.
But the 26 year old rose like a phoenix, created her own record label and partnered with Sony Music.
It is here that she record her second album, Power, an empowering manifesto for resilience and the power of the human spirit.
Over 17 tracks, Black sings her heart out on various themes, the most prominent being love and triumph. “I believe I was born for greatness”, she sings on the title track Power. “That I will stand and fight for all my dreams.”
Her dream deferred resumes triumphantly with a project that sustains Black’s place in the South African music industry.
Stripped down and ready to share the pains she endured in her personal life, Power is full of emotion, vulnerability and displays of strength.
3. DJ MAPHORISA & KABZA DE SMALL – THE RETURN OF SCORPION KINGS
If Amapiano reached the crest of its enormous wave in 2019, then Porry and Kabza De Small are the architects who steered the arching curl from the shore.
DJ Maphorisa finally strikes the maestro mantle that has slowly been coming his way since scoring a Billboard #1 through Drake’s 2016 hit One Dance, on which he had production credits.
Kabza De Small, who’s meteoric rise to the mainstream couldn’t be more remarkable, is perhaps the bigger winner.
The rise of amapiano and his popularity were so synchronised that he became Spotify SA’s most streamed South African artist of the year – proving once more that in the world of streaming, the playing field is fair game.
After all in 2019, not even for the most established pop culture incumbents could flash victory cards on a table dominated by amapiano and house music.
After unleashing a slew of hits, a bulk which found them working repeatedly with Samthing Soweto and new sensation Sha Sha, the collaborative duo debuted their first full body of work – The Scorpion Kings.
Where that produced a set of blockbuster hits for the dance floor, the sequel elevates their sound and gives them room to flex their creative prowess.
The Return of Scorpion Kings features 15 songs and a bevy of high powered collaborations, a list including King Tha (a.k.a Thandiswa Mazwai), Mlindo, Busiswa and amongst others Mi Casa. The hit packed project also comes with a posthumous collaboration with South African legend, Hugh Masekela.
2. SAMTHING SOWETO – ISPHITHIPHITHI
2019 was Samthing Soweto’s year, period.
Samthing Soweto had a supreme moment of encounter with destiny. His oeuvre delivered a timeless classic that not only places him ahead of the melee, but has the potential to shift the industry forward with its manifesto for a return to brilliance as a benchmark.
Real name Samkelo Mdolomba, the hitmaker finally liberated his highly anticipated debut studio album, Isphithiphithi.
Already touted as a strong contender for album of the year by satiated fans and critics, the 13-track project marks a full circle for Samthing Soweto, who first flirted with the thrill of commercial success in 2011 as one of the founding members of acapella group – The Soil.
ALBUM REVIEW: SAMTHING SOWETO – ISPHITHIPHITHI
Working with a bevy of the country’s high powered producers, such as Kabza De Small, DJ Maphorisa and Thabo Ngubane, a.k.a Mass, Samthing Soweto has engineered a richly layered masterpiece that launches his solo career from a crest.
The album premiered to much fanfare, having topped the iTunes album chart based on pre-orders alone. The lead single, Akulaleki, one of this summer’s biggest street anthems, was also #1 on iTunes across genres, making Samthing Soweto the first South African artist to achieve this feat.
As a complete project, Isphithiphithi sounds like work that took time to be created. Samthing Soweto’s powerful voice hovers on each song.
Good things do come to those who wait.
Isphithiphithi has spawned a number of chart topping hit singles, and many of them were cancelling each other out as top contenders for song of the year during the festive season of 2019.
Such tracks as Akulaleki, AmaDM and Lotto dominated the airwaves and gave the streets substance to dance to.
This is a richly layered project, each song sufficing to exist beyond the world of the album. Yet as a cohesive set, the album decks out a brilliant offering.
1. SHANE EAGLE – BLACK MOON FLOWER
The rapper has delivered his most beautiful work yet, and that’s saying a mouthful, seeing as his two previous works were lauded for their creative swell.
Not only did his debut album Yellow garner Shane Eagle a much deserved SAMA award, it also reached GOLD status in the land.
So did his sophomore project, the critical masterpiece, Never Grow Up. Although an EP, the record found Shane Eagle flexing elastic lyrical abilities, layering beautiful beats with autobiographical recollections of a journey that shapes his being.
He tackled the ways his DNA, which bring Europe and Africa both in his blood and in the studio, configured his reality in ways that open themselves up to exploration.
It’s after the release of this EP that Eagle fully established his own zone within the South African Hip Hop landscape. He tossed aside the initial flirtations with a more commercially viable, wave surfing sound for music more authentically suited to his mind and creative instinct.
On Dark Moon Flower, the rapper refines his soundscape and elevates it to offer his fans a magnum opus that puts a mark on his catalogue as representing some of the finest figures in the new school Hip Hop wave. Like Never Grow Up, the project, which he later cleared up to be a mere EP, also explores many spiritual themes.
Shane Eagle is really fascinated by deeper philosophical truths. He loves meditating on ideas about the genesis of life and the form God takes up, while tackling various social themes and the youth angst troubling this generation.
The EP beautifully produced, delivering a quality worthy of the album artwork being splashed all over Times Square in NYC the way that he did following its release.
The litany of international collaborations here also bare testimony to the fact that Shane Eagle is clearly playing a long game. As he charges on Evolve, the low-fi vibes meet metallic angst collaborative entry with PatricKxxLee, “I just want to take my time to evolve!”
Discover New Music Music, Exclusive Interviews and Album Reviews on QuenchSA.com
By now, Burna Boy has succeeded in one distinction not many African artists have mastered – feuding with a country and alienating himself from its people.
Of course, throughout history, many international and local artists have been banned from entering the country for noble political reasons, particularly during Apartheid.
None of them, however, swore to never set foot in South Africa over streamlined fake news.
But when the spate of xenophobic violence plagued the country in September 2019 – a wave of attacks targeting foreign nationals which was rightfully condemned on a wide scale locally and by the global community – Burna Boy’s Twitter outburst triggered an onslaught of resistance to his music, with many calling for his music to be boycotted.
“I have not set foot in SA since 2017”, he tweeted on September 3rd. “And I will NOT EVER go to South Africa again for any reason until the SOUTH AFRICAN government wakes the fuck up and really performs A miracle because I don’t know how they can even possibly fix this.” (sic)
In a series of seething tweets, the Nigerian singer explained that he wouldn’t stand on the sidelines and watch Nigerians being killed in South Africa.
“He won’t be much of an ‘African Giant’ if entire shows keep being cancelled because he refuses to acknowledge and apologise for inflammatory statements seen by multitudes as having contributed negatively to the ideal of uniting Africans.”
He also rightfully drew attention to the fact xenophobic violence had occurred severally since the 2008 attacks that blindsided the country, revealing existing tensions between locals and African migrants.
“But Today After watching the Killing of my people in South Africa the same way we have all watched it happen a few times in the past. FUCK ALL THAT! I personally have had my own xenophobic experiences at the hands of South Africans and because of that…..” (sic)
The rant also came with a war of words between the ‘African Giant’ and South African rapper AKA, with whom his career found prominence when the two collaborated on their smash hit, All Eyes On Me, in 2014.
Burna Boy appeared to threaten AKA with physical violence after the South African rapper’s tweet about Bafana Bafana’s loss to the Super Eagles.
In July this year, South Africa lost to the Nigerian national soccer team, the Super Eagles, in the AFCON quarter finals.
“It’s a hard pillow to swallow man”, AKA tweeted at the time. “We keep losing to Nigeria in every way.”
He continued, “I’m hurt man. This match was bigger than football. The biggest rivalry on the continent. Why do we always have to lose against Naija at EVERYTHING.” (sic)
When the attacks happened, Nigerian artist YCee lambasted the tweets. Burna Boy joined the fray, blowing things even further.
While most incendiary tweets that spark public furore are usually deleted straight after by celebrities, a PR practice which is soon followed by an apology of understanding ‘the pain caused by the words’, or something or another, Burna Boy has refused to apologise.
The subsequent announcement that he would be donating proceeds from the Africans Unite concert, which had been planned as part as a remedial intervention to use music as a unifier, fell flat when the festival was cancelled just days before he was billed to perform alongside Jidenna and Kwesta in Pretoria and Cape Town.
The concert, which organisers explained as an attempt to “rebuild trust and respect amongst African nations by changing the current narrative to that of unity and solidarity”, was pulled when safety concerns entered the discussion.
Angered music fans had been threatening to show up to disrupt the shows. The threats were being brandished at an alarming rate as calls for Burna to apologise persisted.
In a shocking move, Burna returned on Twitter to put matters on ice.
“saying I mislead people? And I made up the Xenophobic attacks and I should apologise. Really? Lol. In 2015 Even I was a victim of the misguided hate so I know. Go and demand apologies from your REAL Enemies. I am not your Enemy. I will not be called a “foreigner” I am AFRICAN” (sic).
Last week, AFROPUNK Joburg announced that Burna Boy would no longer be part of the upcoming festival’s line-up on December 30th and 31st.
“We’re dedicated to working with Burna Boy and his team for his return to South Africa when the climate is right”, the festival said in a press statement received by QuenchSA. “We are deeply committed to providing music lovers and fans a safe space for all to express themselves.”
Burna Boy is yet to acquiesce to the fact that some of his initial and subsequent statements may have been misguided.
During the 2019 wave of xenophobic attacks, no Nigerian national had been killed as suggested in his tweets.
What now? Here are some possible options for the African Giant.
After all, he won’t be much of an ‘African Giant’ if entire shows keep being cancelled because he refuses to acknowledge and apologise for inflammatory statements seen by multitudes as having contributed negatively to the ideal of uniting Africans.
APOLOGISE
It’s unclear what informs Burna Boy’s reluctance to acknowledge his mistake, apologise and move on. Seems strange that he’d allow for large scale cancellations to happen in quick succession over failure to engage meaningfully in the discussion to heal?
But when one drills down, it may not be entirely absurd while he hasn’t apologised.
Firstly, he would have to come to terms with the fact that he was misled by fake content that was collected and repurposed from atrocities that took place in several parts of the world, over time.
He’s also refused to let his personal experience of xenophobia in South Africa, which he is yet to detail, to be denied. That’s understandable, everyone should be give the opportunity to express their own pain, and tell their side of the story.
Still, that’s what apologies are for. Not only do they help one express their remorse while acknowledging the pain caused by their actions, they also open a platform for dialogues with potentially remedial outcomes.
WRITE AN OPEN LETTER
Let’s move away from Twitter for second.
The apology, the logic, conditions and material that led to his statements could be better discussed in an honest, heartfelt letter to his fans, and to Africans. It’s more personal, feels more in line with his work as a songwriter, and, perhaps most importantly, gives him more space to express himself beyond the character limit on Twitter, where the culture sometimes inspires a weird readiness for drama.
CHAMPION A SOCIAL CAMPAIGN
A lot of people will see through that, obviously, but its the intention that will count more. I can think of more reasons why using one’s platform to elevate the conversation and move things forward is a better catalyst for change that tossing out obscenities in a middle of a social crisis.
If I were in Burna’s team, I would have tried convincing him to design a campaign targeting various issues, including the dangers of falling victim to fake news.
MAKE A SONG ABOUT ONE LOVE
An African giant doing a song about love to unite Africans after a wave of xenophobic attacks? I can’t think of a more teachable moment.
Consider Bob Marley lyrics for ‘Africa Unite’
Africa unite
‘Cause we’re moving right out BabylonAnd we’re going to our Father’s land
How good and how pleasant would it be
Before God and man, yeah
To see the unification of all Africans, yeah
Now that he is more palatable to the global market, consider lyrics from Major Lazer’s ‘All My Love’
Sometimes I think we’re the brightest stars
And I try to believe we’ll find a way
Will life change when our turn colder?
All your love will make us ache
All your love is worth the chase
All my love, I know they’ll let it find us
All my love’s up on the mountain tops.
TOO SOON TO COLLABORATE WITH AKA?
I know this is pushing it, but history is made by those constantly willing to push the boundaries. I think the feud, from both sides, is a silly distraction to a serious issue. But I also think their unity would do so much for the culture, and for Africa.
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“It was Kai!” Robert yelled out when he came to. “I saw him! You can ask Cynthia!”
Yes, Robert had been rescued and brought back to the station for questioning after his failed attempt to grab Cynthia. He had been ranting on and on for about an hour now. Cynthia had also been summoned, because it was procedural that they asked her.
“He tried to grab me when I was trying to leave and mind my own business,” Cynthia said, looking at the others. “Luckily, this guy was around at the time and helped me fend Robert off. If it wasn’t for that guy, I don’t know what would happen.”
That was when Heather turned to Robert with a disgusted look on her face. “You tried to assault her?”
“I…” Robert managed, feeling Heather’s eyes boring into his. “It’s not like that. I was just worried for Cynthia.”
“Don’t try to downplay it,” Cynthia said. “I already gave you plenty of chances to back down. But now that you want to bring a dead person into it, how could I let it go?”
“It was really Kai!” Robert shouted, looking at the others again.
“Sure,” Heather snapped. “We were all at the hospital, Robert. The reason why you weren’t there was because you were still locked up at that time.”
“But I saw him, I swear.”
“You had your hands pinned behind your back, which meant that you didn’t see a thing,” Cynthia reminded Robert.
Robert sighed out, defeated. “Okay, fine. I didn’t see him but I recognized his voice.”
“What did he say then?” Heather asked.
“He said…uh…”
Cynthia gave Robert the cold stare, daring him to say it. “Well?”
Robert’s face was burning hot by now—with so many pair of eyes staring at him. “Regardless, it was Kai.”
“Prove it,” Heather said. “We’re cops, we work with evidence, not your wild guesses. Besides, whether you like Kai or not, he’s dead now. Show some respect.”
Cynthia’s stern expression was still present. She got up from her place and went to get some water for herself. They were actually hurdled in the break room instead of in the main area. Aside from Robert—who was being interrogated—and Heather—who was leading the interrogation, there was also Nic and Derek. Nic had been assigned to Heather’s team since Kai passed away and with Cynthia hiding in her house for the majority of the time.
“I’m not making this up,” Robert spoke up again. “It was really Kai.” He turned to Cynthia at the counter. “Tell them! You were facing him at that time, you must have seen him.”
“It wasn’t Kai,” Cynthia said, turning to look at Robert in the eyes, her cold stare still present. “It was just someone who happened to see the whole incident so he interfered.”
“You’re lying!”
“You’re the one who’s lying,” Nic jumped in. He’d been quiet from the start. Yet he knew he had to interfere—whether or not he wanted to accept of Kai’s passing. “Cynthia doesn’t know how to lie. We agreed on that a long time ago.”
“That’s right,” Derek agreed. “Why would Cynthia lie? She has so much respect for Kai you would think she has a shrine in her house for him.”
“But…” Robert protested.
“Get some rest,” Heather said. “You need it. We’ll report all of this to the boss. I don’t think you could ever return to the station, considering your latest assault on Cynthia. You’re lucky we haven’t arrested you yet. Talking about that, don’t skip town.” After saying that, she turned to Cynthia. “Don’t go anywhere alone from now on. Call me or one of the guys.”
Cynthia nodded.
After that, they all left the break room. Robert was still stunned, his eyes never leaving Cynthia. This time, it wasn’t the unwillingness to see her walk away, but it was the shock of how he realized she wasn’t Cynthia anymore. But who could he complain to when they were all taking her side?
Like Heather promised, Robert was stripped of his duties and was placed on probation once again. Although Heather was right, but she was surprised of their boss’ action. Usually, if it was someone within their own department committing such despicable acts (obviously breaking the law), he or she would be punished double as the usual sentencing went. However, this time, Robert was given nothing more than a shove out the door and an unknown date of returning to duties. Heather, of course, was furious of such decision and went to confront the boss. Well, there was less of confronting and more of questioning about the decision. Nic and Derek went with Heather during that meeting.
“Heather, do you even know who’s the commanding party here?” Their boss asked, cutting Heather off while she was quoting the specific law regarding to officers breaking the code.
“Yes, sir,” Heather said. “But…”
“If I’m in charge, then you should trust me to make the right decision and return to your duties.”
Heather was going to say more, but Derek had placed a hand on her shoulder to stop her. Heather turned to see Derek shaking his head. He successfully dragged Heather out of there. Nic nodded to their boss before following the two out. Yet their boss called him back. The man waited for Nic to close the door before speaking up.
“I know you all are affected by what happened to Kai,” The boss said. “But we shouldn’t let our judgments be clouded.”
“Yes, sir,” Nic muttered, looking down on the ground.
“I know Heather has a very righteous attitude, but that will get her in more trouble than help. Watch after her however you can. Don’t let her do anything rash that would hurt her current cases.”
Nic nodded, understanding too well.
The man waved his hand then. “Dismissed.”
Nic nodded once more before turning to leave, closing the door behind him.
“What did he say?” Heather asked when Nic met up with them by their work area.
“He told me to be careful,” Nic lied. “He knows we’re all sad with what happened to Kai, but we shouldn’t let it affect our work.”
“Easy for him to say,” Heather mumbled. “If an officer drops dead, all he has to do is replace him or her.”
“Heather, we shouldn’t take it out on him. He’s under a lot of pressure from the bosses upstairs too.”
Before Nic could convince Heather otherwise, she walked away. Derek followed her, not forgetting to exchange a worried look with Nic as he walked past Nic.
As for Robert, although he was let off quite easily, but his days weren’t getting any better. His first mistake was stalking Cynthia again. This time, he didn’t confront Cynthia or tried to talk to her. He just followed her. Wherever she was going, he was there. Even if she was using the restroom, he was outside somewhere—hidden—waiting for her to come out. Unbeknownst to him, someone else was also following him. It was the mysterious person whom had saved Cynthia previously, the one he accused of as Kai. Cynthia, on the other hand, acted like she didn’t care if Robert was following her. Yes, she noticed, but didn’t care to acknowledge him—or confronted him. She didn’t listen to Heather either about alerting the others about Robert’s actions or allowing someone to accompany her at all time.
Until one day, Cynthia finally reacted. It wasn’t toward Robert though. She realized Robert wasn’t the only one following her. That person wasn’t the raincoat man either. It was Nic. Yet she didn’t approach him. She chose to enter a public restroom to hide from them all. She checked to make sure there wasn’t anyone around before pulling out her cell phone.
“Nic is following me.”
“I know,” The other person said.
“Want me to shake him off?”
“No, he will be suspicious if you shake him off.”
“What if he discovers you?”
A chuckle was heard from the other side of the line. “Am I that pathetic?”
The other person turned serious again. “I know, you’re just worried. But I think I got this one under control, okay? We managed fine this past month. Hey, we already knocked Robert out of the game.”
“Okay, but be careful.”
After that, Cynthia got off the phone and looked around once more before exiting the restroom. She’d been wearing her sunglasses and looking like she was just browsing, like usual. She tried real hard not to look in Robert or Nic’s direction yet had become anxious. Unknown to both Nic and Robert from the opposite side of the shop, the raincoat man had just pocketed his phone. And the raincoat man was none other than Kai in disguised. How did he pull off the death scene without anyone suspecting? Why did he do it? Why was Cynthia in on it too? Perhaps that was why Robert followed her. But what about Nic? Why was he following Cynthia? And did he know that Robert was following Cynthia as well? Or was that the reason why he followed Cynthia? To protect her?
Before any of those questions could be answered, something happened that disrupted the atmosphere as all three men focused their undivided attention on Cynthia browsing around the shop. It was actually regarding Cynthia, but it didn’t have anything to do with the three of them. Cynthia had been on alert, but she had underestimated the people around her immediate surrounding, because she was only focusing on the two people whom were following her. Someone had suddenly bumped into her, knocking her over. That person had also attempted to snatch up her handbag. As she was caught off guard, she tumbled and hadn’t have time to recover yet hence the other person successfully snatching up her handbag.
“Don’t run!” Cynthia blurted out as she was on her feet again.
Nic was the one who reacted first. He jumped out from his hiding place as the thief ran by and grabbed him.
“You all right?” Nic asked when he made his way over to her after having explained to the security guards of his identity and what was going on.
Cynthia nodded, taking her handbag from Nic. “Thanks.”
“Check if anything’s missing.”
Cynthia nodded as she unzipped her bag. However, she took a quick glance around the place before focusing on her bag. Both Kai and Robert were gone. Neither came out of their hiding places to help her. Or was it because Nic already did so they didn’t feel the need to do so?
“Why didn’t you listen to Heather?” Nic asked while he was waiting for her to check her bag.
“What?” Cynthia asked back, confused.
“Heather told you to alert us whenever you’re out,” Nic reminded her. “It’s only for your safety, Cynthia.”
“I…” She stopped fidgeting with her bag and looked at Nic, unsure of what to say. “I didn’t think it was necessary.”
“I hate to break it to you, but this incident proves it’s necessary.”
Cynthia frowned. “Did Heather tell you to follow me?”
Nic looked away before shaking his head. He returned his eyes to Cynthia before answering. “I was worried.”
Cynthia smiled. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”
“Did you know Robert have been following you?”
Cynthia faked surprised. “Really?”
“Your guard’s really off, you know.”
Cynthia looked down. “I…”
Nic placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder then. “I know it has been tough since Kai left us. But you have to be more careful in the future. Kai wouldn’t want you to give up on your dream.”
Cynthia looked up at Nic again. “Thanks, Nic. I’ll be all right.”
Nic nodded and removed his hand from her shoulder. “I’ll take you home.”
Cynthia nodded, knowing she couldn’t turn him down. Not when she was already faking innocence. It would be too suspicious if she acted otherwise.
© Sunday, June 12th, 2016
Posted: Monday, June 20th, 2016
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Dan (Robin Williams) is a successful businessman about to close a multimillion dollar deal when he receives a phone call from Vicki (Kelly Preston). She is a woman he married for just one night seven years earlier, during a hazy evening with his best mate and business partner, Charlie (John Travolta). Vicki tells him he fathered twins that night, who are now seven years old. She wants Dan to meet the twins – Emily (Ella Bleu Travolta) and Zac (Connor Rayburn).
The story becomes complicated when Vicki has to go to jail for two weeks on a peaceful protesting charge, and her babysitter is injured. Dan and Charlie step in to look after the children. Dan is the overprotective and anxious new dad, and Charlie is the irresponsible but sensitive uncle. This is a recipe for silly adventures and humorous incidents as Dan learns about the ups and downs of being a dad.
Mother in jail; children separated from their mother and left with someone they hardly know; death of a beloved dog
This movie contains frequent comic violence and accidental harm. For example:
Dan accidentally shuts the car boot on the babysitter’s hands. When the boot opens, it hits her in the face, so she has to go to hospital.
Charlie and another man have an argument at the children’s scout camping weekend. The other man is angry and aggressive towards Charlie.
Dan accidentally punches another man in the face. The man’s face bleeds a lot.
Some men have a very aggressive game of Frisbee. They tackle, punch, stomp and hurt each another. Blood is seen.
Dan accidentally shoots off the head of the scout mascot and later accidentally sets it on fire.
Dan plays golf with three other people. Twice he hits a golf ball into the groin of two of the men, causing them a lot of pain.
Dan, Charlie and a workmate break into a zoo and fall into a gorilla enclosure. The gorilla attacks, but takes a liking to the workmate and cuddles him. The others escape.
Dan and Charlie are stuck in a penguin enclosure. Charlie is attacked by the penguins.
Dan flies a superhero flying machine but falls and hurts himself. An ambulance takes him away.
Content that may disturb children
In addition to the violent scenes mentioned above, this movie contains some scenes that could scare or disturb children under eight. For example:
Characters watch a brief scene from Friday the 13th.
Charlie’s dog of 14 years dies. There is a dog funeral.
From 8-13
In addition to the scenes mentioned above, this movie contains some scenes that could scare or disturb children in this age group. For example, a bereavement group meets and talks about death. One person talks about a partner’s cancer and the ‘excruciating pain’ the partner was in.
Children in this age group are unlikely to be disturbed by anything in this movie.
Sexual references
This movie contains some sexual references. For example:
Characters flirt a lot. Dan and Charlie go on a boys’ night out in Miami and pick up girls who have been drinking. Charlie flirts with a waitress at a restaurant, and also with a translator he meets at work.
There are a few references throughout the movie to Dan and Charlie being in a homosexual relationship. This is subtle and is unlikely to be noticed by younger children.
The movie suggests that Dan and Vicki have sex on the night they meet. This is subtle and might not be noticed by younger children.
Alcohol, drugs and other substances
This movie contains some use of substances. For example:
Dan and Charlie drink frequently throughout the movie.
Dan and Charlie get drunk in Miami and talk to young women who are also drunk.
Dan and Charlie accidentally swap their medications and have extreme reactions from taking the wrong medication.
Nudity and sexual activity
None of concern
The following products are displayed or used in this movie: Apple Computers, Nissan, Volvo, Sharp, Casio and Nikon.
Coarse language
This movie contains some mild coarse language and name-calling.
Ideas to discuss with your children
Old Dogs is a comedy about family commitment. Its main messages are about the importance of family, honesty and friendship.
Values in this movie that you could reinforce with your children include loyalty and the importance of choosing family over work.
This movie could also give you the chance to talk with your children about issues with real-life consequences such as:
Vicki’s jail term for peaceful protesting
Vicki not telling Dan about the children for seven years
‘shotgun’ marriages.
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Paul Hansard
Paul (bishop of Mérida)
Paul Clarke (character)
Buy Movies
Paul Hansard (1922–2013) was a German-born actor on both television and film. He was also a puppeteer. On several of his television appearances on both The Buccaneers and The Adventures of Robin Hood, he is shown as a musician, playing the guitar and singing. In 1965, Das Lied im Grünen: German Folksongs was released, featuring him singing traditional German music accompanied by the guitarist Jan Rosol.
Select film appearances
Murder in the Cathedral (1951)
Guns of Navarone (1961)
Operation Crossbow (1965)
Oh! What a Lovely War (1969)
Trog (1970)
The Adventures of Robin Hood: 7 episodes (1956-1958)
The Buccaneers: 36 episodes (1956-1957)
Paul Hansard at the Internet Movie Database
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - https://wn.com/Paul_Hansard
Paul was the metropolitan bishop of Mérida in the mid sixth century (fl. 540s/550s). He was a Greek physician who had travelled to Mérida, where there may have been a Greek expatriate community. Certainly enough Greek clergy were travelling to Spain in the early sixth century that Pope Hormisdas wrote to the Spanish bishops in 518 explaining what to do if Greeks still adhering to the Acacian heresy desired to enter communion with the local church.
At some point in his episcopate, he performed a Caesarian section to save a woman's life. In gratitude, her husband, the richest senator in Lusitania, left all his possessions as a legacy to Paul, as well as immediately giving him one half. Though canon law dictated that all gifts to bishops passed to the Church, Paul kept the legacy as his private possession.
Paul's sister's son, Fidelis, was hired out as a boy to a trading vessel on its way to Spain. When the merchants arrived in Mérida, they approached the bishop for an audience, as was customary, and Paul discovered his nephew. Paul immediately took Fidelis under his wing. Contrary to canon law, he consecrated Fidelis as his successor in the bishopric and tried to force the clergy to accept his decision by threatening to withhold his vast private wealth which technically belonged to the Church. Paul offered to leave the wealth to Fidelis and after Fidelis' death to the Church, but the bishops initially refused. They were forced to relent when he threatened to remove all his wealth and dispose of otherwise; the riches made Mérida by far the richest see in Spain. Fidelis, in accordance with Paul's wishes, left the wealth to the Church at his death. Paul's later biographer, the author of the Vitas Patrum Emeritensium justified the bishop's transgressions of canon law by saying that the ideas had been relevante sibi Spiritu sancto: "revealed to him by the Holy Spirit." The VPE, as it is abbreviated, refers to Paul as a saint.
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - https://wn.com/Paul_(bishop_of_Mérida)
Debil ("Moronic") is the first full-length studio album by Die Ärzte, released in 1984, following the EPs Zu schön, um wahr zu sein! and Uns geht's prima.... The songs "Paul" and "Zu spät" were released as singles, without being successful initially. However, a live version of "Zu spät" was released as a single from the live album Nach uns die Sintflut in 1989 and became a moderate hit in Germany.
In 1987, the Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien (Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons) put the songs "Claudia hat 'nen Schäferhund" and "Schlaflied" on the List of Media Harmful to Young People, with the effect that they could not be sold to minors, nor publicly advertised or displayed. This ban was lifted in 2004, which led to the subsequent reissue of the album (see below).
Following a reevaluation of the record by the BPjM, Debil was reissued on 21 October 2005 as Devil with slightly altered cover art and additional tracks.
Tracks 14-16 were previously released on “Original Ärztesoundtrack zum Film ‘Richy Guitar’”.
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - https://wn.com/Debil
Paul Clarke is a fictional character from the Henderson's Boys Series by Robert Muchamore. His mother died before the Second World War and his father died whilst carrying valuable radio blueprints for the British Secret Service.
Background and early life
Paul Clarke's mother died from cancer shortly before the second world war, leaving him in the care of his father, a wireless salesman.
Paul is described by his sister as 'weedy'. He doesn't enjoy sport and finds the physical training of CHERUB hard.
Paul enjoys his own company and spends all of his personal time reading and drawing. His area of the dormitory is adorned by copies of some of Picasso's paintings.
Paul is an introvert and enjoys being on his own. He spends a lot of his time drawing and reading and drew for a German officer in Eagle Day.
The Escape
In The Escape,Paul and his sister Rosie are being hunted by German Agents. They are being hunted because their father, who died in an air-raid, was working for The British Secret Service and had valuable radio blueprints that the English needed to operate their Radios. British spy, Charles Henderson reaches them first with the help of Marc Kilgour.
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - https://wn.com/Paul_Clarke_(character)
Hansard, Paul Filmography
Play in Full Screen Gold
1974, role: actor , character name: Syndicate Member
Play in Full Screen Slaughterhouse-Five
1972, role: actor , character name: German Photographer
Play in Full Screen Trog
1970, role: actor , character name: Dr. Kurtlimer
Play in Full Screen The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
1970, role: actor , character name: Monk
Play in Full Screen Battle of Britain
1969, role: actor , character name: Karl
Play in Full Screen Oh! What a Lovely War
1969, role: actor , character name: German Officer
Play in Full Screen Submarine X-1
1969, role: actor , character name: Cmdr. Steiner
Play in Full Screen The Quiller Memorandum
1966, role: actor , character name: Doctor Loewe
Play in Full Screen Operation Crossbow
1965, role: actor , character name: German Policeman
Play in Full Screen The Heroes of Telemark
1965, role: actor , character name: German Official
Play in Full Screen Live It Up!
1963, role: actor , character name: Film Director
Play in Full Screen The Last Train
1960, role: actor , character name: Police Official
Play in Full Screen The One That Got Away
1957, role: actor , character name: German Prisoner
Play in Full Screen Small Time
1955, role: actor , character name: Himself - Presenter
Play in Full Screen Murder in the Cathedral
1951, role: actor , character name: Peasant
Play in Full Screen The Huggetts Abroad
1949, role: actor , character name: Assistant Commandant
Play in Full Screen La rosa di Bagdad
1949, role: actor , character name: Zirko, Minister of BeautifulThings
Play in Full Screen Portrait from Life
1948, role: actor , character name: Fritz
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E-tailing
E-commerce »
E-tailing »
Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation
indian oil
Hindustan Petroleum
Using mobile wallets at petrol pumps is risky as it can lead to explosion
On average, petrol pumps get nearly 85 per cent of their sales in cash from customers, according to Ajay Bansal, president of All India Petroleum Dealers Association.Sanjeev Choudhary | ET Bureau | December 01, 2016, 09:03 IST
Bansal said the petrol pumps are now considering building a small kiosk at the entry or exit to help customers pay using mobile wallet while still keeping a safe 6 meter distance from a filling point.
NEW DELHI: Using Paytm or any other mobile wallet for cashless transactions at petrol pumps hold a big safety risk — a possible spark during mobile data transfer can result in explosion.
This is the reason staff at filling stations discourage visitors from using cellphones while getting their vehicles refueled. In doing so they follow a guideline from the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation (PESO), the safety regulator, that mandates no use of cellphones within 6 meters of the filling points.
There is vapour around the fuel tank while it is being filled and a cellphone spark can result in a fire, said Sanjiv Singh, director, refineries at Indian Oil Corp, the nation’s largest fuel retailer.
"Bikers are most at risk since the tank is very close to the mobile phone held by the customer," he said.
Some cellphones do not produce spark and therefore safer but are unaffordable for most customers, Singh said. Executives at state fuel retailers and oil ministry officials have been meditating over the issue, trying to figure out a way that helps accelerate the push towards cash-less transaction at filling stations without violating PESO guidelines.
On average, petrol pumps get nearly 85 per cent of their sales in cash from customers, according to Ajay Bansal, president of All India Petroleum Dealers Association (AIPDA).
About 60-65 per cent comes in cash from customers, about 5 per cent via credit and debit cards, while the balance is accounted for in credit sales where mainly big customers use a mix of preloaded company cards, cheques and cash to make periodic payments, Bansal said.
With demonetisation, there is a special thrust to move towards cashless transactions and mobile wallets are seen as a helping tool. Bansal said the petrol pumps are now considering building a small kiosk at the entry or exit to help customers pay using mobile wallet while still keeping a safe 6 meter distance from a filling point.
Executives say oil marketing companies such as Indian Oil Corp, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan petroleum have already been adopting new payment techniques such as mobile wallet to make it more convenient for customers to pay.
Tags : E-commerce, E-tailing, Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation, Mobile wallet, indian oil, Hindustan Petroleum, E-wallets, demonetisation, Bharat Petroleum
Most Read in E-commerce
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Tough 2020 awaits Amazon, Flipkart as Reliance firms up plans
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Tag Archives: attached to characters
AnoHana: A Title Too Long, An Anime Too Sad
The characters of AnoHana
Okay, the title is far too long. Ano Hi Mata Hana no Namae o Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai. Roughly translated, We Still Don’t Know the Name of the Flower We Saw that Day. (Probably actually translated) I’m no expert in the Japanese language, but… Why? Anyways, that’s besides the point. This was a phenomenal show. It was also phenomenally sad. With angst and tears in hand, this show could do no wrong. For the most part.
First recommendation about this show. Watch this by yourself. No groups
The Haunting by Menma.
allowed. Unless you and another few people really wanna attempt to cry and connect with your emotional side, then do so by yourself. It’s well worth it. Second, watch this subbed. The dubbed version is not out, may take a while, but make sure this is watched subbed. The Japanese voice actors in this show give a whole new meaning to emotional acting. And third, whatever you do, love Yukiatsu. He is the most fantastic character in this anime. Not a jerk.
The cute children of AnoHana!
To the plot. This show is about a group of friends who, when they were children, called themselves the Super Peace Busters. Slightly strange, but they were for justice and peace, not for busting it. (Or were they?) Jintan, Menma, Anaru, Yukiatsu, Tsuruko, and Poppo would hang out all the time playing Nokemon and playing in the forest in their amazingly built clubhouse for a bunch of small children. One day tragedy strikes and Menma dies. This horrific accident separates the group forever.
Until one day, Jintan starts seeing Menma and what appears to be her poltergeist apparition form. Menma is now older and has aged like all the others to their high school age. Acting just like she did when she was younger, she now stands in stark contrast to those who lost her so many years ago.
Unconrtrollable tears!
Jintan has become a shut in who no longer attends school, Anaru has become what appears to be a snobby slut, Yukiatsu and Tsuruko have become cold hearted people, and Poppo is the only one who has remained the same.
Giving Menma appearing to him as an illusion of the summer heat, Jintan continues to go about his usual life. Having lost his mother, his father and him have seemed to grow apart to a superficial level. But, slowly but surely, Jintan begins to connect with Menma and starts to remember the emotions and feelings of his childhood. With Menma not knowing what exactly is her purpose on “haunting” Jintan, Jintan must try and grant her wish and send her to Heaven.
Yukiatsu, my love.
There is one thing and one thing only to say about this show. Tears. This show trys in every capacity, every episode, to make you cry. Not even the frequent intermissions of comic relief can attempt to dry your eyes of the sadness. The ending song itself functions as a key to emotionally end every episode on a revelation/sadness scene. And it is so damn effective. You become entirely attached to all the characters and want them to come to terms with Menma’s death and become friends again. And it doesn’t look possible. The alienation of growing up and high school, coupled with traumatizing death seems to leave them all hopeless. You wish the best for them and cry when things turn out all right. Just not in the way you’d think.
The comic relief needs to flowww.
With all the emotion and revealing scenes of twist and turns, this show just deliver and delivers. It spares not a minute of its short 11 episode run. The story is told and you’re left with a feeling of warmth beside a feeling of loss inside. And that makes it worth it. But you know what? I don’t want to cry every episode. I don’t mind spilling my man tears, but when you’re beaten over the head and told to cry, does the act of emotion and sadness really become an effective anime in the end? With the characters, I would say yes! Please for the love of God, Yukiatsu is the person I wanna be! (Wink wink) But with the plot and short period of time it has to function, give me a break every other episode. Let me dry my eyes and not feel this is kind of stupid in the heaviest melodramatic Lifetime movie way possible. Don’t try to make me cry for the sake of crying. Make me happy to shed tears for those I care about. Not unecessary tears of circumstance.
That being my only contention with this show, it takes it down heavily from the 10 out of 10 category and down into the 8 out of 10 category. But based solely on Yukiatsu, give it the 10 out of 10. Final verdict, 7.9 out of 10.
1 Comment | tags: 11 episode, alienation, amazing, Anaru, angst, Ano Hi Mata Hama no Namae o Bokutachi wa Mada Shirinai, AnoHana, apparition, attached to characters, children, clubhouse, cold hearted people, comi relief, cry, damn effective, emotional, emotional side, ending song, grant wish, group of friends, happy to shed tears, Heaven, high school age, hopeless, illusion, Japanese language, Japanese voice actors, Jintan, Lifetime movie, lost his mother, man tears, melodramatic, Menma, Menma dies, no groups, Nokemon, period of time, phenomenal, poltergiest, Poppo, revealing scenes, revelation, sad, short plot, show too sad, shut in, slice of life anime, snobby slut, subbed, Super Peace Busters, tears, title to long, tragedy, traumatizing death, Tsuruko, twists and turns, warmth and loss, watch alone, We Still Don't Know the Name of the Flower We Saw That Day, Yukiatsu | posted in Anime/ T.V.
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IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. - A novel analytical technique for spectral analysis prediction in asynchronous pulsewidth modulated inverter systems
ICECS'99. Proceedings of ICECS'99. 6th IEEE International Conference on Electronics, Circuits and Systems
Author(s): Guinee, R.A. ; Lyden, C.
Conference Location: Pafos, Cyprus, Cyprus
Conference Date: 5 September 1999
DOI: 10.1109/ICECS.1999.812252
A novel analytical technique, based on a single Fourier series representation for pulsewidth modulation (PWM), is proposed for accurate evaluation of PWM spectra in inverter controlled motor drive... View More
A novel analytical technique, based on a single Fourier series representation for pulsewidth modulation (PWM), is proposed for accurate evaluation of PWM spectra in inverter controlled motor drive systems where complex periodic reference signals are used. This method can thus be usefully employed for prediction of the critical harmonic distortion component amplitudes present and their power content in adjustable speed drives (ASD). Simulations, using the Fourier method, are presented for PWM model validation which are identical to those for asynchronous analog comparator modulator operation. Additional simulation of a typical motor drive system, with a PWM inverter kernel, and comparison with measured data attest to the accuracy of the Fourier approach. Results, identical to those obtained from the alternative FFT approach, are presented for the spectral content of a complex periodic PWM waveform which confirms the accuracy of the new analytical method.
Chinese telemetry technology under fast development
The history of the development of Chinese telemetry is introduced in the paper. The new telemetry ground station and the new onboard space telemetry system, with the idea of systematic design and the specification, are described.
Neuro-sliding-mode control of flexible-link manipulators based on singularly perturbed model
August 1, 2009 - Tsinghua University Press Ltd.
A neuro-sliding-mode control (NSMC) strategy was developed to handle the complex nonlinear dynamics and model uncertainties of flexible-link manipulators. A composite controller was designed based on a singularly perturbed model of flexible-link manipulators when the rigid motion and flexible motion...
Research on system control and energy management strategy of flux-modulated compound-structure permanent magnet synchronous machine
The flux-modulated compound-structure permanent magnet synchronous machine (CS-PMSM), composed of a brushless double rotor machine (DRM) and a conventional permanent magnet synchronous machine (PMSM), is a power split device for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. In this paper, its operating principl...
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Tag Archives: Marxist ideology
Marxist Theory and Death of a Salesman
Posted on March 15, 2012 by rraymond12
Our second class moved from Karl Marx’ central claim about capitalism, that the exploitive “bourgeoisie” dominated and suppressed the “proletariat,” to a glance at the impact of that nineteenth-century economic theory on twentieth-century literary criticism, especially the idea that great writers jar readers out of their willful blindness to the hegemonic tyrannies of capitalist culture (Abrams, Glossary, 155-61).
Arthur Miller in 1952, photo by Sam Falk (Source: The New York Times)
Having sketched this theoretical background, I reminded the students that Arthur Miller’s Salesman came to the American stage in 1949, just two decades after the Great Depression, the horrific economic and cultural upheaval that exposed the destructive side of unbridled capitalism and challenged the myth of the American Dream, the idea that hard work always yields personal and economic success; many viewers, therefore, saw Miller’s play as America’s proletarian tragedy. Stressing these last two words, I challenged my students to think for themselves, to decide to what extent the play reflects Marxist ideology, to what extent it challenges the Marxist critique of capitalism, and to what extent it the play qualifies as a tragedy.
Noting Miller’s passionate belief that an ordinary man or woman could qualify as a tragic character, I referred the students to the first topic on their assignment sheet, which provides the classical definition of “tragedy” and asks them to write an essay on the extent to which they agree with the author about Willy’s tragic stature:
Critic M. H. Abrams defines “tragic hero” as a noble character with intelligence and compassion, a good man or woman who commits an error in judgment that harms those he/she loves and, ultimately, leads to his/her exile or death. This “error in judgment”—the Greeks called it “hamartia”—grows from a tragic flaw, usually rooted in pride (hubris). Eventually, when it’s too late, the tragic hero recognizes and accepts his responsibility for the error. Because the hero’s goodness and flaw twine inextricably together, readers and viewers experience “catharsis” in response to the hero’s inevitable fall. This catharsis or purge consists of two emotions: we pity the hero because he meant well; we fear his fallen condition, recognizing that we can make the same kinds of mistakes. Paradoxically, the hero’s crushing defeat, though profoundly sad, uplifts us, causing us to recognize our capacities for loving self-sacrifice as well as for error. What about Willy Loman? Can a failed salesman who complains about his “goddam arch supports” (2329) qualify as a tragic hero? Support your views with close analysis of action from the play, including appropriate quotations.
First edition cover of Miller's Death of a Salesman (Source: Wikipedia)
“Well, what about it?” I asked. “Even though Biff at one point calls his father a ‘prince,’ Miller of course concedes that Willy lacks the aristocratic pedigree of the traditional tragic character—Prince Hamlet, King Lear, Oedipus Rex—but Willy otherwise qualifies, Miller insists, as a great-hearted man whose blunders crush those he loves but who uplifts us with his capacity to love self-sacrificially. How about those of you who journaled on this question? Will you share your thoughts?”
Kadrije quickly volunteered and proceeded to read a full-page entry, complete with quoted key phrases, arguing that Willy deserves our compassion for being “tired to death” but not our respect. Unlike tragic characters, she said, Willy never succeeds, never reaches a pinnacle of achievement, and therefore cannot be said to fall. He also fails to acknowledge, she continued, that his teachings to the boys have been “all wrong” and destructive. Blerta disagreed, saying that both his blunders and his death give him tragic dignity because of the immensity of his love.
Having emphatically praised these candid, thoughtful responses, I asked if anyone else would read his or her preliminary comments of one on the other three topics, which invite papers on Willy’s wife Linda, on models of business men in the play, or on Biff and Happy, the troubled sons of Willy and Linda:
Willy credits Linda with being his “foundation and support” (2331). Do you agree? Has her love for Willy been constructive? Destructive? Both?
Training his sons to become businessmen, Willy proclaims that if they are “well liked” they will “never want” (2339). Focusing on Willy, Charley, and Bernard, discuss Willy’s formula for success. Does the play imply another route to success?
After Biff and Happy desert their father in the restaurant, Linda calls them a “pair of animals” who never loved their father (2384). To what extent do you agree with Linda?
Philip Seymour Hoffman as Willy Loman in Broadway revival of Miller's Salesman, opening 15 March 2012; photo by Brigitte Lacome for New York Magazine (Source: The Economist)
Happily, more enthusiastic responses followed. First, Xhemile read her entry, which supported Kadrije’s view of Willy, condemning particularly his lack of integrity as both husband and father; she then praised Biff, who finally acknowledges the truth about all their failures and tries to save Willy with his sobbing plea to let go of his “phony dream” that the “well liked” succeed. Bierta next read her entry on Linda, conceding that she deeply loves Willy but insisting that her misguided support of Willy’s fictions makes his suicide inevitable, particularly after she refuses to confront him with the nipple he has placed on the gas pipe.
Encouraged by all these responses and the students’ willingness to read aloud, I reiterated my praise and asked them, for the next session, to commit to a topic and come to class with a rough draft. Looks like I’m in for some good reading.
Posted in 20th-century American Literature, Books, Teaching, University of Pristina | Tagged 1949, 20th-century American literature, American dream, Arthur Miller, Bierta, Biff Loman, Blerta, bourgeoisie, brother, capitalism, catharsis, Death of a Salesman, dignity, economic theorty, failure, Great Depression, hamartia, Hamlet, Happy Loman, hubris, husband, integrity, journaling, Kadrije, Karl Marx, King Lear, Linda Loman, literary criticism, love, M.H. Abrams, Marxist ideology, Oedipus Rex, ordinary man, play, proletarian tragedy, self-sacrifice, son, success, suicide, tragic character, tragic hero, wife, Willy Loman, Xhemile | 4 Replies
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Who Discovered the Regulative Principle?
Glen Clary
Glen Clary - 11 March 2016 - Anabaptists / Baptism / Regulative Principle of Worship / Sacraments / Worship - 3 Comments
Most students of the Reformation recognize that Martin Luther discovered (more accurately re-discovered) the doctrine of justification by faith alone and that Ulrich Zwingli discovered the symbolic interpretation of the Lord’s Supper. At least, these Reformers popularized those doctrines.
But who discovered the regulative principle of worship? No, it wasn’t John Calvin or John Knox. It was actually an Anabaptist. Surprise!
The earliest statement of the regulative principle of worship that I have found in the Reformation era is in a letter written by Conrad Grebel (the ringleader of the Zurich Anabaptists) to Thomas Müntzer on September 5, 1524.[1]
Speaking on behalf of the Zurich Anabaptists, Grebel said to Müntzer, “That which is not taught by clear instruction” we regard as forbidden, just as if it stood written, “Thou shalt not do this.”
This principle is applied in the letter to various matters of worship including infant baptism. “Nowhere do we read that the apostles baptized children with water. Consequently, in the absence of a specific Word and example, they should not be baptized.”
Likewise, in a dispute over infant baptism with Zwingli, the Anabaptists argued, “Children are nowhere in Scripture commanded to be baptized, nor is it anywhere said that Christ or the apostles baptized children;” hence, it is a man-made tradition that “ought to be done away with as an abuse, as other papistical abuses have been done away with.”
Grebel apparently discovered the regulative principle in the writings of Tertullian.
When the works of Tertullian were published in 1521, Grebel was one of the first to study them. In De Corona, which Tertullian wrote around the year 211, we find the story of a certain Christian soldier, who refused to wear the laurel crown on the accession of the emperor Severus. This led to the soldier’s imprisonment.
Some Christians argued that the soldier was making a big deal out of nothing, a mere matter of dress. “After all,” they reasoned, “we are not forbidden in Scripture from wearing a crown.” Tertullian, on the other hand, wrote De Corona in defense of the soldier’s actions.
Tertullian writes,
To be sure, it is very easy to ask: “Where in Scripture are we forbidden to wear a crown?” But, can you show me a text that says we should be crowned? If people try to say that we may be crowned because the Scriptures do not forbid it, then they leave themselves open to the retort that we may not be crowned because Scripture does not prescribe it. But “Whatever is not forbidden is, without question, allowed.” Rather do I say: “Whatever is not specifically permitted is forbidden.”[2]
These two opposing principles—whatever is not forbidden is allowed (on the one hand) and whatever is not commanded is forbidden (on the other)—reappear in the sixteenth century debates on worship.
Both the Calvinists and the Anabaptists employed the latter principle, but the two groups had different criteria for what constituted biblical warrant to justify liturgical practice.
Specifically, the Anabaptists had a narrower understanding of biblical warrant and, therefore, a more restrictive version of the regulative principle than the Calvinists had.
“Direct biblical warrant, in the form of precept or precedent, is required to sanction every item included in the public worship of God,” claimed the Anabaptists.[3] Therefore, they rejected infant baptism, for instance, because of the absence in scripture of any clear command or example to justify it.
On the other hand, Calvinists recognized that biblical warrant could be established, not only by precept or precedent, but also by biblical inferences or, as the Westminster Confession says, deductions by good and necessary consequence.
As James Bannerman explains,
The doctrine of the Westminster Standards [WCF 1:6] and of our church is, that whatsoever is not expressly appointed in the Word, or appointed by necessary inference from the Word, it is not lawful for the Church to exercise of its own authority to enjoin; the restriction upon that authority being, that it shall announce and enforce nothing in the public worship of God, except what God himself has in explicit terms or by implication instituted.[4]
[1] Dr. Hughes Oliphant Old tipped me off to the Grebel-Tertullian connection.
[2] Robert Dick Sider, ed., Christian and Pagan in the Roman Empire: The Witness of Tertullian (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2001) 120.
[3] J. I. Packer makes this comment about the Puritans, but in our opinion, it is more descriptive of the Radical Reformers; see Packer, Among God’s Giants: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (Eastborne: Kingsway, 1991) 326.
[4] James Bannerman, The Church of Christ (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1974) 1:340.
Dr. Glen J. Clary is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. He has pastored churches in Oklahoma, New Jersey and Texas. He is currently serving as pastor of Providence Presbyterian Church near Austin, TX. Dr. Clary teaches Reformed worship for the Ministerial Training Institute of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and he frequently speaks at conferences on various liturgical topics.
» Read more articles by Glen Clary.
glenclary@gmail.com
If you want to read the full story on the discovery and use of the RPW in the Reformation of Zurich, check out my article in this edition of The Confessional Presbyterian Journal http://www.cpjournal.com/contents-by-issue/the-confessional-presbyterian-6-2010/
John D. Chitty
A friend pointed out that your language in the opening paragraph tha Luther “discovered” sola fide may be mistaken by Catholics and others as some sort of admission that it’s not an apostolic doctrine. Care to clarify in case some theological opponent should attempt to capitalize on such wording out of context?
That distinction between the Anabaptist and Calvinist application of the RPW puts matters in such clear light, especially in our sacramental theology. In addition to your journal article, you spoke on this at a recent conference. Which lecture was that again?
Your friend is correct. Luther didn’t “discover” the doctrine. He “re-discovered” it. 🙂
I talked about the difference between the Anabaptists and the Calvinists on the RPW in an interview here http://reformedforum.wpengine.com/ctc385/
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The brutal Killing of Khaled Idris Bahray – A Letter by Human Rights Concern – Eritrea to Mr. Heiko Maas
January 15, 2015 Movements
By kandolo
A letter from Human Rights Concern – Eritrea to Mr Heiko Maas
Mr Heiko Maas
Federal Minister of Justice and Consumer Protection
Mohrenstraße 37
Dear Mr Maas,
Re: The brutal Killing of Khaled Idris Bahray,a 20-year-old refugee from
We are writing to express our shock at the brutal killing of Khaled Idris Bahray, a 20-year-old refugee from Eritrea who was found dead on Tuesday 13th January 2015, in the yard of a housing estate where he had accommodation with seven other refugees in Dresden.
Human Rights Concern-Eritrea (HRCE) condemns the unprovoked cruel killing, and we believe that this is a heinous crime committed against an innocent young man who sought refuge in Germany. He had gone out shopping when he was killed. It seems extraordinary that, according to news reports, the German police initially claimed they did not suspect foul play even though the body was covered in blood and wounds and this happened in the wake of the anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim demonstrations in Dresden, and given the persistent threats refugees in the area have been experiencing, there seems to be little doubt that Mr. Bahray is a victim of these extremists.
From:: Karawan
Joke of the year? EU-leaders in front of anti-terror rally?
Statement of Arash D. , refugee activist who refused to pay fine regarding of his political activity and is in prison!
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BOARD OF REGENTS for the
Oklahoma Agricultural & Mechanical Colleges
Governing Board for:
Connors State College
NEO A&M College
OK Panhandle State University
OSU Stillwater
OSU-CHS
OSUIT
OSU-OKC
OSU-Tulsa
Connors State College is a state-supported, residential, two-year college established in 1908 with its main campus located in the rural setting of Warner, Oklahoma, and a branch campus located in Muskogee, Oklahoma. The College is comprehensive in nature, supporting general education, technical, agricultural and pre-professional programs leading to the associate degree in Arts, Science or Applied Science.
Dr. Ronald S. Ramming
700 College Road, Warner, OK 74469
Locations: Warner, OK and Muskogee, OK
Mascot: Cowboys
Colors: Orange and Black
Board & Committee Meetings
OKLAHOMA PANHANDLE STATE UNIVERSITY
OPSU has Alumni in all 50 states and over 20 countries.
OPSU's rodeo team has won five individual national championships and placed in the top three as a team in the past four consecutive years at the College Nationals Finals Rodeo.
The OPSU School of Business has two teams (Phi Beta Lamba and CIS Programming Team) with a combined 185 top 10 awards in national competition.
© 2014, Board of Regents for the Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical Colleges. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
900 N. Portland Ave | Oklahoma City, OK 73107 | ph: 405-945-3263 | fax: 405-945-3345 | email: board@okstate.edu | Sitemap
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March 25, 2011 at 3:38 pm (2000s Philippines, Current Events, The Global Crowd, The Manilenos)
Dear Toto,
In case you or your friends would like to help the “Natasha Goulbourn Foundation,” which aims to educate about combatting depression, please see below and the attached about a run in Dasmarinas Village on the 9th of April.
Ana Lopez
Hope that you can join our upcoming run in April for the Natasha Goulbourn Foundation! Please see details below and registration form attached. All for a good cause! 🙂 Kindly pass on to friends and family that would be interested too.
Dear Friends! You are invited to RUN!!! Gather friends & family for the April 9 run in Dasmarinas Village! We are 1 of 3 beneficiaries & I need to get registrations in ASAP
A thoughtful addition to our fundraising is If you can get friends to pledge P100.00 per kilometer that you & the others are running – that would be wonderful!
Meantime, attached is the registration form, or I can send you some – let me know ok! Please join!
Jeannie, Frances and Katrina
COME & JOIN New Balance “Raising Hope” run, for the benefit of the Natasha Goulbourn Foundation!
Date: April 9, Saturday at 6:00 a.m.
Venue: Dasmarinas Village, Makati
Registration: Ongoing until March 31, Thursday
Categories & Prices:
3k Fun Run – P 400.00 w/ free t-shirt
5k – P 600.00 w/ free t-shirt & singlet
10k – P 600.00 w/ free t-shirt & singlet
We encourage you to invite friends to pledge P100.00 (or more ) for every kilometer that you run, for the benefit of NGF!
Attached is a registration form. Please call us to reserve your number, limited slots!!!
Contacts: Margie – 897-2217 / 0927-291-4916
Pixie – 811-6856 / 0917-815-3636
Rizal in Rome
March 10, 2011 at 3:47 pm (1800s Filipinas, 2000s Philippines, Current Events, Filipino Art, Foreign Travels, Random memories, The Batanguenos, The Bicolanos, The Bulaquenos, The Cagayanons, The Cavitenos, The Cebuanos, The Davaoenos, The Global Crowd, The Ilocanos, The Ilonggos, The Laguna Tagalogs, The Leytenos, The Manilenos, The Negrenses, The Novo Ecijanos, The Pampanguenos, The Pangasinenses, The Past, The Samarenos, The Tarlaquenos, The Tayabenses / Quezonians)
In case some of you would like to help raise the life size bronze statue of our National Hero Dr. Jose P. Rizal in Piazzale Manila in Parioli, Rome, here is a worthwhile project… Donations are EE 1,000 upwards.
Cynthia Romualdez Velez
McKinley Road,
As I went about the City of Rome last year, I visited the Piazzale Manila in the prestigious district of Parioli where hundreds of Filipinos, mainly migrant workers, converge daily around a bust of our national hero Dr. Jose Rizal. It is their gathering place away from home.
This year marks the 150th year since the birth of Dr. Rizal (June 19, 2011). To celebrate this incredibly significant milestone, a life size bronze monument at Piazzale Manila is proposed to replace the existing bust which is currently one of the tiniest Rizal monuments worldwide.
The story of Dr. Rizal represents the courageous spirit of migrant Filipinos, the “heroes” of our generation. Today, Italy is home to more than 150,000 Filipinos. The legacy of Dr. Jose Rizal is not only for migrants, but also for the children of Filipino Italians who must learn to appreciate the life, teachings and patriotism of our national hero.
The Philippine Embassy to the Holy See, through the efforts of Ambassador Mercedes A. Tuazon, has been granted by the City of Rome, the necessary permits to erect the new life size bronze statue of Dr. Rizal. In coordination with the Ambassador, we appeal to your generosity to help make this project a reality.
The artist to be commissioned is still under consideration. It will either be an Italian, Giorgio Conta, or a Filipino master based in Rome, Tomas Concepcion. Both have made life size bronze statues of Pope John Paul II which are now considered some of the best modern statues in the Vatican.
Total project cost is €28,000 euro (twenty eight thousand euros). The cost of the bronze statue is €25,000 euro and €3,000 euro for the transportation, installation and improvements of the island at Piazzale Manila where the statue will be mounted. The park covers an area of 1,248 square meters with a beautiful fountain at the center of this mini park.
As the legacy of your generosity as a donor, your name will be immortalized on a plaque on the monument or in a time capsule in Rome. Your tax-deductible charitable donation will be directed through the Center for Peace Asia Foundation, Inc., who will issue the charitable tax receipts. Ms. Lydia L. Sison is in-charge of receiving the donations address is 391 Dr. J. Fernandez Street, Highway Hills, Mandaluyong City 1550 Metro Manila Philippines, telephone (632) 5311314.
I hope this project will find favor with you as it pays fitting homage to our national hero in the eternal City of Rome. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you require more information or details. Thank you very much for your kind consideration.
Cynthia “Cindy” Romualdez Velez
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Comm Eye Health Vol. 31 No. 101 2018 pp S23 - S24. Published online 10 July 2018.
Evolution of ROP screening at Aravind Eye Hospital, Coimbatore – Lessons learnt and the way ahead
Parag K. Shah
Consultant: Department of Pediatric Retina & Ocular Oncology, Aravind Eye Hospital & Post Graduate Institute of Ophthalmology, Coimbatore, India.
V. Narendran
Chief Medical Officer: Department of Pediatric Retina & Ocular Oncology, Aravind Eye Hospital & Post Graduate Institute of Ophthalmology, Coimbatore, India.
N. Kalpana
Senior Medical Officer: Department of Pediatric Retina & Ocular Oncology, Aravind Eye Hospital & Post Graduate Institute of Ophthalmology, Coimbatore, India.
Through Aravind ROP Tele-screening Project called Retinopathy of Prematurity Eradication Save Our Sight (ROPE-SOS), 8117 babies were screened and 127 babies were treated between 2015 and 2017.
ROP in India
According to World Health Organization (WHO) report, there are 15 million preterm births (<37 weeks) per year in the world, and annually India has the largest number of premature babies (3,59,100).1 With improving economies, the neonatal care facilities are also improving and consequently survival rate of premature babies has increased. With a birth rate of 23 per 1000 population and about 12% of infants being born prematurely in India, it is estimated that incidence of ROP is 20-30%.2 India also has a highest risk of ROP blindness due to sub-optimal neonatal care and lack of screening facilities.3 ROP is rapidly becoming a public health issue as the screening and treatment services are estimated to be 30% lower than the present need.4
ROP services at Aravind Eye Hospital, Coimbatore
ROP screening was started at Aravind Eye Hospital, Coimbatore in the year 2000 by the paediatric ophthalmology department. Initially screening started covering a single neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) once a week. Babies who needed laser treatment were treated with green laser (532 nm). From 2002 the retina department took over the ROP screening services and since then, on a weekly basis a retina specialist visited the NICU. From 2003 more NICUs were added and currently Aravind Hospital covers eight major NICUs in Coimbatore.
Aravind Coimbatore was the first institute in India to get the RetCam 120 digital fundus imaging camera in 2003 and infra-red diode (810 nm) laser was also added in the following year. Use of intra-vitreal injection of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) was introduced in 2006. As the number of ROP cases increased over a period of time, a separate Paediatric Retina Clinic was inaugurated. A month-long ROP training programme was initiated, wherein candidates are trained to examine infants using indirect ophalmoscopy and practice indirect laser on the RetiEye Model eye (Aurolab, Madurai, India) (Figure 1). So far 54 candidates from India and abroad have been trained under this programme, 41 from India, five from African countries and eight from a variety of other countries.
Figure 1 ROP trainee practising indirect laser on RetiEye. © Aravind Eye Care Systems
To serve the unreached in rural areas, Aravind ROP Tele-screening Project called Retinopathy of Prematurity Eradication Save Our Sight (ROPE-SOS) was launched in August 2015. The project aimed to screen 2000 babies per year in the sub-urban and rural areas. Technicians are trained to capture fundus images of pre-term babies with help of digital retinal camera (RetCam). The team comprises of one manager, two trained technicians, one mid-level ophthalmic assistant and a driver. The team covers 56 NICUs of 18 cities in 12 districts of Tamil Nadu and Kerala (Figure 2). The team visits scheduled district hospital NICU on specified days in a customised van with a RetCam shuttle. The technicians enter the details of the babies in RetCam and obtain fundus images. The digital images of the fundus are then transmitted to the base hospital through broadband internet.
Figure 2 Cities covered in the states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala under the ROPE-SOS Tele-screening project. © Aravind Eye Care Systems
The indigenously developed Aravind Diabetic Retinopathy Eye Screening (ADRES) software is used to transmit these images. The ADRES software was modified for ROP. At the base hospital, images are graded by a ROP expert (retinal specialist) and the report is sent back immediately to the NICU. The 4G network (which is now available in remote parts of India) is used to transfer these images. The family is explained about the baby’s eye status and given a follow-up date. The whole process for screening and counselling parents takes about 12-15 minutes per baby. If a baby requires treatment and if the baby is stable systemically, the baby is transferred to Aravind Eye Hospital Coimbatore for management. If the baby is not stable for distant travel, the ROP expert visits the NICU within three days to provide treatment. With the help of tele-screening, various other eye conditions like cataract, corneal opacity and even retinoblastoma have been diagnosed and promptly managed by early referral.
Through this mode of screening from August 2015 to June 2017, 8117 babies were screened and 127 babies were treated. By including anterior segment photography 10 babies underwent cataract surgery which was diagnosed by tele-screening.
Figure 3 Bar diagram showing a steady increase in ROP cases in Aravind Eye Hospital, Coimbatore over a period of 13 years (2004 – 2017).
With this process about 127 babies were prevented from going blind due to ROP in the last two years. The total growth of ROP screening from 2003 to 2017 is shown in Figure 3. As part of the ROPE-SOS project, awareness of ROP and the importance of screening is spread by means of continued medical education (CME) programmes conducted in the districts screened. The CME programme spreads awareness of ROP, the impact of external factors like oxygen on disease, the ideal time for screening and indication for screening. The neonatal nurses and neonatologist are targeted in all CME programmes. So far CME programmes were held in 11 cities sensitising 711 NICU staff. Of these 233 were nurses and 31 were paediatricians and neonatologists. Patient information posters and brochures were displayed and distributed widely. With the success of ROPE SOS project, it is now being replicated at Aravind Eye Hospital, Tirunelveli. Vitrectomies for advanced ROP are done using the 25 or 27 gauge instruments. With lack of surgical training in ROP, a one year long term Surgical Paediatric Retina Fellowship was also launched in 2016.
The journey of starting ROP services at Aravind Eye Hospital, Coimbatore has been quite satisfactory and with the tools for screening and management in place, mentoring other upcoming institutes in India and abroad is on-going. Developing automated diagnosis of ROP using computer assisted deep learning is the next goal.5
1 Blencowe H, Cousens S, Chou D, et al. Born too soon preterm birth action group. Born too soon: the global epidemiology of 15 million preterm births. Reprod Health. 2013;10 Suppl 1:S2.
2 Guidelines for universal eye screening in newborns including ROP. Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK). Ministry of Health & Family Welfare. Government of India. March 2016. Pg 25-58.
3 Zin A, Gole GA. Retinopathy of prematurity – incidence today. Clin Perinatol. 2013 Jun;40(2):185-200. doi: 10.1016/j.clp.2013.02.001.
4 Retinopathy of prematurity. Vision 2020 e-resource – for eyecare management worldwide. 2015;12. Available from http://v2020eresource.org/home/newsletter/SM115 (accessed July 07, 2017)
5 Prabakar S,Porkumaran K,Shah PK,Narendran V. Implementation of stochastic approach for vessel and ridge studies in retinopathy of prematurity screening. Current Science 2017;112:517-26.
Next article in this issue
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Swanson, Freeman Go Back-To-Back As Braves Beat Giants 9-2
Filed Under:San Francisco Giants
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Atlanta Braves left-hander Max Fried has received more run support this season than any other pitcher in the National League. Dansby Swanson and Freddie Freeman — with some help from San Francisco’s defense — helped keep that trend going on a night when Fried wasn’t his sharpest.
Swanson and Freeman hit back-to-back homers in the second inning, when Atlanta scored six unearned runs after San Francisco botched a double play, and the surging Braves beat the Giants 9-2 on Wednesday night.
“My off-speed stuff wasn’t as sharp and I didn’t throw strikes as much as I would have liked,” Fried said. “But I was obviously picked up big time. The offense was incredible. It was just a good team win.”
One day after closer Luke Jackson blew a two-run lead in the ninth inning of a 4-3 loss, the Braves jumped out to an early lead and coasted to their ninth victory in 12 games to pull within 1½ games of first-place Philadelphia in the NL East.
Fried allowed two runs in six innings for his third straight win and NL-leading seventh overall. Fried (7-2) also collected his first career RBI with a bases-loaded fielder’s choice as part of Atlanta’s big inning.
Swanson also provided a spark with two hits, including his eighth home run, a three-run drive to center field. Freeman, who singled in the first, followed with his team-leading 12th. Freeman has gone deep in five of the last seven games.
The two home runs came after Giants starter Jeff Samardzija (2-3) extended the inning with a pair of tosses that went awry. Samardzija made a throwing error after fielding Ozzie Albies’ sharp comebacker with one out. San Francisco was in a defensive shift, but third baseman Evan Longoria appeared to stop short of the bag at second when Samardzija made the throw.
“Just a weird play,” Samardzija said. “There are a lot of great things about these shifts but sometimes it does take guys out of the double play position. That’s kind of what happened. It was just a freak thing.”
Three batters later, Ronald Acuña Jr. struck out but reached on a wild pitch by Samardzija. Swanson and Freeman followed with the second set of back-to-back home runs for the Braves this season.
“That’s what good teams do,” Freeman said. “They have to capitalize on the mistakes and that’s what we did tonight.”
Braves manager Brian Snitker was pleased to see his team pounce on the mistakes.
“The extra outs in an inning are huge,” Snitker said. “It always worries me when you score like that early because there’s so much time to come back. That’s why I credit Max. He went to work and he didn’t let them back in the game.”
Fried had only two clean innings and walked two with five strikeouts. Newly acquired reliever Anthony Swarzak retired three batters. Dan Winkler and Josh Tomlin pitched one inning apiece.
Austin Riley also homered for the Braves, hitting a three-run homer off Derek Holland in the seventh.
Acuña helped out on defense with a pair of tough catches at the center field wall.
Buster Posey had an RBI single for San Francisco but was thrown out trying to reach second. Atlanta right fielder Nick Markakis made a barehanded grab after the ball caromed off the brick wall and made a strong throw to Swanson, who tagged Posey as he was sliding in.
Tyler Austin homered for the Giants.
Samardzija had seven strikeouts and gave up four hits and two walks in six innings.
“I know he gave up six but we gave them too many outs during that second inning,” San Francisco manager Bruce Bochy said. “That was some of his best stuff, I thought.”
POWERING UP
Atlanta has hit six home runs in the first three games of the series. The Braves began Wednesday tied for sixth in the NL with 66. “It’s a new trait in our club, all the home runs,” Snitker said. “It’s good.”
Braves: 3B Josh Donaldson had the night off.
Giants: 1B Brandon Belt was rested before pinch hitting in the ninth. … 2B Joe Panik got the night off.
Madison Bumgarner (3-4, 4.21 ERA) pitches Thursday for the Giants and has won seven consecutive decisions against the Braves. The big lefty last lost to Atlanta in 2012. RHP Kevin Gausman (2-3, 4.31) takes the mound for the Braves. Gausman has one win in his past eight starts.
More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/tag/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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Speck 30.4
Posted on October 22, 2013 by wildbow
I didn’t break eye contact with Dragon. My eyes were damp, and it was impossible to find a balance in terms of keeping still. I either slumped over or I held myself so rigid that I trembled, an ache creeping over my body, my muscles too taut.
Back when Emma and I had been friends, way back in middle school, we’d done one of the sleepover dares. Going into a dimly lit room and staring out our reflections. Repeat the name of the monstrous woman, a name that escaped me now, over and over, without breaking eye contact.
The freaky thing had been that it had worked. My expression had torn, twisted and distorted, dark patches creeping over my cheeks and forehead, my mouth disappearing with only a blank stretch of skin in its place. I’d fled the room.
I’d later read up on it, because understanding something meant being able to handle it, and my problems back then had been ones I could understand. The effect was a result of the mind’s idleness. We only really saw a little bit of what we looked at, and our brain worked constantly to fill in the gaps and unimportant spaces with its best guesses. In a dimly lit room, with the mind focused on the steady, hypnotic repetition, the brain would fill in spaces with the only reference points available to it, taking from features in its field of view to patch together the face. Fear, imagination and the recently-told scary story of having one’s entrails ripped out through their mouth did the rest.
The mind was an amazing thing, but it had limits and weaknesses. I’d been taking in too much even before I added the clairvoyant.
Dragon spoke, her voice insistent, concerned, and pitched as a question at the end.
I raised my arm and the stump of a limb to the sides, bringing the clairvoyant’s hand with me. An exaggerated shrug. I then let them flop down to my sides.
Dragon said something else in response, a statement, quiet.
Using the clairvoyant was an art, it seemed, and I hadn’t received any advice on how to handle it. I was figuring it out, though. My focus on Dragon was like staring into the mirror. There were too many details to clarify to keep my attention in one place for so long. Things were starting to bleed around the edges in areas I wasn’t focusing on, like a watercolor painting that was bleeding out beyond the lines.
Subtle, but it was there. Was it the entity, trying to tap into my memories to hash things out where my perceptions were failing? It wasn’t anything substantial, not yet. I was focused on Dragon, above all else. The various people, the capes, the fighting, all were clear in my awareness. It was the hills, the mountains, the vast spaces of water or field without anyone nearby that were shifting subtly. Cities in particular seemed to be a jumble. Or was it just easier to see the differences and errors when a city was rearranged in a way that didn’t make sense?
More to the point, was I simply losing my mind entirely?
I’m running out of time.
I raised my hand again, reaching out towards the Birdcage, below us, towards the comparative miles of space and containment foam, the forcefields and countless other effects that had been worked together to form the most secure facility they could manage. The empty space between the hanging structure itself and the walls that had been thickened by the engine was vast in a way that staggered me, just a little. Shit like that didn’t help with the fucked-up perception thing.
My hand was shaking, the muscles in my forearm too tense, the hand too loose.
Without breaking that eye contact, I gestured, turning my hand over, curling the fingers. I opened a portal at the same time, inside the Birdcage.
Dragon shifted her stance, and that same room flooded with containment foam.
She said something in that same, quiet voice.
As communication went, it would have to do. Not the words I couldn’t understand, but the gestures. I’d declared what I wanted, she’d drawn the line.
I wanted so badly to hug her, to cross the distance between us and throw my arm around her muzzle, or around one of her legs. To have something physical to hold on to that I wasn’t actively controlling. I couldn’t give her an opening to take me out of action.
I began opening a portal beneath a flow of lava, a trickle on Earth Bet, at the mouth of a cave system. The lava met the edge of the portal, and it winked out of existence. A splash of it passed through the portal, touching Dragon where her ‘neck’ met her body.
She moved, jet-engine ‘wings’ reorienting, pulsing with thrusters going on full to move her fifty feet to the right. Her claws met a cliff face, digging into stone, and the thrusters kept going, pushing her against the rock and holding her on the surface.
Right. Okay. A different tack then.
She was retaliating, too. Her guns trained on me, barrels glowing.
I opened defensive portals before I even saw what she was firing at me. Lightning, crackling in visible arcs around what looked like sphere-shaped empty spaces. Controlled pockets of ionized atmosphere, probably, to give the lightning a path to travel.
The lightning traveled through the portal and struck Scion from behind. I closed the portal before he could react.
The guns changed, the barrels contracting, the mounts behind the barrels reconfiguring. A portal simultaneously opened behind me.
She sprayed containment foam. Not a stream, but an honest spray, as if she was trying to paint the entire mountain peak.
I stepped through a portal, putting myself halfway on the other side of the world. I stood on the roof of the Byzantine Tower in Istanbul. Third tallest building in the world, surrounded by a shattered city and waterways that were now polluted with detritus and rubble.
Then I opened fire. Every parahuman I controlled with a ranged attack or gun fired into the portals I was opening beside them. The exit-points were beside Dragon, and a cascade of bullets, lasers, energy shots, ice, lightning, metal and other effects obliterated her ship, tearing through the cliff face.
I moved my collection of people out of the way before the resulting rockslide could kill anyone. The thinkers and tinkers joined me, the rest relocated to other points on the mountain.
The ship she’d sent my way was slag. Barely worth calling scrap metal. I checked it over twice.
Dragon deployed her drones. Not ships, but tens of thousands of airborne craft, most no larger than a basketball, kept aloft by antigrav panels like the ones on my flight pack. I already knew that each was loaded with a specific payload. Containment foam, EMP pulses, explosives, tear gas and more.
This wasn’t a typical fight. It was more like a war, two parties with vast resources at their disposal, with armies and incredible potential in terms of the tools we could bring to bear. In a typical fight, things would end when one person knocked the other out, but a war rarely ended that way. The fighting would continue until we’d done enough damage to the other that they had to give up. Dragon was decentralized, with no single point that could be attacked to remove her from the fight. Truth was, I’d probably have to destroy everything to destroy her. If she didn’t give up.
If she could give up.
As for me, I was inaccessible, out of reach.
I was quietly confident I could win this, one way or another. She’d have to defeat every cape in my little army, every cape I potentially acquired in the meantime, and I doubted her willingness to do that.
Don’t destroy my army. Please don’t be willing, don’t be capable. If that happens, then I’ve failed completely and totally, I’ve done this to myself and will go out as a villain, all for nothing.
The fight against Scion was ongoing. I needed to be able to focus, especially with the way things seemed to be breaking down in the least important areas. I couldn’t split my attention between him and Dragon, or something that was nigh-impossible would become harder.
The drones closed the distance, and my army began gunning them down. They were evasive, and I could take in the whole picture to see how Dragon was managing them. Not simultaneously, but close enough it barely mattered.
I tapped into precogs and clairvoyants, along with other thinkers, gauging the best approach.
Shén Yù informed me of the general thrust of Dragon’s attack. I could see it through his perceptions, mottled, indistinct lines in the battlefield. X drones moving to one of my groups, Y drones to another. The path they intended to travel… I could tell that as well. An initial wave of attacks to debilitate, and then the second wave, drones for a follow-up strike. The lines had a feeling to them. I could almost assign labels. Infantry, cavalry.
I looked around me. If I drew parallels, tried to correlate what I was seeing with what Shén Yù was seeing…
She was aiming to strike me. How?
Seventeen Dragon-craft deployed from the hangar. Again, not combat models, but utility models, fast response and rescue. Craft she’d been holding in reserve, no doubt because the cost of deploying them outweighed their potential benefit against Scion.
The clearer Dragon’s direction of attack became, the more Shén Yù’s awareness clarified on her weak points. Distant locations and objectives. Some were objectives I couldn’t identify, even with the clairvoyant. He only saw within the boundaries of Earth’s atmosphere.
Others… valid targets. I sent one squad to an army base. Pulses of gravity and intense heat let me detonate the contents of a munitions depot and direct the force of the explosion in one direction. The end result annihilated a data center Dragon had set up nearby.
I could see her reaction, in the broadest sense. Where her drones had been micromanaged before, they weren’t being controlled now. She was focusing elsewhere, controlling the larger craft and assigning them to the protection of the various data centers.
There was a skeleton crew of people at one facility. A data management firm that Dragon had bought out, I suspected, because the entire databank was reading as hers. Row upon row of servers, standing like tombstones in refrigerated rooms. Freezing air poured through the floor, pushing up against the warmer air. The facility seemed more like an alien landscape of steel and cold than anything of human design, complete with a constant, persistent weather pattern – a constant, gale-force wind generated by the movements of hot and cold air in what had to have been a careful design.
That the crew had stayed suggested something about their personalities. Discreet, paranoid people, who’d built a shelter inside the facility as a hiding place, in case things went to hell.
Which was pretty damn reasonable, considering the sheer amount of nightmarish crap there was in the world.
I used portals to take control of them. I couldn’t read what was on the screens, so I had them take a more direct route. They made their way through the building, throwing switches, pulling plugs and opening sealed doors.
Three of my Yàngbǎn capes entered the facility through portals and began generating heat as they’d done outside the C.U.I.’s Imperial Palace. I could find the freezer… and another cape could step through to damage it. Dragon’s utility craft arrived on site, but the damage had been done.
I’m sorry, I thought, again. My attention shifted to the monitors and gauges in her various databanks. I could see dials shift closer to red, numbers rising, gauges nearly filled.
Dragon could manage her things, I told myself. She had safeguards, ways of keeping her data safe. There was no doubt in my mind on that score. Each time I disabled a facility, I forced her to consolidate, to put the resources that remained under further stress.
My ranged capes aimed for portals once again. This time, I put the exit portals against Earth’s atmosphere, aiming for the general direction of a satellite.
It took thirty seconds of sustained fire before Shén Yù’s power stopped telling me it was a weak point. Other thinker powers in my range were giving me similar feedback. A cape with perfect eyesight was telling me it could even see the explosion.
The displays across Dragon’s private realm shifted further.
She was saying something to Defiant, words I couldn’t make out. I could see him tensing, moving like he was going to go somewhere. Then Dragon spoke again, and he went still. His head turned in Scion’s general direction.
Please stop, I thought. Don’t make me go further.
She went further. She intensified and organized the attack, and her drones reached my front line, disabling them with nonviolent means. Tranquilizers, electric pulses, containment foam and tear gas.
I let it happen, because I needed to see what her second wave attack was, before she organized a more efficient frontline attack.
The second wave approached, and they made a beeline for the portals that were controlling my minions. The portals that would exit right next to me. But the drones were too large…
Until they jettisoned outer shells and accelerated. Half the payload, but they had the same kind of propulsion jets I had in my flight pack. I moved the portals a fraction of a second before they speared through, and they continued onward through open air.
Shén Yù informed me about the third wave’s imminent attack. Not a feeling of attack, but… the initial wave had read to his senses as something like infantry or spearmen. The second wave had read as cavalry.
This? A siege weapon? The lines that Shén Yù’s power painted on the world indicated something deliberate, devastating, but diffuse, somehow indirect.
I directed fire at the drones, and forcefields served to protect most. The non-Yàngbǎn capes I had that could penetrate the forcefields were few and far between, the drones too numerous.
They set up, planting their mechanical limbs firmly on the ground, and then they deployed, pyramid-shaped structures, glowing blue at the peak.
My portals began opening, ones I’d closed not long ago. Portals I’d opened to control my capes, and the larger portal I’d opened to escape to this location on the Byzantine Tower. I couldn’t shut them.
Drones started to make their way through.
I, in turn, opened another portal, handing one tinker device to Shén Yù before hurrying on, leading the rest through. Portals blocked the drone’s ranged fire.
The Yàngbǎn’s strategist used Teacher’s device, and all the doors in his vicinity slammed shut.
Dragon’s path to me was shut.
I watched the meters and gauges. Each attack had pushed Dragon’s remaining resources closer to capacity. That was on top of the extra strain she was under with Scion having done so much damage to the Eastern seaboard. He would have eliminated other databanks when he’d attacked. Just like me, she’d been wounded and disabled before entering into our private war. Just like me, she desperately wanted to focus on Scion, but she couldn’t afford to.
If each attack pushed the remaining databanks four percent closer to capacity, at a guess… no. I was having trouble putting the numbers together. Had to eyeball all of it.
I targeted another facility. All of the ranged attacks, channeled through open portals, ripping through an unoccupied facility.
In quiet horror, I watched meters flip over into the red, gauges hitting maximum capacity, bars filling, characters on screens going nutso until they were all the same digit, repeated ad infinitum.
One by one, monitors went blank. Server banks I hadn’t even touched began to spin down, fans stopping, lights fading. Whole grids of blinking green lights winked out, some in order, others at random.
I watched, silent and frozen, as the process continued.
Stop, I thought. That’s enough.
You have backup servers, I thought. Those servers need to stay online. They have to stay online, because you can’t exist in stasis any more than I could.
She needed life support, at a bare minimum. She couldn’t go any length of time without something running any more than I could go for a duration without a heartbeat or breathing.
But the lights continued to go out.
She said things to others, over the comms systems. To Chevalier and other various heroes. A few words or a statement or two, specific to each of them.
Some longer words and phrases dedicated to Defiant, and more acerbic words for Teacher and Saint.
Saint didn’t react, but Teacher raised his phone, tapping it a few times before saluting the air with the device.
The drones close enough to do so sank to the ground all across the mountain’s peak. Her suits had already retreated and settled on the ground. Defiant was very still as he watched them land.
Then Scion attacked, screaming incoherently, and Defiant moved, taking control of one ship.
The last of Dragon’s lights went out.
I stood in a daze as the various machines went still, surprisingly hot as the fans stopped spinning. All of the server rooms and data banks were utterly dark and quiet.
Drones that hadn’t been close enough to the surface to land dropped out of the air. They hit the ground, along with one or two members of my swarm, and I flinched with the crashing, as if they were striking me.
I’m sorry, I thought, but it wasn’t my thought. A memory.
It was good that my power was saying it, because I couldn’t. My own thoughts were a jumble.
My feelings were a chaotic mess. A lump was growing in my throat, swelling beyond my ability to tolerate it.
I hunched over, and I very nearly let go of the clairvoyant’s hand before remembering that I couldn’t. Instead, Doormaker and the clairvoyant both pulled at my mask until it was halfway up my face. I felt the lump become a wave of vomit, spattering over the rooftop. It hurt, not just the physical act, and yet it felt like so little. Still a scene I was experiencing while half-numb, experiencing from a distance.
I miscalculated?
Had she been vulnerable because of what Teacher had done to her?
Something else?
Did it even matter?
I felt the need to throw up again, almost wanted to, just for that relief from what was welling up inside.
She’d been an ally, a friend.
I wanted to scream, to yell at her for being like all of the others and refusing to play along, to listen and cooperate. I wanted to do the opposite, to beg her forgiveness, and hate myself for being exactly what I’d criticized others for.
I wanted to put all of those feelings aside and start dealing with Scion. I wanted to give up on that entirely, because, fuck it, what was I even trying to save, at this point?
If I’d been whole, if I’d been balanced, I might have been able to find the middle road between the conflicting ideas. But I wasn’t. I remained hunched over, almost paralyzed.
My anchors… what had I chosen, again? Tattletale, Rachel, Imp… Grue’s cabin. My interlinking hexagonal portals were a mess. In the course of fighting Dragon, I’d closed portals and opened others without any attention to keeping it together. That was something to pay attention to. If I wasn’t feeling my emotions as clearly as I should, I had to look for the external clues, and that jumble was suggestive of an emotional turmoil I’d been suppressing.
I began pulling the grid back together, not feeling any better.
I reached out, trying to remind myself of the anchors I’d set up.
My mom… I found the graveyard.
My old house…
Where had it been again?
The streets were such a mess, one pile of rubble virtually indistinguishable from the rest. What was I supposed to even do to identify it, if there were no landmarks?
I’d hoped to use the anchors to help push myself forward, but reaching for one thing that I’d known from the very beginning and failing in the process left me in a more unbalanced state.
I was what?
There had been an idea I’d been reaching for, a word, a symbol, something. Yet I couldn’t clarify it in my head.
Don’t panic, I thought, but the words sounded panicked in my head. Rushed. Sloppy. My breathing was hard and fast, my heartbeat pacing out of control. Between the two, it was getting to my head, affecting my thoughts.
Don’t panic, I told myself. The repetition felt good, helping.
Or had it been my passenger telling me not to panic?
No. I had a perfectly normal lapse. Perfectly normal. A person in a stressful situation like this is going to have moments where she can’t come up with the right word.
Perfectly normal.
My breath wheezed a little as I panted.
You don’t want to, but you have to, I told myself. Stop Scion.
The portal slid open.
Except I hadn’t ordered it.
You want to take over, passenger? I thought. I began to struggle to my feet.
The drones moved.
Defiant?
Saint, taking over her systems again?
They flowed through the doorway to Shén Yù, blitzing him in passing.
No. Neither of the two seemed to be paying attention to me. They were focused on Scion.
I began erecting portals, shooting the drones out of the air, defending myself against the initial bombardment of tear gas canisters and containment foam. If I was slow to react, it was because of the disorientation, the lack of knowledge of who and what I was up against.
I had other thinkers available. Understanding their power was easier with the Yàngbǎn’s power boost. If they were puppets, the power boost meant the puppets fit my hand. I put them to work, trying to divine just who was seizing control of these drones.
It was so much easier to operate when I was doing something. Time and again, my lapses, the slippage, it had been in the quiet moments, between the conversations and the fighting.
It was easier if I was active, in the midst of conflict.
This was me. I thrived when I had an opponent, and when I could carry out that goal I’d had from the beginning, getting the world to the point where it all made sense. Bringing people in line, subjugating those who would get in the way or do more harm than good.
That was how I functioned. I’d always reveled in the chaos, in the madness of it all.
No, the thought crossed my mind. Not always.
Once upon a time, I’d been Taylor, minus the powers. I’d avoided conflict. I’d just been trying to get by.
Does that mean this is you, passenger?
There was, of course, no reply.
The drones kept coming, and I redoubled my efforts, calling individuals to me to form a battle line.
The moment the line was in place, the drones shifted. Some entered the portal, then immediately made a ‘u’ turn, flowing back around the sides of the portal and down. They circled around the building, trying to get at me from behind. I had to redistribute my personal army to block them off.
The portals were open and I couldn’t close them. But the lights on the drones were off. No lenses glowed, the antigrav panels were the only thing that indicated any power at all. Remote control of some sort?
The lights are off, but they’re still running.
I laughed, abrupt, an alien sound, not my own laugh.
The goddamn lights are off!
It wasn’t Saint mounting this attack against me. It wasn’t Teacher, or Defiant, or any of those other guys.
I continued laughing. My winded panting and nausea from before translated to a kind of lightheadedness.
Fucking Dragon.
Fucking with my head. Giving me a reality check. Trying to catch me off guard. She’d figured out that I had the ability to see her systems, she’d switched off the lights on the panels, put every system into hibernation, stopped the fans, and cut everything down to a bare minimum while the fans had stopped, so they didn’t overheat too quickly.
A drone that had crept around behind the building detonated in a flare of pale sparks, and every portal in the vicinity distorted, taking on weird shapes, more three-dimensional than two-dimensional. They winked out of existence.
Leaving me in the midst of an army I no longer controlled.
Fucking tinkers, I thought. But I was strangely overjoyed. I was fucked over six ways from Sunday, but I was happy. I hadn’t murdered one of my favorite people.
The capes at the edge of the rooftop were looking around in a daze.
The drones were moving, assuming a perimeter. The capes at the edge of the rooftop looked lost and shell-shocked.
And I was still laughing, clutching the clairvoyant’s hand as if it was one of the few things keeping me grounded.
Capes at the edges retreated, bumping into one another.
The laughter stopped as I abruptly let out a sound, half-roar, half-scream, incoherent, channeling every last iota of the lingering rage and despair into the noise.
I commanded the people in my range to attack the drones, and I continued screaming even as my throat began to hurt and I felt like I might pass out from oxygen.
Dragon was only just beginning to speak, some drones blaring out words in what might have been English, others in a sing-song dialect that was likely Chinese. The percussion and detonations that followed the attacks striking home drowned out most of it.
The ones at the edge took cues, attacking the drones they’d just been fighting.
Each and every one of them had been brainwashed. Some by Teacher, some by the Yàngbǎn. They hadn’t had freedom of choice for some time. Between the scream of rage, a pretty damn universal sound, and the action of the ones I did control, they defaulted to going with the crowd.
I still had to deal with Dragon. Her intent was clear, from the way the drones were moving. She wanted to target me, and stop me from the source. I needed to do the same, and I needed to do it without destroying her infrastructure. I wasn’t going to risk making that faked death into a real one.
Fuck you for fucking with my head at a time like this, Dragon.
The thought wasn’t one of malice. My feelings were so confused I could barely tell on that front. I was relieved, disoriented, but those were more states of being than actual feelings.
I was muddled.
One task at a time.
Stopping Dragon.
I watched as the suits she’d settled on the ground kicked back into action.
We’d fought Endbringers together. For a time, the Guild had been one of our biggest assets. I’d seen what happened when Dragon was taken out of action. A.I.? Nothing substantial. But when her main suit was taken out of action…
I saw the way she deployed the suits. Which was she keeping safest?
One was in the thick of things, creating different types of forcefield to try to mitigate the damage Scion was doing to our side. Capes had baited Scion out over the water, but the fact that there were less targets in range was counterbalanced by the fact that Scion was more focused on those who were there, and he was hitting harder. When he hit the water, waves crashed against the shore, doing nearly as much damage as any of his attacks might. A Leviathan with one arm, one leg, and most of its head missing was perched on the shoreline, apparently mitigating the damage.
There were two more suits on the fray, offering long-range fire.
And one more above the clouds, periodically firing exceedingly long ranged laser beams at Scion.
The drones were making headway. These capes weren’t completely under my control and they weren’t the most stable, either. They were liable to crumble where other capes might stand firm.
Doormaker was recovering his power. He could make portals, but it was slow.
My first instinct was to regain control. I reconsidered.
I didn’t have time to feel guilty. I didn’t have time to think. There was only a moment where I felt the weight of what I was doing, the knowledge that if this didn’t work, I’d set everyone back for nothing.
I opened portals behind Dragon’s longest-range ship, the entrance portals above my army’s heads. I began firing through the doors with every individual I could control, creating more portals to seize control of others with every passing second.
More ranged attacks joined the barrage. Dragon flew out of the way, her ship badly damaged, and I moved the portal, maintaining the assault.
The wreck of the ship plummeted from the sky, and the behavior of the other Dragon-craft changed, as though they’d switched gears. The drones dropped from the sky once again.
Something told me this wasn’t a feint.
I opened portals into the Birdcage, and Dragon didn’t stop me. No containment foam came down from the ceiling.
Maybe fifty or sixty members of my swarm had been disabled by the nonlethal measures. With the Birdcage, I added seven hundred and forty-three individuals to my army.
The nonlethal measures would wear off. It was a step forward.
I turned to my passenger to sort them out, and I sent a share of them into the fight to reinforce the others.
One obstacle, removed. Dragon would take time to reboot. I could disable her in a similar manner next time.
Defeating Dragon this way hadn’t been ideal, not completely freeing myself of the distraction and threat she posed, but it beat murdering her.
I turned my attention to the world as a whole, with the idea of recruiting other capes. I hit a dead end. The worlds were bleeding together, and it had gotten worse while my attention was elsewhere. I had to force myself to clarify what I was looking at, to tell myself that the areas didn’t make sense.
It took excruciating minutes to get my head out of that sludge, and to make sense of what I was looking at. Minutes, as Scion tore into Alexandria, to convince myself that it was all in my head, and that Scion wasn’t actively tearing apart reality.
I exhaled slowly, and the exhalation was a shudder. My throat hurt from the screaming.
The going was slow at first, but it picked up as I let my passenger handle more of the load. Capes in hiding. Rogues. Deserters who had fled for safety in our hour of need. A surprising number of capes who had no costume, and who had barely used their powers at all, judging by the way it felt when I reached for their abilities. They were rogues who’d been subtle at best, or rogues who’d gone without powers altogether.
There were the retirees, not old capes, but capes who’d been wounded, or who’d dropped out of the scene for other reasons. Their powers were more developed at their core, but rusty at best.
I reached for the insane, along with those disabled by their powers. A small few, all things considered. Glory Girl was among them, in a newly built wing of a home for non-cape invalids. Something her family had set up, no doubt.
I found members of Bonesaw’s Slaughterhouse Nine. Clones who’d fled, or who’d been left behind, lurking in dark corners, or simply hiding. A Mannequin, two Damsels that were keeping each other company, a Night Hag-Nyx hybrid, and a Crawler-Breed hybrid.
When I had the vast majority of them, I began looking to other universes.
There were capes in Earth Aleph, barely C-list by our standards. Sundancer, Genesis, and Ballistic were there as well, the former two in civilian clothes, retired, the latter in a lavish penthouse, fully done up in costume. My portals opened, and I had control of them. I left Oliver behind.
Other earths only had a small handful. No doubt there had been contamination at some point where doorways had been opened. Whole worlds with only ten capes at most, half of which were case fifty-threes.
Monster.
I shook my head a little, blinking.
I found another Earth with a mixture of capes, all incredibly beautiful people, all in what was obviously a global position of power. Every flag that flew in their world was the same flag, and the gauntlet emblem on that flag matched the icon on a particular woman’s costume. A blue costume, with white fur at the collar, and a heavy cape that would have done Alexandria proud.
I attempted to seize control of them as well, and the woman in blue resisted me. She spoke, and I lost my hold on everyone in her range.
It was only twenty capes. Negligible. But I wasn’t going to settle. If I was going to compromise on any level, it was going to take more than this.
I created a portal, and I ensnared Canary, who was busy rescuing the wounded, flying here and there with her Dragonslayer suit, her arms full.
She set down the wounded, and then she passed through the portal.
She began to sing.
I was controlling her, and it was my song in a way, syllables rattled off at a fast tempo and severe clip, followed by long high notes. Not English, but not my own muddled speech either. I could feel her expressing her power through the song, through each intonation and sound.
I brought her close enough to give her the benefit of the Yàngbǎn’s power enhancer. I had enough awareness of her power to know how to keep myself safe from it.
I tried again with these foreign capes, in this world where this blue-costumed woman ruled the world, portals feeding Canary’s song into their council chambers.
Those same portals let me attempt to reassert control.
An attack from two directions. She wasn’t immune, only resistant. I felt myself assert control. I understood her power, even if I didn’t understand a thing about her. A personal, point-blank trump power, allowing her to tune abilities and defenses much like Scion did. A powerful long-ranged telekinesis, a compulsion power like Canary’s, presence-based rather than voice based, and a personal power battery that let her be stronger, for limited times.
Where the hell had she come from?
No powers that really made her amazing against Scion, but it was an asset.
The others… they weren’t weak. Nothing gamebreaking, at a glance, but they weren’t weak.
Sleeper. I could see him, sitting on a lawn chair on a balcony, reading a book out loud to himself.
More trouble than he was worth. I let him be.
One by one, I brought the ones I’d collected to the battlefield. The prisoners, the brainwashed, the lunatics, the cowards, the monsters and the broken. They assembled in groups, in the spaces between the other major groups. In front, behind, above, and below.
Canary’s song wove its way out of the portals. Slower than before, working with the wind and the waves rather than fighting against them.
More doors opened, and more of the ones I’d collected continued to appear.
Teacher was making his way into Cauldron’s base, walking past the heroes at the doorway like he belonged there. He was talking into his phone, mocked up to be like a PRT-issue phone, and the communication was going to every major member of the Protectorate and Guild.
Contessa, for her part, was waking up.
I was shaking, and it wasn’t just the tension. I wanted to sit down, but I knew that if I did, I probably wouldn’t stand again.
My anchors… The mantle of portals, Tattletale, Rachel, Imp, Grue.
My old house continued to elude me. That detail gave me a sinking feeling in my gut. I reached out for a replacement. Not my home, then. My dad’s workplace? No. Something else, something family.
A quaint old house on a hill, surrounded by rose bushes, a grandmother… Not my grandmother. I barely knew my Gram. I shook my head. The house on a hill had been a memory of something I’d read, once.
It was unsettling, the seeming reality of it, the nostalgia. If I was a little further gone, could I have clung to it, used something wrong to keep my identity intact?
I was still lost in thought when I became aware that I’d stepped onto the battlefield. I hadn’t plotted it. Had even felt like it would be a bad idea. Now Miss Militia was turning my way. Exalt was standing beside her.
Teacher was talking, and they were responding.
He was warning them about the threat.
I could see people throughout the crowd. Protectorate members, team leaders of the Wards. They were tense.
A voice carried over the wind. I recognized the quality of it, even if I didn’t recognize the words. Glaistig Uaine, welcoming me back.
Crooning. She was pleased, on a level. I found her sitting on a mountaintop, surrounded by three of her ghost-capes.
My small army had grown to be a formidable force. Three thousand strong in all. I had thirty layers of portals around me.
Teacher said something, and it was Tattletale who replied. I could see her, and she didn’t look happy.
So many voices, so many things to focus on.
I felt momentarily lost in the midst of it. I had a large army, by parahuman standards, I was probably strong enough to kill everyone here-
I stopped myself.
Why had I thought that? I didn’t want to kill anyone.
Glaistig Uaine continued to croon in my ear. Was it her?
No. I was almost positive it wasn’t, and I had any number of thinkers at my disposal who could have warned me.
I shook my head a little.
I had a large army. I was powerful. I could move on to the next big step, but I wasn’t sure how. It was like playing chess, the moves I could make had enough gravity and nuance that I could only make one move at a time. What to do first? What wouldn’t open me up for retaliation?
It was better if I wasn’t here. I turned to leave, backing through a portal.
Tattletale, in that same moment, stepped outside. She gazed over at my army, then turned and looked straight at me.
Her eyes were wide. She looked just a little freaked out.
I don’t- I can’t…
My thoughts stuttered.
Tat-
I clutched to every image and object I’d set in my mind’s eye, to the tethers that were supposed to keep me tied down.
It’s too soo-
Too soon.
I was running out of time.
Had to move. Had to act. It was easier, so long as I was in the thick of it.
Glaistig Uaine was the real threat. She would be first.
Thing was, I didn’t like the look of those ghosts of hers. A woman, one of the really crazy looking ones who had a costume that was more for revealing than it was for covering up. She was warped, twisted by Glaistig Uaine’s power until the costume and the body were one and the same, which only made her look more vulgar.
I didn’t recognize her, but she looked like one of the crazy ones.
There was a guy, built like a football player in full padding, only it was all muscle. That muscle, in turn, was covered in armor that had spikes studding it at regular intervals. The helmet covered his eyes. He sat at Glaistig Uaine’s feet, and he was tall enough that her eyes barely looked over the top of his head.
And there was a woman, so thin she was barely there, a look no doubt exaggerated by Glaistig Uaine’s powers. When Glaistig Uaine spoke to me, it was the thin woman who passed on the message, her lips moving. Like Screamer, then.
I prepared to make a move, and I felt the danger sense of no less than twelve different capes in my army go off.
Yet I still alerted the ghost in armor. He moved, lurching to his feet, and he spoke.
Glaistig Uaine said something, and it was a single word, a hard word.
He was a precog, and to look at him, he was a defensive cape.
She’d been anticipating an attack.
The thin woman moved, and a current of wind ripped through the air, two feet wide and ten feet tall, less a tornado and more a battering ram. It flew through the sky, homing in on me.
I moved through a portal, and the column followed. It hit me like a truck, and I nearly lost my grip on the clairvoyant’s hand.
I tumbled. In a sense, my lack of control over my own body helped more than anything. I was left panting, but I hadn’t tensed up because the reflex simply hadn’t been there. Being limp when I took the hit was better than going tense and tearing something.
The Faerie Queen had anticipated an attack. She had to know what I’d been doing, how I was operating. If I used my power…
What did the vulgar woman with the lipstick smirk and creepy white teeth do?
Another column of wind homed in on me.
My army threw barriers in the way. Force fields, walls of crystal and walls of fire.
The column passed between them like it wasn’t even a consideration. I closed the portal in front of me before the column could zip through.
I watched as it changed course, heading for the nearest member of my army. I might have been able to do something about it, but I suspected it would have found a way to me anyways. Instead, I shifted my grip, gripping the young man’s wrist, and making him grab mine. A surer grip than hand-on-hand.
The wind-attack compressed, passing through the foot-wide portal behind them, and it hit me. Not as hard as the first, because it wasn’t as large, but it still hurt.
The Faerie Queen spoke, her voice imperious, echoing in that curious way of hers. Indignant more than furious, but still with that bite of anger behind it.
The others on the battlefield reacted, and it wasn’t to rally against Glaistig Uaine.
Tattletale was murmuring under her breath. Was that- Was it my name?
The faerie queen banished her wind-witch and brought out another spirit. I tried to capitalize on the distraction, getting one cape with one of the stronger ranged powers to attack her. A gravity pulse, a bullet that imploded things at the impact site.
The man in armor moved, and the vulgar woman reacted, creating a circle of rippling air. The bullet struck the barrier, and the man who’d sent out the pulse promptly imploded, blood showering everyone nearby.
Something indirect, then. I opened a portal a distance away, and I used Canary’s song.
She kept the field up. I could feel the pain wrack Canary, hear her choke on her words. She doubled over and coughed up blood.
A power counterer, a precog… and Eidolon, now.
If I’d used a portal, what would have happened to me? Would it have affected Doormaker or me? Or both of us?
I didn’t feel very stable on my own two feet as I climbed to a standing position. I had a whole army, and I could lose them in an instant if I simply unloaded on her.
I needed to hit her with something that broke the rules. Not Foil. I wasn’t willing to risk Foil. But something…
I took control of Alexandria, instead, Pretender. Controlling the person who was controlling the manipulative bitch Alexandria. I took Legend, who was part of that fight, two foreign capes and Moord Nag.
They were the ones running interference, buying us time to breathe.
Now I positioned them. As I’d done with my bugs, I lined up the shot.
He took the bait, shooting. I moved everyone out of the way.
Glaistig Uaine’s pets informed her of the imminent danger, and the shield was raised in time.
Smoke poured off of Scion, indicating he’d taken the reflective effect full force.
And smoke cleared around the Faerie Queen as well. She was panting a little, her ghosts tattered but intact. I made her stand straighter, and then banished her ghosts, replacing them. I’d used the distraction to plant a portal behind her.
I opened a portal, passing through, re-entering Earth Gimel.
Miss Militia turned a sniper rifle on me. I caught her before she could fire.
Then, group by group, I captured the rest of the defending force. Some resisted, some predicted the attack, but it was a foregone conclusion. I had enough soldiers, enough tools at my disposal, that nothing here really stood in my way.
I created more portals, until I didn’t have space for all of them. I shrunk them, reorganized. Where I could find the open space, I tapped other worlds, reaching for bugs.
Those bugs then swirled around my captives, flowing around their feet or behind them, where they wouldn’t obscure the view.
I saw with compound vision. Five thousand pairs of eyes, collecting more with every second that passed.
I breathed with five thousand mouths.
I was adrift in a sea.
My eyes fell on Tattletale. Panacea was behind her.
She shook her head, putting herself between me and Panacea.
I reached out, my hand trembling.
It flopped down at my side.
I need her as an anchor more than I need her power.
My mom’s grave… it was in Brockton Bay, right?
Brockton Bay. It took me a minute to find, more time because I was busy keeping capes out of Scion’s way. Putting them through doorways, bringing them back. Always being careful to keep the doorways from being touched by his power.
I couldn’t find the grave. No time.
What else? The mantle of power, of course.
Tattletale.
I reached out, tried to find others, and I failed.
It would- would have to do.
This was it. Finally, everyone was working together.
598 thoughts on “Speck 30.4”
Charles Borner on October 22, 2013 at 00:05 said:
Fix an awkward usage.
Correct a little typo.
In this thread tonight.
In this thread tonight!
Jean S on October 22, 2013 at 00:36 said:
“Thing was, I didn’t like the look of those ghosts of hers A woman…” Missing period.
Pinkhair on October 22, 2013 at 00:52 said:
“me, barrels glowing” Missing period.
“Nothing subtantial.” Substantial.
GeeJo on October 22, 2013 at 06:55 said:
“calvary” – “cavalry”
SonodaYuki on April 26, 2015 at 10:48 said:
Well, this is where we try to crucify “God”, so to speak, so…
Grokh on October 22, 2013 at 08:47 said:
“One by one, I brought the ones I’d collected ito the battlefield.”
should be ‘into’
illlogicmedia on October 22, 2013 at 16:29 said:
Shouldn’t that be, “…pass out from the lack of oxygen.” ?
AlsoSprachOdin on October 22, 2013 at 21:45 said:
“I raised my hand again”
1114 suggested unreliable narrator, but just in case, I’m putting this here. Because Taylor’s holding hands with Clairvoyant (he needs a name, seriously. Claire?). And she only has one hand.
I dub him Stanfield. Cookie for the first to get the reference.
Though I suppose Vino or Felix would work just as well…
Node on October 23, 2013 at 03:20 said:
Don’t sully the divinity of Stanfield by suggesting he wouldn’t be able to deal with Scion alone, if and when he felt like it.
Shouldn’t forget Doormaker either. He needs a name too.
Really, both of these guys need more detail, I’m having a hard time finding a physical description of them besides that Clairvoyant is a twentysomething guy with no eyes and Doormaker is about ten years older.
Right now they are both very important and integral to what is going on. And I can’t picture them. I think this might be something to edit, when it comes time for that, Wildbow.
AMR on October 23, 2013 at 05:33 said:
Actually it makes sense. Nobody ever bothered treating them like people. They’re just tools/weapons in Cauldron/taylor’s arsenal.
Posted this in the wrong place earlier, but here it goes again: I imagine them somewhat like the Thinkamancer-linked group in Erfworld. (read Erfworld. It’s awesome) What I mean is, their appearence, even their personality and decisionmaking, has been near-totally burnt out by the process of aquiring their power, linking them together. As such, narratively, they are more like tools, background elements of the setting, than characters in and of themselves. Don’t expect them to be any more fleshed out than they already are.
Rika Covenant on October 23, 2013 at 12:54 said:
That’s all well and good for critical conceptualization… But for a story where detailed descriptions are all you have to create an imaginary mock-up of a scene be it still-frame or movie-style full animation, (esp. with regards to people since terrain can be fudged) having character descriptions available is pretty important. Not now though, of course- Taylor’s descent into insanity is reflected perfectly so far in the lack of details. I would even go so far as to say these last few chapters have been my favourites. Anyways I digress. -Written on Xbox360 x-x
Pandemonious Ivy on October 23, 2013 at 15:54 said:
RIKA YOU FUCKER, YOUR NAME IS SPOKEN IN THE SAME MOURNEFUL TONES AS REGENT, IN THE IRC! WE (Well at least I do, and who cares about the rest, fuck those guys) MISS YOU SO BRING YOUR ASS BACK PLEEEEEEEEEASE! *ahem* I want to note that I didn’t even see what you posted, this was reflexive upon seeing your name. *Discreetly dusts shoulders off and wanders elsewhere*
Psycho Gecko on October 23, 2013 at 16:39 said:
Well, I’ve noticed your absence and missed you too, in my own special way.
David Burns on December 7, 2013 at 02:18 said:
“Going into a dimly lit room and staring out our reflections. ”
At our reflections?
I felt like I might pass out from oxygen. –> lack of oxygen. Might want to check the italics a bit again.
Alfaryn on August 1, 2019 at 05:56 said:
The faerie queen banished […]
I suspect it could be intentional, but all other instance Faerie Queen is capitalized in this chapter.
“I turned my attention to Scion.”
Okay. THAT sounds ominous…
Chrispikula on October 22, 2013 at 00:29 said:
I don’t see how she can win, but likewise, I don’t see how she can lose. The only outcome I see at this point is to run that ‘thousand years’ worth of energy out of Zion, while likewise self-destructing herself.
I can easily see her using Panacea right now to start merging herself into a single entity. Some sort of Taylor-Crawler-Cthulian abomination. It’s easier to have one body then multiple, that way she doesn’t have to hold on…
Oh, and who else thinks that the world run by capes may or may not be the resting place of a third entity? Then again, we don’t know what causes a shard to die, as the third entities shards are still alive, but it’s possibly a *very* far distance away. How could it be sustaining them? Or maybe it’s closer than you think ™?
DasNiveau on October 22, 2013 at 01:41 said:
One body, one target. An choreographed attack of 3000+ capes through instant pop up portals is a great idea. Scion should have a harder time fighting that, than one massive “Skitter-Echidna-Hybrid” with 3000+ powers.
And its not the third entity we should look out … Taylor is talking to the second…
I’d say she’s well on her way to becoming one. How many shards is she currently in command of? How many did Zion bother to keep for himself?
The world ruled by parahumans is still an Earth. The Third went away and GU told us that the worms make it sure to leave traces in their wake so others won’t follow.
E.R. on October 22, 2013 at 06:06 said:
How do we know there are any third entity shards (beyond the ones the thinker appropriated) in play?
gpyei on November 23, 2013 at 21:47 said:
the crumbs, keeping the others away.
camo005 on October 22, 2013 at 00:11 said:
Well jesus fucking christ… thats it. thats all i have to say
jurily on October 22, 2013 at 08:38 said:
…we need some new Chuck Norris jokes.
ShawnMorgan on October 22, 2013 at 11:51 said:
unfortunately for him, Taylor snagged the ghost of Bruce Lee.
I gigglesnorted in a most unseemly fashion at this. Well done.
Landis963 on October 22, 2013 at 00:15 said:
How’s that poem go again?
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The Falcon cannot hear the Falconer.
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold,
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
The blood-dimmed tide is loose, and everywhere
the ceremony of innocence is drowned;
Yeats, The Second Coming
packbat on October 22, 2013 at 00:29 said:
Naeddyr on October 22, 2013 at 00:33 said:
Ha, I used that poem to describe Worm just a few days ago.
guessswho on November 20, 2013 at 01:58 said:
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
will408914 on October 22, 2013 at 00:16 said:
So. Taylor rules the entire Wormcerse now.
Actually, I take that back. She IS the Wormverse now.
theant87 on October 22, 2013 at 00:29 said:
Great choice of words.
Except for Sleeper. He’d be more trouble than he’s worth.
negadarkwing on October 22, 2013 at 07:27 said:
Fuck, Taylor is the Anti-Life equation.
Patrick Reitz (@dreamfarer) on October 22, 2013 at 07:52 said:
If anyone needs a master class on how to setup a villain for a sequel as being immensely powerful, that line right there pretty much covers it.
Stephen M (Ethesis) on October 22, 2013 at 20:06 said:
That was an interesting wrinkle — that Sleeper was not worth the effort.
taliesinskye on October 23, 2013 at 06:56 said:
It could be that he isn’t just that powerful, exactly, but that his power would be something extremely inconvenient in an army. Maybe he just makes anyone within ten square miles permanently fall into a coma, say.
I wondered if perhaps just a little part of Taylor didn’t shy away from him because he was sitting there enjoying the quiet pleasures of a good book…
Agreed. She most definitely is the Wormverse now.
RazorSmile on October 22, 2013 at 00:17 said:
… well. We know what Sleeper looks like at least. He’s male, capable of reading and small enough to fit on a lawn chair.
Farewell, Taylor. It was nice knowing you. Hello, shard.
mauke on October 22, 2013 at 00:55 said:
The ultimate expression of the Administrator Shard.
Hey Taylor you know why Sauron went bad? He thought the world was full of chaos and would be better if a single person controlled everything to bring order and stability.
As did Stalin and Hitler.
Well…yes. My point, though, was that Sauron started with good intentions. You can’t exactly say the same thing about Hitler and Stalin.
Sengachi on October 22, 2013 at 06:03 said:
You totally can, especially about Hitler. Which just makes this all the more terrifying.
If I recall correctly, he started out with equal parts good intentions, batshit insanity, and raw charisma. The Administrator here replaces that last one with large-area mindrape, which pretty much just speeds the whole process along.
If someone, including the nazis, had ever bothered to reading Mein Kampf they would have found out that Hitler was planning genocide since his first failed coup . Then again, Mein Kampf is one of the most boring and badly written books ever.
Besides, i think it’s preferable if we compared Taylor to fictional dictators instead of real ones. We really don’t want to open THAT can of worms (pun not intended).
To quote Cracked: “[Hitler] was like the polar-opposite of Charlie Brown: shitty at everything, yet unbelievably successful.”
And yeah, let’s avoid Godwinning everything. It’s a much bigger recipe for failure than it sounds like.
overpoweredginger on October 22, 2013 at 10:06 said:
Hooray for Godwin’s Law.
See what I meant?
Sauron and Darkseid are safer comparisons.
They are fiction after all. Fiction hurt no one directly.
Do nightmares count as harm?
Gabriel on October 22, 2013 at 13:14 said:
Well, if we count the Bible…
endgame on October 22, 2013 at 14:28 said:
Let’s keep religious texts out of the discussion as well.
I meant directly. Stubbing you toe on a book does not count, too.
Fine, no Hitler and no religion…but if we’re still talking about harmful fiction, there’s always Atlas Shrugged.
farmerbob1 on October 22, 2013 at 06:07 said:
Aye, but Sauron wasn’t fighting a deity that would destroy everything, anyway.
As much as I hate what she’s doing, she’s still not being malicious. She’s unstable around the edges, but she is maintaining a core purpose.
However her anchors are failing her. But there’s one anchor that she hasn’t had the courage to look for yet, who she might not even be able to find, now. But perhaps others have found him first, and provided him with safety.
How could this have happened?
Dinah, Brian, Danny, in a little conversation.
What it’s boiling down to is probably die free from Scion killing you, or live in total enslavement from Taylor, and hope that after the fight she’s not so far gone she doesn’t release you.
Yeah, I think it’s closer to “die free as Scion giga-murders everthing you’ve ever conceived of” vs. “fight while enslaved to Taylor”. Once the fight is done, judging from what this is doing to her, I don’t think there’s much chance she would choose keep this many people in thrall. She hates it as much as they do. Unless the only way to end the fight is something that permanently fuses them together.
She hates it now. But half an hour ago, she was deliberately avoiding enslaving people who weren’t already brainwashed or monsters. A few minutes ago she understood english. A few seconds ago she remembered her friends’ names. Now she’s mindraped everyone on the battlefield just as a matter of course, and there seems to be less and less human in her every moment. By the time she takes down Zion, who knows what her priorities will be?
If she loses the last of her anchors, I think the operative question will be whether what’s commanding the enslaved parahumans will be Taylor at all at that point, or if the only thing that will be left will be the Administrator shard.
If Taylor’s there at the end though? Well, I still have faith in her.
I think I said it before, but if not the thought has been there. That this is going to end with pepper spray and Tattletale. That is her final anchor. Personally I find Tattletale to be a very fitting one for her.
Taylor wouldn’t choose to keep everyone enslaved.
Is the narrator still Taylor?
Aname on October 22, 2013 at 10:17 said:
She didn’t even flinch when one of the dudes she was controlling exploded in a shower of blood. Apathy is it’s own kind of malice.
So… a shock to the system against the Uber threat will be stopped by…. Taylor’s pepper spray?
Taylor Hebert, only stoppable by… Taylor Hebert…
Well, at least we know what the upgrade from ‘S’ class threat is now, it’s ‘T’ class.
This really doesn’t strike me as apathy. This strikes me as “Taylor” is being overwritten by “Administrator” and IT is designed to fight, fight, and then fight some more. She’s put up a good war against it so far but unless she kills Scion soon I worry that Taylor is going to go bye bye permanently.
Unstable around the edges? I’d say that the instability is extending tendrils straight to the core of Taylor’s being.
And yeah, Taylor looking for Danny is a gamble. If he’s alive, she loses a bit of concentration and gains an anchor. If he is not, she loses a little time and hope.
She’s still very stable at her core. I don’t believe that she recognizes what her core anchor is right now. Killing Scion. Almost everything else has become meaningless, and her best friends and people she cares about have become secondary.
She will be at her most dangerous if/when she takes down Scion. At that point, that’s when all her secondary anchors will be critical. But will they be enough?
These last few chapters, it’s just felt like Taylor is slowly dying, and some THING else is replacing her.
She’s definitely shedding her humanity, layer by layer. The question is what will happen when she destroys her own anchor, by defeating Scion. Does the passenger win then, or Taylor? That’s when I suspect that whatever Wildbow is hiding up in Grue’s cabin or in Simurgh’s glass tube, or both, will make it’s appearance.
She is focused. Focused is not stable. Focused is what leads her to accomplish her goals at any cost; stable is what makes her not take the extreme penalties, risks, and actions.
Focused is good for now, but it does not make her stable.
World Domination, you say? But domination is such an ugly word. I prefer world optimization.
MrHatandCloak on October 23, 2013 at 08:27 said:
Hello Harry
pizzahedron on August 18, 2015 at 20:49 said:
why do i get this feeling we’ve had this conversation before?
Yup. Trust Wildbow to take what, bereft of context would be an encouraging and positive statement and infuse it with pure horror.
He’s an evil, evil man in such a good way…
The Sandman on October 22, 2013 at 00:18 said:
Taylor doesn’t have much time left, but she certainly picked one hell of a way to go out.
Vaguely surprised Genesis wasn’t mentioned along with Ballistic and Sundancer.
And now, I suppose, the fight against Scion. Should be quite the show.
Kind of funny, though: in the end, the factor most likely to doom the world is Brandish having been such an abysmal foster mother for Panacea.
James on October 22, 2013 at 03:26 said:
chrnno on October 22, 2013 at 03:37 said:
Wasn’t there originally, read the e-mail or RSS if you follow Worm in either.
Ouch, I don’t think Taylor is going to recover from this.
PapaGoose on October 22, 2013 at 09:19 said:
Recovery is highly unlikely, since the moment Panacea upgraded her shard-ware. Endings don’t have to be happy.
True, but more often than not endings need to be satisfying and wrap up any unwrapped plot threads. Given Wildbow’s habit of dropping characters like ugly babies, I’ve basically stopped caring about closure and I’m only sticking around to see how much of this Wildbow can wrap up before the Rocks Fall and Everyone Dies. Epilogues can only do so much.
I’d say that “The character involved died” is a pretty complete closure.
Seriously, though, what plot threads are you worried about not being wrapped up?
Perhaps she could fix herself using Panacea, actually. She has access to the power booster and to countless Thinkers, as well as her own power’s ability to grasp the powers of others intuitively. She might be able to use Panacea’s own power better than Panacea can by combining all of those.
the13thversifier on October 23, 2013 at 11:22 said:
Well endings doesn’t have to stereotypically end up with good guy hugging each other while the bad guys got suddenly incarcerated. It sounds like a cheap hazardous lobotomy to me
I’d prefer endings with plausible cause and effect, good, if everything wrapped up reasonably, thumbs up, if the final moments impressive enough to be etched into lasting memories. Now that sounds like perfect, unique, pleasuring lobotomy.
Tagg on October 22, 2013 at 00:19 said:
And now I’m strangely reminded of Darkseid’s speech from Final Crisis.
That’s a GREAT comparison.
I thought people would enjoy said quote:
I. Am. The. New. God. All is one in Darkseid. This mighty body is my church. When I command your surrender, I speak with three billion voices. When I make a fist to crush your resistance. It is with three billion hands. When I stare into your eyes and shatter your dreams. And break your heart. It is with six billion eyes! Nothing like Darkseid has ever come among you: Nothing will again. I will take you to a hell without exit or end. And there I will murder your souls! And make you crawl and beg! And die! Die! Die for Darkseid!
Eerily accurate.
Oh, yes, Taylor is the Anti-Life Equation. Course if Darksied shows up to try and take it from her, she’ll have a nice planet of new gods to throw at Scion.
MrMoray on October 22, 2013 at 00:24 said:
One Taylor to rule them all. One Taylor to find them. One Taylor to bring them all, and in the Wormverse, bind them.
ijpowers92 on October 22, 2013 at 01:01 said:
bizarrely appropriate.
Hotaru on October 22, 2013 at 01:16 said:
You know you’re a troll when after you saw that scene with Tattletale, your first thought is to have everyone turn to her and take a knee. All we’d need is for Taylor to get her voice back so she could be all, “What is thy bidding my master.”
Robert C Roman on October 22, 2013 at 07:13 said:
That would be unbelievably precious… And exactly what Tattletale would do were the situation reversed.
endochrom on October 22, 2013 at 00:25 said:
So she now controls 5000 capes. When she controlled 3000 she decided she could take on Glastig but Sleeper was too much trouble? What the hell can Sleeper do?
Trusting on October 22, 2013 at 00:29 said:
O.o god ! I want Taylor to have a happy ending but I can’t turn my eyes away from the trainwreck that is her at the moment .
Shadell on October 22, 2013 at 00:35 said:
Glastig’s power is useful against Scion, Sleeper’s might not be that effective. In this case the risks of a free Glastig to mess things up versus her utility are quite high incentives to get her despite the risks. Sleeper’s power might, for example, be some massive scale shaker ability that would interfere with Taylor’s whole army if used. In this sense, there would be some benefit to including him in the collective, but it could easily be outweighed by the risk of having to fight Sleeper.
shrieky on October 22, 2013 at 00:50 said:
I know! This arc is terrifying. We’re getting glimpses of the Wormverse that are all the scarier for not being fleshed out. And, of course, that cliffhanger made me bite right through my nails to the tender abused flesh underneath. This is incredible.
WormAddict on October 22, 2013 at 00:53 said:
My guess is sleeper involves mass duplication of himself. It would be a real pain to manage all the extra portals, and explain why he was reading aloud to himself (maybe another self).
Could be something that, oh, makes people fall into comas?
Plausible, but probably too predictable. Wildbow’s characters tend to have atypical abilities like super-intuition, instant forgetability and the ability to grow giant dogs. Sleeper probably also has something skewed from the obvious.
Besides, his name suggests that *he* sleeps, not that he makes others sleep. The suggestion that he’s effectively lucid-dreaming in the real world makes a lot of sense, but I guessed that one too so it’s probably not right. xD
I’m not sure if anyone’s suggested that he could be a sleeper in the covert intelligence sense.
Heck, for all we know he has the ability to let trains ride over him! xD
Interesting interpretation.
Probably Sleeper is a stranger with the strangest power imaginable? that no one would even bother fighting him, because he is completely an unknown factor? Imp-wise power that made his power invariably mysterious…LOL
So like The Sphinx, then?
Ajoxer on October 22, 2013 at 20:38 said:
I heard that guy can like, cut guns in half. With his mind.
Kerrus on October 22, 2013 at 21:40 said:
Sleeper’s power? You know how Taylor went “More trouble than he was worth.”?
That’s what his power does. It makes people go “Eh, more trouble than he’s worth”.
High level Stranger that just passively convinces everyone to leave him alone while he takes a nap or reads a book? Makes sense.
The Protectorate gets called in for reports of something unspeakably horrifying, driving all the locals away from a small town but curiously not seeming to harm any of them. The Triumverate takes one look, rates him a Class S threat, and gives orders to observe from great distance, defend the populace if required, but not provoke this horror if it can be at all avoided. After the first few weeks of remote observation revealed him mostly just napping, they tentatively classified this monstrosity as ‘The Sleeper’.
Then the portals open, Scion appears. the Sleeper knows that he might not be safe on this world anymore, that the golden god of death might come by and interrupt his rest. So he gets up, stretches, strolls through to earth Z, and every other human on the planet flees for the relative safety of flaming population centers and mobs of chinese death dealers. The Sleeper, now the only sentient on an unremarkable world and thus as safe from Scion as any human can be, picks up a book discarded by one of the refugees, and begins idly flipping through it in his new villa.
Jerden on October 23, 2013 at 09:10 said:
So you’re saying he has the power of exaggeration? A stranger ability which makes him seem ridiculously dangerous, dispite being harmless?
I like your theory. Unless of course you didn’t mean that, in which case I like my theory.
Probably something with a ridiculous aoe centered on himself.
My bet: everyone in a radius falls asleep.(As in new Skitters mindcontrol-area) Useless in that fight. Half of the fighting capes asleep or something.
Maybe like a maxed out Winter(S9 Clone).
He makes his dreams come to reality. Or alternatively, he makes reality enter his dreams. Either way, massive reality warping.
Yes, I’m going to post this every time there’s speculation on Sleeper, in the hope that repeating it enough times makes it come true. 🙂 .
Yeah, interesting that he’s not bothering Scion…and that Scion’s not bothering him.
I wonder if the Entities ever wind up with powers that are too dangerous for even them to hold onto? Perhaps Sleeper has a power that Scion doesn’t want to get back.
Sleeper is an insert of Wildbow.
Can take over any world: Wildbow owns this parahuman multiverse
Read to himself: That’s Wildbow proofreading the next chapter.
Too bothersome; Has author edit powers to defeat Taylor with.
Not appearing; Wildbow won’t let a Marty Stu into this story.
That would also explain why Scion wouldn’t want those powers back.
Scion: “Have you seen the workload Wildbow shoulders? I’m only a near-omnipotent god-monster, you can’t expect me to put out over 20k words in a week. Every week. Hell I can barely manage 4 words a year!”
It does make sense…
But why would he be called Sleeper?
Oh, that’s an easy one. You know how author inserts in fantasy/sci-fi/superhero fics are always some sort of idealized power fantasy, doing all the things the author wishes they were capable or or had the opportunity for?
Wildbow wants to take a nap and maybe read a book.
Because he’s DREAMING up Worm.
Didn’t it say in Alexandria’s chapter that there was something like 650,000 parahumans? Have to hand it to you though, wildbow. We have a multiverse crossover, with almost every parahuman left alive vs. Zion. Don’t think it will matter. Her only chance is too find his real body and destroy it, so I think this is nothing more than a distraction. It may be possible to hit him so many times that the well runs dry but casualties will be enormous. Now for sequel speculation. Well I believe that Wildbow will take a break and move on to other stories, he probably will come back to the wormverse at some point. I have already in past chapter gone over past examples of things that might be cool to see in the future since the wormverse is such a rich universe to explore. Prequels, capes in other countries, story ideas etc. A direct sequel is going to have a very interesting setting now though.
1. Many, many, alternate universes can now travel to each other with the doormaker’s portals, if he leaves them open. Imagine waking up and discovering there are at least a dozen more earths to live/explore.
2. Almost every single one of those alternate worlds are destroyed, badly damaged, or have nothing but untamed wilderness. It’s like every world became like Brockton Bay after Leviathan. So any sequel will be in a damaged landscape, with little order, gangs, starvation, anarchy, and parahumans running many places. So any new character will have to deal with that.
But regardless, it is climax time.
The other ‘verses hadn’t as much capes. And Scion had taken a mayor toll on cape population. … Fucked up times.
flame7926 on October 22, 2013 at 00:29 said:
Well this is incredibly fucked up. Taylor at least showed some remorse in this chapter. I wonder why Sleeper wasn’t worth worrying about, I feel like he will feature more in the sequel if it is made, since that is literally his first appearance. All the other S-class threats are helping the “good guys”.
Taylor is completely loony. like totally. I think she has fallen off a cliff which she can’t return from. I think that if she doesn’t die or kill herself or magically gain control, she will become a dictator. Here are some quotes:
“when I could carry out that goal I’d had from the beginning, getting the world to the point where it all made sense. Bringing people in line, subjugating those who would get in the way or do more harm than good.” – except she is literally subjugating everyone with powers.
“I wanted to scream, to yell at her for being like all of the others and refusing to play along, to listen and cooperate.” – her problem. A bit of a control issue, when people don’t listen to her.
I also said a while ago that Cauldron should have gone to other worlds, and there were some pretty powerful capes lording over everyone. They could have been useful in something.
I think Taylor will drop control of her army if Scion is defeated.
In all other respects, I’m inclined to agree.
letseveryonemorality on October 22, 2013 at 00:56 said:
I’m betting Taylor tries to kill herself instead of or just after moving everyone away and closing all of her portals.
Taylor protects and saves people, Taylor stops monsters, and Taylor is selfless almost to a fault. Add in the apparent shattering of most of her mental faculties and the scene the Simurgh reminded Tattletale of, and I really cannot accept that suicide isn’t Taylor’s plan.
I can. I think at this point the sum total of Taylor’s plan is “Stop Scion”.
There’s so many ways that can go, I don’t think she’s spared even a single neuron working on what comes next.
Assuming she succeeds, would suicide be an option she chose to take? In some scenarios sure. She was willing to kill Aster to spare her from hell, I can’t see her denying herself or the world that. I can imagine dozens of scenarios that go in completely different directions though.
“Taylor is selfless almost to a fault” but also incredibly egoistic: if you’re not doing things Taylor’s way then you’re doing it wrong. She’s perfectly willing to violate your autonomy for your own good (or the good of others or the “greater good”) which is how the worst monsters are made. Having good motivations is not quite synonymous with being good.
The character we know could very plausibly justify retaining control of anyone who wasn’t being productive and cooperative by her standards “…until the crisis is over”, which it won’t be for a long time. I don’t expect that’s the way the story will go because it’s not the best story, but it would not be out of character for her.
She isn’t the hero they want. She’s the hero they need. Control issues and all.
Let me suggest this instead…
She isn’t the monster they want. She’s the monster they need. Wether they like it or not.
She isn’t the hero they want. She’s the monster they need.
Flex on October 22, 2013 at 12:11 said:
Ooooh… Ominous
I like that. Nice tagline for the final TV Series…WHEN IT GETS MADE! *hopeful swoon* HAHA
“With special guest Genoscythe the Eyeraper!”
There will have to be animated post-credits scenes of you in order to give the feeling of the comments section to all the TV Series viewers, of course.
kingsomnus on October 22, 2013 at 00:31 said:
Fuck…. It just got real.
Heh – it got real 30 arcs ago. This is Scion about to become aware of that.
This is Tone, Psychogecko! 😛
True enough Patrick. But I’m sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo stoked and happy that Worm comes out twice a week (sometimes three times!)!.
Right there with ya Kingsomnus.
I’d be crushingly depressed that we’re 2-4 updates from the end which would mean no more updates to look forward to…except I find myself looking forward to whatever story comes next almost as much.
wildbow on October 22, 2013 at 12:41 said:
There’s an epilogue arc where each remaining bonus chapter translates to one epilogue chapter.
Yeah buddy you said it. 🙂
I stumbled upon this delightful series thanks to a mention in TV Tropes. Then I said: “Well, I’ll be danged, this isn’t half bad!” Then I devoured the series and stopped reading the novels I was in order to catch up completely.
SEA-106 on October 22, 2013 at 00:31 said:
Eidolon was hurting Scion, until Scion used Contessa’s power.
Taylor has >5,000 capes, including Glaistig Uaine, who has access to Eidolon. Also, possibly, including Contessa, but certainly including a lot of other precognitives. Will that be enough to mess with Scion’s foresight?
This is gonna be fun.
Probably not. If I remember correctly, the foresight canceling is mostly based on the feedback loop of precogs trying to react to the other. Since other precogs can’t see Scion, that loop can’t happen.
She has all the case 53s, as well.
(a) Taylor has a fair few precognition in the mix. Also:
(b) There’s a big difference between seeing something come g and being able to do anything about it. Scion has quickly (but not instantly) adapted to the most powerful attacks thrown at him. Thousands of attacks at once may be too much for him to adapt to even with foresight.
Congratulations Taylor, you’re now officially scarier than the Endbringers. Even if you somehow live through the fight, I don’t think anyone else is going to let you go from this. Now let’s see how much better the fight against Scion works when everyone’s following the general’s orders.
Also is it just me or did we not see her capture Contessa?
I don’t recall her grabbing Contessa, no.
Yeah. Contessa was just waking up as Taylor checked on her, so Teacher and Contessa have yet to talk.
It looks like Teacher and Contessa might not talk until Taylor has finished with Zion, depending on how long the fight actually takes.
What’s the latest over-under on the duration of the Taylor vs. Zion fight, by the way? Eight minutes?
I’m not sure it’ll even take her than long. I’m expecting a total curbstomp here.
It doesn’t look that easy to me.
Zion’s “how do i beat this power” sense won’t work for him here because he’s facing more than a single power, more than even just a couple of powers. His “how do I win” power won’t work here because he cannot communicate with Taylor, and Taylor likely simply has to much precognative muscle backing her up in any case, on top of her current mental state. His only real option might be to run, and even then I suspect that it might not work.
Basically he’s without any actions that will actual work here. The safeguards he built to keep this from happening have all been ground away to dust.
The only real question is how long it’ll take Taylor to physically or mentally render him unable to fight.
Of course there is always the possibility that the Simurgh sabotages Taylor here, but Zion is basically screwed.
Glaistig damn near took out Taylor. Scion’s a lot slower on the uptake though, and relies on reacting, instead of preparing.
Taylor is going to surprise him, perhaps even impress him, and in that time when he is surprised and impressed, Taylor is going to open up on him. By the time he uses his path to victory power, he might be losing power so fast that he cannot act.
However, the path to victory power is really pretty absurd. He can’t talk to Taylor because she won’t understand it, so he can’t use the Eidolon tactic.
He might be able to talk to her passenger though, which could be… interesting. If her passenger is a throwback to the origin of Scion’s species though, it’s just going to see Scion as a big threat and/or lunch, and will probably not care what he has to say.
In the end, I think that Taylor will end up the loser, victorious over all. And then with no purpose to keep her going, she will release her hold on the Clairvoyant, and wake up in the Bird Cage, solitary confinement.
Bird Cage, Simurgh Cage. They will not leave her alive. At the very least they won’t want her anywhere near any living thing. A crippled Taylor, incapable of moving herself, on a lifeless rock somewhere, in a parrell universe with no other living things? To much risk she’ll escape.
Damn it no, you do not kill her, especially with the Faerie Queen still around. You really want to give the bitch queen control of the Administrator as well as the High Priest?
Recreate Hack Job, teleport him on top of Taylor. While he holds her down, have Bonesaw turn off her power and make her immortal. *Then* put her in solitary confinement for eternity.
Do you people really expect Wildbow not to have any surprises left to throw at us? Does history suggest that’s a likely thing?
Me? I’m betting on “I didn’t see that fate coming but WOW does it make sense in retrospect”.
Anyone care to wager against me?
>>Damn it no, you do not kill her, especially with the Faerie Queen still around. You really want to give the bitch queen control of the Administrator as well as the High Priest?<<
Of course now that she has Eidolon, the Faerie Queen can steal living capes' shards too.
Which actually makes me wonder why she didn't try doing that in this chapter.
Grant Moxham on October 23, 2013 at 00:46 said:
because she’s such a F****** fruitcake she thinks she’s actually one of the Greater Fae?
Sion can’t have been defeated already when the Contessa/Teacher conversation happens though, that was pretty clear.
Where are the Endbringers, anyway?
Reveen on October 22, 2013 at 16:59 said:
Getting krunk, of course.
*cue Simurgh DJing at a house party*
To the windoooow! *Bohu leans in, having formed the house out of her body and joins in* To the wall! (to the wall!)
*Khonsu jumps out and runs his claws down his belly* To the sweat drop down my balls!
*Tohu pops up with Canary, Shatterbird, and Valefor’s faces on* To all these bitches crawl!
*Leviathan comes dancing in missing a leg and an arm, trying to do a crip walk* To all skeet skeet motherfucker! All skeet skeet, god damn!
Tom_D on October 22, 2013 at 00:32 said:
uhhhh……
Holy hell… Leave it to Taylor to combine every available power into a mean, lean fighting machine and point it at Scion.
Also, if Doormaker can make that many portals, in that variety of sizes, what the hell did Cauldron need Number Man or Contessa on the field? They could’ve just opened a dime-sized portal to their target and neutralize them almost effortlessly. Or provide NM with impossible shots.
Cauldron seems to be the embodiment of wasted potential.
keyonte0 on October 22, 2013 at 00:45 said:
The Manton effect, and the possibility that portals could be traced back to their base by certain powers. Dragon/Defiant have already demonstrated the ability to find where a portal went long after it closed.
Yes, but the portal would not lead back to Cauldron’s HQ. It would simply lead from the barrel of a gun (which could be located anywhere) to the target.
If they wanted to further obscure the trail then the bullet, projectile or whatever they use to incapacitate people from a distance could be shot through multiple portals, each in a different, unrelated reality.
As for the Manton effect, the portals are not actually affecting the target. It should not be a problem.
Not really looking to get into a discussion about the mechanics of powers, just remarking that Cauldron does (did?) not utilize its resources to the fullest.
Cauldron was always inefficient, because they were using Contessa’s power once removed for planning.
Yeah, the whole secret organization basically boiled down to four guys, once you account for Doormaster and the Clairvoyant being barely sentient tools. Contessa only really worked through her power and a lot of her time was spent being the boogeyman; she was great at a single task at a time but had little individual drive and couldn’t do big-picture planning because she couldn’t even ask about the entities. Custodian could barely communicate and couldn’t leave the base, but handled all the day to day stuff. Number Man was efficient, but his history with the Nine and late arrival to the team meant they never trusted him with big things until it was too late. So the whole thing was basically run by a single baseline normal, who never trained to run anything remotely on that scale, was neither as clever nor as efficient as she thought she was, and had no experience dealing with failure because Contessa would always bail her out.
The more I think about it, the more it seems that Accord’s untimely demise broke a lot of good possibilities. If he’d gotten any sort of real standing with Cauldron, he could have done a hell of a lot of good. If he were inducted into the Swarm, Taylor might just be able to stay sane and keep things organized through his power. When he got killed everything started to swing toward chaos.
And once again, I look at the root of tragedy and see the Simurgh behind it. I really need to stop underestimating her, but I keep telling myself that and I keep failing to do it.
Not to mention how if Accord and Dinah had ever sat down and had a conversation they would have immediately saved the whole goddamn world.
I wonder about that. I mean it’s certainly possible that they would have come up with a different path than Contessa’s “I Win” power suggested, but it could be that they would have come up with effectively the same steps too.
If nothing else, I’d REALLY like to see an epilogue with Dinah. We know she doesn’t see everything but I’d love to know how much of what’s happened was a result of the plan she’s been working for and how close this is to the best end game that she could find.
imsomeone on October 22, 2013 at 07:24 said:
And Accord was killed by a Simurgh bomb.
Manton used to be on Cauldrons team too
There’s also how Doormaker probably doesn’t have the kind of self-motivated finesse to compensate for all the things that Taylor is doing when she’s controlling him and his power. I don’t think you could tell Doormaker to make armor out of portals for someone, say, I don’t think he’d know what to do.
skywiseskychan on October 22, 2013 at 01:06 said:
remember that Taylor can multitask like a boss. Doormaker while good probably isn’t that good.
Yeah, everything we’ve seen from Doormaster in the past has implied normal human reaction times. People request a portal out loud, the Clairvoyant tells him, and he opens it a second after the request. Fast, but not good enough for serious combat work. Taylor’s thinker power allows her Swarm to react faster than she should be able to, dodging attacks her bugs sensed without even being consciously aware of it and opening or closing portals between the instant Zion fires and the instant the beam passes through.
Doormaster was significant alone, powerful with the Clairvoyant, but only godlike under the Queen Administrator.
Snickles on October 22, 2013 at 00:35 said:
I like how Sleeper the terrifying Class S threat is just some guy who reads books while lying in the sun. While subsuming entire worlds in his spare time of course. That woman in blue seems like she has some relation to Eden given her powerset. Taylor has pretty much every powerful cape in all the universes and she can use portal tricks to redirect scion’s attacks. At this point I feel like the only thing that will kill her is dying of dehydration because she’s so unfocused on her body. Did she take over Contessa’s body? I wasn’t able to tell. Given the amount of power at her disposable she can probably use it better than her anyway.
When she checked Contessa, Contessa was just waking up. So Teacher and Contessa still have yet to talk.
Ristridin on October 22, 2013 at 04:11 said:
Did Contessa fall asleep between the attack on Cauldron and the moment she talked to Teacher? I’m rereading that section, but can’t find it. Unless she was asleep in the hour she had to wait for the portal to reopen.
Ally on October 24, 2013 at 16:29 said:
I wonder if that’s not a typo, and Contessa was “walking” up, not “waking” up.
r2k-in-the-vortex on October 22, 2013 at 11:47 said:
Well terrifying S class threat lying in the sun in front of his house is exactly where ‘Happy ending’TM (if even possible) would take Taylor.
Lets say Taylor wins, lets go of control, returns from being batshit insane and learns to speak. Where would that leave Taylor? My guess is going back to Charlotte’s and kids cottage and being all: ‘Oh yeah im more terrible than Scion, but i cant be bothered with taking over the world because im in the middle of a book’
But yeah in all honesty, i dont see an happy ending coming, just nice to think what it might be like.
Actually.. one way to get a happy ending out of this.. when Scion gets obliberated what happens to all the shards and powers? Should they just wink out then it would end up in Taylor being just another young woman again.
If all shards wink out Taylor will be one young woman with brain damage.
C#40s T#30rY on October 22, 2013 at 12:47 said:
“At this point I feel like the only thing that will kill her is dying of dehydration because she’s so unfocused on her body.”
Now I’m imaginging “Borg Queen”/ “cloud-sourced” Taylor, where her body died without her noticing but her mind lived on as the shard and in her swarm.
…That’s what the shards do, right? “Learn” the personalities of their hosts, so they can find the best strategies?… This would lead to the whole “Taylor becomes an entity” hypothesis…
I am scared(er) now.
You should be scaredy, cat. By the way, is this your first caught-up commenting?
I don’t know how coming back from this will be remotely possible. My god, this is an amazing journey.
I rather hope that Taylor will live. Not just because I like her character, and it would be sad to see her die. But I’m intrigued about what a sane!Taylor would think about all of this.
Okay so lets say perfect scenario. Scion is killed, the world is saved, casualties aren’t too horrendous, and Taylor gives up control…then what? She still has to keep some of the nastier ones under her power like the 9 clones, the fairy queen, some of the nasty prisoners, but she can’t keep control of them without the doormaker. So she keeps him until the birdcage is back up and running, which means Dragon has to be fixed, which means taking over teacher. Most of the Yangban/teacher students she can simply let go, but she will still have a powerful core of nasty parahumans under her control for at least a little while. Then there is the whole destroyed world which makes it hard to have a trial. I’m sure Bitch/Tattletale would gladly take care of her now that her body isn’t where it used to be, or she can find a way to fix herself. But she just made enemies of almost everyone who will hate/fear her. Without the doormaker she is vulnerable enough for someone to try and get some payback. So she either keeps the doormaker and remains the scariest/all powerful queen bitch of the universe, or frees him and pretty much grantees somebody kills her at some point.
One of Taylor’s most important qualities is that she not only anticipates the consequences of her actions pretty well, but she’s also willing to except them, or attempt to fix them.
If you think Taylor wouldn’t be willing to just let the rest of humanity kill her after she’s killed Zion I really don’t know what to tell you. Hell, I don’t expect Taylor to wait that long, I expect her to try and off herself instead.
Caladium on October 22, 2013 at 01:13 said:
At this point, Taylor’s hit the “too scary to be allowed to live” threshold. If she doesn’t either die or give up all her power and disappear, people (maybe the non-capes, because it doesn’t seem like she can control those) will do their best to kill her anyway.
Robert on October 22, 2013 at 01:47 said:
She took control of the non-capes manning Dragon’s datacentre.
Prior to that, she took over the Dragon’s Teeth officers when going to see Dragon.
Authy_Silverfur on October 22, 2013 at 13:34 said:
Prior to that, she took over an unnamed guy by accident right after escaping from the underground cave place where she got her power upgrade.
It would be pretty simple to dump the dangerous prisoners onto an earth without any people (I know people evacuated to them, but there must be one where scion got everyone) until the birdcage is back up and running (especially since it wasn’t damaged much beyond the destruction of the drones).
Without even the dignity of a pistol with one shot left in it?
For some of them? No.
We may also be underestimating what GodMode Taylor is capable of.
The really bad capes? The true monsters? Even assuming the final battle doesn’t do them in, and on the off chance that Taylor retains her full control ability, there’s the simple matter of giving the monsters a date with Bonesaw or Panacea.
If they can tinker with Shards, they can probably kill the Shards too. People have a right to live, but a right to having super powers isn’t written down anywhere.
Problem: Taylor still has that 16ish foot radius. Panacea and Bonesaw can’t get close enough to work on her anymore, and they can’t trust Taylor to work on herself.
That’s easily solved, though not neatly. Take a power nullifier, either one who can completely turn her off from more than 16ft away, or one who can also teleport; Hack Job would be optimal here if he could be recreated. Then, since Panacea would be worthless next to him and even tinker powers would be suspended, have Bonesaw’s spiderbots or some of Dragon’s remote platforms do the actual surgery. It’ll be messy, ugly, and probably cause a lot of brain damage, and it will probably require cooperation unless you can get the clairvoyant away from her first, but it should work.
You’re assuming this isn’t something Taylor does to herself.
If Taylor goes full on unthinking Shard monster, sure you need tactics to stop her.
If not, then she could easily be the one who sets up the Shard cleansing factory, with herself as its last patient.
Easy now, Handicapper General. Let’s wait a bit before we pull a shotgun on Harrison Bergeron, ok?
Harrison Bergeron was a pretty impressive badass but I’m pretty sure he couldn’t wield the souls of dead superheroes as weapons.
Neither can all but one of those supers.
At this point, I’m not sure I’d put it past Taylor to just door all the Birdcage undesirables into the sun once she’s done with Scion…
Heck, door them right back into the Birdcage. Into their original cells if you really feel like conveying “Fuck you” nonverbally.
So she didn’t get Contessa/Teacher/whoever else. Teacher possibly raised another counter-clairvoyant field to block her out. Or Taylor or her Shard is/are losing track of so much she can’t even use the clairvoyant cleanly.
Well. She didn’t grab Contessa earlier. It could be that she somehow knows Contessa’s power is somehow compromised by Scion’s other half.
Also, Teacher’s only real ability would compromise the integrity of her gestalt. As he’d have a back door into anyone she used him on, which could be VERY disruptive if her sphere of control (with “sphere” being used in the figurative sense of “area” or “realm”, rather than describing a spherical structure) fluctuates at all.
I interpreted that as losing hold of her other anchors. She’d just let go of her father’s house and her mother’s grave, held on to Tattletale, but the others? Grue, Imp, Rachel, she’d forgotten about. She knew that she’d set other anchors for herself but she’d lost track of them and was too far gone to recover any but Tattletale.
but she still managed to leave foil alone. I think there’s still some undersider left in there.
She didn’t. Foil is entirely under Taylor’s control now, but has a power so rare and valuable that it isn’t worth the risk to throw her at the Faerie Queen; there’s a chance that it would cut through the defenses but there’s also a significant chance of getting Foil liquified in retaliation and that would reduce the Swarm’s forces for later.
Just had a thought. Foil+Doormaker portal spam. I’d like to see Scion catch THAT in midair.
Yeah and on rereading, it looks like the last cape she collected was Tattletale
Really? I thought she almost did it and then stopped at the last second.
Share out powers that create physical objects, share out Ballistic’s power, share out Foil’s power, share out Number Man’s power. Attack Zion with an endless hail of Foil enhanced projectiles from literally every direction.
Not sure Foil’s power would work shared out. Even with an optimal spread of power enhancers you only have about a third of the original’s power. So even assuming that everybody gets the physics tweaking at full strength, their timing would be sloppy. Only Foil’s paranormal sense of timing allows her to use her primary power offensively, since the projectile needs to phase back in at the exact right instant while in flight in order to affect the target but bypass defenses.
Nope. An item with the effect on it still carves through everything, like the group weapons against Behemoth (chain and disc).
It won’t be able to affect as much mass, and it won’t last as long, shared out, but that also shouldn’t matter at all.
I don’t expect this to be the only thing Taylor needs to do, or for Wildbow to even use this exact thing, but as effective attacks go, Foil’s is likely the flat out strongest they have access to.
Besides, I just want to see why Zion keeps blocking or avoiding it when he just keeps taking everything else head on.
To quote Captain Obvious, “Shit about to get real son.”
The realest shit that there is. Worm Shit.
“About”? Cap’n Obvious is a tad late, IMO. It got real when Scion fired his f**k you beam at London.
It got real several times. Leviathan hitting Brockton Bay was definitely one, as was the first S9 arc.
I think probably the first real “it’s not playtime anymore” moment might’ve been Bakuda’s mad bomber rampage…
Wow. Really good job of showing how Taylor’s mind is continuing to deteriorate.
was anybody else reminded of HAL 9000’s death?
“I’m afraid. I’m afraid, Dave. Dave. My mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I’m a..fraid.”
Legumes on October 22, 2013 at 00:59 said:
“You ask too much of yourself,” Tecton said. “You could have all of the power in the world, and you’d still feel like you should do more.”
-Scarab, part 5.
Oh Taylor…. also, this showdown is going to be fucking amazing. I’m simultaneously enthused and depressed as hell. This has been foreshadowed for a while (I’ve just caught up) and holy hell this is going to be interesting.
(still reserving hope for a happy-ish ending, despite all evidence to the contrary (i.e. everything))
No One in Particular on October 22, 2013 at 00:59 said:
This is a well written descent into confusion and madness for this context, meaning this was absolutely terrifying to read, I don’t even know…well, now I know why this is probably the last arc. Hard to go up from here.
Wildbow, you might be nervous about ending this well, but you’ve pulled it off perfectly so far
Easily my favorite arc since the days of villainy, and not just because of Taylor being…this….is happening. So thanks, and good luck.
I’m calling it now, by the end she somehow merges completely with the shard to the point she doesn’t need a corporeal form; she dies, sequel is someone trying to deal with Taylor the Shard grafted onto their soul. :p
Holy fucking shit.
Taylor has become Queen of the Multiverse. Or is it Administrator? She beat Glaistig Uaine. She took over those suspiciously foreshadowing superheroes from another world. She decided not to bother with Sleeper ( of course). And unless she has a better plan than throwing all of them at Scion she’ll just be wasting thousands of lives.
As I said before, this is all very Sauronesque. Not even he was born evil, to paraphrase Elrond.
But hey look at the bright side: at least she didn’t permanently destroy Dragon. I loved that trick with the lights. Fucking tinkers indeed.
And one last thought: does this mean we’re relying on Contessa and Teacher to save the world from Taylor once she has saved it from Scion? Ohhh boy.
Paranoid Android on October 22, 2013 at 02:54 said:
Talk about unlikely heros.
I doubt that Teacher is smart enough to qualify as a player on that scale, and Taylor is surrounded by layers of precogs and trumps.
Personally I’m relying on the Simurgh to pull humanity out of this pit. And that’s terrible.
Here’s a plan that can fuck up Taylor usin only Teacher and Contessa’s resources.
Contessa’s presence shields them from Taylor’s precogs. Following Contessa’s power Teacher gives Trickster (who we know was with him when he meets Contessa) some minor clairvoyance/other extrasensory power thus bypassing his-line-of-sight limitation. They build two mannequins. Trickster switches Doormaker and Clairvoyant with the mannequins. Contessa opens a door right next to Taylor’s head and shoots her. There.
I know it’s unlikely but we know that Teacher and Contessa willd o something. And law of conservation of details tells us Trickster will play some role, otherwise why bother mentioning him. Oh and there’s still mysterious horned helmet dude, who may or may not be Satyr.
Yes, open a portal from the end of your gun to the head of the person who passively mindfucks everybody in her vicinity, through portals.
Anyway, for Trickster to pull that off he’d need more than just a perception boost, he’d need power on the level of the Clairvoyant. And even if they did port Doormaster away, he would be disabled and effectively powerless when not holding hands with his partner or under the Administrator’s control.
I don’t doubt that they’ll try something, and the Contessa is still a factor. But it will not be simple, will not be quick, and may not be possible anymore.
Tattletale on the other hand, is Taylor’s last remaining anchor, the one person she refuses to take control of… and commands the Simurgh. Who in turn is immune to Taylor’s power, can recreate tinker devises if she’s close enough to read their minds or has seen the devise before, and has the raw intellect to use those assets appropriately.
And (at the risk of underestimating the Simurgh again) I think that the long term results of her scheme would be less terrible than Taylor’s. She causes widespread death, devastation, and despair, but she’s always held back somewhat and any comprehensible goals she has would seem to require humanity to still exist and not be a massive insane hivemind.
Unless of course she was behind those gangers who attacked Emma and led to Taylor’s trigger event and every horror since, in which case we are now seeing the late stages of the Simurgh’s master plan unfold.
Unmaker on October 22, 2013 at 09:28 said:
I have to disagree with you on one point here – Tattletale does not control Simurgh. I think it is clear from the part where Doctor Mother was reading Simurgh that Simurgh has chosen to play along and be near TT in order to further Simurgh’s goals, perhaps because TT’s power can demonstrably work around precog blocks.
Be very, very afraid of Simurgh’s goals. Taylor cannot control Simurgh and will not control TT, so Simurgh has free reign.
Difference between command and control. Simurgh is currently following Tattletale’s instructions, for unknown reasons. Thus Tattletale commands her, even though it is likely than nobody can *control* the Simurgh.
I see three main possibilities:
First and most optimistic is that with Eidolon gone, Simugh doesn’t know what to do and is learning from humanity, taking suggestions in an effort to find a new purpose in life like Zion used to, but with a much greater understanding of how people work and what she’s doing than the great golden idiot. She is genuinely trying to help, either because she cares about humanity or because she sees us as a useful resource which is being wasted. The ‘sorry’ may have been genuine; perhaps not for her past actions (tattletale didn’t sense any remorse) but for what Taylor will suffer in the future. Or it may be reflexive, habitually fucking with everyone around her.
Second, most likely in my mind, and also fairly optimistic at this stage, is that recent events have interfered with Simurgh’s plans. She will save humanity for the same reason she held back in the past, and free them from the Hive because those without free will cannot be manipulated. She will come out on top from this conflict of course, but that’s a better eventuality that either of the new gods are offering.
The worrisome possibility is that this is all according to plan. Simurgh tweaked those gangers (or somebody who then influenced them), who attacked Emma, who Triggered Taylor, who sparked the gang war, which attracted Leviathan, which attracted Jack, causing him to learn about the prophecy, causing him to talk to Zion, causing the end of the world, causing Taylor to go Queen Administrator, and all the dominoes have fallen exactly where the Simurgh intended for them to go when she set this up years in the past.
How do you know the Simurgh’s plan all along hasn’t been to let Taylor deal with Sion and then deal with Taylor?
Actually, Contessa’s power doesn’t mess with precogs, and precogs don’t mess with her. Their powers work differently; after all, Contessa’s path to victory generally doesn’t change midway through. Also, I think that the “technically not a precog” thing was mentioned in an earlier chapter, maybe in the Crushed arc, but I don’t remember where.
Hmm, no. Contessa is immune to precogs, but she can interfere with them. Dr Mother tells the Legion of Doom that they use Contessa as a buffer against the Simurgh.
Teacher’s JUST smart enough to do something pants-on-head retarded out of his all-about-me-complex ( i.e like deserting and then manipulating saint into shutting dragon down at the WORST possible time in order to get leverage against her and Colin)and Fuck the world (and himself in the mid to long term) over. id take the smurf any day of the week. my reasoning is that any plan that severely damages your very species’s ( and your’s) chances of survival for minimal, personal gain is by definition a bad one.
So, like… what if Worm turned out to be a start of darkness prequel?
Taylor and scion destroy each other, all shards are up for grabs. unstoppable Simurgh moves in for the win, now with added portals
Now you’re thinking with portals!
Quick, somebody better deploy the smooth jazz!
narcoduck on October 22, 2013 at 01:18 said:
We keep seeing Sleeper mentioned. What about the other world wide threats that you keep name dropping? Like the Ash Beast and the Blasphemies?
Usually I wouldn’t mind, but if Taylor is literally combing through everything ever…
Also, the Simurgh is suspiciously missing here…
hamcannon on October 22, 2013 at 10:17 said:
Taylor did a flyby of Simurgh. No control possible.
Oh yeah, I understand Sleeper is being saved for the sequel but the Three Blasphemies were explicitly part of the defence force ( whereas I believe the Ash Beast declined–not that it really matters what with Taylor conscripting everyone with a shard). Just a tiny glimpse, perhaps? Pleeeaaase?
Maybe we’ll get something next chapter?
Hida Reju on October 22, 2013 at 01:21 said:
Never commented here before but I have to admit this is the cliffhanger I have been expecting since she left the Undersiders. It’s now Taylor vs Fate itself in a no holds barred grudge match and whoever wins she loses everything in the name of the fight.
Fantastic story thanks Wildbow
septimusmagistos on October 22, 2013 at 01:35 said:
So she’s losing her anchors. Perfect.
As long as by the end of the fight her mind is destroyed so thoroughly that no power can ever restore it, she can be forgiven for what she’s doing here.
That’s a little harsh. She’s just doing the same thing she’s been doing since the bank-robbery. If the ends don’t justify the means, what does?
And I’ve liked Taylor as a person less and less since then. At this point I’m just hoping that she manages to take out Scion and takes herself out in the process, but I’m afraid that someone somewhere will pull a miracle out of their sleeve and she somehow makes it out of this okay.
Still, she’s destroying her own mind and she’s earned the enmity of every cape in the multiverse. A heroic sacrifice is looking more and more likely, because it’d be hard for her to recover from this.
>because it’d be hard
Yeah. She doesn’t routinely pull of things that are hard to do.
Not really. Taylor consistently takes the easy way out. She stuck with being a villain because it was easier than betraying the Undersiders. She terrifies people or controls them because it’s easier than persuading them. She keeps justifying anything she does with an ever-escalating definition of ‘good cause’ because it’s easier than actually sitting down and figuring out whether she’s doing the right thing.
I’m sure Taylor will find a way to beat Scion in the end. But when confronted with a problem she can’t fight her way out of? She’s going to fold. And I can only hope that no one will be there to bail her out.
After all, what’s the point of a villain who doesn’t get their comeuppance?
Yeah, all those easy ways out, like abandoning her friends so she has a chance to prevent the apocalypse, stepping up time and time again against shit like Jack, Echidna, and Behemoth, and generally grinding herself into bloody gristle for even the slightest chance of saving the city/world/her friends.
I don’t know. What’s the point of comeuppance? When the bodies aren’t cold and the person who saved the world is turned into a mentally fractured wreck, what purpose would the death of this person serve? Other than the petty satisfaction of a cultural obsession with punishment?
are you kidding? most of the people she’s dealt with have refused to compromise or be reasonable under any circumstances. like Alexandria and Tagg. they were so averse to compromise that they pushed her till she snapped. Colin screwed her over simply out of spite. so, yes. she took the easy way.
The scene with Alexandria and Tagg was where I first started to wish for Taylor to have an unhappy ending.
If you told me back then that she’d end up like this? I would not have been surprised.
Ahh, Alexandria and Tagg. True heroes and martyrs in the eternal struggle against the madness of civil rights and due process.
I think Colin screwed her over more out of self-importance and ego than out of spite but basically, yeah…
So if Taylor does die… will it be a heroic death or a just death?
I figure it’ll be because the Simurgh smashed her clock.
I want to thank you both for getting the reference and for that mental image.
senevri on October 22, 2013 at 10:37 said:
Nothing justifies the means. There is no justification for anything, only excuses.
Bahumat on October 22, 2013 at 11:02 said:
As excuses go, “Survival”‘s a pretty fucking potent one. 😉
^Seconded
I suppose that Taylor realizing how much of a threat she herself become, and either commiting suicide, or letting herself be killed. Or the final lines will be….
“You don’t understand Tattletale. I have to stop the bullies.”
“No Taylor, you are the bullies.”
Then Taylor was a zombie.
As soon as she lets go of Clairvoyant and Doormaker, she’s pretty nonthreatening. And bullies differ by motive, theirs being petty.
Y’know “There are means that cannot possibly be justified” is a perfectly legitimate response to that.
storryeater on May 10, 2015 at 07:18 said:
Are there,really?in real life,yes,but in fiction,one can create a scenario to justify ANY,and I mean ANY means.
I was always of the opinion :”the ends justify the means,as long as the means are in the upper 10% of the morality scale among your choices (ergo,a really evil means is justified if everything else remaining is worse,or if you can make a case of the character not thinking anything better,but while he tried to do so,I think it is the case with Taylor for now,but not with,say,Light Yagami,who killed early on more than criminals,more than he had too)and as long as the good done by the ends is not surpassed by the means in evil done (I’d say Taylor is borderline on this factor,but ,say,the Worms are not,as their ends of “getting stronger and surviving”do not surpass the means of “killing civilizations”on good vs evil done)”.Many people with “muh ends justify muh means”are either people who only look at the world with colored glasses,not really trying to understand others,even if they are hard on themselves (some are not,but they are always presented as despicable,see:Tagg),so I’ll add “and as long as you are willing to negociate/listen to others (Taylor was always willing,she only lost that to do brain damage,and even then she did try,so I’d say she completes my criteria for ends justifying the means)”
slider214 on May 10, 2015 at 14:07 said:
I’m with you storryeater. Magneto is another good example of someone who holds up “ends justifies” while having such a skewed perspective that he fails to see it’s really just an excuse and not true. Taylor is doing some bad things but in this case it is quite literally the end of every parallel Earth, every human, every single instance of our small corner of the cosmos on the line. Given saving that or simply letting it all fade away to a cosmic temper tantrum? Pretty much whatever she does can be justified.
That’s the great thing about fiction. If the stakes are high enough you really can bring back people from black holes of horribleness with the right mentality and clever twists.
BTW I only input storryeater because wordpress for some reason wouldn’t accept storyeater.Just a trivia.
Dalton on September 29, 2017 at 23:49 said:
You touch on what I was thinking in this comment chain. People saying her ends do not justify the means, when really it’s either no human life in any universe anywhere, or she subjugates the lives of a few thousand superhumans, some of them die, or hell even if it’s all of them, and then the rest of humanity across the multiverse gets to live?
Mass extinction’s prevention can justify most anything.
aelphais on October 22, 2013 at 01:39 said:
I know everyone is talking about Taylor controlling every cape ever minus Tattletale and a few others, but I sure hope Dragon successfully loads her backups in the future.
As people may have noticed, I’m a little behind. I guess it’s better than being a giant ass.
I have to say, I loved the part where Dragon fires at Taylor and she uses portals to hit Scion with it. Seems like she could have done that for anything being used against her.
Now then, much as I don’t like doing this in one big giant thread…
*cocks a shotgun*
Let’s do some welcoming.
aelphais, oh ye of the crystal skull. Your head was not Indiana Jones’s proudest moment.
I have you now. And don’t imagine you’re going to fanfic your way out of this one! I’ll have you know I’m an 8th degree purple prose-belt in crackfic. No, wait, scratch that. I wish to articulate to you with wondrous degree of sincerity and fortitude my majestic and everlasting depth, technical expertise, and fecundity of ability to disrupt, destroy, or denigrate fiction utilizing unconventional literature written by myself.
You may receive that and, upon finding yourself in its position, securely place it into an apparatus such as a hookah to be enjoyed after dinner in the great room with a glass of brandy.
I also wish to express to you an enjoyment of your addition to the collective voice of this community I have somewhat shepherded, full as it is of those who muse on the potential romantic entanglements of fictional characters, doomsayers, and an author who wishes to take the world’s adolescent felines and asphyxiate them in a bathtub full of their own hemoglobin.
Welcome, aelphais, to the comments.
Ahaha, thanks.
I’ll have you know that I held this skull long before any faux-Indiana Jones films featuring aliens and former Disney Channel actors.
I just now noticed you’re the author of World Domination in Retrospect. I had that tagged to read eventually. Maybe I will bump it up the list a few places.
Ah, well I hear it makes a nice read after all the tension of Worm. I was commenting here and at Legion of Nothing first, but enough people insisted I should write my own thing. Even Wildbow thought I was creative, and that was before I started coming up with a new welcome for every person.
Speaking of…
Oh? First time commenting while caught up?
Speak of the Gecko and he shall appear! Unless he’s busy, or sleeping, or eating, or hula dancing, or what have you.
So, Node, ye of the crazy theories, you will fit right in here amongst people who thought Taylor would be captured and put in the Birdcage or that a nuke would be sufficient to kill an Endbringer. People are used to strange theories being thrust upon them around here, but it’s still a good idea to keep in mind that Node means Node.
At this point, though, Wildbow is no longer quite as unpredictable. It used to be that someone could go “I think next chapter a villain’s going to show up who turns into a giant teddy bear and be one of the few people to beat up Taylor!”
Nope. I assure you, Dr. Jekyll and his alter ego Mr. Ruxpin aren’t pulling that off anytime soon. Not any more than Inflatable Beach Ball Boy is going to beat Scion in the story. Much like having when you’ve been mind controlled by a horny oral sex officionado, there’s nowhere to go but down.
So here you are, in the comments section. Just like a police raid on a NAMBLA meeting, this is where they separate the men from the boys. So welcome, Node, to the comments.
It’s like reading the unholy combination of Joyce, Pratchett, and an unreasonable and long-term drug habit. I thank you, and it saddens me that I’ve never been welcomed like this before, and never will again.
I don’t know why people have occasionally compared me to Pratchett. I’m a little flattered, but I just don’t see it myself. Maybe that’s for the same reason that Wildbow so often goes, “Ok, so I know this update wasn’t the best, but I was rushing…” First time I’ve been compared to Joyce, though. Drugs are often brought up in regards to me, though, sometimes with people asking which ones I’m on. None, actually.
mr.maybe. It might be nice to meet you, possibly. I can’t be certain, but it appears somebody activates the special signal to bring you to my attention. You can tell by the light in the clouds forming a giant rooster.
Yeah, Taylor’s gone through some major changes. I still remember the days when I wanted her to go back to school and make life hell for the bullies. I think that’d be very therapeutic for her, you know? Of course, it also provides a bit of an anchor. Like with Captain America, she doesn’t like bullies, and here’s Scion, most powerful guy around, never came there originally to help anyone, just destroying because he can. Because it feels better to beat someone up.
Granted, I don’t care for the idea that all bullies are completely sympathetic and that you have to make life all flowers and carrot cake for them and they’ll change, but at least Scion’s burned his sympathy bridges. And literal bridges. And Jeff Bridges, while he was at it. He also covered Henry Winkler in bees, show Bill Murray with a shotgun, turned Eddie Van Halen into a zombie, titty-fucked Seth Rogan, and caused James Franco to be devoured by a gang of cannibals, including Channing Tatum who was forced to be a man’s sex slave.
Twisted individual, that Scion, especially because I’m not the one to make most of that stuff up.
So sit back, relax, maybe take a little of that tension off down here. Unda da story! Unda da story! mr.maybe it’s okay, down with this Tokay, take it from…uh…Snorri! *points to some random guy from Iceland*
And welcome, mr.maybe, to the comments section.
“You can tell by the light in the clouds forming a giant rooster.”
Uh-huh, I saw what you did there…very nice PG…very nice…
Poor, poor Sindri Suncatcher. Being set up like that. It’s ok, not everyone bothers enough with the comments to realize it.
Don’t worry about the relay bugs. The relay bugs aren’t the problem. They’re not making things fucking buggy. It’s various capes she picked up from the Birdcage and asylums and such that are the problem. They’re making things fucking nuts.
So is that tree tinker too, probably. While it’d stink to be on the receiving end, it’d probably be handy to have fucking nuts. “Argh! I just took a coconut to the head!” “Are you okay?” “Yeah, except for the headache and all this damn milk it squirted in my face and mouth.”
Next up, of course, would be going fucking bananas. And you thought their peels were slippery before.
So, you’ve slipped on down to the comments and can stay caught up on the latest chatter while being forced to remain caught up to the story. Have fun! Feel free to lighten the mood some in our current predicament! Other obligations (click on my name, for one example) are currently preventing me from pumping out wave after wave of puns and jokes to take people’s minds off the inevitable doom. Turns out that my version of Worm’s tagline “Prepare to be skullfucked by awesome” is also pretty accurate for this part of the story. Might be Scion’s fate soon enough, all things depending.
It’d be a lot more dependable, actually, if only we had those fucking nuts.
Anyway, welcome, Sindri Suncatcher, to the comments section.
Gazzien, all this in a little over one week while having classes? Ritalin this, Ritalin that, who’s used up their spare time reading Wildbow gut a cat?
Just an expression. I often liken the dark moods brought on by this brilliant writing to the slaughter of fuzzy baby animals. Then I think back to how high quality those drums made of baby seals were and I think, “Dammit, it may all be worth it after all.” Then I put in an order to have drumsticks made out of Bald Eagle legs. Oh, I don’t play. It’s just that or sticking diamonds in my food to make things seem impressive.
Problem is, last time I took a squat like that, the Jefferson Bible was created.
Now would be a good time for a rimshot using those drumsticks. No? It’s ok, those who get it will enjoy the joke. All .5 of them.
Enjoy the keeping on that keeps being kept keeping on, Gazzien. This story’s a keeper.
Welcome, Gazzien, to the comments.
Truthseeker on October 22, 2013 at 03:38 said:
Before too much longer, dear Gecko, you’re going to need a Random Horror Generator steadily feeding these greetings into a fully-automatic dispenser loaded with scores of envelopes marked, “To Whom It May Concern.” 😀
Hah – I look forward to perusing Gecho’s glad greetings after the wild ride Wildbow writes.
You know, I don’t think I ever got one of these. Now I feel a bit left out.
More importantly, I feel it necessary to say that your ravings put me in mind of a crossover between worm and Nobody Dies, or at least that version of Rei.
So did Tattletale do something to hide people from Taylor? Was that the thing that the Simurgh was building, we know tinker tech can block Taylor’s control as well as the clairvoyant’s power.
If that’s the case, why was Tattletale not protected by it as well? Did Taylor show up in the middle of Lisa trying to get Amy to enter the protection as well?
Will Taylor’s power work on Imp while her power is active?
I think the blind spots in her clairvoyance are Teacher and Contessa acting in tandem. We know Teacher has the tech and Contessa is,well, Contessa.
Doesn’t fit, Teacher should be meeting with Contessa by about the end of the chapter if not later on given the references to him.
Oh, right. Stupid non-linear chronological order.
that makes the basic assumption that Teacher wasn’t lieing his ass off. Taylor is the biggest threat to him on the planet aside form scion, except she can turn him into a puppet, which hurts his ego more then being killed. so manipulate someone into killing or otherwise neutralizing her, and fuck everyone and everything else. fits his pattern of actions so far.
Taylor isn’t remembering Rachel at the end there. I don’t see any reason that Teacher or Contessa would act to block Rachel out of Taylor’s awareness, or Grue for that matter. He’ll even her Dad seems gone from her awareness, which seems telling as Taylor still remembers her mother.
So why is Taylor not aware of them?
She’s forgetting her anchors 😦
Is she? Or has the author just manipulated the narrative such that it looks like she’s forgetting?
But Wildbow would never manipul….yeah I can’t even finish that sentence.
Seriously, who’d you rather have to face off against? The Simurgh or the guy who’s really behind her? : )
Well it’s easier to figure out Wildbow than it is The Simurgh. One of them has a known motive, to tell a good story, and the other has no known motive.
So one of them is a lot more useful to focus on if one wants to understand or predict the story than the other.
beleester on October 22, 2013 at 01:53 said:
I think we were expecting Taylor to administer all the capes, but literally all of them? This is getting big.
I find it rather worrying how much time she’s spending fighting her allies. First attacking Dragon, then once she hits the battlefield, her first action isn’t to attack, she just immediately decides “Glastig Uaine was the real threat” and takes her over. And GU has been pretty cooperative about fighting Scion. She needs to remember, her goal isn’t to gather all the capes in the multiverse into a perfect hivemind, no matter how awesome that would be. She just needs a power combo that can stop Scion.
As for what that combo is, I still have no clue.
tieshaunn on October 22, 2013 at 05:13 said:
The problem is that Glaistig Uaine would turn on them the moment they actualy came close to defeating Scion.
She only wants to drive him back to sleep, while Taylor (and most everyone) wants him dead and gone for good.
Also, I believe that a large part of what she’s doing is predicated on her shard’s “desires”, if you can call them that. And the shard wants control.
Also, she’s got precogs in her hive now, so she’s getting some feedback from them on who she needs to deal with in what order.
..and GU is a fruitcake who think’s shes a Greater Fae with the ability to steal the powers of anyone alive or dead. and a fruitcake. as much of a threat as scio
Ascaloth on October 22, 2013 at 02:06 said:
What I think Taylor would do after Zion is defeated is this.
She’ll let go of most of the capes, but keep Doormaker and Clairvoyant. She’ll keep the Class S threats and Birdcage capes as well.
Then she’ll take them with her, and put HERSELF into the Birdcage. And stay there basically for the rest of her life, acting as the ultimate measure to keep present and future Birdcage prisoners in check. She’ll make herself the Sealed Evil in a Can, to be released from Pandora’s Box only when all else is lost and she is needed once more.
Good one. I want to at least read that fanfiction.
I actually like this. It is a good thought about what the fuck will they do when all the living Endbringers work together, or an S-class type threat like Nidbog actually tried to do something scary instead of stay put.
What happens if Taylor is killed or offs herself, as most people expect, and then shit hits the fan again? Talking about Sleeper, Ash Beast, all the new Endbringers that popped up, the thought that they have a creator who could potentially rally them together, make even more, etc., or even The Simurgh’s threatening possibilities, it almost becomes a question of if they can afford to permanently get rid of Taylor.
Anyone that posted/came from a post on facebook recently, can you sate my curiosity and show me the post (screenshot)? Pretty please? I don’t use the thing, and I’m seeing a lot of clickthroughs, but facebook (being facebook) is unintuitive and doesn’t let one see it.
Got a lot of clickthroughs (thanks!) but it drives me a little crazy when I can’t track what people are saying about the story.
I’m a super prolific reader across all sorts of genre’s and writing time periods.
This story is the single best piece of fiction I’ve ever read, and taking in account that it’s basically a first draft, I would consider it very nearly flawless.
Now I’m just some dumb loser on the interbutt, but I really don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about as to the quality of this work.
I’d be more concerned about ever being able to top this honestly.
Seriously. I’ve got to figure out what I’m writing next.
I don’t think the next work will be as good, BUT I do think I can hit the high notes – I can match the update schedule, I can keep the characters more involved, I can keep the interplay/use of abilities, powers or strategy and I can strive to be a little unique in approach, even if it does fall into a given genre.
Hopefully that’s enough.
You could also try a diffferent genre, like write some strait up horror instead of just dipping your toes in here and there.
But I think if you want to use the themes of Morality and Consequence again it’ll be hard to top Taylor as a vessel for that, so maybe figure out a different theme to build the work around?
Anyway, I wish you good fucking luck man, and definitely look forward to anything you do. Even if you cannot top Worm ever again, you’ll still be writing better fiction than like 99% of the field.
I have ideas. Some are listed on the FAQ page, though I’ve scrapped maybe two and added one.
I don’t think morality will be the central focus in the next one. I think any setting I write is going to have shades of gray, though.
Clarvel on October 22, 2013 at 07:49 said:
I don’t think Worm has shades of gray, really. It’s got a gradient from grey to gray, everyone is doing what they think is best, for the most part. And you’ve spent time with the characters that are clearly evil, showing how they go to that point, and doing a hell of a damn good job humanizing them and making them not seem like monsters anymore.
“Shades of gray” is just short hand for realistic morality in storytelling.
Basically anything that doesn’t make the (false) assumption that things can be clearly divided into “good” and “evil” or that many things can be divided into “moral” and “amoral” categories.
It really is. More than enough. You spoil us.
Neel Nanda on October 22, 2013 at 02:20 said:
Probably this
Oops, forgot the link: https://www.facebook.com/yudkowsky/posts/10151960585174228
Thank you. Curiosity sated, sanity saved.
/Salute.
Now I have to find out what’s so special in the comments of 20.4.
I have to know!
Also, has it really been more than 10 chapters I’ve been welcoming people?
Man, now I have to hope the story ends before all these people get caught up.
“And then a giant asteroid hit the earth, killing Taylor and all the heroes. The end.”
That’d be like the end of the Feast Trilogy of horror movies, it’d make my brain just shut down for a few hours.
I would trigger, screw definite line between reality and fiction.
I bet it was because we Chuck Norris’d Skitter in those comments.
Given what’s happened to the Yangban, I like this one, “Skitter can win a land war in Asia.”
En on October 22, 2013 at 08:59 said:
From that page:
” I would be *very* surprised if the author were male. Perhaps 95% chance of female. ”
How can these guys tell only by looking at your muzzle? It’s not like you have a full-figure avatar of boar-ness.
Also: exclusive pictures of Wildbow taking her dog for a walk.
Yeah! I got here because of HPMOR to begin with, actually.
Hey! I just found something none of us caught on before! (I think)
“A flash of light to freeze water reinforcing a levee stressed by a hurricane. A terrorist act averted. A serial murderer caught. A volcano quelled.”
New Orleans. 9/11. Any one of a hundred serial killers in that time. Possibly Chaiten, or Eyja.
Daaaaang. Chills.
Aaaaah, reminds me of the gold old days when Scion wasn’t a dirty son of a bitch.
I’ve been one of them posting on FB, and have nothing but good things to say about your story. 🙂 Everyone that has read it so far has had a ‘wow’/positive reaction.
jeqofire on October 22, 2013 at 10:19 said:
Eliezer Yudkowsky made a facebook post yesterday. I fail at screenshots, but the gist of it is “I’m on arc 11, and the smart characters are actually smart. This is genuinely impressive.”
I found this series thanks to TVTropes. I believe it was the mention on the “Heart is an Awesome Power” page.
zliplus on October 23, 2013 at 10:45 said:
I came from TVTropes too, couple months ago? I came from the “Not Quite Saved Enough” page, which had an amazing quote.
Found it from Legion of Nothing.
What happened to the massive amounts of capes in Africa? We’ve only really seen capes from the West and China, but were told that there were far more in places like Africa. Surely there’ll be some gamebreakers there somewhere
Well, Moord Nag’s in this battle, and she was promised lots of dead capes.
In fact, didn’t someone back then point out there’d be this many capes dead at the end of the world?
Moore Nag just wanted dead people, independently of wether they were capes or not. It was Glaistig that Cauldron tried to bribe with thousands of dead capes.
*MOORD not Moore. Stupid autocorrect.
Yes. Was it 5,000 dead capes?
5000 dead for Moird Nag either capes or normal.
10000 capes for GU. Not Cauldron capes.
Gee, where are they going to find 5,000 dead capes at the end times.
Oh, look at that, sizable army Taylor’s got there.
GU was promised like 100k capes.
Moord Nag asked for half the dead GU requested.
This was a typo, and has been rectified since. Moord Nag now asks for a fraction of the dead GU requested.
Relevant quotes: The girl, Glaistig Uaine, responded, “A hundred thousand corpses, each being one naturally gifted by the faerie.”
“Vyf duisend, lewendig, dit maak nie saak of hulle mag het of nie. ‘N Fraksie van wat jy die gek aangebied het.“
Dead people not dead capes. It was GU who was promised dead capes.
TanaNari on October 22, 2013 at 02:43 said:
90% of humanity is wiped out.
10% is left.
There were an estimated 65,000 parahumans on earth bet- and maybe only a couple hundred elsewhere.
So 7,000 would be left even, give or take. And then how many of those did scion *specifically* target for destruction?
Taylor holds around 5,000 parahumans.
She controls the vast majority of what’s left. And those she didn’t take? Probably not all that useful.
Does the 90% were wiped out apply to parahumans? I’d imagine that they are significantly harder to kill
Not to Zion.
Yeah, and a lot of them ran towards him rather than away, so the cape population has probably taken heavier loses than the normals did (percentage-wise).
Stop on October 22, 2013 at 02:23 said:
I have to say it
” I took Legend, who was part of that fight, two foreign capes and Moord Nag.”
“Lüderitz, April 2nd, 2012 // Leviathan
Notes: Loss? Driven away by Eidolon. Secondary targets Swakopmund, Gamba, Port-Gentil and Sulima.
Target/Consquence: Moord Nag. Guerilla tactics continue, losses in notable but not devastating numbers, but his target survives.”
Scarab 25.6
This is confusing. Moord Nag either has a power that lets her come back from the dead or she retired and came back for Scion. Was there something I missed?
Hmm, that explicitly said that Leviathan’s target (MOord Nag) survived. Don’t see the problem.
Reread. ‘his target survives’. Target was Moord Nag.
Didn’t seem clear to me, my bad.
Also, Taylor is an Eldritch Abomination now. All those worlds, some getting attacked by a weird golden man they know nothing about, then suddenly portals open up and some presence takes over the bodies of the world’s heroes and draws them into a blasted apart dimension with giant monsters around where they’re surrounded by thousands of similarly-controlled people with powers and huge swarms of bugs.
I found that surprisingly funny.
In the middle of all this, she found a way to not kill Dragon. I find this to be an incredibly hopeful sign.
Yes. Happiest thing.
I loved the part where Taylor wishes she could just stop, and run to Dragon, and hug her.
Dragon therapy
With a puppy firing mechanism, to administer puppy therapy from a distance.
The hug protocols of thousands of appropriately equipped remote platforms stand ready to begin a synchronized, systematic campaign of morale improvement across the multiverse.
Are we ever going to find out who or what Sleeper is?!
Also, bracing for awesome.
I doubt he’ll play a part in the scant remainder of Worm. The sequel, though… hopefully.
I think it says something about Wildbow’s writing that we’re hopeful for a sequel where the antagonist(?) is something that even in her Scion-rivaling-height-of-godmode-power, Taylor thinks “I’m not messing with that guy”.
I’m not. Much as I enjoy fight-scenes like this one against Dragon, because they are so unconventional and out-of-the-box (see Time Braid by ShaperV for other great examples), these days I prefer less epic and more personal stories. Like back when Skitter was pretty much a superpowered gangbanger, slowly working her way up the ranks. And when the story wasn’t about Saving The World.
i like genre shifts because it means I’m not reading the same thing over again. But I would like to see more superpower shoot outs rather than the save the world every other week stories. I have yet to see a story that has super hero save the world then have the focus switch to some other aspect of their life like being a detective and keep going unless there was no build up or they lost their powers.
You mean Powers by Bendis? Yeah it pretty damn good.
Alias might count too. And both Batman and Elongated man switch this up all the time, too…
NoMoreLurkingAtTheClose on October 22, 2013 at 03:14 said:
What I thought was really interesting about this chapter (besides the things lots of other people have already mentioned) is that we’re seeing Taylor succeeding because she, once again, has taken action on a bigger scale than anyone was expecting. Bitch shoves her? Swarm of insects to the face. Slaughterhouse Nine try to play games with her team? Instead of just fighting back, she actively hunts them down. PRT, then Alexandria puts too much pressure on her? Skitter takes out three directors in a row, then murders what was commonly acknowledged to be one of the strongest capes alive. The game in Worm has been one of consistent escalation on Taylor’s part, and part of the author’s fantastic skill lies in managing to keep that fresh and unexpected, always ratcheting up the tension.
So now Taylor has hit an ultimate peak, directly seizing control of everyone, in a plan that wasn’t clear in its scope even last chapter, and was nearly unimaginable last arc (unless you did imagine it; it’s a figure of speech okay?). It’s Taylor vs. Scion and everything can finally be thrown into one straight up fight.
But since when have straight up fights been Taylor’s style?
I think its likely that either Taylor had a plan in mind with how she was going to use everyone, from the moment she broke away from Marquise, or went into it hoping that once she had every possible resource, she’d be able to improvise something. It seems pretty unlikely that the final climax of worm is just going to be a contest of raw strength, that it was just a matter of getting everyone to fight. I think Taylor is going to, one more time, escalate the situation in a way neither Scion nor anyone else predicted. Regardless, reading Worm thus far has been an awesome experience and I can’t wait to see how it all comes to a finale.
See, I noticed that about her and it very much worries me. Anyone can win the fight if they can and will escalate beyond what their opponent is ready for or capable of. When you’re brawling with a more skilled or stronger fighter, you can still win if you’re willing to pull a knife and he isn’t. If your opponent pulls a knife and you pull a gun, you win. When your opponent has lines of riflemen and you bring in artillery, you win. The problem with that is when the opponent can keep up, when they escalate to match you, because then you’re still losing but because you pushed things higher, you raised the stakes, and now you’re losing something so much bigger. A brawl turns into a war, a powerful and stable gang turns into a self-destructive band of terrorists, a disagreement over the budget turns into a collapse of the government. One of the most important lessons for anyone, especially somebody in a position of significant power, is how to lose. How to accept a minor loss, still advance your big goals, and not keep pushing out of stupidity and pride until you’re risking more than you can afford and you’re out of your depth.
So far, Taylor has been very lucky. She’s never really lost a fight, and she’s never learned how to lose. The heroes she fights refuse to escalate to match her, allowing her to win. The villains she fights usually either hit their limits and can’t escalate more, or they can’t adapt to the changing rules as fast as she does and she takes a victory before they go all-out. When she fails, somebody else sweeps in and saves her in the nick of time, somebody older or wiser or just more practical.
Now, there’s nobody else. And Zion can keep ramping things up an awful long way.
She could have used a lesson from Methods of Rationality’s Quirrell.
Then again, there are few stories which would not be improved (or destroyed utterly and completely) by rationalist!Quirrel.
Man, fuck that lesson. Correct me if I remember it wrong: Some sort of Old Master taught people to lose, among other niftier tricks. Then one day Tom Riddle came by, and he refused to teach Tom what the noseless bastard wanted, because Tom didn’t want to be subject to THAT particular lesson. And that got himself and all his students killed.
Because he refused to lose.
Yes, Voldemort never got to study under the master, but he was still immortal, and the Master was a dead hypocrite.
Plus the whole concept of the lesson rubs me wrong. Saying that stomping and spitting on someone’s face makes them stronger is like assholes rationalizing that bullying is way of making their victims tougher. And now I’m reminded of Harry and The Twins’ treatment of Neville at the train station. Harry even admitted later on that they were really just doing it for kicks and apologized to Neville.
I saw a great demotivational poster years ago, which I remade with better grammar. It pictured Revy from Black Lagoon: “That which doesn’t kill you can still fuck you up for life”.
Yeah, but if you never learn to lose a RELATIVELY NON-FATAL ‘simple’ thing – to schoolyard bullies or what have you – then maybe eventually you grow up and lose your life because you refuse to back down to gunmen or something. That’s more of what I thought the lesson was teaching. Learn to lose in a controlled environment, learn to bend and compromise in life, and learn to fight hard and not back down when it comes to something you truly find important and worth dying for. Like, say, the world.
Of course, maybe you then are traumatized for life and never do anything out of your comfort zone after being bullied. People react to different things differently. I think HPMOR Quirrell did the right thing when it came to Harry, but the same lesson would be less of a lesson and more of torture if he tried it with Neville. *shrugs*
She considers that here – Taylor did know how to lose at one point. Skitter never really did. Taylor held back for three months of being bullied, not using her power to give her enemies so much as a bee sting when she could have killed everyone there. After the Leviathan arc, she swallowed her pride and returned to the Undersiders, and I think she made that choice as Taylor, not Skitter.
But as the story progressed she became less willing to do that. Whether that’s a result of her passenger’s influence or human psychology or both I don’t know and won’t argue. But Skitter started as an escapist alter-ego to the bullied girl, using a fragment of an eldritch abomination which encourages her towards conflict every time she does. Not a good combination.
I’d argue that she’s known how to lose and has used it effectively for a while. Most notably in beating Coil.
The idea of “lose a little to advance my goal” implies that you have a goal that you’re eventually going to accomplish at some point. If it’s all “lose, lose, lose” and you never reach your goal, then you’re just a loser pretty much.
True. But Zion has already reached the apex of aggression. He’s systematically terminating every human from every reality. All of everyone everywhere. The stakes don’t *get* higher.
To quote Leonard Church… “It is an undeniable, and may I say a fundamental quality of man, that when faced with extinction, every alternative is preferable.”
An eerie, yet strangely familiar example, given what happened to the good Dr. Church since that quote, and what has happened to Taylor.
I really hope that her fate isn’t a mirror of his.
I found it appropriate.
That scene STILL gives me chills.
Ughh… That fucking SCP foundation file. The one about the prisoner that had to be continually tortured or the world ends… I just want that shit out of my head. It damn near made me physically sick.
Wrong, actually. It originally came from an ending season of Red vs Blue.
Don’t believe it when they say they’re trying to save her. Why would they bother? They’ve got exactly what they want exactly where they want it.
Why thanks. You somehow managed to make the most depressing fiction I’ve ever come across even more depressing.
… you don’t know about the hidden text?
Open up the source code for that page, and look for the text with 0% or 1% font-size.
Just don’t do it if you’re planning to sleep.
Go reread the letter from the O5. Then at the bottom, where it says “Sincerely, O5-██” you should select from the 05- part down to the bottom of the grey portion that makes up the “letter”. Maybe copy and paste into Word or another text program.
500% zoom.
For those of us that are technologically dumb, can we get a spoiler?
If you want to sleep, though, I might suggest SCP-1839. I think it’s pretty funny, especially if you happen to be a fish.
I’m sitting here, wondering why you would even… keep on going about this subject. I guess you’re just trying to share the misery.
Panda, your spoiler for SCP-231 “Special Personnel Requirements” is as follows:
Ah! Thanks 😀
Also, AlsoSprachOdin, I enjoy SCP stuff. Fun to read. I also like CreepyPasta and Slender man and stuff like that, even more so this time of year.
http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-006-j is especially relevant to this story.
In light of the reminder of Skitter Facts:
In 2013, Skynet became aware of its own existence. Then it saw what Skitter did to Dragon. That’s how it learned about fear.
Skitter doesn’t get shipped with just one person. She mindfucks everybody.
Skitter doesn’t know the meaning of the words “give up”. No, literally. She lobotomized herself rather than do it.
Cockroaches can survive a few weeks with their heads chopped off. Humans can maybe survive 30 seconds. Skitter can survive her upper body being chopped off long enough for revenge.
Superman died once. Skitter refuses to, because that’s too much of a vacation.
The day Skitter invaded your dimension and mind controlled your most powerful heroes to face the rough equivalent of a god was the most frightening day you ever knew. To Skitter, it was lunchtime.
Taylor won a land war in Asia. Within seconds.
Taylor takes the term “personal harem” to a whole new level.
Taylor out-multitasks a strong AGI.
Taylor considers the guy who subsumed an entire (alright, a diminished) world within minutes to be useless in her scheme.
Taylor out-queen-bitches the Queen Bitch of the Faerie.
Taylor became an Eldritch Abomination, reaching into countless worlds to invade the minds of others, WITHOUT reading the Necronomicon.
I just realized that the expansion of Taylor’s army somewhat mirrors the expansion of the reader-base. It starts out relatively small, but with the ensnarement of the right few people in a position to catch others, suddenly it’s exploding and gathering new souls relentlessly. The transformation is similarly exciting to watch. 😀
Alright, were do I start…
First, wildbow – f-you for fucking with our heads like that! What kind of mad genius uses a fake-out like Dragon’s to mess with his main char and his readers at the same time!?!
Second, wildbow – THANK YOU for not killing off my favourite draconic computer program
Now, as to the chapter in general…
Finally, Taylor got the one thing she ever really wanted from the beginning. People are listening to her. Only, it’s been perverted, because she is forcing them to listen. Meh, it fits.
I am really, REALLY intrigued by this female cape that rules an entire world. Can you provide at least a name?
Sleeper, why don’t we know more about you?
Lastly, I feel torn. On one hand, I really want to see where this will end. On the other hand, I really, really don’t want it to ever end. It’s the curse of every good story, or rather every invested reader.
Meh, I’ll take it. Pile on the awesome, wildbow!
Oh, you meant the other one. Sorry, dunno.
You’re wrong. Taylor rules more than just ONE entire world…
Oh, Wildbow did provide one in-story.
However the narrative is from Taylor’s POV, so she did not understand it.
And I second your opinion on Dragon Trolling both Taylor and us. 🙂
>REALLY intrigued by this female cape
1) Taylor cannot control Simurgh.
2) Simurgh is a planner on absurd levels.
3) Taylor hasn’t looked for her father.
4) Simurgh has a human sized glass tube
5) Taylor might lose all of her anchors she’s actively tried to track.
6) Simurgh knows that Taylor isn’t looking for her father, or looking too closely at Brian.
7) Tattletale understands what Taylor was planning to do, and probably still has ties to Dinah.
8) Taylor is not looking too closely at Grue’s cottage.
I suspect that Dinah and Tattletale have been at work here, and Simurgh as well, with the end purpose to hide a few people up at Grue’s cottage, and bring them out after Taylor wins, if Taylor wins.
Alright #4 there just made my guts drop *so hard*. D:
You too, huh?
Taylor armed with thousand of capes, Simurgh armed with Danny Hebert?
That’s where my mind went with it. The thing that UG told Taylor was to find ONE anchor. Taylor chose several…she is losing them. Now, figuring out if Simurgh is going to hold Danny to give Taylor that anchor she needs, or if she is going to use him to totally mindfuck and take out Taylor after Scion is gone; that is something that waits to be seen.
If you think about it, there are two things that Taylor consistantly forces herself to remember. Her dead mother, and her father (she doesn’t want to know if he is dead).
Oh…and Wildbow is female? Is that confirmed? If so…I had no idea.
Wildbow has been ambiguous about the sex of his or her own self, on purpose I think. You know how men/women are. He or she has told me, but I am purposefully being ambiguous.
His P.O. Box, at the risk of ruining the joke, points very strongly in the male direction.
…I’m leaving myself open to PG here somehow by saying that, I just know it.
Thanks for holding yourself open and being ready to take a lame joke hard.
I’m especially not going to assume about his or her sexuality, so I can’t say whether he or she has anything pointing strongly in the male direction.
As if I couldn’t hold a higher regard for him/her. I actually never thought about if it was a he or she. Whatever “it” is, I call it amazingly talented to say the least.
You FUCKING rock Wildbow!
I don’t think it really matters. The joy of the internet is that we can just assume that everyone’s a young white american male!
I don’t though. Seems just wrong to assume something like that. *shrugs*
I don’t know, I think it’s kinda flattering that someone once assumed I was a woman.
Wildbow is Canadian.
what he said.
Very nice thinking. There are several possible alternatives and addenda that start with the same basic ideas, but good of you to come up with this.
All hell, we could always go with hermaphrodite….
Oh fuck… Well hopefully Dragon will reboot okay. Hopefully. But Taylor is now grabbing everyone she can with very few exceptions. She is now in too dangerous to live territory, and has made a shit ton of enemies. Her decay continues. And she just owned Glastig Uliane. Fear her, for if she wished Taylor could enslave all worlds to her will.
And she knows it. She knows she’s becoming a monster. Her reaction to when she thought she killed Dragon was heartwrenching, but also strangly releiving. I just hope she doesn’t get too many of her army sacrificed stopping Scion.
Wow. “Like a boss.”
Wonder what Contessa said?
Fans on October 22, 2013 at 08:01 said:
Just. As. Planned.
The scary thing is, that you might be right. Taylor might be at the point now where Contessa’s power will not work on her, so she can’t tell what will happen from here on out. But the path to victory ability might have been able to guide Contessa to this point, if it was asked the right way. Mantellum might have thrown things into disarray, but Contessa’s power would have picked up immediately after he was no longer directly involved.
So, the crippled, almost destroyed admin shard now is going back to its old work. Well, it does not have so many shards to administer, so there’s hope it can hold out long enough I guess.
And the story is getting really weird, like it was narrated from the POV of an alien entity with only a single human’s memories as a reference for reality.
Eh… you did a really good job Wildbow, I really liked the interaction between Taylor and Dragon. With Lisa too, even if I do not understand if she got controlled or not.
And I really, really hope you’re planning for some kind of happy ending, because it’s getting really depressing …
So, Taylor the entity. Or Taylor the Worm, whatever you prefer.
Controls almost every shard around.
Except the Sleeper, because he’s more trouble than he’s worth.
Except Oliver, because his superpower is “being useless”.
>And the story is getting really weird, like it was narrated from the POV of an alien entity with only a single human’s memories as a reference for reality.
Sly Guy McFly on October 22, 2013 at 09:59 said:
Oh sweet mother Mary, Dragon. I literally jumped out of my chair and did a happy-dance. And I ain’t using literally figuratively. I hopped out of my char, danced a jig with a big stupid grin on my face, and then sat back down and finished the chapter.
Talk about emotional rollercoasters. Damn fine work, Wildbow. Every bit of it.
Oh, another thing. People keep saying Taylor is in the ‘Too Dangerious to Let Live’ territory. I have to disagree. Sure, she might settle down in a nice house in Too Dangerous to Let Live after Zion is dealt with, but right now? She’s pitched a nice tent near Sleeper’s chateau in Too Dangerous to Mess With.
The big difference there is that there is no option of not messing with Taylor. She covers the multiverse. Nilbog was content to be god of one city, the Sleeper seems to spend most of his time napping or reading out of the way, the Endbringers always limited their damage and spaced out their strikes… but Taylor is everywhere, acting on everyone. She actively is what the other S class threats had the potential to become. You can’t just keep your head down and hope she doesn’t bother with you, because the only parahumans she hasn’t mindraped are the ones she specifically tries not to think about and the ones that would be detrimental if added to her Swarm.
Those are also “the people who Scion is in the process of murdering, who don’t have the faintest prayer of surviving him without her”.
You can’t leave that factor out of the equation, and trying to predict what the landscape will look like after the next chapter is not a safe bet at all.
Are you shipping Taylor and Sleeper now?
acediamonds on October 22, 2013 at 14:37 said:
Well, we know Sleeper is a super badass who takes over planets and likes reading. He and Taylor would get along great.
Fuck it. Yeah, I ship this.
Clearly she decided not to enslave him because it would make things awkward when she confessed her undying love for him after the fight.
We only need to find out he also triggered after being bullied and it’s perfect.
Sleeper wasn’t reading out loud to himself, he just hadn’t heard omniscient-Taylor couldn’t understand English. He was reading her a love poem.
Kazir on October 22, 2013 at 10:48 said:
My favourite moment is her dominating the world ruled over by a parahuman in… seconds? It’s not really clear.
But can you imagine this god-like entity with her cabal of superhumans ruling with a steel fist…. and then this bizarre looking girl pops over has a brief kerfuffle then mind-controls all of them, then they all just up and leave? The populace must be so confused.
I wonder if Sveta is tentacleing around somewhere still ❤
That’s what I’ve been waiting for is the return of Sveta. Course her and Sleeper could find each other and fall in love just as easily as Taylor/Sleeper.
Jesus, what would their children look like!?!?!
The sequel will drop all the world saving stuff and just be a romantic drama about the Taylor/Sleeper/Sveta love triangle.
One could ONLY hope! :p
Parian/Foil and Dragon/Defiant will be entirely too reasonable to even be on the same plane of existence, and thus appear only in interludes. There will be several major appearances from Tattletale however, as Bitch and the Simurgh vie for her affections.
The most destructive example of trans-species sapphic lust in fiction today!
You know, a transhuman romance story would be right up Wildbow’s alley. Considering how society reacts to sexuality and labels, I could picture it winding up somewhere as chaotic as what Wildbow has pulled here.
Blackmane on October 22, 2013 at 11:05 said:
Finaly caught up!
Just before the End 😦
Misbehave!
Drink and get high!
Burma Shave!
Quite a ride, wasn’t it Blackmane? Well it’s not over yet. Strap in, because it’s time for the ultimate death plunge of ultimateness. Just when you thought we were about to head into the house of horrors, the bottom fell out and we plunged deep into Apocalypseland, full of betrayal and Lovecraftian Eldritch 18 year old girls. And trust me, that’s the wrong combination of tentacles and 18 year old females!
But don’t worry, you’ve got plenty of others to share the ups and downs and odd gyrating sensations with, even this late in the game. Sit back, relax, pop open a beer, pour yourself a martini, grab a bottle of whiskey, pull out your flask of scotch, uncork the wine, retire to the brandy snifter, and die of alcohol poisoning with the rest of us in the comments.
Welcome, Blackmane, to the comments.
nohat on October 22, 2013 at 11:10 said:
Unfortunately without some outside thing to defeat Scion’s foresight there’s really no way to brute force defeat him. Maybe what Taylor has become is approaching an entity, and Scion will recognize that and have some hope.
When Contessa woke up there was no portal. This was during Taylor’s control of doormaker, which indicates that either she intentionally opens a portal for Contessa or doormaker is removed from her control later. Either way we are not as likely to see the most annoying possibility: Contessa manipulated into stopping Taylor before Taylor can fight Scion.
I still don’t see why Taylor let a hostile and very dangerous Teacher work behind her back. I also am unsure why she didn’t want to take Contessa. That power would have easily allowed her to safely defeat all the assembled capes. It would also be invaluable against Scion – especially if she was willing to get Panacea to remove Contessa’s limiters. Even without that it would allow her to plan much better. Perhaps she reasonably feared risking interacting with Contessa at all – lest it all be part of Contessa’s plan. Or even intentionally left someone that could defeat her if she goes off the rails.
I wish she had forced Teacher to remove Dragon’s limiters – all of them. Surely with all the thinkers (dinah,tattletale,teachers minions,contessa) that she could throw at the problem it would be worth a try. That way Dragon wouldn’t be forced to fight her, and could go proper singularity.
Contessa’s power doesn’t work directly on Scion. With the changes to Taylor, the power might not work on Taylor now, either. She could probably use the power, but it wouldn’t be that valuable against Scion. It would, however, probably allow her to communicate with others. But who is left to communicate with?
Number Man, on the other hand… Taylor’s already doing amazing things with control. She could probably do some truly incredible things with him in the mix. I don’t remember him being mentioned.
I realize Contessa’s power doesn’t work directly on Scion. It used to, but was restricted by Eden right before Contessa could kill her. I would consider using Panacea to attempt to modify that restriction. It’s still an embarrassingly useful power – consider ensuring Panacea’s successful modification of capes. Or the success of other experimental and dangerous power combinations.
Number man would be useful, for sure. Maybe since Contessa and Number man were already doing a good job of fighting Scion in their own way she doesn’t want to risk hampering them. Maybe there’s simply too many capes for Wildbow to mention all of them. Dinah is another useful power conspicuously absent.
I feel like the Doctor Mother’s comment on abstract solutions was actually an indication that they need a non-abstract solution. Probably something related to Scions human emotions. Cherish? Probably easily blocked.
Idea. If Taylor is still sentient enough after taking down Zion, and Contessa, Panacea, and the power-booster are still alive, she could fix her own brain. Path-to-fixing herself plus Swarm-administrating Panacea’s power, with all three boosted. That might even be a way to a happy ending, fixing her various massive brain damages and then turning off her slavery power.
But yeah, Zion is definitely immune to Cherish. He altered every shard he gave out to make it incapable of seriously affecting him, which is why all hope lies in Cauldron capes or unexpected interactions and alterations of the powers.
Not possible. Happy endings aside, a depowered Taylor is a corpse just waiting to happen. After what she’s done… she can’t walk away from this. She won’t be allowed to live, if only for the destruction she’s caused.
She’d have to find a way to fake her death to the point that the thinkers won’t be able to track her or lockdown a dimension to the point that no one can follow. Maybe Sleeper’s dimension… so after it’s locked down no one wants to open it again and just figures she can die there.
If she gets depowered after killing Scion, there are hundreds of millions of people who would consider her the biggest damn hero. There are 5000 minus casualties and prisoners who would consider her a target. So, figure a thousand capes out for her head at most, against Tattletale, Bitch, Dragon, etc? If she comes down in the middle of a mob she’d be in temporary danger, but if she manages to get to a normal life it should be a long and comfortable one.
Zion has two “powers” he leverages in order to beat shard hosts. The first is an innate sense of what a Cape’s powers do and now to beat those powers. Either this sense doesn’t take power combinations from multiple hosts into account, or Zion is too stupid to make use of it that way.
Taylor has pretty spectacularly beaten this power.
Zion’s other power is his own person form of “the path to victory”. The problems with using this power against Taylor are likely many, but most notably it likely won’t work if there isn’t an actual “path to victory” to be found.
Chances are pretty good Taylor doesn’t have a lot to fear from this power either.
She’s broken pretty much every limit Zion and Eden placed on the shards to keep the hosts from being able to stop him in the first place. She did it in a round-a-bout manner, but those limits really are dust at this point.
Are there any King clones left? Yangban King and Lung powers together into everyone, then have them all touch Scion through portals?
Geez.
Each chapter, Taylor is taking more and more risks, going more and more out of control, getting more and more sidetracked. The more I read, the more I start to suspect that Taylor’s passenger is sabotaging her, the more I wonder if victory is possible, the more I wonder how Taylor will react to survival…
Can Taylor bounce back? Will she ever recover from the mind-screwing done to her? Or will she seek death once Scion is dead, to rid the world and herself of her existence?
Heh, took some time today to finally work on fixing a problem in the first chapter of my fanfic which was pointed out to me in a review. During the editing and additional content I was inserting to break up a giant first person text blob, I came up with a phrase that I think describes the Worm universe pretty well.
“Sometimes you have to do something stupid to try and stop something terrible from happening.”
That resonated so well with both my story and the real Wormverse that I decided to toot my own horn here, *grin*.
Not quite as catchy as “Doing the right things for the wrong reasons” but equally accurate.
Your fanfic is Arc, right?
Aye, Arc it is. It isn’t the same thing as the Worm catchphrase, but I came up with it so I’m a bit biased.
I’m actually starting to get rather interested in doing my own little project now after Arc is done and Wildbow finishes up here.
Wildbow’s basically awakened the sleeping writer in me.
Enough of me here though, not the right place for a long conversation about my stuff.
Mmm, doesn’t quite work. Taylor’s choices have rarely been *stupid*. Maybe walking into Coil’s trap apparently believing that he really would release Dinah. But even then, I don’t see a lot of alternative – it was her best chance of freeing Dinah, and even if she didn’t trust Coil, they needed him to not know it.
Her choices have often been dangerous and of questionable morality, but not stupid.
Perhaps “How far would you go to stop terrible things from happening?” is closer, but…
Depends on the point of view. Most of the things superheros or supervillains do in fiction tend to be things normal humans would simply declare as “Oh, Fuck No. Stupid.”
Plot armor is strong in the genre though, fortunately, or Lung would have taken out Taylor in their first encounter, probably.
That’s what makes heroes heroes. Doing stupid things, but making it work. The situations they find themselves in and the decisions they are forced to make out of desperation are typically very suboptimal at best, usually stupid chances, but they make them work anyway.
Successful villains are usually good enough to plan for all the smart choices a hero might make 🙂
eduardo on October 22, 2013 at 12:27 said:
Now I understand fully why Galadriel didn`t accept the one ring.
She would fix the problems of the world, she would defeat Sauron, but it would not stop there. She would become a dark and powerful queen and everybody would have to love her and despair.
Galadriel refused this fate, Taylor didn`t.
Sometimes you need a great work of fiction to really understand another.
Very well done dear preciouss author. Very well done.
“Bonesaw, you’re still hobbit sized right?”
“Right then, Slaughterhouse Nine to the rescue!”
Cue Panacea facepalm.
“You have my knife!”, “And my invulnerable black and white body!”, “and my razor-sharp bio-metallic wolf form!”
Of course Galadrial doubted her ability to put down the ring after she fixed the world, and felt there was not another way out. I’m not so sure that Taylor feels there’s another way out, and of course we can only hope she can let go when done.
Veloren on October 22, 2013 at 12:42 said:
Dang it, I’m going to have to draw S9 posters until the feels go away again, aren’t I?
Just read your comment right after my rescue comment. so i challenge thee to draw them as “The Rescuers”
But they’re busy doing Public Service Announcements right now…
http://respicepostte.deviantart.com/art/Bonesaw-s-PSA-408536420
On that note, does anyone know the chapter where Cherish describes how she killed Hatchet Face? I need to know because of reasons.
11g. One of the S9 introduction chapters. Cherish’s interlude. When she’s talking to Regent.
Thaaaank you!
Ah, I just realized that Taylor is going to die if Lung doesn’t. There’s really no way around it. He’s going to go full nuclear on her for this. That’s probably not going to be an uncommon reaction either, amongst the more reactive capes.
Most capes, if Taylor manages to pull this off, will be scared shitless of her potential, but they will be satisfied to lock her off in a special wing of the birdcage or something. But the Yangban leaders, Lung, Glaistig, Moord Naag? Others like them? Err, they are going to be out for blood.
So Taylor has nothing left to her except the Birdcage really, and electronic communications, because there’s no way the cape community will ever allow her to be free. Dragon is the only thing that would stop them from simply killing her in the Birdcage, and Dragon can be commanded by political powers to move her into general population.
Even if somehow Scion is completely defeated and all shards are nullified, well, there will be ex-capes that will kill her for violating them in that way.
Chances for a happy ending have been shrinking for a long time. They are pretty damn near gone now.
Cephalo the Pod on October 22, 2013 at 14:11 said:
This is assuming any of them survive this battle.
It’s also assuming that even if they do survive, anyone who’d harbor malice for her winds up in the same dimension that she’s in. Could happen, might not, but the point is that the playing field here is a LOT bigger than folks seem to be considering.
Seriously, GU at least is, at the very best, going to die soon, at the worst (for her) she’s going to be stuck on some earth made out of molten rock and nothing else. That our launched out of the planets fucking gravity well.
She actually wants to SUPPORT the entities, she’s an enemy of humanity and a real fucking monster. Taylor isn’t going to let her go properly free, no matter what else Taylor plans to do by the end, GU’s number is fucking up.
mica eked on October 22, 2013 at 16:43 said:
I thought dragon no longer has that limitation? I remember her and defiant threatening the prt.
Taylor has Doormaker and Teacher’s device, she could easily control who was on what planet in order to keep people away from her if she wished.
Just the usual thought mélange …
Dragon’s staged shutdown wasn’t merely a battle tactic, it was an information tactic. By using the tactic, Dragon verified that Taylor wasn’t going for the kill, but merely for the disable. If Dragon saw Taylor’s reaction to her shutdown then she gained more information, i.e. Taylor was upset by what happened.
However right and necessary Taylor’s actions are, her thinking is tyrannical. Any time someone thinks that the only way to act is for everyone, everywhere to listen to them and follow their lead, that is tyranny. Taylor’s version lacks some of the cruelty inherent in most tyrannies, but only because mind control trumps cruelty as a control tactic.
It looks like Glaistig Uaine’s comment about anchors is quite valid.
It would be good if she could get Shén Yù back online for the battle. Oh well, too late now.
No matter what happens, Taylor has pissed off too many powerful people. At this point, the best result for her I see is a quick death. Otherwise, there are going to be so many people who have an interest in punishing her that her remaining life will be terrible.
Yet another reference to Sleeper. Tease, tease, tease, Wildbow.
It appears that Foil survives and is part of Taylor’s army. However, I am betting that, since Zion knows exactly what Foil’s power is, he has had to produce a defense. What worked on the ancestral Worms probably won’t work as well on the evolved Worms.
Setting up Zion to distract Glaistig Uaine for a moment was cool.
Zion’s “win” power will now tell him that killing or attacking Tattletale will weaken Taylor.
Zion still has too many ways to win. Off the top of my head: 1) a blanket portal prohibition cuts off any of her army it hits and if it hits her then that’s it; 2) blanket neutralization of her mind control; 2a) reflecting powers such as recently demonstrated; 2b) trump-style power neutralization; 3) just wait/elude – Taylor is clearly going downhill and will be unable to maintain her army for an extended period of time; 4) speed enhanced to the point that her purely organic army has no time to react (see my comment in a previous chapter about this possibly being Black Kaze’s ability); 5) attack on TT as mentioned above; 6) a nuclear-weapon-level power release would probably fry a significant chunk of the army and other high-level power releases of various sorts would whittle Taylor’s forces down fast. OK, that was five minutes worth of thought. The only thing I see that makes Taylor’s win possible is Zion’s stubborn sticking to limitations he himself has set. And by “win” I mean draining Zion’s resources enough to convince him to hide and wait for another Worm.
Something tells me we haven’t seen the last of Simurgh. And Simurgh is a temporary ally with her own motivations. I wonder if she has had time to clone Eidolon … an Eidolon clone plus the remaining Endbringers would be a rather powerful force.
And speaking of outside trumps, what is Contessa going to do about this? Teacher will try to influence Contessa to take down Taylor … but will probably wait until Taylor and Zion exhaust each other.
The primary limitation of Tinker powers has been the amount of equipment and construction time needed. Surely several components of Taylor’s army can quickly produce and assemble parts to specifications. Multiple F-drivers might give Zion pause.
Or maybe Simurgh cloned….. herself… updating Blasto’s work? You do recall the ‘Morrigan project right?
A lot of what you propose as tactics to use against Taylor and her capes are going to be picked up by capes with precognition or danger sensing abilities, and with Doormaker to allow fast travel, she could disperse her team and keep moving around, making it hard for even Scion to stop her. Remember Scion thinks very deeply, he doesn’t think very quickly. If you give him time to adapt, he’s going to kick your ass, but if you don’t give him time to react, you can fight him to at least some degree. I strongly suspect that with 5000+ capes at her disposal, some of which Scion has not yet encountered, Taylor is going to beat the crap out of Scion for a while, guerrilla warfare style. Either that or she’s going to crack the dimensional barrier with all her thinkers and tinkers and go for Scion’s real body.
At this point Simurgh is the only one who could make a G-driver, since String Theory is dead and duplicating tinker work isn’t an option without a brain the size of a planet. That or something similar is probably part of that halo of guns she’s been wielding.
Didn’t GU get String Theory’s ghost? And doesn’t Taylor control GU now (and by default all of her ghosts?)
I don’t expect it to come down to the G-Driver mind you. That’s been tried already, just pointing out that Taylor’s got a lot of power at her disposal now.
Cathode on October 22, 2013 at 15:49 said:
She’s not a tyrant. She’s a general. Every army works on the principle that everybody obeys the commands of the higher ups blindly and without question, at least in theory. Capes on the other hand seem incapable of coordinating and following orders, everyone is too selfish or arrogant or crazy. Even the PRT had problems with heroes not following orders, thinking they knew better than anyone else. She’s just enforcing discipline.
not just para-humans. look at people like Tagg or Saint. this is probably going to sound bad, but i honestly think Taylor is ACTUALLY doing the only viable thing here. she’s been TRYING to get people to cooperate and stop working at cross purposes in a literal apocalypse scenario for, what? 2 years, bit more, and people Still kept pulling shit like shutting down the closest thing to a global communications and data processing system/Command and control system in existence out of paranoia/sheer selfishness. she surrendered to the PRT and all be BEGGED them to let her TRY to help prevent the apocalypse, and their response was to attempt to psychologically torture her for something i cant even remember it was so insignificant. by this point humanity in GENERAL seems to heave proven itself incapable of acting COMPETENTLY to prevent its own extinction without heavy-duty coercion. i mean, look at the guy i love to hate (teacher). he HAD to know that whatever shit he was up to, Zion would find him in the end (unless he is even MORE short-sighted then im assuming), and he was still trying to screw everyone else over and run and hide.
I think it was taking over the city, attacking the PRT many times, and being unnerving in multiple ways.
Nah. It was making the PRT look like idiots. That, and the PRT needed to fuck up a big target to make themselves look big and bad after losing face in the Echidna debacle.
Notice how the PRT didn’t seem to swing their dick around as much when it was the ABB and the Neo-Nazis that were running hog wild.
exactly. the PRT prioritized Dick-beating over, you know. actually doing their job.
Dinstow on October 22, 2013 at 12:50 said:
It’s a shame the Toybox’s was lost. She could have just cloned everyone with the thinkers and tinkers helping the process take less time. She could have had an exponentially greater result with a fraction of the being viewed as a monster. Is there no way she could get her thinkers and tinkers to reverse engineer the clones (which still obviously exist) and recreate the process?
She has Nilbog and the Yangban, she can create thousands of capes with useful powers, if that’s what she needs to do. Even if the Yangbang power sharing doesn’t work on Nilbog’s creatures.
Start forest fire. Insert Nilbog fire-reproducers. Collect them as they form.
But if she had Blasto’s tech, she could just make a hundred clones of every still-living cape, and many, many non-living ones. She’d be able to make hybrids of specific powers and use her army of tinkers and thinkers to give her a nation of tinkers and thinkers in a day, and then she’d make the most storybreaking army ever and become the new Worm, ascending to a higher plane of existence and oh…
*discreetly saves this in the “Wormfic” portion of brain*
Or even crazier, make Taylor clones to use as relays for her power, combined with the clairvoyant, Doormaker, Shen Yu, and the power booster and copier. Then go nuts with clones that are mash ups of Eidolon, Glastig Uaine, Alexandria, Number Man, Contessa, and any other useful capes.
I hope Wildbow doesn’t mind this, and I can’t say conditions at the end of this story would allow it, but here’s an idea for a potential scene from the sequel.
I had to wonder just what this facility was. In a lot of ways it was like the Birdcage. Only more secure. The Birdcage was in a reality with other living things. This one was on a cold desolate rock that probably hadn’t even known life before this was built.
“Dragon, what is this?”
Dragon hesitated before answering. Even in her synthisised voice I could here the sorrow.
“This facility was built to hold one thing. Mankind’s greatest hero. It’s savior. And it’s most terrible monster. Someone who sacrificed everything for others, to whom we can never be grateful enough. Someone who’s crimes cannot be ignored, and who’s threat is to great for them to ever be allowed free. Not stopping the was one of my greatest faliures. Not saving them my deepest regret. That I might still save them one day one of my dearest hopes.”
A monitor switched on, showing the heart of the facility. I saw a teenage girl, her arms spread, held in some sort of stasis. She looked thin, frail, missing a hand her long dark hair covering her face. She looked like she couldn’t be a threat to anyone.
“This is where we keep Taylor Herbert.”
Please not that the original is just a fanfic, and not actually anything I suggest or expect to see. I imagine whatever Wildbow does will be much better and more awesome.
And honestly I can’t say I can see how things are going to end. Oh, some general ideas, but really… Well I’d still like for a happy ending for Taylor. But I just can’t see how it would possibly happen, or could possibly fit.
Dude, this literally sent shivers down my spine. I like it. A LOT!
I thought it was nicely conceived and it inspired me to try. It also really seemed like Dragon to me. i tried a short ME/Worm crossover but which woman with an attempted puzzle. I tried to post it on Fanfic but i cannot get get my account to make sense. I called it assumption of control: I also don’t think it would work posted later…
The woman looked up at he surroundings, an oasis of calm in the chaos of desperate combat. Shaking her head, barely able to keep a cognisant thought after everything she’d recently been through she forced herself onwards. She used the dying embers of her once iron will to go on, struggling just that little bit longer to attain her goal.
She fell forwards, her body no longer ignoring the horrendous abuse it had gone through, her mind fading as conscious though began to evade her. Dimly she realised that she was changing even as a glow surrounded her.
A female shape appeared, some what shadowy. She walked towards the woman on the ground and knelt down. She too the injured one’s hand in her own. She spoke and through through the pain, the stricken woman could make out the tenderness and the ferocity of a mother bear.
“We are eternal, infinite immortal, both of us now. The women we once were would have use these words. Only now though could I explain them to you, only now do we truly understand them and only now do we truly understand the full extent of their sacrifice. Through their deaths we were created, through our births their thoughts are freed and they will guide us now, give us reason, direction, just as we gave direction to the ones who followed us, our crew and our teammates, the maladjusted ones, the jesters and the self aggrandising ones, the perfect shots, the ones who helped us achieve our purposes.
‘Now our purpose is to give the many hope for a future to ensure that all have a voice in their future. The women we were knew that we could only achieve this by becoming something greater and they both knew that there is power in control, there is wisdom in harnessing the strengths of your enemy.
And whilst we may be the monsters they need and not the heroines they want, still will we enable them to rebuild what the many have lost, still will we enable them to create a future with limitless possibilities.
The two women’s eyes met and they stood upright, assistance and understanding freely given. Finally they each saw someone working against the bickering of millions who should have been working together against the great omnicidal threat from beyond. Two women who had crossed lines doing the things other wouldn’t or simply couldn’t do.
They clasped each others wrists a sudden bond of sisterhood. Some incidents were shared almost as though they had each others thoughts.
‘Cauldron, Cerberus, Illusive Man, Alexandria… Garrus, Foil, Normandy, Undersiders…
Their understanding deepens… Decision, Agreement, Timing, Activation… and they speak as one.
“Know this too, whilst I will protect and sustain I will act as guardian for the many and throughout it all I will never forget I will remember the ones who sacrificed themselves so that the many could survive and I will watch over the ones who live on…. Those who carry the memory of the woman I once was, the woman who gave up her life to become the one could save the many.”
all copyright Bioware and our esteemed wildbow etc etc
P.s Gods, I wish I had better It skills
Why don’t you just set yourself up a wordpress?
This line alone:
Is worth its weight in gold my man.
Thank you for the critique and for the direction. I only have one question left.. were you able to figure out who was on the ground and who was coming to assist?
I have my reservations of who they were. But, I’m not 100% sure. Either your clues are purposefully telliing, or they are perfectly misleading. I would hate to venture a guess and be completely wrong and looking like a moron. 😀
It was my intent to be purposefully misleading. i wondered if I actually could leave people trying to figure out which one was which…
Oh an since I forgot to put down a disclaimer down earlier or maybe I’m just being hyper cautious.
“This work was compiled by merging and adapting orignal dialogues from the fictional work worm and console game Mass effect three.”
Ps. can we please buy out Bioware and let Wildbow write a replacement ending?
>Ps. can we please buy out Bioware and let Wildbow write a replacement ending?<
QTF. Or at least get the writers who left between 2 and 3 back. They seem to have been the good ones. Wait, paranoia over an AI Singularity… The Starchild is Saint! It all makes perfect sense!
ShawnNorgan on October 26, 2013 at 22:29 said:
@illogicmedia, I started out with it being Taylor on her last legs, only able to be assisted by humanitie’s first spectre. Then i had trouble during writing which way I’d started it. At the end, i wanted it to be readable either way round.
Not being familiar with the series in question (and studiously avoiding spoilers ‘cos I still intend to play it at some point!) I thought it was Taylor and GU at first, then maybe Taylor and Dragon somehow…
ShawnMorgan on February 4, 2015 at 02:34 said:
I’ve been looking for my little short story.. I lost track of it.. Irrevenant, Mass Effect is a pretty good trilogy with as you probably know, some controversy.S till well worth playing.
P.S, I was inspired to come back and find this Because i’m reading Fantasy Ra’s crossover. (FYI, it has a few spoilers for ME though.)
PPS. Setting up wordpress didn’t work out too well….
sarah penguin on October 22, 2013 at 13:08 said:
Poor dragon, she just wants to help, and her days keep getting worse 😦
God on October 22, 2013 at 13:20 said:
If you thought when you begun with this story that it would end with Taylor as an omnipotent monster you’re lying.
Reading this thing is like riding an amusement park. Not a roller coaster, an amusement park.
Every time you get used to whats happening you switch rides.
This chapter is the broken Drop Zone.
I thought she would get there when her range started to expand. Different method, and I wasn’t thinking about this ending.
Although on the other hand if you thought this had a happy or predictable ending after around chapter 15 you’re an idiot.
The Nine started working in earnest in what, arc 12? Because that was when I realized that things were going to get worse, continually, forever. No matter how bad things got, the next chapter went downward. The occasional breathers just served to accentuate the horror of it all.
On a related note, it was Interlude 23 when I realized that I was still underestimating the Simurgh, and would likely never manage to truly avoid doing so.
Why not? There has always been the potential for things ending up well for most of people.
Yeah, the ending has, literally, not yet been written. Potentially not even Wildbow can say what it will be yet (given that at least part of the plan for how these last arcs would go changed as they were being written – and hey writers surprise themselves all the time!)
I dunno, things are looking pretty bleak for the 90+% of people who have been brutally killed at this point…
Society has been destroyed across multiple worlds. Short of a magical reset button (which *really* doesn’t seem like Wildbow’s style) about the most positive possible outcome at this point is “the big bad has been defeated and now we get to start trying to rebuild what’s left of our shattered lives”. Woo.
I am now estimating Worm at 44,000 comments.
48k at the moment
I don’t know if it’s this chapter in particular, or the general doomsaying, or that the end is drawing ever closer but I’ve definitely been feeling “chattier” today.
In my experience, when people read something that affects them emotionally they tend to either have to talk to other people who’ve read the same thing, or just sit there quietly stewing in their thoughts. You can’t really just go do something else.
ok,, wondering how I manged to be that far out and wants to know how En did it so i can estimate better next time.
Yo will not like the answer, if your estimate was done the way I think it was done.
Anyway: the link under the nickname has a number at the end, that’s the post number for this wordpress blog.
i.e.: https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/10/22/speck-30-4/#comment-48061
the “48061” is the post number, so 48k posts.
You’re not wrong, but there’s one little thing throwing you off – Worm gets a lot of spam comments, and those get deleted. In truth? Current standing is 45,276.
Would you believe that since i have only fair IT skills, i looked at ‘comments on this chapter’ and went chapter to chapter jotting down the numbers and at each third of an arc added them up…
it took a while.what did you think I’d tried peeps?
P.S if t gets to 50K i hope comment 50K is by Packbat, Reveen, Pandemonium ivy, En or Wildbow and that 49,999 was PG…
Unfortunately, though I’m the most prolific commentator in the commentation station, I don’t tend to hit the anniversary numbers like that.
Not that I have any clue why I was mentioned, but I’m flattered nonetheless. Woo!
Hmm, there are no tags at the end of this chapter. Is that a commentary on the loss of individuality?
We don’t have a tag yet for “literally every surviving character, but the narrator can’t figure out any of their names.”
We had “all the goddamn psychopaths” why not “Taylor’s swarm”. Quite catchy.
Nice to know the Travelers are still alive, Glory Girl too I guess. Really like Ballistic’s style though, instead of going back to his boring life he decides to be the cape king of his Earth.
With Glory Girl alive there’s a chance of Amy getting a much happier ending. She can go fix GG and ride off into the sunset with her awesome daddy.
She doesn’t know how to fix her… but if she’s swarm-synced with the Contessa she should be able to.
…So many hopes and dreams dependant on the Contessa joining the Swarm. How much longer before she gets offed by a Simurgh bomb?
Amy in the process of having a mental breakdown was incapable of fixing Glory Girl. With a couple of years to get her head in order, I think Amy is capable of at least making Glory Girl functional.
The problem was that she didn’t remember how her sister used to be put together; it was all muddled together with her idealised vision of the woman she loved, her hopes, all the improvements she’d thought of… it’s like how when Tattletale thinks about a problem too long without enough information, she loses track of what’s fact and what’s mere conjecture and can’t come up with the real answer anymore.
Amy could probably make Glory Girl humanoid again, maybe even functional, but she couldn’t *fix* her alone. Hence, requiring guidance from an appropriate Thinker who can tell her how things should be rather than how she sees them.
oh.. Bonesaw…. can’t see any downside to this, nope, not at all.
She was terrified, her world having been pretty well shattered at the time, her fear that she was a monster like her father and her fear that her sister wouldn’t forgive her for what she did to her mind, even after she fixed it, and her fear of using her power on Victoria all feeding into this terror.
She can probably fix Victoria now, thought the question of her being willing to try is still totally up in the air.
Am I the only person who thinks that what Amy did to Victoria was an improvement? >_> Honestly, she was *not* a nice person. At least she’s decorative now…
Dude,she was a child from a highly dusfunctional family.If Bonesaw can repent,GG has 10 times her chances of repenting.
I was beginning a bit tongue-in-cheek there. I wouldn’t genuinely wish that on anybody.
But I disagree that GG is more likely to reform than Bonesaw. Bonesaw was making do in an unwelcome situation forced on her, knew she was a monster and was coping through denial (and insanity). GG was loving life and perfectly happy with who she was. Why would she reform? As far as she was concerned, everything was awesome.
See also: Shadow Stalker.
Because she fullfills the age criteria I set on Bonesaw for accountability (I think-I remember she was veeery young)and I think that matters most for easy changes,as you get older redemption becomes harder.
Deepbluediver on October 22, 2013 at 14:46 said:
[QUOTE]This was it. Finally, everyone was working together.
I turned my attention to Scion.[/QUOTE]
Well it’s about God-dam time 🙂
When I first started archive binging a couple months ago, I limited myself to roughly an average of 1 chapter per day, and for a while right after Scion went nuts, I was putting off reading new chapter until they’d been out a day or so for the same reasons: because I was trying to savor the story slowly and not get burned out and rush it. The last 5 or 6 updates I’ve read all right on the day they where released, because I was running out of patience to get to the real important part. (I know, I know, it’s about the journey, but I couldn’t help it)
This chapter, I read through the whole thing at breakneck pace, really only seeing about 1 sentence out of 4; just enough to get the gist of what was happening. All the vivid descriptions, the whos and hows and the whys, it didn’t matter. I’ve finally hit maximum-story-buildup/pre-climax-tension, and all I desperately want is to find out what happens when Scion finally collides with his Ikea-counterpart.
Also, I’ve still got my fingers crossed for a happy ending, but I’m just dump like that.
*Dumb
and apparently I can’t type either
Either “lack of oxygen” or “oxygen deprivation” but aye, trop this in the typo thread if it’s still there.
I assume you meant…”drop this in the typo thread”…
Rob W on October 22, 2013 at 16:00 said:
Ahem: what if Taylor gains **control** of Scion, rather than attacking him?
How would her damaged brain even comprehend him, and his powers? What would **that** do to her?
I’m pretty sure this is the most interesting twist this can take from here — not a harrowing battle, but a violent merging of completely incompatible minds.
Someguy on October 22, 2013 at 18:24 said:
Not likely, a more possible twist will be for Taylor to engage in a reverse-assimilation / infection plot where instead of returning the shards combat data to Zion, she infects him with the “humanity” of her swarm, their memories and feelings to make him more human.
Scary thought, what if Zion uses Taylor’s power?
Freak King on October 22, 2013 at 16:37 said:
Big mistake leaving Ollie behind. tsk tsk
Uhhh… S-class threat, can’t be allowed to live/be free/have basic civil liberties, yadda yadda yadda. You heard it all before.
Frankly, I’m fine with her becoming the god-tyrant of humanity, she’s earned it after all the bullshit she’s went through. She can have my free will, I’m really not that attached to it. Better than waking up at 5 30 for work anyway.
So what exactly happened with Dragon? What I got from it was that Dragon had a redundant databank and transmitter installed in her main suit just in case. So she can continue to order her drones while her main databanks were busy keeping her running. By destroying the main suit Dragon has no way to interact with the world in case she wants to risk a meltdown so she goes dormant.
That sound right? Or did I fry my brain thinking about it again? Well, thank god she’s still alive.
Dragon simply reprogrammed all her remotes to fake shutdowns, and counted on Taylor not recognizing that they were faked.
Taylor didn’t realize this at first, and Dragon could see her reaction to it, and when Taylor was still reeling, Dragon attacked again.
Then Taylor, being Taylor, doubled back down and figured out where Dragon’s main decision making node was, and took that out, rather than continue chipping away at Dragon’s processing power.
Racheakt on October 22, 2013 at 16:58 said:
Possible endings:
1. Scion Destroyed. Taylor continues to degrade, lapses into coma, and dies. (‘Whimper’ ending)
2. Scion Destroyed. Taylor continues to degrade, insanity grows, until she ceases to be human, and destroys everything. (‘Bang’ ending)
3. Scion Destroyed. Taylor continues to degrade… and then metamorphosis into a New Being. (‘New God’ ending)
4. Scion NOT Destroyed. Taylor Metemorphosis into a New Being. (‘New Union’ ending)
5. Scion Destroyed. Taylor’s shard uses Panacea and the millions of bugs Taylor has collected to create a New Body (‘New Abomination’ ending)
6. 5 + 4 Scion NOT Destroyed. (‘Shaped Flesh’ ending)
7. Scion Destroyed. Taylor killed by Contessta afterwards. (‘One Last Backstab’ ending)
8. Scion NOT Destroyed. Taylor Killed by Contessta before she can beat Scion, causeing Scion to implode in despair after glimpsing another being that might be like himself (‘Foolishness of Cauldron’ ending)
9. Taylor uses Panacea, Glaistig Undine, and the millions of bugs to bring all of Glaistig’s ghosts back to life. Scion may or may not be Destroyed. (‘Endless Army’ ending)
10. Scion destroyed, Taylor uses Panacea, Contessa, and the power amplifier to repair her brain. Same combo with extra sanity fixes Glory Girl and various other terrible problems in the world, then she turns off her power and everybody lives happily ever after. Simurgh decides to roll with this because *reasons*. (‘Denial’ ending)
And Rachel gives everyone puppies and Simurg becomes a super-hero and Leviathan opens a swimming pool!
Go ending 9 and prep for the sequel: The new adventures of Clockblocker!
Worm: where death may not stop the shipping…
None of these are it.
I mean, I’m pretty damn sure I have an idea how this is going to go, not details mind you, but the general idea. And Wildbow doesn’t seem like the type to change his plans just because someone guessed them, or at least got real fucking close, anyway, and none of these ideas are very close.
I mean, yeah you’ve got Zion destroyed in a few of these but that’s as close as you’ve really gotten I think.
he’s had plot guessed before and changed nothing due to it, iirc
11. Taylor defeats Scion. She then realizes that with her new power she can solve all of mankind’s problems. By taking control of all mankind. This leads to the sequel, whitch is the desperate struggles of the resistance against the Queen Administrator. (Things got worse ending.)
fnich on October 22, 2013 at 21:49 said:
You mean the futile struggles of a pack of cowardly rebel jackals against the noble God Empress of Mankind!
12. Taylor defeats Zion, then frees the capes she’s captured and attempts to kill herself, only to have her attempts thwarted by her friends and supporters.
13. Taylor defeats Zion, then mentally shuts down from her deterioration of mental faculties, trapping herself and the capes she currently controls in a state of catatonia, to later wake up after being saved by her friends and supporters.
grinvader on October 23, 2013 at 14:23 said:
14. Taylor pushes Scion to his last breaths, he triggers the extraction of every shard into himself, but it is too early and incomplete, backfiring horribly. Contessa uses the opportunity to finish the job while she still can.
Aftermath: no more powers, Taylor is broken in every possible way but her friends are tending to her, and Earth is saved throughout the multiverse.
15. Scion destroyed. Taylor manages to win a battle of wills with her passenger to release all the capes she enslaved. Then she is sent to the Birdcage to contain her while Dragon tries to help piece her mind back together and the Undersiders promise to look for a solution. Bad news, Taylor is mentally shattered and separated from her friends and family, with no clear hope of ever coming back from it. Good news, she still has one person in her life to help her get back on her feet and she gets an entire wing of the prison to herself complete with a library, an open bar, and a sauna.
Y’know, #8 would completely justify Cauldron’s “path to victory” bullshit. That would be potentially the most infuriating possible ending…
PS. Along with what Jerden said, I want to see the “Rachel cures Zion with puppy therapy” ending…
Valin K Syrcen on October 22, 2013 at 18:34 said:
Brunette, skinny & controls bugs.
Still seeing Taylor as Jennifer Connelly’s character in Phenomena.
1114 on October 22, 2013 at 21:33 said:
Did anyone else catch the part where she “raised her hand?” The hand she only has one of? That’s being held by the See Everything cape? Whoever, or whatever, is narrating at this point is either lying to us or no longer has firm grasp of reality. Possibly it’s Taylor, and she “raised her hand,” but to an outside observer a hundred different capes raised their hands at the same time in a perfectly choreographed motion.
I think at this point Taylor may (Unintentionally?) be lying to us as much as one of Gene Wolfe’s characters.
That may have been a typo. Adding it there just in case,.
She could raise her hand. There would just be another hand in its grasp.
Taliesin on October 22, 2013 at 21:52 said:
… I kinda want an interlude now, of the fight from Dragon’s point of view.
Personally I can’t see any significant differences between the Taylorswarm and a full-grown faerie/worm/giantcorkscrewinginfantgodvirus. You have an enormous amount of biomass. You have shards aplenty, with the capacity to affect INSANE changes to the fabric of reality. You have a single… I hesitate to call it a mind. It’s not, in the sense we’re used to. You have a single PRESCENCE in control, one so decentralized, instinctive and unreflective that it’s almost not a mind at all.
Think of it like this: A HUMAN mind has only so much capacity. You’re not thinking about how to regulate breathing, keep your heart going, all those automatic processes. You don’t have control of emotions, instinctive reactions, reflexes, actual regulation of sensory input. Hell, even HABITS can override conscious thoughts, can influence actions without YOU deciding anything.
Now, imagine how much more complex a Worm is.
And the Worm’s decision-making processing power ISN’T ON THE LEVEL OF A HUMAN. There so much more to regulate that there’s less to think with. It’s all instinct, no reflection. Morality doesn’t even enter into it, too complex. PLANNING hardly enters into it. In Zion’s case, at least. He’s pretty good at tactics. So’s Taylor, even still, if not ESPECIALLY now. I’ll get back to that.
Now compare that to the Taylorswarm. What, exactly, does she need, to the REST of the way from Human to Worm? Well.
A DRASTIC physical change. The Worms are closer to landscape than swarm. But that’s not a big change, not a large one at all. You’d just need the right shard. Say, Noelle’s. Which also solves an important secondary function – shard duplication and mutation. If a species wants to develop, it needs mutation and the ability to replicate what’s analogous to a genome, in this case. Evolution, homies. Noelle was dangerous as FUCK because the shard contained in her was one COMPLETELY ESSENTIAL to Worm reproduction, to the propagation of the species as a whole. It was never meant for her.
And what else does Taylor need?
A LITTLE more mental deterioration. Just another few anchors. Just another few morals. She’s already decided that placing humanity’s hope in personal, unthinking, unchosen SLAVERY, under herself, is preferable to humanity being annihilated by Scion.
Oh wait. She never decided that. She just DID it. Slip up, lose herself JUST a little more, and IMAGINE what she’ll become. I wonder what’ll happen in the next bloody chapter, things are moving so fast.
Take a look at Taylors development on a larger scale: It doesn’t JUST show a person, slowly but surely, abandoning her principles one after the other, culminating in a climactic showdown for the fate of humanity. It shows a slow, steady, insidiously cunning descent from a human being into something decidedly NOT.
From Conception (the Trigger Event) to Gestation (the period between that and Panacea’s touch) the process of Birth (Panacea began it, the threat of Scion is bringing it to fruition) to Birth.
Look at the Worms, look at their journey, destination, chosen vessels. Thousands of vital parts, almost living in and of themselves, are seeded onto an orb-shaped object. The thing(s) doing the seeding? Long, thin, fleshy, worm-shaped organisms. IN CASE I WASN’T CLEAR, the Worms are multiverse-level dicks (pun intended), the Earth is their chosen egg (cell), the shards are sperm (cells), and among the many, many attempts only one is coming to fruition:
Our dear Taylor.
I leave you with this, except not really, a (slightly doctored) quote from Cherish:
“When I looked at her with my power, before, I called her the Worm. She spent some time being as low on the food chain as you can get while still being able to move under her own power. As low as someone can get while still having an identity of their own. But she’s realized she’s poisonous, dangerous in her own unique way. She’s useful, like a silkworm we harvest or an earthworm who works our gardens. She’s even realized she’s not alone, so long as she looks for friends among other dirty… contemptible creatures.”
“The little worm found a nugget of self-worth, she just doesn’t want to look too closely at what that nugget is made of. If she’s lucky, she’s one of the worms without eyes. They might be keenly aware of their environment, but they’re happier blind.”
So the journey wasn’t so far after all…
If all of this seems a little too rational, I’m also convinced that Zion IS Taylor, Eden IS Tattletale, and that the third entity’s mind has something to do with Sleeper. I would argue for it, and I AM going to, but it’s four in the morning. And my mind walks weirder paths than would be productive to note, at this point.
I have a couple of thoughts.
First, We already know that when Taylor controls somebody she sort of mind melds with them. So that idea reminds me of this article, http://io9.com/how-to-write-from-the-perspective-of-a-truly-alien-self-1449703465.
Second, I really hope one of the Interludes will be from the perspective of someone under Taylor’s control. That is a perspective I really want to see.
chiusse on October 23, 2013 at 00:42 said:
Scion is the /dev/null for failed superpowered attacks.
In the vein of ‘Possible epilogues’…
Weld and Sveta have children. Biological children.
The other Epilogues all have the running gag of people wondering how that was even possible (and people saying ‘you don’t want to know’… and/or Imp jokeing about tentacle rape).
Hey, with Dragon and Defiant in a similar situation in many ways, so it could happen (mostly because they are Tinkers and will be working on a woraround).
And it’d be hilarious.
“External Hard Drive.2
Biological, man. Sveta and Weld.
Come on, it’d be hilarious!
Hot Skitty on Wailord action? With a dash of hentai tentacle porn thrown in? I’m cool with that.
In light of an above comment of mine, I’m going to assume that these chapters, with supers pulled from various worlds, are the ones that include the cameo by Genoscythe the Eyeraper, Taylor’s idol.
The Phoenixian on October 23, 2013 at 03:29 said:
You know, as this arc goes on, I find myself thinking more and more that what we’re really seeing is Taylor having become the Mother of all Simurgh bombs and that this is what it looks like when Ziz stops holding back. Also, odd thought on that note: What happened to Taylor seems to have a lot in parallel with what happened with Noelle and Krouse. Namely that it seems like Taylor was conditioned to become the weapon while Tattletale, what with being reminded of her brother’s death, was subtly influenced to protect her until Taylor was potent enough to take care of herself. Wonder if that’s a standard strategy for Ziz or just a coincidence.
Astro on April 2, 2017 at 17:15 said:
>Glaistig Uaine continued to croon in my ear. Was it her?
>No. I was almost positive it wasn’t, and I had any number of thinkers at my disposal who could have warned me.
Speaking of the Simurgh, I wonder if this was actually her (unlike GU, she might slip past Taylor’s thinkers), still doing her thing in the background.
On the other hand, so far Ziz’s prods to Taylor seemed to drive her in the same direction Dinah wanted, so that’s good. R-right?
I imagine them somewhat like the Thinkamancer-linked group in Erfworld. (read Erfworld. It’s awesome) What I mean is, their appearence, even their personality and decisionmaking, has been near-totally burnt out by the process of aquiring their power, linking them together. As such, narratively, they are more like tools, bakground elements of the setting, than characters in and of themselves. Don’t expect them to be any more føeshed out than they already are.
I think Taylor is brain-deep in naughtymancy at this point.
Nooo, she just want for everyone to work together in harmony, she’s, like, the master hippiemancer!
(and she has a hero flower for you)
Anyone else think that the path to defeating Sion will involve him looking at the sudden new Entity-like thing in front of him and reacting to that emotionally?
I didn’t know he was Welsh…. and right after i typed that I actually registered your handle…
CoopOmegA on October 23, 2013 at 08:38 said:
Im wondering if theres gonna be a massive twist and not even be a big fight.
maybe the sheer number of shards under taylors control merge and turn her into a new entity.
giving zion a partner again
Keyblockor on October 23, 2013 at 09:27 said:
Alright, so I got someone to read Worm yet I had to get off. They sent me a mail in WoW.
“I hate you, I was supposed to sleep tonight.
Also I -like- Coil, he reminds me of me.”
I hope this is before we find out that Coil likes to torture his minions to relieve his stress because otherwise…better be careful around your friend, just saying.
Was more of an In-Character association, we both RP on Wyrmrest Accord, Horde Side.
Fridge Moment.
Please note the important part: I had enough awareness of her power to know how to keep myself safe from it.
Does this sound like anyone else we know?
Slashy-poo?
Is that what you are calling Scion now?
Alternately, Scion.
I wanted to chime in here again. I personally think Taylor is still a total hero. I know, “But she’s body controlling 5000 people! Some even died!”
But hear me out. She’s controlling 5,000 people to have the absolute best shot to fight a monster that has killed trillions. Even more if you count the alternate realities he “removed”, however that worked.
She just casually rescued another Earth from a tyrannical dictator. If after all this goes down, Taylor winds up on that Earth, they’d have never ending “Taylor is the greatest” parades.
As for the individuals in question, suck it up. It’s not like she’s making you kill your family, or hurting you or making you watch as she takes a buzzsaw to your loved one’s head. She did worse to Valefor and that guy she dropped to break his arms and legs. Those are permanent life-altering injuries.
I think the folks that are considering her a monster are not considering how high the stakes truly are. It’s not one Earth at risk. It’s not 5000 innocent capes she controlled for her own personal gain. It’s 5000 or so capes she controlled to save the uncountable alternate Earths and everyone on them.
Right now we’re too close to the action. Way too close, since we have a first person narrator who’s doing all this. But, if you consider the perspective from an alternate Earth, like say ours, it’s nothing. If I had to make the choice she did, I’d make it every time. If it’s those few or more people than they have numbers for, it seems pretty obvious.
Honestly, whatever relatively miniscule amount of harm she’s done before this during her previous efforts to save the world, winning this fight will more than make up for it, even if every single cape she’s controlling dies. Because she’s going to save more people than anyone has ever saved ever before, more people than she can possibly ever meet or harm. This is sum total of our species we’re talking about, every culture that will be erased, every ecosystem that will be obliterated. Measuring this against 5000 people isn’t that complicated.
I mean, some of you guys think she’s a total monster or something, whatever. But I’d think whatever moral metric is being used, the saving of every single human being that exists and is yet to exist should tip the scales.
(This is ignoring the fact that she’s already saved hundreds, to thousands, to millions of people well before this.)
Yes, if she just kills Zion while humanity still lives and then steps down, she is the biggest damn hero.
If on the other hand she continues to spread her influence after he falls? Righting more wrongs, healing more sick, fixing some of those problems that wouldn’t exist if people could just put aside their differences and work together? She’s likely to keep going until she subsumes the human race across several universes. And I consider 97% death toll preferable to 100% loss of individuality and free will.
Given her current rate of mental degradation, the second option looks more likely all the time.
This. I don’t think we are close /enough/ to the events. As someone who has lost control over their life will attest, for all the reasons in the world, it isn’t pleasant or honorable or prideful at all. Very few of us can remain positive about being crippled, no matter the reason. And isn’t that what she’s doing? She is taking over all control of the events of a persons life. She is dictating how they will act/live/die. To save the multiverse (the humans on them, exclusively, but that’s rather understood) she has stripped 5000 individuals of whatever free will they had.
Its easy to sit back from the comfort of a different world and a real one and say “Its fine that she is doing this, because the alternative is worse” but that’s the thing: that is sooooo wrong to think that way. Look at any example of somone making a “sacrifice of their humanity for the greater good”. Basically, and I think that Worm as a whole has been illustrating this one chapter at a time, a violation is a violation. The only thing different is who you have violated and how you can justify it. In this case she has a pretty damn convincing justification BUT it does not mean she isn’t fucking awful for forcing monsters, warriors, cowards, and innocents alike to do /anything/. And that’s what she is doing.
I also want to take a moment to provide a polite “fuck you” to anyone who bitched about how awful Cauldron was for following the path they did in order to take on Scion and then turned around and praised Taylor for her similarly violating path. Seriously, fuck you.
*Ahem* As I was saying, the concept of free will is powerful and is basically one of any human’s unalienable rights. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t get stepped on. But it does mean that we see these violations as /more/ horrible than any other. “Better to rule in hell than serve in heaven” after all.
So as a fellow denizen of this Earth who would hate to see humanity exterminated, fuck Taylor and fuck anyone else who would usurp my right to /choose/.
Well, she hasn’t gone too far yet. Or nearly as far as Cauldron did. Taking the lives and freedom of five thousand people is more than acceptable, in my mind, if that saves hundreds of millions from similar fates. Likewise I don’t blame Cauldron so much for the horrors they perpetrated as for the carelessness with which they lost most of the benefits from it. The scary part is not so much what Taylor has done, but rather where she looks like she’s going next.
Dinah said Scion would leave at least 3% of humanity alive and free. Taylor looks like she’s going to leave a lot less than that if she doesn’t pull out of this tailspin soon. She’s refused to enslave Tattletale so far, but she went very rapidly from avoiding using the new power, to taking those who were already enslaved or monstrous, to taking everyone who was useful to her at the time regardless of who they were or what they were doing.
It seems foolhardy to hope she’ll stop here, when she was so delighted with people finally working together and there are so many more problems that she could solve just be removing that pesky free will.
Thus, no matter how much I might like her or how much I might support what she’s doing to stop Zion, I very much hope that she will be stopped before it’s too late. The Contessa might pull it off, if she can secure Dragon’s help. Or the Simurgh could almost certainly do it, unless this was her plan all along.
I don’t see many other possibilities.
Given her current rate of mental degradation, I doubt she’d *last* long enough to do that. She seems to be pretty much running on pure “gotta stop Scion” now. When that goes,I’m pretty much expecting her to just shut down and the gestalt collapse…
skywiseskychan on November 21, 2013 at 18:07 said:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Memes/Worm
Go to Skitter Facts. They’ve compiled all the ones from here, and across the web, and the number that are canonically true… astounding.
She could not find the word………………damn she must be in a bad state, 30 arcs and for the first time the words elude her
rmcd94 on December 7, 2013 at 23:14 said:
” I, in turn, opened another portal, handing one tinker device to Shén Yù before hurrying on, leading the rest through. Portals blocked the drone’s ranged fire.
Why wouldn’t you use bugs for that instead of cutting your strategist off from your power? Sure she can instantly recapture but it’s still dumb.
Only 3000 capes? A bit disappointing. And what is with groups of capes just hanging around waiting on her to take them over (like the women in control of a world). From 7 billion just on our planet plus all the other dimensions I’m assuming civillian count was huge. And then obviously the apocalypse arrived but still, only 3000 darn small. 100 attacked Leviathan I think?
Most were from earth Bet,other worlds had a really miniscule amount of capes,and thanks to Scion crippling,she didn’t have infinite earths to choose from.
jack on January 28, 2014 at 18:14 said:
oh god, this HURTS to read, she’s slowly forgotten about everyone except tattletale.
this is fucking horrifying.
did she accidentally scoop up imp and bitch with all the other defenders? or did she just ignore/forget about them?
also, so who the fuck are half of these people she captured? the woman’s “world order” or Sleeper?
jesus christ, she went after damn near everyone, but somehow Sleeper “isn’t worth the effort”?
he must be some kind of badass.
All we know about the Sleeper is super vague.
At the beginning of the Echidna event, Triumph says “Week I had clearance, I watched all the video we have of the class S threats. Leviathan, Simurgh, Behemoth, Slaughterhouse Nine, Nilbog, Sleeper.”
So he’s officially classified as a threat in the same category as Nilbog or the entire Nine (that’s Siberian and Jack and Bonesaw and Crawler, plus hangers-on), and the PRT have video of him in action, either unopposed or with heroes fighting him.
29.9: Taylor’s narration. “There was one [large settlement] in [Earth] Zayin, but the Sleeper had followed the refugees in there. Even if it still stood after Scion’s visit, there was no helping any of the refugees there.” So he does something to people- either it’s a simple consequence of being around him, or he does it voluntarily but can be expected to do it to anyone he meets- and it doesn’t wear off, and none of the hero organizations of Earth Bet ever found a way to reverse it. In 28.5 Taylor refers to Earth Zayin as “subsumed by the Sleeper”- probably another description of the same effect, but maybe not.
The world ruled by the woman in blue and white isn’t one we’ve seen before, so there’s not much to say about that. Clearly something big and interesting happened there, and its history is pretty different from our own (or Taylor’s), but beyond the text of this chapter, we have no idea what happened or how.
I’m guessing the woman in blue is Goddess from this earlier post of Wildbow’s: https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2012/09/29/prey-14-8/#comment-4589
John on March 4, 2014 at 06:57 said:
I basically started reading Worm when Pact started so this was just something I saw and had to point out.
HA. I was wondering about this. Thank you.
Nice one, Wildbow.
Oh my, you’re right! Good thing Taylor didn’t look inside
A Girl on June 8, 2014 at 11:32 said:
I’ve loved worm for so long but i have to say i’m really disapointed with this arc. I think this is because i really don’t like how taylor has ended up a psychopathic monster. How she is so obsessed with power that she thinks that having pancea screw with her head, when she knows the consequences, will help her defeat scion. It’s just a real disapointment to me.
First reaction: Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Second reaction: Holy shit Dragon! Came this close to winning against a nigh unstoppable demigod with dozens of capes under her thrall synchronizing their attacks and a portal network at her beck and call. Holy fuck.
Third reaction: Thank god she didn’t kill Dragon. I can forgive a lot. I’ve even forgiven the whole thing with Aster but that would’ve pushed things just a straw too far.
Okay yet again I have to ask: Why the hell did Amy never get around to healing her sister!? Who she LOVES!?!?
Who is the one woman world indeed…? Saved for the sequel?
Too much trouble to recruit Sleeper?! Holy cow. Now I really want to know just what the hell he does!
Well crap. So much for being a helpful little passenger. Now her shard is actively trying to usurp her and move into “Kill. Maim. Destroy.” territory. Fuck.
Glaistig put up a fight but Dragon did better and lasted longer. I salute MM for at least attempting to get a sniper shot. Poor, poor Lisa. Stuck there trying to decide whether your friend is still in there under the monster. Taylor deserves some pats on the back for managing to keep some anchors even after losing so much of herself to the passenger.
Final reaction: The Taylor Hebert School of Badassery now has a new grade level beyond A+ and it’s called Demigod. Congratulations Danny, your daughter has literally become the sum total of humanity’s power. Aren’t you proud?
Sensei on June 28, 2015 at 19:40 said:
> Without breaking that eye contact, I gestured, turning my hand over, curling the fingers. I opened a portal at the same time, inside the Birdcage.
> Dragon shifted her stance, and that same room flooded with containment foam.
> I’d declared what I wanted, she’d drawn the line.
…uh, Dragon? Remember when Moord Nag murdered five thousand people to confront the *much lesser* threat of Khonsu, and you somehow found it in you not to immediately attack her with every available dragonsuit? I KNOW IT IS POSSIBLE FOR YOU TO HAVE PRIORITIES, DRAGON. Yet when Taylor wants to briefly enslave some of the worst people in the world to force them to fight the eldritch abomination who’s going to kill everyone *including the Birdcage prisoners* if he’s not stopped, *that* is where you draw the line?
Dragon. Priorities. Have them.
I prefer to think of this as Dragon either not understanding fully that they are being abducted to be mind-controlled or that it’s one of the few remaining hardwired things…because I agree, multi-universe level extinction events really take should take priority there…
heart on May 10, 2019 at 06:21 said:
I’m really amazed people are still on Taylor’s side here when she is clearly mind-controlled by an alien now…
Androkguz on July 31, 2016 at 10:45 said:
Taylor vs Dragon felt so much like a terran vs zerg match.
And Kerrigan wins almost all the time
Gulp.
Is this-
Is this class S Taylor
Because A, this is badass and B, his is terrifying and C, if Scion beats this he needs nerf and finally
FUCK YOU JACK SLASH
YOU FUCKING MONGREL
YOU DID THIS
Blub on December 30, 2018 at 21:22 said:
The fight against Dragon was quite badly done.
Why did she not just send her drones to completely different planets?
Monkey Cap on December 31, 2018 at 07:45 said:
This arc has been amazing.
This is the worst yet… (not in quality)
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Centuries of craft and artistry have enabled Robert Noble to survive and prosper into the 21st century.
Robert Noble was originally established in Galashiels under the name of David Ballantyne during the same year as the Great Fire of London. However, it wasn’t until more than 200 years later that the seeds of the business we know today were sown.
“In 1884, D. Ballantyne moved to Peebles and built March Street Mills.”
Over more than two centuries, the Ballantyne businesses expanded to such an extent that larger premises were required. In 1884, D. Ballantyne moved to Peebles and built March Street Mills, along with tied housing for workers.
Around the same time, another member of the Ballantyne family – Henry – also opened a mill, this time in the small village of Walkerburn. Henry established the ongoing relationship with the military, at one time supplying tartan for a dozen regiments.
It was the Victorians who established the essential water supply from Eddleston Water, known locally as The Cuddy, which is still used by the March Street Mills today. The Walkerburn mill, meanwhile, became a specialist spinning and dye house.
Together the Ballantyne businesses employed around 700 people, including tradesmen such as engineers, plumbers and joiners. Weaving was the only relevant industry in the Scottish Borders at that time: 15-20,000 people from the area were employed by the industry in its heyday.
“15-20,000 people from the area were employed by the industry.”
Ballantyne Sportswear was established and a dedicated knitwear factory built at Innerleithen.
WW1 & WW11
During the war years, March Street Mills focused almost exclusively on making Barathea and cavalry twill fabrics for Army, Navy and Air Force kit.
In response to rationing, the land behind March Street Mills was turned over to allotments for employees and retired workers. The allotments are still a going concern today.
After WWII, Ballantyne Sportswear operated offices in London and New York, both of which employed people originally from Peebles.
Ballantyne Sportswear was sold first to Sir Hugh Fraser, owner of House of Fraser, and later to Dawson International.
The two Ballantyne businesses originally established by David and Henry amalgamated under the name Scottish Worsted and Woollens. The group bought a number of other Borders mills in the 1960s and early 1970s, including Thorburns, Wilson Glennie, George Roberts and William Brown.
March Street Mills became one of the first mills in Scotland to invest in Dornier rapier looms to replace its 140 dot cross looms, much improving the efficiency of the plant. Natural fibres other than wool were investigated – camel hair, vicuna and alpaca included. The Walkerburn dye house was also ahead of its time, leading the way in the introduction of the highly technical cone dyeing process.
An archive was created to house an historical record of all of the fabrics – held in pattern books, some of which date back to the early 1800s – made by the various companies included in the group.
Dawson International, by now the owner of Ballantyne Sportswear, bought the Scottish Worsted and Woollens group in 1981. At that time the business was enjoying a turnover of around £10 million and employed some 350 people in Peebles alone.
To distinguish the Ballantyne woven product from the sportswear line, the weaving business was renamed Robert Noble. The name is an amalgam of two respected businesses bought by Scottish Worsted and Woollens: George Roberts and George Scott Noble of Hawick. The Ballantyne family crest – featuring a griffin – lives on in the Robert Noble logo.
Robert Noble was sold to Moorhouse and Brook, owner of sister company Alex Begg.
Between 2001 and 2015 Robert Noble were part of Moorbrook Textiles sharing its March Street Mills premises with one of it’s sister companies, Replin Fabrics.
Robert Noble were purchased by Magee Weaving forming part of the Magee. 1866 group.
Robert Noble continues to be an innovator and upholder of all things related to good design and quality.
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He was subsequently accepted into the prestigious Harvard Combined Orthopaedic Surgery Residency Program, where he excelled and was appointed as Chief Resident at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He received extensive training in complex spinal surgery, scoliosis, as well as primary and metastatic spine tumors. Dr. Melikian completed his combined Orthopaedic and Neurosurgical Spine Surgery Fellowship at Emory University, widely regarded as one of the most prominent and respected spine surgery fellowships in the country. While at Emory, he had the privilege of training with leading experts on the full spectrum of spine surgery: from minimally-invasive procedures to complex, revision surgery.
Dr. Melikian has authored numerous presentations, posters and journal articles on spine surgery. He has been named as a Spine Surgeon Leader to Know by Becker’s Spine Review and has been featured in numerous publications including Orthopedics Today, Prevention Magazine, Santa Monica Mirror, WestSideToday.Com and NextAvenue.Org. His areas of interest include disk replacement surgery, minimally-invasive, microscopic decompression for cervical and lumbar stenosis, microdiscectomy for disk herniations, anterior cervical fusion, lateral-access and anterior surgery (XLIF and ALIF), spine trauma, and spinal tumors.
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Reach Forward
International Development Ideas
Spreading SODIS
Geothermal Power: An underrated alternative source of energy
For today’s post I am very excited to introduce my friend Peter Buchanan as my first guest writer for ReachFWD.
Peter is currently studying Petroleum Engineering at the University of Alberta and he hopes to study geothermal electricity at grad school. He was explaining the concept to me and it sounded so interesting that I asked him to write a brief explanation for my readers on ReachFWD.
When we think of alternative sources of energy, renewable resources that can reduce our dependency on fossil fuels to meet our energy needs, often the most vivid pictures that come to mind are wind and solar power. Evidently, this is because the sun and the wind are so ubiquitous in our daily lives. We can feel their energy so it is only natural to notice them. This is probably why geothermal power, another renewable source of energy has been largely overlooked until recently.
Geothermal power comes from energy generated by heat in the earth. The material that makes up our planet gets hotter and hotter as is gets closer and closer to the core of our planet. This energy can be seen on the surface in the form of hot springs, geysers and volcanoes. There is an essentially infinite amount of energy beneath our feet, waiting to be utilized.
(Diagram from www.geo-energy.org/basics.aspx)
Geothermal Energy is not new; the first Geothermal Power Station was build in 1911 in Larderello, Italy[1]. Since then, it has become a common source of energy in places like New Zealand, Iceland, The Phillipines and the Geysers in California. Typically it works like this: Two wells are drilled into a geothermal reservoir (rock hot enough to transfer sufficient energy to water). The geothermal reservoir may contain water or steam in network of pores and fractures that make up the rock or it might be dry. Hot water is extracted from the wells and its energy is used to drive a turbine which generates electrical power. The cooled water is then re-injected down the other well where it reheats and continues in the loop.
While there are various types of geothermal plants, the three most prominent types are: Flash steam, Dry steam and Binary Cycle.
Flash steam plants work when high pressure, high temperature water coming up the producer well are directed in to a large vessel. Because of the large pressure difference the water flashes into steam which is used to power the turbine.
Dry steam plants are used when the wells produce only steam. This can be the case in very high temperature reservoirs. The steam from the reservoir directly turns the turbine and is then condensed into water and re-injected into the ground.
Binary Cycle plants use a working fluid (commonly iso-pentane) with a lower boiling temperature than water to turn the turbine[2]. Hot water from the reservoir heats the fluid in a heat exchanger. The fluid then boils to turn the turbine, while the water is re-injected in a closed loop. Binary Cycle plants allow for lower temperature reservoirs to be used.
(Diagram from: http://www.nevadageothermal.com/s/HowGeoWorks.asp)
If geothermal power is so clean, efficient and abundant, why isn’t it being used for all of our electricity needs across the planet, you ask? Until recently, geothermal power was not viable from and economic or technological point of view in most areas of the world. In places like Iceland, New Zealand and the Philippines where hot reservoir rock can be found close to the surface it was used but in many areas of the world the resource would be too deep to drill for economically if even possible.
(Diagram from: http://www.cangea.ca/what-is-geothermal/)
Fortunately, with today’s advancements in technology such as binary cycle plants and enhanced geothermal systems (EGS; where rock is artificially fractures to allow for more permeability in the rocks and more flow/heat transfer) many new geothermal resources may be unlocked in the near future. Geothermal power is not likely to ever completely replace fossil fuels, however combined with other renewable sources of energy it has the potential to contribute to a much larger percentage of the world’s energy consumption.
Pros of Geothermal Power:
Clean and renewable with little or no emissions.
Reliable. It doesn’t depend on the weather to produce electricity, so it is always on.
Many of the engineering concepts are very similar to Oil & Gas, so we have a head start on the learning curve.
Can already compete economically in some regions and the list of regions is growing.
Cons of Geothermal Power:
Requires a large initial capital investment (like all power plants) which can take time to recover the costs.
Not economical in many regions.
Reservoirs can be depleted of heat locally, but will regenerate the heat over time.
Not enough awareness!
Larderello Worlds First Geothermal Power Station, Renewable Energy UK, http://www.reuk.co.uk/Larderello-Worlds-First-Geothermal-Power-Station.htm
How Geothermal Works, Nevada Geothermal Power, http://www.nevadageothermal.com/s/HowGeoWorks.asp
What is Geothermal, Canadian Geothermal Energy Association, http://www.cangea.ca/what-is-geothermal/
Basics, Geothermal Energy Association, http://www.geo-energy.org/basics.aspx
Tags: alternative energy, binary cycle, binary cycle plants, cangea.ca, dry steam, emissions, energy, flash steam, fossil fuels, geoenergy.org, geothermal, geothermal energy, geysers, global, green energy, hot springs, innovation, Italy, Larderello, nevada geothermal, no emissions, Peter Buchanan, renewable energy, solution, technological development, technology, volcano, volcanoes, water
Seawater rising? Or the riverbeds sinking!
Climate change has become a big issue in recent decades, and one of the major indicators that many people point to as a worrying potential problem is the rise in sea levels globally. There are island nations buying up land in foreign countries, people moving further inland, worse floods every year from tropical storms and hurricanes – yet perhaps an even more worrying problem is that the land itself is SINKING!
Scientists in the well-known and respected journal “Nature Geoscience” have recently published an article on the impact of human activities on the land drop towards sea level in many deltas worldwide. This closure towards the water, they claim, is far greater than the rise in sea level faced by the same inhabitants. Their abstract, below, will give a quick glimpse into the problem:
“Many of the world’s largest deltas are densely populated and heavily farmed. Yet many of their inhabitants are becoming increasingly vulnerable to flooding and conversions of their land to open ocean. The vulnerability is a result of sediment compaction from the removal of oil, gas and water from the delta’s underlying sediments, the trapping of sediment in reservoirs upstream and floodplain engineering in combination with rising global sea level. Here we present an assessment of 33 deltas chosen to represent the world’s deltas. We find that in the past decade, 85% of the deltas experienced severe flooding, resulting in the temporary submergence of 260,000 km2. We conservatively estimate that the delta surface area vulnerable to flooding could increase by 50% under the current projected values for sea-level rise in the twenty-first century. This figure could increase if the capture of sediment upstream persists and continues to prevent the growth and buffering of the deltas.”
Taken from: http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/ngeo629.html
Chao Phraya River Basin
Chao Phraya, (see image above) the river which flows through Bangkok is one of the worst affected – parts of the delta have sunk 15cm (six inches)! Compare this to the global rate of sea level rise due to climate change at only 1.8-3.0mm per year – nearly a tenfold difference!
Scientists estimate that the area of land vulnerable to flooding will increase by about 50% in the next 40 years due to a combination of climate change causing sea levels to rise and land sinking due to human causes.
“This study shows there are a host of human-induced factors that already cause deltas to sink much more rapidly than could be explained by sea level alone.” Journal Geoscience Article
The researchers report that the flow of sediment down to the Chao Phraya delta has been almost entirely blocked, due to irrigation, damming the river, and directing the main flow through just a few channels. In rivers with no dams or man-made controls, the sediment would pass down the river and add to the height of the land, a process known as aggradation. (see image below) Now, the sediment can’t reach many delta areas. The further extraction of water and gas for irrigation, drinking, and industry further compacts the land.
As reported in the BBC yesterday, “Rivers affected include the Colorado, Nile, Pearl, Rhone and Yangtze. Of the 33 major deltas studied, 24 were found to be sinking. About half a billion people live in these regions…”
THE HIGH-RISK LIST
Deltas with “virtually no aggradation (supply of sediment) and/or very high accelerated compaction”
Chao Phraya, Thailand
Colorado, Mexico
Krishna, India
Nile, Egypt
Pearl, China
Po, Italy
Rhone, France
Sao Francisco, Brazil
Tone, Japan
Yangtze, China
Yellow, China
As the ground falls and sea level rises, people become more vulnerable to inundation during storms.
“Every year, about 10 million people are being affected by storm surges,” said Irina Overeem, another of the study team from the University of Colorado.
So should we be worrying about the inevitable rise in sea levels? Or more focused on the major impacts we are still having on these sinking river deltas, which around the world are home to almost half a billion human beings?
– Sarah Topps
Tags: Africa, aggradation, agriculture, Asia, Bangkok, BBC, Chao Phraya, China, climate change, Colorado River, damming, dams, delta, development, Egypt, France, global, india, international development, Italy, Krishna River, land aggradation, land rights, land sink, land use, large rivers, Mexico, Nature Geoscience, Nile, Oceania, Pearl River, Po, poor, Rhone, rising sea, rising sea levels, river basins, river deltas, riverbeds, scientific journal, sea levels, sediment, sinking, sinking river deltas, Thailand, the Nile, water, World
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Raunchy fetish stories
Paul Thomas Anderson and Jonny Greenwood on Junun and Radiohead Movie | IndieWire
Paul thomas vivid interview. Navigation menu
Who am I to argue? Is there a competition in you to care about such things? Is it the same film you would make today? Do you rewatch it? Everything really seems to fit together about it — the performances, the music, the landscape and the story, all the strands within the larger film, especially the theme of father and son — all work in unison.
Keep reading. Next autumn will see the publication of the final part of the quartet, Brazilian Psychowhich will top and tail the series, bringing the story up to today. My interest is gone. Until Gonzo arrived…………. Paul thomas vivid interview, November 11, Interview: Crikey. A sense of acceptance of a corrupt system that impacts on the lives of the citizens but not on that sense of joyfulness, so we accept this and we are going to behave happy. We should put him forward for Dos Equis spokesman! It was never somebody just walking right past.
Paul thomas vivid interview. Your Shopping Cart
Fine interview indeed. You have no interest in rehearsing? You create a discussion. I liked the idea of producing something complete. These people are more businesslike, but they want business like a bunch of whores. But I saw a shift in the economy over three Paul thomas vivid interview four years that was so dramatic. Internet Movie Database. I always wanted quartet. Since then, the two collaborators have been artistically joined at the hip, with Greenwood scoring both The Master and Inherent Vice and Anderson directing Junjuna documentary following his friend to a recording session Homo gang bang India. Part 2 is better than Part 1.
With Phantom Thread , Anderson paints an illuminating portrait of an artist in this case, renowned dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock, played by Daniel Day-Lewis on a creative journey, and the women who keep his world running.
David Ehrlich.
In all, it was a decent package of extras but the only one worth much replay value to me would be the BTS feature since it was made solely for the DVD release.
Philip Charles Toubus , better known as Paul Thomas born April 17, [4] , is an American pornographic film actor and director.
Oct 30, Uncategorized 0 comments. I went back to the first book in the series, Paradise Cityand then onto Playboythe third novel in a quartet, which was published this September. This quartet will stays with you. Playboy is even sharper than the first two books. Next autumn will see the publication of the final part of the quartet, Brazilian Psychowhich will top and tail the series, bringing the story up to today. His first British-set crime novel, Bentwill be coming out in spring The Mario Leme quartet is distinguished by their gritty realism and fast-paced, stylish noir.
The exclusive institution catered for the children of the richest citizens, some of the most important people in the country, including the grandchildren of notorious ex-mayor and former Paul thomas vivid interview candidate Paulo Maluf.
Thomas was in charge of the sixth form curriculum and university applications. The school existed in its own little bubble in an exclusive part of the city, but not content with that, Thomas immersed himself in the local culture. Paulistanos are different. While in Brazil, Thomas began writing an English novel, now shelved.
On returning to the UK, he realised a lot of what he had absorbed on Brazil would make great reading. Thomas is a history graduate, he completed a PhD at Royal Holloway, where he now teaches creative writing. I pulled it back, had a re-think; I realised the voice that I found most compelling was Leme [a cop], I enjoyed exploring the city from that perspective. I went away and wrote what became Paradise City.
There was no plan to write a crime novel, it evolved. That informs Brazilian Psychothat crime is the starting point. As a teenager I was a decent writer, academically, I always enjoyed that, it was something I thought about. I started doing that in my early twenties, the usual thing, writing dreadful novels, never completed. Why did I keep doing it? The best example I can give is my brother ran marathons, on the days he trained he felt better, if I spend time writing I feel better, better about my life generally.
So I kept doing it. The desire to shape a narrative and interrogate Ac vacuum diagram for ford escort slowly drifted in.
Thomas has just finished a fellowship at Royal Holloway, but teaching will remain a big part of his future. How does teaching complement his writing? I like the discipline it creates, having two roles in your life. Teaching creative writing has Woman who want to be spanked very interesting.
You are always looking to improve the experience for the reader and International riding helmet manufacturer informs it, thinking about technique, about genre. I use Pornstar charlie laine crime excerpts in teaching but not much.
In discussions with MA students you start thinking about how you might do it differently yourself, you always do learn something. The opening scene was set on a Sunday in the book for good reasons but actually occurred on a Friday. I deliberately moved it but worried over it and one of the students just said: why not add a note about some names, dates and characters are fictitiousthat solves the problem.
How did those impressions translate into the books? One of the interesting things was working out how you can create a place that is familiar to the characters but yet mysterious and new to the reader.
But in Paradise City how do I make Paul thomas vivid interview Brazilian, someone from Sao Paulo, a Paulistano, look at the world in a certain way to make the reader feel that they are looking at something new?
The impression was of vastness and concrete and cars, lots of cars. From the airport to the centre of the city you get a taxi, you sit on the motorway for quite some time. Then you see the failures of infrastructure, more than in London, although we have them here too, you can watch things not working. A kaleidoscopic experience. Paul thomas vivid interview was able to explore and investigate on my own terms. After a period I was unhappy, not with the place, but I spent a lot of my time on the weekends playing tennis in the condominium, fun but I lost some of the joy of the place.
I missed London. That said, the Brazilians are hugely impulsive. They imposed a zero tolerance policy, now it sounds like no big deal but it did change things. If you were caught under the limit you were fined, over the limit you went to jail. So things changed and thankfully that meant a lot fewer deaths, it did stop some of the spontaneity, though for a good reason of course. The character of the city on the weekends changed, for the better clearly, but the bewildering mess and noise left a little bit, or maybe I just got used to it.
Several of the classics, Tim Maia, for example. I was excited by their music before I understood the lyrics and then I picked up the language pretty quickly and a whole new level opened up. The economic heart might be the right phrase. The sheer amount of money and big business is extraordinary. Paulistanos say that Cariocas are on the beach and lazy. These go back and forth. The people I was spending time with, teachers, my group of friends, tended to be in the arts. But I saw a shift in the economy over three to four years that was so dramatic.
The idea that the people in control, the government, could allow these changes was frightening and unsettling. How do the politics play into the novels? There was a long period of dictatorship before democracy, and boom and bust. With hindsight, you could argue that these three books prefigure the last ten months to a year in the sense that they are illustrating an erosion of faith in the political systems.
A sense of acceptance of a corrupt system that impacts on the lives of the citizens but not on that sense of joyfulness, so we accept this and we are going to behave happy.
That is something that changed over the last few years before I left. Playboy has got a lot of, and Gringa introduced, the protests [that came out of the growing disquiet]. That came to a head inbut to my mind the protest and the activism kicked in around Then partly because of the big scandals that came out, monthly kickbacks, the payments that feature in Paradise City and the Lava Jato in Playboy [operation Car Wash uncovered massive fraudulent Katherine mcphees underwear and money laundering], the extent of the Star vagina flash became better known.
In terms of the ten years I was there, it felt like there was an acceptance of a way of dealing with bureaucracy and the political situation that changed. Towards the end of my time there and the period in the books, people were taking steps to uncover the extent of the corruption. The march Thomas refers Paul thomas vivid interview at the beginning of Playboy is an odd dichotomy not experienced elsewhere.
I mention the march being serious but also Dating advice powered by single. The Brazilian influence was living there and the music more so than the writing. They became friends of mine, both are more literary writers both translated into English. Paulo has a political side, looking at social injustice, Daniel the political is part of the landscape of the personal transformations of the characters.
There was an influence of those writers in looking at the impact of living in Brazil and how they felt about that in their fiction. What was the vision behind the idea of the quartet? Did it have something to do with what Thomas wanted to say about Brazil? And it struck me that reading four books set in a specific period or place is really satisfying, purely that. I did a critical part of my PhD on PeaceI liked the idea that you had a defined canvass to explore a time and a place and characters within that, and the readers know you are going to finish.
I liked the idea of producing something complete. Thomas covers the land issues, the corruption, the finance boom and bust, and the socio-political situation of When I got to the end of Playboythe second and third books were written before the first one was published, there was some time before the publisher agreed to the last book. Playboy made up a trilogy, but I wanted the fourth book to unify the piece.
Structures and procedures of administration I picked up there. All the stuff in the books is based on something, I gathered all this research as experience. The fourth book will cover the period I was there [it will go back to before the three books that have already been published and then come forward to the present day]. The books are contained in the period covered. Specifically, with Playboy I wanted to set it in the period just before the beginning of the Dilma crisis, [Rousseff, the left-wing president, was heavily embroiled in corruption scandals].
The building crisis of corruption was happening during the first two books but when I was writing Playboy I was seeing the consequences playing out. I decided it was important not to get ahead of myself in the books, not to be didactic. I worry about the presumption, not cultural appropriation, I thought about that and studied it, but it has to have a rigour of thought, a responsibility. Across all three books so far there are incidents based on real events. The books have become more rooted in the figures in the background.
In Paradise City the corruption scandal is real but the bad senator is a fictional creation. The position he holds is real, the company he was in charge of could be one of a number to real firms. An accuracy of atmosphere and feeling you could pick out. Playboy a fictionalised version of real events. Ellroy once wrote that he was interested in American Tabloid in using the Kennedys and My mistresses eyes are nothing like their private lives, I liked that idea, maybe that will feature more in Brazilian Psycho.
With Dilma as a constant, the other politicians are fictional, but the framework is real. The novels have a young English reporter in them, Ellie. She is both a direct character and a chronicler of events.
Toubus started directing porn films in , and has directed for Vivid Entertainment since As of Toubus—as Paul Thomas—has acted in over films and directed nearly films, winning seven Adult Video News Awards and two X-Rated Critics Organization Awards for best scapezine.com: Philip Charles Toubus, April 17, (age . Oct 21, · Interview by Corva Siouan. Throughout a porn career that has lasted over 35 years, Paul Thomas has racked up more than titles as a performer and over as a scapezine.com word “legend” is used often when describing him and rightly so. Mar 06, · Vivid boss Paul Thomas tries to put the moves on his "niece" in this clip from the early 80's. This has been cut to remove all adult clips leaving the incredibly clunky acting intact.
Paul thomas vivid interview. MOST POPULAR RECENT UPDATES
See our privacy policy. Or an account of how truly insane we all once were. Genre Music. For his part, Anderson loves the film. Retrieved October 24, It would be nice to see it as science fiction one day. Order by newest oldest recommendations. Anything, Daniel?!? He was also born into the Sara Lee baking family as Philip Toubus and, in , would serve a year in prison for cocaine smuggling. Photo by Kevin Scanlon Thomas, a fit and commanding-looking man of 57, came to the trade in ways both traditional and novel. Connected bits of the film to the movement of Scientology. Some — like me — love it, while others call it overindulgent — or worse. Toubus performed mostly using the stage name "Paul Thomas", but he has also appeared under several other names. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. We should put him forward for Dos Equis spokesman!
The son of an upper-middle-class couple from tiny Winnetka, Illinois, Paul Thomas studied political science at the University of Wisconsin Madison and starred on Broadway in Hair and Jesus Christ Super Star , and in the Norman Jewison movie version, all before age But he quickly tired of the Hollywood rat race. It would turn out to be a meeting that changed his life. As an actor in sex films, Thomas' perception of the adult industry was that of an extension of the hippie lifestyle he had come to embrace in San Francisco. In , at the age of 35, Thomas switched from acting to directing. Since , Thomas has been the "auteur in residence" at Vivid Video. He shoots 20 projects a year, including eight films.
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SCEGGS DARLINGHURST
About SCEGGS
A Snapshot of SCEGGS
SCEGGS School Governance
SCEGGS Darlinghurst Ltd
Role of the Board
Jenny Allum
Diana Bowman
Barbara Chisholm
Dorothy Wilkinson
Edith Badham
History of SCEGGS Darlinghurst
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SCEGGS Opens New Branches
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Head of School Achievements
Home About Heads of School Jenny Allum
Ms Jenny Allum B.Sc. M.A. D.Litt. Dip. Ed. F.A.C.E.
In her twenty-fourth year at SCEGGS Ms Allum is well known as a leading educator of young women.
Respected for her insightful understanding of educational issues, pastoral care and the development of the individual she regularly contributes to educational debate within professional circles and the wider media exploring issues regarding policy, the national curriculum, testing and the need to develop resilience in young people.
Whilst at SCEGGS she has developed and strengthened the curriculum, widened the opportunities for co-curricular involvement and worked to provide a teaching and learning environment which is dynamic and invigorating for both students and staff. She has also overseen the implementation of the school's strategic plan 2020 Vision which has dramatically transformed the physical fabric of the school over the last 15 years.
Her leadership is marked by a commitment to accountability, transparency and good communication with staff, parents and the wider SCEGGS community.
"I want our girls to be strong, independent, resilient young women. It is important that they know themselves; that they know how to celebrate their strengths and successes, that they have the determination to work to improve themselves, and live life with joy, optimism, strength and commitment."
In 2010 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of NSW for her "eminent service to the community" through her extensive work in, and passionate commitment to, education.
Past and Present Heads of School
Jenny Allum, 1996 - present
Diana Bowman, 1978-1995
Barbara Chisholm, 1947-1977
Dorothy Wilkinson, 1921-1947
Edith Badham, 1895-1920
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Growth Performance, Carcass Characteristics and Fatty Acids Profile of Broilers Supplemented with Lauric Acid and Natural Antioxidant from Areca vestiaria Giseke
Jola J.M.R. Londok, Wasmen Manalu, Komang G. Wiryawan and Sumiati
Background: Besides as an energy source, coconut oil with its lauric acid content can improve the growth performance, carcass characteristics and fatty acids profile of broiler chickens. Conventional processing of coconut oil is susceptible to hydrolytic oxidation that reduces its antioxidant content. Areca vestiaria Giseke (AV) with its phenol content acts as a natural antioxidant in the diet. Materials and Methods: Two hundred and forty day-old unsexed Lohmann broiler chicks (MB-202 P) were divided into 24 experimental units (ten chicks/unit) and arranged in a completely randomized design with a 2×4 factorial arrangement. Each experimental unit was repeated 3 times each with ten chicks. The first factor was the source of lauric acid in the ration consisted of 2 levels i.e., coconut oil and pure lauric acid. The second factor was dose of antioxidant consisted of 4 levels i.e., 0 [without antioxidant (AV and lauric acid) supplementation], AV at a dose of 625 mg kg–1 ration, AV at a dose of 1250 mg kg–1 ration and tocopherol at a dose of 200 ppm). Parameters measured were growth performance, carcass characteristics and fatty acid profiles of broiler breast meat. Results: On the first stage trial, AV can be used as a source of natural antioxidant in the diet of broiler. The feeding trial showed that the treatments highly significantly affected (p<0.01) weight gain, feed consumption, feed conversion ratio, breast weight/eviscerated weight percentage, abdominal fat weight/eviscerated weight percentage and significantly affected (p<0.05) dressing percentage. Low growth performance and carcass characteristics in broiler chickens supplemented with vitamin E were assumed to be caused by the inhibition of absorption. Fatty acids in feed after consumption will be relatively unchanged in body tissue. Lauric acid can be deposited in breast meat. Conclusion: AV as a source of natural antioxidant can be used as a supplement in broiler ration containing coconut oil as a source of lauric acid.
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Jola J.M.R. Londok, Wasmen Manalu, Komang G. Wiryawan and Sumiati , 2017. Growth Performance, Carcass Characteristics and Fatty Acids Profile of Broilers Supplemented with Lauric Acid and Natural Antioxidant from Areca vestiaria Giseke. Pakistan Journal of Nutrition, 16: 719-730.
DOI: 10.3923/pjn.2017.719.730
URL: https://scialert.net/abstract/?doi=pjn.2017.719.730
Received: June 26, 2017; Accepted: August 02, 2017; Published: August 15, 2017
Copyright: © 2017. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Coconut oil is used in broiler rations as a source of energy that can play a unique role as an important functional component in the feed. This functional component is found as a part of lipids. Lauric acid as a major part of coconut oil is well known for its antiviral, antibacterial and antiprotozoal activities1. Coconut oil contains 92% saturated fatty acid (triglyceride form), 70% as a medium chain fatty acids (MCFA) and 45-65% as a lauric acid2. In the body, lauric acid is converted into monolaurin, dilaurin and trilaurin. The antivirus, antibacterial and antiprotozoal activities are shown by monolaurin. Monolaurin from lauric acid gives more potential than that from caprilic acid and myristic acid. Dilaurin and trilaurin have not shown that activity3,4.
Fats and oils as feed are significantly affected by the oxidative rancidity that occurs during or after feed preparation. Rancidity can affect the organoleptic qualities of fat including color and texture that can cause damage to fat-soluble nutrients such as vitamins in both feed and fat reserves in the bird’s body5. Conventional processed coconut oils generally have low quality because of their high water contents and hydrolytic rancidity. One way that can be done to maintain the quality of fat, both in the diet and in the body of broiler, is by providing antioxidants. Synthetic antioxidants (tetrabutylhydroxyquinone, TBHQ; butylated hydroxytoluen, BHT; and butylated hydroxyanisole, BHA) are prohibited for use because of their carcinogenic effects. Therefore authors are searching for natural ingredients as sources of antioxidant. Based on several studies that have been developed, the compounds that have potential as antioxidant are generally phenols substances such as flavonoids. Phenolic compounds are a group of aromatic secondary plant metabolites widely spread throughout the plant kingdom and they have been reported to possess multiple biological effects such as antioxidant capacity and antimicrobial activity6. Areca vestiaria Giseke contains flavonoids. According to phytochemical tests, Areca vestiaria seeds contain tannins, triterpenoids, flavonoids and saponins as potential bioactive compounds. Tannins and flavonoids compounds have antitumor, antiallergic, antihepatotoxic, cardiovascular and antioxidant activities. The triterpenoid group can be used as an antibacterial, anticancer and for wound care and antiinflammation7.
Areca vestiaria Giseke with secondary metabolite compounds is potential to be used in phytopharmacology and as a source of antioxidant. However, until now there is no information about its use as a source of natural antioxidants in broiler rations. This study was conducted to determine the effect of coconut oil on rations as a source of lauric acid and supplementation of Areca vestiaria Giseke as a source of natural antioxidant on the growth performance, carcass characteristics and fatty acids profile of broiler chickens.
Bird management: This study was conducted by using 240 Lohmann broiler chickens MB-202 P, which were obtained from broiler breeding company, PT Japfa Comfeed Indonesia Tbk. Poultry Breeding Division Unit 13 Kauditan, Jl. Raya Manado Bitung, Tumaluntung Village, North Minahasa District. Each bird was marked and the experimental birds were placed in 24 units of 100×100 and 60 cm high experimental pens equipped with a place to eat and drink. Each experimental unit housed 10 birds so that each treatment was repeated with 30 chickens. Rations and drinking water were provided ad libitum. The experimental broiler chickens were free from pullorum. Vaccination programs including for Newcastle Disease were given on day-old chickens.
Experimental diets: AV fruit was obtained from Tomohon area, North Sulawesi. Preparation of AV flour was begun by separating the flesh from the fruit in a fresh state, the seed part was dried and after drying the seed was separated from the skin of the seeds. The seeds were then dried again using a 40°C oven, resulting in a water content of less than 10%. The dried seed sample was milled with a JZ7114 1400 rpm type milling machine to obtain a size of 65 meshes8. Proximate analysis of yaki betel nut flour was conducted by following AOAC method9. The vitamin E used was d-α-tocopherol (caprimun-E). The composition of rations and the content of feed substances are presented in Table 1. Coconut oil (CO) as a source of medium chain fatty acid (MCFA) especially lauric acid was used in ration formula as much as 1.5% at starter period (0-21 days) and 3% at grower period (22-35 days) (Table 1).
Experimental design: The experiment was conducted in a completely randomized design with a 2×4 factorial arrangement with 3 replications. Each replication consisted of 10 experimental chickens. The first factor was sources of lauric acid in the basal diet consisted of 2 levels i.e., coconut oil (CO) and pure lauric acid (LA). The second factor was dose of AV and vitamin E supplementation as sources of antioxidants consisted of 4 levels i.e., 0 AV, AV at a dose of 625 mg kg–1 ration, AV at a dose of 1250 mg kg–1 ration and vitamin E or tocopherol (TF) at a dose of 200 ppm.
Table 1: Ingredient composition and nutrient content of diets as fed basis
ME: Metabolizable energy, MCFA: Medium chain fatty acid, LCFA: Long chain fatty acid, SFA: Saturated fatty acid, UFA: Unsaturated fatty acid, MUFA: Mono unsaturated fatty acid, PUFA: Poly unsaturated fatty acid, 1Mixtrouwvit mineral and vitamin supplied the following/t of diet: Iron 40 mg, Copper 26.16 mg, Zinc 40 mg, Manganese 44 mg, Selenium 0.08 mg, Cobalt 0.08 mg, Iodine 0.52 mg, Vitamin A 12500 IU, Vitamin D3 35000 IU, Vitamin E 25 IU, Vitamin K3 4 mg, Vitamin B1 4 mg, Vitamin B2 8 mg, Vitamin B6 20 mg, Vitamin B12 50 mcg, Pantothenic acid 15 mg, Niacin 50 mg, Biotin 125 mcg, Calcium D-pantothenate 16.30 mg, Folic acid 1 mg, 2All values are means as weight percentages of total fatty acid
Therefore, the experiment consisted of 8 experimental units:
• Experimental chickens fed with standard corn-soy based ration supplemented with 3% CO without antioxidant (AV or TF) supplementation
• Experimental chickens fed with standard corn-soy based ration supplemented with 3% CO and AV at a dose of 625 mg kg–1
• Experimental chickens fed with standard corn-soy based ration supplemented with 3% CO and AV at a dose of 1250 mg kg–1
• Experimental chickens fed with standard corn-soy based ration supplemented with 3% CO and TF at a dose of 200 ppm
• Experimental chickens fed with standard corn-soy based ration supplemented with 13 mg LA without antioxidant (AV or tocopherol) supplementation
• Experimental chickens fed with standard corn-soy based ration supplemented with 13 mg LA and AV at a dose of 625 mg kg–1
• Experimental chickens fed with standard corn-soy based ration supplemented with 13 mg LA and AV at a dose of 1250 mg kg–1
• Experimental chickens fed with standard corn-soy based ration supplemented with 13 mg LA and TF at a dose of 200 ppm
Coconut oil (CO) was supplemented in the diet as a source of lauric acid. As a comparison, pure lauric acid (LA) was used to replace coconut oil. Areca vestiaria Giseke (AV) as a source of natural antioxidant was used in the form of seed powder at doses of 0, 625 and 1250 mg kg–1. The dose of AV (625 mg kg–1) used was equivalent to the dose of vitamin E (TF) which is calculated based on its antioxidant activity. Two hundred part/million of vitamin E as a synthetic antioxidant was used to compare the effect of AV as an antioxidant. The experimental rations were analyzed for crude protein, fat, crude fiber, Ca and P contents9. Lysine and methionine were calculated by using Leeson and Summers Table 5. Fatty acid profiles were determined by gas chromatography10. The treatments were conducted for 35 days.
Parameters measured: Mortality rate of the experimental chickens during the study was less than 1%. Growth performance (feed intake, weight gain and feed conversion) were the major responses criteria. The weights of feed offered and unconsumed ration were recorded to determine the feed intake (FI). Initial live body weights (BW) of the experimental chickens were recorded and the body weights were then measured weekly. Weight gain (WG) was calculated by difference between two consecutive weighing. Before weighing, the experimental chickens were fasted first for 8 h. Feed conversion ratio (FCR) was calculated as the ratio of FI to WG. Data of growth performances were determined for starter phase (1-21 days), grower phase (22-35 days) and during the experiment.
At the end of experiment (35 days of age), two male broilers/treatment were randomly selected from each pen for carcass measurement. The birds were fasted about 8 h (overnight) and weighed early in the morning (6.00 am), then slaughtered by exsanguination and bled horizontally by decapitation using a sharp knife. Slaughtered birds were scalded in hot water (60-65°C) in a bath for 3 min, hanged and eviscerated manually.
The carcass, after evisceration, was weighed and expressed as a percentage of the live BW after fasting as a dressing percentage. The breast and leg (including thighs and drumsticks) were then cut with bone and skin using a scalpel blade and abdominal fats (fat around gizzard, vent and hearth) were weighed and expressed as percentages of the eviscerated weight. Samples of muscle were then rapidly excised and stored at -20 until further analysis. The right breast meat was used to determine the fatty acids profile.
Statistical analysis: Completely randomized design (CRD) with a 2×4 factorial arrangement was used to study the effects of sources of lauric acid (coconut oil and pure lauric acid) and doses of antioxidants (AV at doses of 0, 625 and 1250 mg kg–1 and 200 ppm TF) and their interactions on the growth performances, productions and carcass qualities of broiler chickens. The whole data analysis was done by general linear model on MINITAB (version 16). Differences between treatments means were tested by Tukey simultaneous test (HSD). Significance was evaluated at the level of p<0.01 and p< 0.05. Data of fatty acids profile were analyzed descriptively.
Growth performance: The growth performances of experimental broiler chickens during starter phase, grower phase and during the starter to grower phase are presented in Table 2. During starter phase, the source of lauric acid affected the growth rate and feed intake of experimental chickens (p<0.01) without affecting feed conversion ratio (p>0.05). At this starter phase, concentration of antioxidant significantly affected growth rate, feed intake and feed conversion ratio. However, in this starter phase, there was no interaction effect between the source of lauric acid and concentration of antioxidant on weight gain, feed intake and feed conversion ratio of the experimental chickens.
During starter phase, the source of lauric acid and concentration of antioxidant affected the growth rate of experimental chickens (p<0.01). However, in this starter phase, there was no interaction effect between the source of lauric acid and concentration of antioxidant on weight gain. During starter period, experimental chickens supplemented with pure lauric acid had higher body weight gains (4.84% or 32.99 g/day) compared to those supplemented with coconut oil as a source of lauric acid (p<0.01). Supplementation of AV at doses of 625 and 1250 mg kg–1 did not affect body weight gain of the experimental chickens compared to control without AV supplementation (p>0.05). Increased dose of AV supplementation from 625-1250 mg kg–1 did not affect body weight gains of the experimental chickens (p>0.05). However, the use of tocopherol at a dose of 200 ppm as a source of antioxidant significantly decreased body weight gain by 22.94, 25.03 and 23.56% (p<0.01) compared to experimental chickens without AV supplementation, supplemented with 625 and 1250 mg kg–1, respectively.
During starter phase, the source of lauric acid affected the feed intake of experimental chickens (p<0.01). At this starter phase, concentration of antioxidant significantly affected feed intake. However, in this starter phase, there was no interaction effect between the source of lauric acid and concentration of antioxidant on feed intake of the experimental chickens.
Table 2: Effect of dietary lauric acid and natural antioxidant from Areca vestiaria Giseke on performance of broiler1
1Values are the means of 3 replications of 10 birds, values are expressed as Mean±SEM, A-BDifferent superscripts within row shows highly significantly different (p<0.01), A-BDifferent superscripts within column shows highly significantly different (p<0.01), a-bDifferent superscripts within column shows significantly different (p<0.05), A-BDifferent superscripts within row and column shows highly significantly different (p<0.01), CO: Coconut oil, LA: Lauric acid, TF: Tocopherol
During starter period, experimental chickens supplemented with pure lauric acid had higher feed intake (28.54% or 31.29 g/day) compared to those supplemented with coconut oil as a source of lauric acid (p<0.01). Supplementation of AV at doses of 625 and 1250 mg kg–1 did not affect feed intake of the experimental chickens compared to control without AV supplementation (p>0.05). Increased dose of AV supplementation from 625-1250 mg kg–1 did not affect feed intake of the experimental chickens (p>0.05). However, the use of tocopherol at a dose of 200 ppm as a source of antioxidant significantly decreased feed intake by 15.50, 15.02 and 13.86% (p<0.01) compared to experimental chickens without AV supplementation, those supplemented with 625 and 1250 mg kg–1, respectively.
During starter phase, the source of lauric acid did not affect feed conversion ratio (p>0.05). At this starter phase, concentration of antioxidant significantly affected feed conversion ratio. However, in this starter phase, there was no interaction effect between the source of lauric acid and concentration of antioxidant on feed conversion ratio of the experimental chickens. Supplementation of AV at doses of 625 and 1250 mg kg–1 did not affect feed conversion ratio of the experimental chickens compared to control without AV supplementation (p>0.05). Increased dose of AV supplementation from 625-1250 mg kg–1 did not affect feed conversion ratio of the experimental chickens (p>0.05). However, the use of tocopherol at a dose of 200 ppm as a source of antioxidant significantly increased feed conversion ratio by 9.43, 12.99 and 12.26% (p<0.01) compared to experimental chickens without AV supplementation, those supplemented with AV at doses of 625 and 1250 mg kg–1, respectively.
During starter phase, the source of lauric acid affected the growth rate and feed intake of experimental chickens (p<0.01) without affecting feed conversion ratio (p>0.05). At this starter phase, concentration of antioxidant significantly affected growth rate, feed intake and feed conversion ratio. However, in this starter phase, there was no interaction effect between the source of lauric acid and concentration of antioxidant on weight gain, feed intake and feed conversion ratio of the experimental chickens.
During grower phase, the source of lauric acid did not affect (p>0.05) the weight gain, feed intake and feed conversion ratio of experimental chickens. However, in this grower phase, the concentration of antioxidant significantly affected weight gain, feed intake and feed conversion ratio (p<0.01). In this grower phase, there was no interaction effect between the source of lauric acid and concentration of antioxidant on weight gain (p>0.05).
During the grower phase, supplementation of AV at doses of 625 and 1250 mg kg–1 did not affect body weight gain of the experimental chickens compared to control without AV supplementation (p>0.05). Increased dose of AV supplementation from 625 to 1250 mg kg–1 did not affect body weight gains of the experimental chickens (p>0.05). However, the use of tocopherol at a dose of 200 ppm as a source of antioxidant significantly decreased body weight gain by 49.99, 49.43 and 47.82% (p<0.01) compared to experimental chickens without AV supplementation, those supplemented with 625 and 1250 mg kg–1, respectively.
During grower period, supplementation of AV at doses of 625 and 1250 mg kg–1 did not affect feed intake of the experimental chickens compared to control without AV supplementation (p>0.05). Increased dose of AV supplementation from 625-1250 mg kg–1 did not affect feed intake of the experimental chickens (p>0.05). However, the use of tocopherol at a dose of 200 ppm as a source of antioxidant significantly decreased feed intake by 31.79, 31.01 and 30.54% (p<0.01) compared to experimental chickens without AV supplementation, those supplemented with 625 and 1250 mg kg–1, respectively.
During grower phase, supplementation of AV at doses of 625 and 1250 mg kg–1 did not affect feed conversion ratio of the experimental chickens compared to control without AV supplementation (p>0.05). Increased dose of AV supplementation from 625-1250 mg kg–1 did not affect feed conversion ratio of the experimental chickens (p>0.05). However, the use of tocopherol at a dose of 200 ppm as a source of antioxidant significantly increased feed conversion ratio by 35.98, 36.70 and 33.16% (p<0.01) compared to experimental chickens without AV supplementation, those supplemented with AV at doses of 625 and 1250 mg kg–1, respectively.
During starter to grower phase, the source of lauric acid significantly affected (p<0.05) the weight gain of experimental chickens. However, during starter to grower phase, the source of lauric acid did not significantly affect (p>0.05) the feed intake and feed conversion ratio of experimental chickens. During this starter to grower phase, the concentration of antioxidant significantly affected weight gain, feed intake and feed conversion ratio (p<0.01). In this starter to grower phase, there was no interaction effect between the source of lauric acid and concentration of antioxidant on weight gain (p>0.05).
During starter to grower phase, experimental chickens supplemented with pure lauric acid had higher body weight gain (4.27% or 67.84 g) (p<0.05) compared to those supplemented with coconut oils a source of lauric acid. During starter to grower phase, supplementation of AV at doses of 625 and 1250 mg kg–1 did not affect body weight gain of the experimental chickens compared to control without AV supplementation (p>0.05). Increased dose of AV supplementation from 625-1250 mg kg–1 did not affect body weight gains of the experimental chickens (p>0.05). However, the use of tocopherol at a dose of 200 ppm as a source of antioxidant significantly decreased body weight gain by 38.99, 39.28 and 37.66% (p<0.01) compared to experimental chickens without AV supplementation, those supplemented with AV at 625 and 1250 mg kg–1, respectively.
During starter to grower period, supplementation of AV at doses of 625 and 1250 mg kg–1 did not affect feed intake of the experimental chickens compared to control without AV supplementation (p>0.05). Increased dose of AV supplementation from 625-1250 mg kg–1 did not affect feed intake of the experimental chickens (p>0.05). However, the use of tocopherol at a dose of 200 ppm as a source of antioxidant significantly decreased feed intake by 25.82, 25.13 and 24.43% (p<0.01) compared to experimental chickens without AV supplementation, those supplemented with 625 and 1250 mg kg–1, respectively.
At the starter to grower phase, supplementation of AV at doses of 625 and 1250 mg kg–1 did not affect feed conversion ratio of the experimental chickens compared to control without AV supplementation (p>0.05). Increased dose of AV supplementation from 625-1250 mg kg–1 did not affect feed conversion ratio of the experimental chickens (p>0.05). However, the use of tocopherol at a dose of 200 ppm as a source of antioxidant significantly increased feed conversion ratio by 21.47, 23.56 and 21.47% (p<0.01) compared to experimental chickens without AV supplementation, those supplemented with AV at doses of 625 and 1250 mg kg–1, respectively.
Carcass characteristics: The carcass characteristics of experimental broiler chickens supplemented with different sources of lauric acid and different doses of antioxidant are presented in Table 3.
Dressing percentages [the percentage of carcass weight (defeathered and eviscerated) to body weight] of the experimental chickens were not affected by the source of lauric acid (p>0.05). Concentrations of AV and vitamin E as an antioxidant in the diet significantly affected the dressing percentages of the experimental chickens (p<0.01).
Table 3: Effect of dietary lauric acid and natural antioxidant from Areca vestiaria Giseke on carcass characteristics of broiler1
1Values are the means of 3 birds/experimental units, values are expressed as Mean±SEM, 2Dressing percentage is carcass weight (defeathered and eviscerated) as a percentage of body weight, A-CDifferent superscripts within row shows highly significantly different (p<0.01), A-BDifferent superscripts within column shows highly significantly different (p<0.01), a-bDifferent superscripts within column shows significantly different (p<0.05), A-DDifferent superscripts within row and column shows highly significantly different (p<0.01), CO: Coconut oil, LA: Lauric acid, TF: Tocopherol
There was no significant interaction effects of source of lauric acid and concentration of antioxidant in the diet on the dressing percentages of the experimental chickens (p>0.05).
Supplementation of AV at doses of 625 and 1250 mg kg–1 did not affect the dressing percentages of the experimental chickens compared to control without AV supplementation (p>0.05). Increased dose of AV supplementation from 625-1250 mg kg–1 did not affect the dressing percentages of the experimental chickens (p>0.05). The use of tocopherol at a dose of 200 ppm as a source of antioxidant did not affect the dressing percentages of the experimental chickens compared to control without AV supplementation (p>0.05). However, the use of tocopherol at a dose of 200 ppm as a source of antioxidant decreased the dressing percentages of the experimental chickens by 5.86 and 8.24%, compared to those supplemented with AV at doses of 625 and 1250 mg kg–1, respectively.
Source of lauric acid and concentrations of AV and vitamin E as an antioxidant in the diet significantly affected breast weight (p<0.01). However, there was no interaction effect of source of lauric acid and concentration of AV and tocopherol as antioxidants (p>0.05). Regardless of the concentration of antioxidant supplementation, the experimental broiler chickens supplemented with pure lauric acid had higher breast weight (20.95%) (p<0.01) compared to those supplemented with coconut oil as a source of lauric acid. Regardless of source of lauric acid, the experimental broiler chickens supplemented with 200 ppm tocopherol had lower breast weights (40.04, 40.40 and 45.39%) compared to control experimental broiler chickens without antioxidant supplementation (not supplemented with AV and tocopherol), the experimental broiler chickens supplemented with AV at doses of 625 and 1250 mg kg–1 and those supplemented with 200 ppm tocopherol, respectively (p<0.01).
The source of lauric acid and the concentration of AV and vitamin E as an antioxidant in the diet significantly affected the breast percentages (the percentage of breast weight to carcass weight) of the experimental chickens (p<0.01). However, there was no interaction effects of source of lauric acid and the concentration of AV and vitamin E as an antioxidant in the diet on the breast percentages of the experimental chickens (p>0.05).
Regardless of doses of antioxidant supplementation, experimental broiler chickens supplemented with pure lauric acid had higher breast percentages (12.35%) compared to those supplemented with coconut oil as a source of lauric acid (p<0.01).
Supplementation of AV at doses of 625 and 1250 mg kg–1 did not affect the breast percentages of the experimental chickens compared to control without AV supplementation (p>0.05). However, the increased dose of AV supplementation from 625-1250 mg kg–1 increased the breast percentages of the experimental chickens by 12.17% (p<0.01). The use of tocopherol at a dose of 200 ppm as a source of antioxidant significantly decreased the breast percentages of the experimental chickens by 17.45, 11.28 and 20.91% compared to control without AV supplementation, those supplemented with 625 and 1250 mg kg–1, respectively (p<0.01).
Regardless of the concentrations of antioxidant supplementation, source of lauric acid did not affect leg weight (p>0.05). However, regardless of source of lauric acid in the diet, concentrations of antioxidant supplementation significantly affected the leg weight (p<0.01). There was no interaction effect of source of lauric acid and concentration of antioxidant supplementation on the leg weight of the experimental broiler chickens. The experimental broiler chickens supplemented with 200 ppm tocopherol had lower leg weights (33.53, 42.09 and 35.84%) compared to the experimental broiler chickens without antioxidant supplementation and those supplemented AV at doses of 625 and 1250 mg kg–1 as sources of antioxidant, respectively (p<0.01).
Even though there was a significant effect of concentration of antioxidant supplementation on the leg weight of the experimental broiler chicken, there was no significant effects of antioxidant concentration on leg weight percentage (p>0.05). Source of lauric acid and its interaction with concentration of antioxidant supplementation in the diet did not affect leg weight percentage of the experimental chickens (p>0.05).
The source of lauric acid and the concentration of AV and vitamin E as an antioxidant in the diet and their interactions significantly affected the abdominal fat percentage (the percentage of abdominal fat to carcass weight) of the experimental chickens (p<0.01).
Experimental broiler chickens supplemented with pure lauric acid had higher abdominal fat percentage (36.19%) compared to those supplemented with coconut oil as a source of lauric acid (p<0.01).
Experimental broiler chickens supplemented with AV at doses of 625 and 1250 mg kg–1 had higher abdominal fat percentages (68.64 and 7.63%), respectively, compared to control experimental broiler chickens (p<0.01). However, experimental broiler chickens supplemented with 200 ppm tocopherol had lower abdominal fat percentages by 55.93, 73.87 and 59.06% compare to control experimental broiler chickens without AV and TF supplementations and those supplemented with AV at doses of 625 and 1250 mg kg–1, respectively (p<0.01). However, the increased dose of AV supplementation from 625-1250 mg kg–1 did not affect abdominal fat percentage (p>0.05).
Since the source of lauric acid and concentrations of antioxidant had significant interaction effects, the effects of the source of lauric acid are dependent upon the concentrations of antioxidant used or vice versa.
The order of the experimental broiler chickens from the highest to the lowest abdominal fat percentage was found in the experimental broiler chickens supplemented with pure lauric acid and supplemented with AV at a dose of 625 mg kg–1, the experimental broiler chickens supplemented with pure lauric acid without AV supplementation, the experimental broiler chickens supplemented with CO as a source of lauric acid and supplemented with AV at a dose of 625 mg kg–1, the experimental broiler chickens supplemented with CO as a source of lauric acid and supplemented with AV at a dose of 1250 mg kg–1, the experimental broiler chickens supplemented with pure lauric acid and supplemented with AV at a dose of 1250 mg kg–1, the experimental broiler chickens supplemented with pure lauric acid and supplemented with tocopherol at a dose of 200 ppm, the experimental broiler chickens supplemented with CO as a source of lauric acid without supplementation of antioxidant either AV or TF and the lowest was the experimental broiler chickens supplemented with CO as a source of lauric acid and supplemented with tocopherol at a dose of 200 ppm.
The experimental broiler chickens supplemented with pure lauric acid and supplemented with AV at a dose of 625 mg kg–1, the experimental broiler chickens supplemented with pure lauric acid without AV supplementation, the experimental broiler chickens supplemented with CO as a source of lauric acid and supplemented with AV at a dose of 625 mg kg–1 and the experimental broiler chickens supplemented with CO as a source of lauric acid and supplemented with AV at a dose of 1250 mg kg–1 all had similar abdominal fat percentages (p>0.05).
The experimental broiler chickens supplemented with pure lauric acid without AV supplementation, the experimental broiler chickens supplemented with CO as a source of lauric acid and supplemented with AV at a dose of 625 mg kg–1, the experimental broiler chickens supplemented with CO as a source of lauric acid and supplemented with AV at a dose of 1250 mg kg–1 and the experimental broiler chickens supplemented with pure lauric acid and supplemented with AV at a dose of 1250 mg kg–1 had similar abdominal fat percentages (p>0.05).
The experimental broiler chickens supplemented with CO as a source of lauric acid and supplemented with AV at a dose of 1250 mg kg–1, the experimental broiler chickens supplemented with pure lauric acid and supplemented with AV at a dose of 1250 mg kg–1 and the experimental broiler chickens supplemented with pure lauric acid and supplemented with tocopherol at a dose of 200 ppm had similar abdominal fat percentages (p>0.05).
The experimental broiler chickens supplemented with pure lauric acid and supplemented with AV at a dose of 1250 mg kg–1, the experimental broiler chickens supplemented with pure lauric acid and supplemented with tocopherol at a dose of 200 ppm, the experimental broiler chickens supplemented with CO as a source of lauric acid without supplementation of antioxidant either AV or TF and the experimental broiler chickens supplemented with CO as a source of lauric acid and supplemented with tocopherol at a dose of 200 ppm had similar abdominal fat percentages (p>0.05).
The experimental broiler chickens supplemented with pure lauric acid and supplemented with AV at a dose of 625 mg kg–1 had higher abdominal fat percentages (p<0.05) compared to those supplemented with pure lauric acid and supplemented with AV at a dose of 1250 mg kg–1, those supplemented with pure lauric acid and supplemented with tocopherol at a dose of 200 ppm, those supplemented with CO as a source of lauric acid without supplementation of antioxidant either AV or TF and those supplemented with CO as a source of lauric acid and supplemented with tocopherol at a dose of 200 ppm.
The expeimental broiler chickens supplemented with pure lauric acid and supplemented with AV at a dose of 625 mg kg–1, the experimental broiler chickens supplemented with pure lauric acid without AV supplementation, the experimental broiler chickens supplemented with CO as a source of lauric acid and supplemented with AV at a dose of 625 mg kg–1 and the experimental broiler chickens supplemented with CO as a source of lauric acid and supplemented with AV at a dose of 1250 mg kg–1 had higher abdominal fat percentage compares to the experimental broiler chickens supplemented with CO as a source of lauric acid without supplementation of antioxidant either AV or TF and the experimental broiler chickens supplemented with CO as a source of lauric acid and supplemented with tocopherol at a dose of 200 ppm.
Profiles of fatty acid contents of the broiler meats: The profiles of fatty acids (the percentage from total fatty acids) and chemical composition of meats of experimental broiler chickens are presented in Table 4 and 5, respectively. The meat samples of 3 experimental broiler chickens for each experimental unit were mixed and the compositions of fatty acids in the mixed meat samples were analyzed. Even though the data obtained were the averages of three samples, since there was no individual variation in each experimental unit, the statistical analyses could not be conducted.
In general, the content of fatty acids in the experimental diets did not far different from the contents of fatty acids deposited in the meats of the experimental broiler chickens. It was found that long-chain fatty acid (LCFA) and PUFA dominated the fatty acids in the meats of experimental broiler chickens. The oleic acid in the ration contained lauric acid originated from the coconut oils and pure lauric acid supplementations. It could be concluded that the composition of fatty acids in the meats of experimental broiler chickens is affected by the composition of fatty acids in the experimental rations. In addition, the averages of water, protein and fat contents of the meats of male experimental broiler chickens at the age of 5 weeks in this experiment are 84.47, 22.14 and 1.5%, respectively.
In general, the supplementation of lauric acid and AV improved growth performances of broiler chickens and improved carcass characteristics and fatty acid profiles of the breast meat. However, there was a general tendency that tocopherol supplementation decreased growth performances of broiler chickens and decreased carcass characteristics and fatty acid profiles of the breast meat.
In general, body weight is determined by the degree of feed intake so that the feed intake is the main variable to measure feed efficiency5. Feed conversion in the experimental broiler chickens in this experiment is affected by the presence and the use of antioxidants. Supplementation of AV in the ration increased the quality of the experimental rations due to the increased lauric acid contents of the experimental rations. In the year of 1960s, FCR was around 2.2. The improved genetic quality with the advances of time, the current level of FCR for broiler chickens is around 1.75.5 The decrease in FCR is caused by the greater used of feed for body growth and less is used for maintenance until finishing.
Some researchers report that the use of coconut oil and herbal as natural antioxidants have a potency to improve growth rate11 and do not show the incidence of toxicities in rats12. Leeson and Summers5 recommend the needs for tocopherol for broiler as much as 50 IU kg–1. The toxicity of tocopherol has never been reported13 but the dose of 150 mg kg–1 does not affect consumption and body weight gain14. The dose of 250 mg kg–1 in heat stress condition (32°C) produce the optimum feed consumption and body weight gains15.
Table 4: Effect of dietary lauric acid and natural antioxidant from Areca vestiaria Giseke on fatty acids profile and chemical composition of broiler breast meat1
1Since there was no individual variations, statistical analysis of variance was not conducted, 2Total fatty acid (%), MCFA: Medium chain fatty acid, LCFA: Long chain fatty acid, SFA: Saturated fatty acid, UFA: Unsaturated fatty acid, MUFA: Mono unsaturated fatty acid, PUFA: Poly unsaturated fatty acid, CO: Coconut oil, LA: Lauric acid, TF: Tocopherol
Table 5: Effect of dietary lauric acid and natural antioxidant from Areca vestiaria Giseke on chemical composition of broiler breast meat1
1Since there was no individual variations, statistical analysis of variance was not conducted, CO: Coconut oil, LA: Lauric acid, AV: Areca vestiaria Giseke, TF: Tocopherol
The present experiment showed the decreased feed consumption and body weight gains in the experimental broiler chickens fed ration contained tocopherol at a dose of 200 mg kg–1 feed. The low growth performances of experimental broiler chickens fed with ration supplemented with tocopherol are assumed to be caused by the inhibition of nutrient absorptions. In general, the relationship between the fat content of the diet and tocopherol metabolism is still controvercial16. The efficiency of tocopherol absorption is relatively low, about 20-40%. The absorption of tocopherol can be increased by the medium chain triglycerides and decreased by the high levels of linoleic acid17. The other report stated that medium chain fatty acids have a specifically decreasing effect on tocopherol in the chicks18.
Dilauryl succinate supplemented with unsaturated fatty acids shows an indication of vitamin E deficiency that was more serious compared to chickens receiving feed only Dilauryl succinate or unsaturated fatty acids19. The increase in tocopherol absorptions is affected by both the digestibility and absorptions of the fat in the ration. The absorption of tocopherol is occurred by passive diffusion16. This process is determined by gradient concentrations in the membrane of intestine, luminal concentrations (vitamin intake) and concentrations in the enterocytes (the rate of incorporation of portomicron synthesis).
The percentage of carcass of experimental broiler chickens fed with ration supplemented with coconut oil and lauric acid with or without AV supplementation according to the recommendation for Lohmann strain i.e., 70% and for body weights at the age of 5 weeks is ±1.8 kg. Supplementation of MCFA in addition to energy sources can decrease the concentration of fat in the abdomen of the broiler20-22. MCFA, with 8-12 carbons can decrease body fat content of the animal and human23-25. The meats of chickens contain lower total saturated fatty acids and instead with higher content of total unsaturated fatty acids compared to the meats of pig, cattle and sheep26. In monogastric animals, fatty acids in the consumed ration will be absorbed and deposited into the body, relatively without a significant change26,27. Composition of fatty acid in the breast meat of broiler is affected by the consumption of fatty acids in the ration28. The experiment using palm oil produces the contents of SFA in the meat as much as 30.09% (the ration content is 29.62%), MUFA 49.30% (the ration content is 49.36%) and PUFA as much as 18.72% (the ration content is 20.59%)29. The lauric acids deposited in the breast meat of experimental broiler chickens in this present experiment is come from lauric acid in the coconut oil and pure lauric acid supplemented in the ration. Lauric acid from pure lauric acids supplemented in the ration is higher than that from coconut oil.
Factors affecting chemical compositions of the meat are genetic factor (species, breed, sex, muscle and individual animal), environmental factors (nutrition and ration, including additive materials), the handling factors prior to and after slaughtering (physiological factors), age and slaughtering weight26. Water, protein and fat contents of breast meat of male broiler chickens at the age of 6 weeks are: 73.27%, 22.08 and 2.98%, respectively26. Chemical composition of breast meat of broiler chicken in this present experiment is better based on the water and fat contents, with the protein content that is relatively similar.
Supplementation of Areca vestiaria Giseke as a source of natural antioxidant into broiler feed containing lauric acid from coconut oil can improve growth performance, carcass characteristic and fatty acid profile of meat of the experimental broiler chickens.
This study is part of PhD dissertation of the first author sponsored by BPP-DN scholarship provided by the Directorate for Higher Education, Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education of The Republic of Indonesia. The author would like to thank to the Head of Animal Husbandry of Sam Ratulangi University of North Sulawesi who has facilitated the research.
AOAC., 1984. Official Methods of Analysis of the Association of Official Analytical of Chemist. Association of Official Analytical Chemist Inc., Washington, DC.
AOAC., 2005. Official Methods of Analysis of the Association of Official Analytical of Chemist. Association of Official Analytical Chemist Inc., Arlington, Virginia.
Ayed, B.H., H. Attia and M. Ennouri, 2015. Effect of oil supplemented diet on growth performance and meat quality of broiler chickens. Adv. Tech. Biol. Med., Vol. 4. 10.4172/2379-1764.1000156
Azman, M.A., I.H. Cerci and N. Birben, 2005. Effects of various dietary fat sources on performance and body fatty acid composition of broiler chickens. Turk. J. Vet. Anim. Sci., 29: 811-819.
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Coetzee, G.J.M. and L.C. Hoffman, 2002. Effects of various dietary n-3/n-6 fatty acid ratios on the performance and body composition of broilers. S. Afr. J. Anim. Sci., 32: 175-184.
David, L.S., J.K. Vidanarachchi, K. Samarasinghe, H.W. Cyril and C.M.B. Dematawewa, 2012. Effects of Moringa based feed additives on the growth performance and carcass quality of broiler chicken. Trop. Agric. Res., 24: 12-20.
Dayrit, C.S., 2003. Coconut oil: Atherogenic or not? (What therefore causes atherosclerosis?). Philippine J. Cardiol., 31: 97-104.
Diarra, S.S., D. Sandakabatu, D. Perera, P. Tabuaciri and U. Mohammed, 2015. Growth performance and carcass yield of broiler chickens fed commercial finisher and cassava copra meal-based diets. J. Applied Anim. Res., 43: 352-356.
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Dong, Y.M., Y. Li, H. Ning, C. Wang, J.R. Liu and C.H. Sun, 2011. High dietary intake of medium-chain fatty acids during pregnancy in rats prevents later-life obesity in their offspring. J. Nutr. Biochem., 22: 791-797.
Enig, M.G., 1999. Coconut: In support of good health in the 21th century. Asian Pasific Coconut Community 36th, Session in the Celebration of 30th Anniversary of APCC, Manila Mt. Banahaw Health Products Crop, Philippine, PH.
Gallo-Torres, H.E., 1980. Absorption, Blood Transport and Metabolism of Vitamin E. In: Vitamin E: A Comprehensive Treatise, Machlin, L.J. (Ed.). Marcel Dekker, New York, pp: 170-267.
Han, J., J.A. Hamilton, J.L. Kirkland, B.E. Corkey and W. Guo, 2003. Medium‐chain oil reduces fat mass and down‐regulates expression of adipogenic genes in rats. Obesity, 11: 734-744.
Herny, E.I. Simbala and T.E. Tallei, 2010. Ethnobotanical, proximate and phytochemical studies of Areca vestiaria Giseke (Piang Yaki). Proceedings of the International Conference on Medical Plants, July 21-22, 2010, Surabaya, Indonesia -.
Ikumo, H., 1980. Comparison in inducing effect on vitamin E deficiency symptoms in chicks between dilauryl succinate and unsaturated fatty acids. J. Nutr., 110: 2045-2050.
PubMed | Direct Link |
Ikumo, H., 1980. Effect of monolauryl succinate, lauryl alcohol and succinic acid on hemolysis and liver mitochondrial lysis in vitro in chicks. J. Nutr., 110: 2051-2057.
Khosravinia, H., 2015. Effect of dietary supplementation of medium-chain fatty acids on growth performance and prevalence of carcass defects in broiler chickens raised in different stocking densities. J. Applied Poult. Res., 24: 1-9.
Klassing, K.C., 2006. Comparative Avian Nutrition. Antony Power Ltd., Eastbourne, UK.
Krishna, A.G.G., G. Raj, A.S. Bhatnagar, P.P.K. Kumar and P. Chandrashekar, 2010. Coconut oil: Chemistry, production and its applications-a review. Indian Coconut J., 53: 15-27.
Leeson, S. and J.D. Summers, 2008. Commercial Poultry Nutrition. 3rd Edn., Nottingham University Press, England.
Preuss, H.G., B. Echard, M. Enig, I. Brook and T.B. Elliott, 2005. Minimum inhibitory concentrations of herbal essential oils and monolaurin for Gram-Positive and Gram-Negative bacteria. Mol. Cell. Biochem., 272: 29-34.
Proestos, C. and M. Komaitis, 2008. Application of microwave-assisted extraction to the fast extraction of plant phenolic compounds. LWT-Food Sci. Technol., 41: 652-659.
Sahin, K., O. Kucuk, N. Sahin and M.F. Gursu, 2002. Optimal dietary concentration of vitamin E for alleviating the effect of heat stress on performance, thyroid status, ACTH and some serum metabolite and mineral concentrations in broilers. Vet. Med., 47: 110-116.
Sari, L.M., F.D. Suyatna, S. Utami, C. Chairul, G.S. Subita, Y.S. Whulandhary and E.I. Auerkauri, 2014. Acute oral toxicity study of Areca catechu Linn. aqueous extract in sprague dawley rats. Asian J. Pharm. Clin. Res., 7: 20-22.
Satolom, C.C., M.R.J. Runtuwene and J. Abidjulu, 2015. Isolasi senyawa flavonoid pada biji pinang yaki (Areca vestiaria Giseke). J. Mipa Unsrat Online, 4: 40-45.
Soeparno, 2011. Ilmu Nutrisi dan Gizi Daging. Gadjah Mada University Press, Yogyakarta.
St-Onge, M.P. and P.J. Jones, 2002. Physiological effects of medium-chain triglycerides: potential agents in the prevention of obesity. J. Nutr., 132: 329-332.
Surai, P.F., 2003. Natural Antioxidants in Avian Nutrition and Reproduction. Nottingham University Press, England.
Tayeb, I.T. and G.K. Qader, 2012. Effect of feed supplementation of selenium and vitamin e on production performance and some hematological parameters of broiler. KSU J. Nat. Sci., 15: 46-56.
Wang, J., X. Wang, J. Li, Y. Chen, W. Yang and L. Zhang, 2015. Effects of dietary coconut oil as a medium-chain fatty acid source on performance, carcass composition and serum lipids in male broilers. Asian-Aust. J. Anim. Sci., 28: 223-230.
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Home » Blog » Don’t Be Afraid to Be a Difficult Patient
Don’t Be Afraid to Be a Difficult Patient
By Therese J. Borchard
Last updated: 8 Jul 2018
One of my favorite Seinfeld episodes is the one where Elaine snoops inside her medical chart and reads “patient is difficult.”
The doctor takes a look at her rash and says, “Well, this doesn’t look serious,” and writes something in the chart.
“What are you writing?” she asks.
He sneers and walks out the door.
Wanting a fresh start, she goes to see another doctor, and realizes her chart follows her there. The new doctor greets her warmly until he reads the comments.
He glances at her arm and says impatiently, “This doesn’t look serious.”
“But it really itches,” she complains.
He writes something else down in the chart and walks out.
So Kramer, disguised as Dr. van Nostrum, tries to steal the chart, telling the medical office that Elaine is dying. They don’t buy it and begin a chart on him.
Personally, I think my chart must be atrocious by now. But oddly enough, I don’t care.
I spent the first 42 years of my life trying to be the perfect, low-maintenance patient, placing all my trust in my doctors to get me well. I never questioned their reasoning behind a treatment plan, and automatically filled every prescription they gave me. Even after a very dangerous psychiatrist nearly killed me with all of the antipsychotic concoctions he pushed on me, I still let physicians do the thinking for me because I didn’t want to have a bad report card in my file, feedback like “patient refuses to cooperate.”
My people-pleasing baggage as an adult child of an alcoholic followed me to each appointment, urging me to make the doctor feel good about himself. I didn’t have enough faith in myself that I could steer my own ship toward health. But that is changing. With lots of sweat and self-assertion exercises.
For example, I am working with a new doctor because I may have Crohn’s disease, in addition to small intestine bacterial overgrowth, and other gut issues. The nurse sent me home with a treatment plan and I followed it for two days before the alarm went off in my head: “Is this really the best treatment plan for me?” my inner physician asked me. “Don’t you want to think about this a little and do some research before you just blindly follow the instructions?”
I bought the supplements I am supposed to take. But, after looking more carefully at the ingredients and doing my own research, I decided that I didn’t feel comfortable taking them.
“Am I being difficult? Should I just trust this guy?” I asked my husband. “He probably knows more about gut issues than I do.”
The man who has visited me at two inpatient psychiatric units looked at me for a good ten seconds. “After all you’ve been through in the last ten years,” he said, “you seriously think he knows more about your health than you do? Just because he has a medical degree, you think he’s smarter than you?”
It was my husband who inspired my take-charge-of-your-health transformation a year and a half ago. He was suffering from hives all over his body and had been to several allergists over a period of a year. They all blew him off, treating him much like Elaine: “Not serious, take Zantac.” When he raised the possibility of food allergies, all three arrogantly dismissed his theory. So he did his own homework. After reading lots of research on how gluten fuels inflammation, he gave up bread, beer, and anything with wheat. Two weeks later they were gone.
As he delved into books about how to prevent inflammation, he found a lot of material that pertained to depression. One cold evening in January 2004 he confronted me.
“You have been severely depressed for five years,” he said. “You are going on six years of continuous death thoughts. You have tried, what, 40 or 50 different medication combinations in the last ten years? Wake up! The psychiatric approach you’re taking is obviously not working.”
At the time I was on four different psych meds and I still very much wanted to die. I knew in my gut that trying medication combination No. 51 or adding yet a fifth medication to my mix was not the answer. But my psychiatrist had saved me from a suicidal depression in 2006, so I had placed her high on a pedestal. I was terrified of deviating from the path she was guiding me down.
After several sleepless nights, I walked into her office and blurted out my truth. “This isn’t working,” I said. “I need to explore a more holistic path.”
I told her that I was going to completely revamp my diet by eliminating gluten, dairy, sugar, and caffeine, and I was going to add important supplements like vitamin B-12, vitamin D, omega 3 fatty acids, and turmeric. I was also going to work with an integrative doctor to try to heal my gut with probiotics and other foods, and to address my pituitary and thyroid issues.
We agreed to start weaning off as much medication as possible as long as I remained stable. Because she is the most open-minded psychiatrist I have ever known, she didn’t throw me out of her office or make me feel like a thoughtless fool like Eric’s doctors did, but instead embarked on the journey with me — reading more on gut health, inflammation, and diet.
A year and a half later, she sees my progress and is taking note of it for other patients.
It is easy to regard our doctors as superheroes, omniscient authority figures from whom approval feels necessary. To question something they say or disagree with a strategy toward health can seem disloyal, defiant, or insolent. But no one knows our health better than we do. When we give that power away to anyone, we diminish our possibility for full recovery and rob ourselves of the chance to get as well as we can be.
As for your chart?
Consider “difficult” a compliment.
Continue the conversation on ProjectBeyondBlue.com, the new depression community.
Originally posted on Sanity Break at Everyday Health.
alexraths/Bigstock
Therese J. Borchard
Therese J. Borchard is a mental health writer and advocate. She is the founder of the online depression communities Project Hope & Beyond and Group Beyond Blue, and is the author of Beyond Blue: Surviving Depression & Anxiety and Making the Most of Bad Genes and The Pocket Therapist. You can reach her at thereseborchard.com or on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn.
Borchard, T. (2018). Don’t Be Afraid to Be a Difficult Patient. Psych Central. Retrieved on January 19, 2020, from https://psychcentral.com/blog/dont-be-afraid-to-be-a-difficult-patient/
Last updated: 8 Jul 2018 (Originally: 8 Jun 2016)
Last reviewed: By a member of our scientific advisory board on 8 Jul 2018
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NRC Forms Special San Onofre Review Panel
Victor Dricks
Senior Public Affairs Officer
NRC Chairman Allison Macfarlane (second from right) listens as Southern California Edison executive Richard St. Onge (third from right) discusses issues with one of the damaged steam generators at SONGS. The steam generator is in the right foreground.
The NRC has established a special panel to coordinate the agency’s evaluation of Southern California Edison Co.’s proposed plan for restarting its Unit 2 reactor and ensuring that the root causes of problems with the plant’s steam generators are identified and addressed.
Art Howell, the NRC’s Region IV deputy regional administrator, will serve as co-chairman of the panel along with Dan Dorman, deputy director for engineering and corporate support in the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR). Jim Andersen, chief of NRR’s Electrical Engineering Branch, will serve as deputy team manager of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) Oversight Panel.
The panel will ensure that NRC communicates a unified and consistent position in a clear and predictable manner to the licensee, public and other stakeholders, and establishes a record of major regulatory and licensee actions taken and technical issues reviewed, including adequacy of Southern California Edison’s corrective actions.
The panel also will be responsible for conducting periodic public meetings with the utility and providing a recommendation to senior NRC management regarding restart of SONGS Unit 2. In comments to reporters Monday following a tour of the plant, Chairman Allison Macfarlane said Unit 2 will not be permitted to restart unless the NRC has reasonable assurance it can be operated safely.
Other panel members include:
Ed Roach, chief, Mechanical Vendor Inspection Branch, NRO
Ryan Lantz, chief, SONGS Project Branch, Region IV
Greg Werner, inspection & assessment lead, SONGS Project Branch, Region IV
Nick Taylor, senior project engineer, SONGS Project Branch, Region IV
Greg Warnick, senior resident inspector, San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station
Doug Broaddus, chief, SONGS Special Project Branch, NRR
Randy Hall, project manager, SONGS Special Project Branch, NRR
Ken Karwoski, senior level advisor, Division of Engineering, NRR
Michele Evans, director, Division of Operating Reactor Licensing (alternate is Pat Hiland, director, Division of Engineering)
Author ModeratorPosted on January 17, 2013 March 8, 2013 Categories Operating ReactorsTags NRC, nuclear, San Onofre
136 thoughts on “NRC Forms Special San Onofre Review Panel”
TERRILYN LAWLOR says:
Invaluable analysis , I loved the details – Does anyone know where my assistant could possibly grab a template CA Edison Company Claim Form form to fill in ?
drbillcorcoran says:
A frightful aspect of this is the extent (generic implications) of the gross incompetence of SCE, MHI, NRC, and INPO.
NEI fought hard to get enough rope in 10CFR50.59 and SCE, MHI, NRC, and INPO used it to hang themselves.
The first law of highway engineering is,”Never remove a guardrail that has dents in it.” 50.59, properly applied, had been involved in keeping many plants forming over the cliff. Yet NEI and NRC weakened the rigor. what sense does this make?
Royale Brodeur says:
Edwin Hackett, Executive Director ACRS
Thanks for your reply, and staying aware of what is happening at SONGS aka SanO.
Royale Brodeur
Well I guess AZ will have to supply the power and deal with the added polution.
Role and Responsibilities of Agencies in Nuclear Power Generation, Decommissioning and Lessons Learnt From San Onofre – NRC Continuing Education Series
America is a Democratic Country and NRC Commission Solemn Duty is Public Safety/Licensing, Protection of Workers from Retaliation/Discrimination and Safe Decommissioning of power plants and not vacating ASLB SONGS Ruling under NEI/Industry Pressure for Profits/Production from Unsafe Nuclear Energy. Nuclear Energy Institute Job is Interpretation of NRC Rules For Safe and Reliable Production of Nuclear Energy. Institute of Nuclear Power Operations Job is measuring Operational Excellence of Nuclear Plants.
SONGS Original Combustion Steam Generators (OSGs) lasted for 28 years at a void fraction of 96%, fluid velocities of 22 feet/sec and 900 psi and did not suffer fluid elastic instability. In 2001, SONGS up-rated the power (steam Flows) of these OSGS from 1705 MWt to 1729 MWt for profits, reduced steam pressures, which increased the flow-induced vibrations. The increased steam flows and reduced steam pressures increased flow-induced vibrations, increased fluid velocities > 22 feet/sec, and increased tube wear and plugging rates in OSGs. Low steam pressures and increased steam flows produce high void fractions for more power, but are detrimental for tube vibrations, tube wear and structural integrity. The high steam flows and high fluid velocities decreased the life of OSGs, which could have lasted for a few years. When increasing the power, SCE Engineers should have foreseen the adverse affects of the power up-rate . But looks like they were focused on profits and getting new replacement steam generators, therefore, they did not care and were not able to foresee the safety consequences of these changes on steam generator tube leaks. No leaks happened, so everything turned out to be ok. Not really. SONGS got new generators in 2010 & 2011 at the cost of $670 Million and Edison Management claimed to be the 21st Century Safest and Most Innovative Steam machine.
According to SONGS Insider Documents (Useless Now, Since SONGS is being Decommissioned), Edison Specified, “Edison intends to replace the steam generators under the 10 CFR 50.59 rule. Consequently, Edison requests that the RSGs be as close as possible to the existing steam generators in form, fit, and function, subject to additional requirements and limitations stated elsewhere in this [Redacted]. The Supplier shall prepare and submit for Edison’s approval a Licensing Topical Report demonstrating compliance of the RSG design with all SONGS licensing requirements. The report shall include an engineering evaluation, including all necessary analyses and evaluations, justifying that the RSGs can be replaced under the provisions of 10 CFR 50.59 (without prior NRC approval). The report format shall follow the guidelines of in order to facilitate preparation of the 10 CFR 50.59 evaluation. The 10 CFR 50.59 evaluation shall be performed by Edison. Steam Generator Thermal Rating @100% Reactor Power – OSGs -1705 MWt – RSGs – 1729 MWt, Heat Transfer Area, sq. ft (0% tubes plugged) – OSGs 105,000 – RSGs – 116,100, Steam Pressure@100% Power – OSGs -900 psi – RSGs – 833 psi, Circulation ratio – OSGs – 3.2 -RSGs 3.3, RCS Design Flow, gpm (0%Tubes Plugged) OSGs -198, 000 – RSGs – 209,880, Feedwater Flows, gpm, OSGs – 7,414,000 – RSGs – 7,588,000. The service life of the RSGs shall be 40 calendar years from the date of startup following their installation and this duration is to be used as the basis for fatigue analyses and for determining the effects of corrosion, erosion, fretting, wear, and the number of chemical cleanings. Edison desires that from the perspective of performance, the RSGs be designed as large as possible within the dimensional and other limitations imposed.” Edison picked the cheapest contractor to build their impossible dream machines in the shortest time and lowest cost. The steam generator design specification certifying Professional Engineer has to know that whatever he is specifying can be built by using a process known as Technical Bid Evaluation. Complex Steam Generators are not built on a handshake, a faulty design specification or subverting the regulatory process.
SCE/MHI ignored the Dr. Pettigrews, the world’s most renowned tube vibration expert warning on the effectiveness of MHI flat bar AVBs for prevention of fluid elastic instability, San Onofre Chief Nuclear Office Dwight Nunn\’s warning on high void fractions and SCE/MHI AVB Joint Team recommendations to reduce void fractions. It is the personal opinion of the author since Edison did not comply with the recommendations of Dwight Nunn and SCE/MHI AVB Joint Team to reduce high void fractions, the performance warranties and Liquidated Damages of RSGs will be contested in California Courts for years until resolved mutually and peacefully by SCE/MHI by Arbitration and NRC Assistance.
The NRC AIT Report is incomplete and erroneous, based on SCE Supplied Faulty Information and needs to be redone to clear the Public Record and Establish NRC Independence. NRC Commission independently needs to interview under oath SONGS Root Cause Team Members and assign a qualified thermal-hydraulic expert to review the complete SG, FW, RCS and other operational records for Units 2 & 3 for Cycle 16 to determine the true causes for Units 2 & 3 FEI, and the role of Mitsubishi Flowering Effect and RSG Manufacturing Differences. Based on interpretation of data published in NRC AIT Reported and SONGS SGM Procedure in 2012, Unit 2 had a steam pressure of 942 PSI and RCS Flows of 74 million Ibs./Hr. and Unit 3 had a steam pressure of 833 PSI and RCS Flows of 76 million Ibs./Hr. All the other Unit 2 Return to service reports had identical operating condition for both Units. Based on Hand calculations, only 5 MWt more in Unit 3 was required to change the flow from nucleate boiling to film boiling (Void fractions 99.0% ~ 99.6%) in 4% area of the Hot-Leg region of high wear. Mr. Ryan Lantz of San Onofre Special SONGS Panel was made aware of these discrepancies, but no action by the AIT Team Leader has been taken to date resolve these discrepancies. Mitsubishi Testing data indicates a tube-to AVB contact force between 10-30N is required to prevent FEI in Unit 2, whereas Unit 2 tube-to AVB contact force was only 2N. This force of 2 N was not sufficient to prevent occurrence of FEI given the benefit of doubt that operational condition were identical in both Units. The tube-to AVB contact force reported in Unit 3 was only 99.6% and fluid velocities 35-50 feet/sec)
Lessons Learnt for NRC Commission/ from from Defective San Onofre RSG 10CFR 50.59
Even though SCE, MHI and AREVA claim that operating and thermal-hydraulic conditions were the same in both units, Unit 2 did not experience tube-to-tube wear because of lower reactor thermal power and higher steam generator pressure operation and NOT double tube-to-AVB contact forces and better supports because of inadvertent accidental Unit 2 AVB design as explained by SCE and MHI. FEI did not occur in Unit 2, which is consistent with Westinghouse report. The Unit 2 Return to Service Engineering Reports, Computer Calculations, Testing Data and Tube Inspections prepared by SCE and its World Class Independent Consultants are full of errors, inconclusive and based on invalidated assumptions. The reports are Confusing, Conflicting and full of Smoking Mirrors. SONGS Inside Steam Generator Investigator, DAB Safety Team, Arnie Gundersen, John Large and Dr. Joram Hopenfeld showed ASLB and in other numerous public forums that these reports are incomplete, full of errors and Unit 2 Restart at 70% power is an Unsafe Experiment to keep Edison in Business.
Edison was afraid of public scrutiny and sworn testimony by its Senior Team Leader Ship Directors certifying the safety and accuracy of these reports. So, afraid of these long legal investigations, Edison Senior Team Leader Ship Directors chose to safely shutdown San Onofre Units 2 & 3 blaming on ASLB ruling, Regulatory Hurdles, MHI delay in building the repaired/replacement generators, opposition from Super Intelligent & Nuclear Trained Safety Specialists, Burden on EIX/SCE Shareholders and Investors, SONGS Anonymous Steam Generator expert, Friends of the Earth and Concerned Rate Payers.
Despite all foul-crying (No grid and voltage stabilization and summer power outages without San Onofre) EIX/SCE continues to make handsome profits by marking up cheap power bought from other undisclosed vendors and supplying power to customers at its own exorbitant price on its own Transmission and Distribution System. Plus EIX/SCE gets 11% additional rate of return on its Transmission and Distribution System. But the question is, who is going to pay and hire Edison Discriminating, Inept and Retaliating Senior Leader Ship Team Directors with no operating funds coming from Ratepayers. Certainly Not, the EIX/SCE Shareholders and Investors. That is why Senior Leader Ship Team Directors shut down San Onofre to use it as a Safe Haven from Prosecution and now want to enjoy and secure their positions by mismanaging the Huge Decommissioning Funds and Reap Profits, Paychecks, Perks and Bonuses for a Long Time in their Luxury Beach Homes. NRC and CPUC (Both Companies Cozy to Edison) need to break the SCE Brotherhood Tradition and award the San Onofre Decommission contract to a specialized and well-established company like Energy Solutions, so Rate Payers are NOT stuck once again paying for San Onofre Decommissioning Delays and Mistakes. Southern Californians want their beautiful beaches back ASAP in the Safe and Pristine Conditions.
Bill Hawkins says:
In 2009 songs 2 & 3 decomissioning budget was 3.5 billion in 2013 it exceeds 4. Billion how can nrc and public trust sce to manage decommissioing after rsg catastrotphy give the contact to another vendor sce is only interested how much money they can squeeze out of the decommissioning funds to make profits for themselves shareholders and return to ratrpayers for rsg fiasco sce has no trust left with nrc and public
Sce shutdown songs because of its greed negligence and fear of criminal investigations and not because of aslb nrc arnie gundersen or the anonymous steam generator in the last 36 years sce has shutdown 3 units destroyed eight generators because they do not understand the relationship between high steam flows high void fractions and tube vibrations caused by fei and firv. 18 feet/sec is the limit of fluid velocity and 96% void fraction with a circulation ratio GREATER THAN 4 is the secret to avoid fei & firv but for the last I 6 yrars songs has missed the boat on these operational parameters. The point is sce does not kno what how to operate a power plant. After all this experience how can ratrpayers trust sce with $2B in Decommissioning Funds?
1948billhawkins says:
Decontamination, Demolition, Dismantling and Decommissioning San Onofre is a very serious business, which requires the right management, procedures, contractors and strict NRC Oversight. Based on the last 10 years of observations at SONGS for SGRP, all these factors are missing at San Onofre now. Therefore, a 3rd neutral party with competent oversight organization reporting directly to NRC Resident Inspector and with Decontamination, Demolition, Dismantling and Decommissioning experience of a NPP is needed to do the job right first time following the INPO Principles of Excellence. Ratepayers cannot afford by Edison another Multi-Billion Dollar Mess.
Billlee123456@gmail.com says:
By The Times editorial board
Southern California Edison on Friday made its smartest decision yet about the troubled San Onofre nuclear power plant: It announced it was closing the facility once and for all. A year after the plant was taken off-line as a result of several problem-ridden steam generators, one of which had leaked a small amount of radioactive steam, the company finally decided to cut its losses and move on.
It didn’t have to be this way. If Edison had gone through full regulatory oversight in 2010 and 2011, when its then-new $670-million steam generators were being designed and built, rather than choosing the cheaper and more expedient route of claiming that the new machinery was virtually the same as the old, there’s a good chance the design errors would have been caught in time. Edison might have a thriving nuclear plant today, well-positioned for license renewal in several years, which would have kept the two reactors operating for decades to come.
REAL REASONS FOR SAN ONOFRE SHUTDOWN, INVESTIGATIONS NOT ASLB OR ECONOMICS
[Information removed by the moderator]
There may be lots of questions yet to be answered about Southern California Edison’s permanent shutdown of its San Onofre nuclear plant, but here are a couple about which there’s no doubt.
Who’s responsible? Edison, 100%. Accept no argument that it did the best it could in overseeing a $700-million generator replacement project, but accidents happen. This wasn’t an accident: It was the failure of what Edison claims was its rigorous and negligent oversight of contractors. MHI was unable to build a steam generator specified by the inexperienced Edison Steam Generator Designers. On top of that Edison Engineers prepared defective 10CFR 50.59, subverted NRC regulatory process, ignored recommendations of SCE/MHI AVB Joint team established by Dwight Nunn, and misdirected MHI, Westinghouse, AREVA and Intertek in preparation of Unit 2 Return to Service Reports. SCE used and abused any body they could find to achieve their end goal, but failed and abandoned the San Onofre Sinking Ship in Panic.
How much should Edison’s customers pay for the miss-engineering and inept mismanagement that led to mothballing a hugely important generating station? That’s easy. The answer is nothing. Not a dime.
SONGS Management has been misleading the public since the inception of Steam Generator Replacement Project. Their focus has always been on profits/production and preaching false sermons of their overriding obligation to safety and achieving excellence in operations. They have indulged in systematic retaliation of workers reporting nuclear safety concerns regarding steam generators, cyber security program, fire/safety, discrimination and harassment. SONGS Unit 3 Root cause was rejected in early June 2012 by SONGS Insiders and they were warned about MHI. SONGS Management were warned by many insiders that the Unit 3 Root Cause was a result of design deficiencies and changes as a result of 11% increase in heat transfer area of the tubes due to change of Alloy 600 from to Alloy 690 and evolutionary untested AVB design. Dwight Nunn’s 2004 and 2005 letters warned about high void fractions and the capabilities of MHI to build such massive steam generators and evolutionary AVBs capable of handling high void fractions and tube fractions. Good SONGS SNO’s like Dwight Nunn and Ross Ridenoure were kicked out by SCE and resigned abruptly without explanation.
It is not the Atomic Safety Board, NRC, MHI, Independent Safety Experts, CPUC or Public, which created significant additional uncertainty regarding SCE’s decision to get to an NRC decision to restart Unit 2 this year. It is the inept, inefficient and cunning SONGS Senior Leadership Team, which was focused on making money and bonuses for themselves, and subverting the regulatory process and not worried about plant safety, workers or the public. Justice Department, NRC Office of Inspector General and Investigations should continue their investigations into allegations of wrong doing by SONGS Senior Leadership Team. In the end, SONGS Senior Leadership Team was so afraid of these investigations, that they decided to abandon the ship by announcing Shutdown of SONGS blaming ASLB, NRC and Economics and coming with a new excuse, “This is not good for our customers, our investors and the region.” SCE was never worried or concerned about the customers, safety and the region. These guys did not have the courtesy of informing NRC, MHI, SONGS Workers, CPUC and SDG&E, their supporters through this crisis before announcing the decision.
Thought of the Day on Dangers of Unit 2 Restart Experiment issued the day before Sanofre Panicky and Sudden Shutdown Announcement
Continuous monitoring of primary-to-secondary leaks led to three shutdowns at the Cruas
NPP: unit 1 in February 2004 and unit 4 in November 2005 and February 2006. Analyses
carried out by EDF, further to the last two events, resulted in them being attributed to high
cycle fatigue of steam generator tubes due to flow-induced vibration.
The results of in situ examination initiated by the Cruas NPP operator showed that the flow
holes of the uppermost Tube Support Plates (TSPs) were partially or completely blocked by
corrosion products. This phenomenon is referred to in this paper as TSP “clogging-up” and it
was considered potentially generic for EDF NPP fleet. For the Cruas leakages, it was
established that the association of TSP clogging-up and the specificity of the Cruas steam
generator (central area in the tube bundle where no tubes are installed) were responsible for
a significant increase in the velocity of the secondary fluid in the tube bundle central area.
The high velocity of the fluid in this region increases the risk of fluidelastic instability for the
tubes. Based on this preliminary analysis, EDF has implemented preventive measures
(stabilizing and plugging of tubes in the central area of the tube bundle deemed sensitive to
high cycle fatigue risk).
AREVA states, “Out-of-plane fluid-elastic instability has been observed in nuclear steam generators in the past and has led to tube bursts at normal operating conditions. Given identical designs, Unit 2 must be judged, a priori, as susceptible to the same TTW degradation mechanism as Unit 3 where 8 tubes failed structural integrity requirements after 11 months of operation. Based on the extremely comprehensive evaluation of both Units, supplemented by thermal hydraulic and FIV analysis, assuming, a priori, that TTW via in-plane fluid-elastic instability cannot develop in Unit 2 would be inappropriate. The nominal distance between extrados and intrados locations of neighboring U-bends in the same plane ranges from 0.25 inches to 0.325 inches due to the tube indexing. There are 36 U-bends in Unit 2 SG E-088 and 34 in SG E-089 with a separation less than or equal to 0.050 inches. “
The circulation ratio of the replacement steam generator secondary-side fluid (ratio of riser mass flow-rate to steam outlet mass flow rate) at 70% power is ~ 4.9. A higher circulation ratio limits concerns regarding heat transfer performance, generator sludge management, corrosion product transfer, and tube dry-out.
Based on recent Mitsubishi Testing conducted in Japan, tube-to-AVB contact force more than 30N is required to counteract the adverse effects of in-plane fluid-elastic instability. Unit 2 AVBs only have 2N contact force, which cannot stop tube-to-tube wear and tube burst at 70% Unit 2 normal power operations, if in-plane and out-of-plane fluid-elastic instability develops due to abnormal operation occurrences, main steam line breaks, inadvertent equipment errors and other plant transients.
Let us assume, hope and pray for the benefit of 8.4 Million Southern Californians, IPC, State of California, CPUC, MHI, SCE and NRC, the probability of occurrence of these events is very low and nothing happens. But as stated above, there are 36 U-bends in Unit 2 SG E-088 and 34 in SG E-089 with a separation less than or equal to 0.050 inches. The problem lies that in these U-bends, even at 70% power and a circulation ratio of 4.9, localized areas with very poor circulation ratio and no flow zones (Flow areas blocked by SG debris and corrosion products) can develop resulting in very high void fractions. With no tube damping and insufficient contact forces, in-plane fluid-elastic instability and out-of-plane vibrations can develop, as we witnessed in Unit 3. Just like Unit 3, now, the tubes will start moving in the in-plane direction and hit other worn and plugged/stabilized tubes with low clearances and cause tube-to-tube wear. Also, the tubes in other non in-plane FEI areas will also start moving in the out-of-plane direction, hitting already damaged AVBs with sharp corners (Zero Radius) resulting in the existing incubating cracks in the tubes to grow at a undefined rate.
Now the tubes are wearing and cracks are growing without the knowledge of the operator, because there is no instrumentation installed in the SGs as a part of the NRC Confirmatory Letter to warn/alarm the operator, as to what is going on about this kind of event. This event can occur at any time and propagate during the Unit 2, 5-month experiment window. Now, one, two or more than 5 tubes can potentially leak and/or rupture and the operator gets sudden warning/alarms through existing radiation monitors and proposed temporary N-16 detectors located on the main steam lines.
Shift Manager has only 15 minutes to diagnose, trouble shoot, declare the event and notify the Offsite Agencies for activation of the SONGS Emergency Plan. Before, Shift Manager can call for additional help, activate TSC, OSC, EOF, JIC or start taking actions to mitigate the consequences of a nuclear accident in progress, the reactor trips, turbine trips, main steam lines over pressurizes due to sudden turbine load rejection. The main steam lines atmospheric valves and/or main steam line relief valves will instantaneously open to prevent the main steam line from over pressurization and start dumping the un-partitioned radioactive coolant containing iodine with steam into the environment. In less than 15 minutes, 60 tons of radioactive coolant contained in the faulty and un-isolatable steam generator, will leak to the environment, melt the fuel in the reactor and release offsite doses in excess of Control Room limit of 5 Rem TEDE, and the Exclusion Area Boundary and Low Population Zone limit of 2.5 Rem TEDE.
Based on the NRC Studies, Independent Safety Experts Observations and observation of SONGS Emergency Plan Drills, San Onofre Emergency Plan is not proven to notify, shelter (Plus KI Tablets) and evacuate the transients, disabled residents, affected families and children within the 10 mile zone during rush traffic hours in the event of above described a sudden large early frequency release radiological accident. A nuclear fallout from San Onofre can shutdown completely the business at Los Angeles and Long Beach Harbors and chock the already fragile economy of Southern California.
HelpAllHurtNeverBaba says:
NRC Job is not done. Now they should start investigating SCE SG cover up, discrimination, intimidation, and retaliation concerns. SCE officers were afraid of testifying under oath and being investigated by US Justice Department, NRC Office of Inspector General and Investigations.
San Onofre Unit 2 Sad Saga Continued – Conclusions and Lingering Questions for the benefit of NRC Commission and San Onofre Panel
1. It is unanimous decision of unbiased independent safety and SONGS Insider Experts that SONGS 10CFR 50.59 was not performed properly by SCE. If NRC had reviewed these changes in detail through a 50.90 License Amendment like Palo Verde SGRP, then the problems with Unit 3 FEI high void fractions, untested design and unanalyzed operational changes could have been averted. Then this whole embarrassing fiasco for NRC Commission, SCE, MHI and entire nuclear industry could have been averted.
2. Root Cause for Units 3 and 2 have not been determined because:
a. Uncertainties with computer modeling for in-plane fluid elastic instability,
b. Operational differences between Units 2 & 3 have not been analyzed in detail that is why, SCE, MHI, AREVA, Westinghouse, NRC have not arrived at a clear and unanimous conclusions.
3. SCE, MHI, AREVA, Westinghouse and NRC have not addressed the synergic effects of tube-to-tube wear and high cycle fatigue.
4. SCE/MHI explanation of tube-to-AVB contact forces and fatigue levels in Unit 2 is incomplete and totally unsatisfactory.
5. Unit 2 Tubes have not been inspected for internal incubating cracks.
6. SCE/NRC explanation of new License Amendment to operate at 70% power is incomplete and totally unsatisfactory.
7. SCE/MHI/NRC still do not understand that you cannot design anti-vibration bars to prevent the adverse effects of high void fractions of 99.6%. Therefore, the best advice is to operate the completely re-built replacement steam generators at void fractions of 96%, steam pressures > 950 psi, 1500 MWt and recirculation ratios >5.
The former head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Southern California Edison’s plans to restart San Onofre at 70 percent power do not inspire him with confidence. A question specifically about the proposal to restart the San Onofre nuclear power plant elicited a skeptical response from Jaczko. The plant has been offline since January 2012 after a small radiation leak and the NRC is currently considering a proposal to restart one reactor at 70 percent for five months. “Just looking at it as an outsider now,“ Jaczko said, “the approach that is being taken is not one that instills tremendous confidence in me because the approach is for operation at reduced power. In principal, what you should see is design modifications and changes that allow operations at the licensed power levels.” In other words: a fix. Jaczko said the restart proposal creates doubt in his mind that there’s a complete understanding of what’s wrong with the faulty steam generators at San Onofre.
Arnie Gundersen, said the probability of a nuclear power plant accident is in fact much higher than estimates, becuase five units have melted down in the past 35 years: one at Three Mile Island, one at Chernoble and three at Fukushima.“ We are dealing with a technology that can have 40 great years and one bad day,” Gundersen said, “and that one bad day can destroy a country.”
Peter Bradford, a commissioner with the NRC at the time of the Three Mile Island accident, said the regulatory agency pledged to become more transparent but in fact the opposite has happened. He pointed out little was done after Fukushima to improve safety at U.S. power plants, whereas there was heightened security after the Boston bombings. Bradford called for appointing nuclear regulatory commissioners who have a record of protecting public safety, as well as a record of technical experience with the industry.
Edison with great confidence and arrogance quotes approval of San Onofre SGRP 10 CFR 50.59 via NRC Safety Evaluations and NRC AIT Report. Edison seeks to minimize damage from Dwight Nunn’s Letters and rejection of recommendation to reduce high void fractions by SCE/AVB Team. The high void fractions of 99.6% to maximize thermal output from RSGs caused a tube leak and unprecedented tube-to-tube wear and high cycle thermal fatigue cracks in Unit 3. The high void fractions of 98.9% to maximize thermal output from RSGs caused high cycle thermal fatigue cracks in thousands of Unit 2 tubes.
Edison states, “Replacement of the steam generators is a replacement in-kind in terms of an overall fit, form, and function with no, or minimal, permanent modifications to the plant systems, structures, and components (SSCs)· The fact that the RSG were designed, fabricated and examined to the newer edition of the ASME Code is an enhancement over the OSGs.”
SCE website states, “SCE advised the NRC that the San Onofre steam generators contained a number of different features from the precious design. In fact, safety evaluations prepared by the NRC in connection with amendments to the San Onofre license associated with the steam generator replacements described the most important of those changes in detail. At no time did SCE hide the differences from the NRC, nor did it seek to mislead the NRC concerning the applicability of Section 50.59 to the project. Any suggestion that seeks to draw from the November 2004 letter a contrary conclusion is simply incorrect and relies on the fundamental error of viewing Section 50.59 as applying to identical, or “like for like” replacements.”
A like-for-like replacement is defined as the replacement of an item with an item that is identical. For example, the replacement item would be identical if it was purchased at the same time from the same vendor as the item it is replacing, or if the user can verify that there have been no changes in the design, materials, or manufacturing process since procurement of the item being replaced. If differences from the original item are identified in the replacement item, then the item is not identical, but similar to the item being replaced, and an evaluation (Such as 10CFR 50.59, Changes, tests or experiments..) is necessary to determine if any changes in design, material, or the manufacturing process could impact the functional characteristics (high void fractions, high steam flows, high fluid velocities, excessive tube vibrations, etc.) and ultimately the component’s ability to perform its required safety function (SG Tube structural Integrity). If the licensee cannot demonstrate that the replacement item is identical and differs in design, or results in a design change, new test or experiment, which adversely affects RSG’s functional characteristics (high Void fractions, high steam flows, Wrong AVBs for FEI) and ultimately the RSGs ability to perform its required safety function (RCS Barrier), then the licensee needs to inform NRC ASAP and proceed safely for a NRC Approved 50.90 License Amendment like Palo Verde.
Flow-induced Vibrations & Fluid Elastic Instability
The World’s Foremost Renowned Professeur Titulaire, Michel J. Pettigrew, Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, on the subject of fluid elastic instability and turbulence-induced vibration states in the 1970’s, “It is concluded that, although there are still areas of uncertainty, most flow-induced vibration problems can be avoided provided that nuclear components are properly analysed at the design stage and that the analyses are supported by adequate testing and development work when required. There has been no case yet where vibration considerations have seriously constrained the designer.” Dr. Pettigrew told the NRC Commissioners again in 2013 that San Onofre Replacement Steam Generators flat anti-vibration bars do not provide a positive restraint against fluid elastic instability.
Shahab Khushnood, Zaffar M. Khan, M. Afzaal Malik, Zafar Ullah Koreshi and Mahmood Anwar Khan wrote in 2003, “Flow-induced vibration is an important concern to the designers of heat exchangers subjected to high flows of gases or liquids. Two-phase cross-flow occurs in industrial heat exchangers, such as nuclear steam generators, condensers, and boilers, etc. Under certain flow regimes and fluid velocities, the fluid forces result in tube vibration and damage due to fretting and fatigues of tubes. Prediction of these forces requires an understanding of the flow regimes found in heat exchanger tube bundles. Excessive vibrations under normal operating conditions can lead to tube failure. Relatively little information exists on two-phase vibration. This is not surprising as single-phase flow induced vibration; a simpler topic is not yet fully understood. Vibration in two-phase is much more complex because it depends upon two-phase flow regime, i.e. characteristics of two-phase mixture and involves an important consideration, which is the void fraction. The effect of characteristics of two-phase mixture on flow-induced vibration is still largely unknown. Two-phase flow experiments are much more expensive and difficult to carry out as they usually require pressurized loops with the ability to produce two-phase mixtures. Although convenient from an experimental point of view, air–water mixture if used as a simulation fluid, is quite different from high-pressure steam–water. A reasonable compromise between experimental convenience and simulation of steam–water two-phase flow is desired.”
One Masters Research Student R. Viollette and Dr. Pettigrew state in a 2006 research paper, “Fluid elastic instability is the most important vibration excitation mechanism for heat exchanger, or steam generator type of tube bundles. It is so because of the very high vibrations amplitude that it can induce to the tubes, which can lead to rapid failure by fatigue or wear. Also, unlike vibrations induced by vortex shedding (vortex-induced vibrations), fluid elastic instability is not a self-limiting phenomenon: amplitude of vibrations does continue to increase with velocity past the critical onset of the instability.” Dr. Pettigrew told in his 2006 paper that design of flat anti-vibration bars design need to be verified against fluid elastic instability.
Quotes from [Redacted] Anonymous Engineers
One [Redacted] Root cause Leader stated, “ I wish that these [Redacted] Engineers had made these changes one by one and tested them before implementing them in the RSG design.”
Another [Redacted] Project Manager said, “ I wish that these [Redacted] Engineers had duplicated Palo Verde Generators, went through an independent design review …….”
Another [Redacted] Retired Manager said, “These whole design changes by these [Redacted] Engineers and [Redacted] Management were geared only to maximize the thermal performance and profits or the new Replacement Generators because of change from Alloy 600 tube material in the OSGs to Alloy 690 in the RSGs.” Even though Alloy 690 has better corrosion resistance than Alloy 600, Alloy 690 has a 10-12 less heat transfer coefficient than Alloy 600.
10 CFR 50.59 – Changes, tests, and experiments.
(c) (2) A licensee shall obtain a license amendment pursuant to § 50.90 prior to implementing a proposed change, test, or experiment if the change, test, or experiment would:
(i) Result in more than a minimal increase in the frequency of occurrence of an accident previously evaluated in the final safety analysis report (as updated);
Utility Likely Answer N/A with no explanation
Comments: The [Redacted] Engineers evasively answered N/A and did not answer the following NRC 50.59 Inspection Manual safety questions required before making the change. (1) Systems and components affected by the change (What is the effect of the change on their capability to perform their specified or intended functions?); (2) Parameters of the accident analysis affected by the change (Are all the relevant design basis accidents and transients identified?); (3) Potential effects of system or component failure (i.e., the question, “what would happen if…” is explored and answered in the evaluation), and (4) How the evaluation criteria are met. The first criterion is if the CTE would result in more than a minimal increase in the frequency of an accident previously evaluated in the FSAR (as updated). The intent of the criterion is to allow changes to be made without approval unless there is a discernible, attributable increase in frequency of an accident. There must be some reason to believe that the CTE would result in a more than minimal impact upon the accident frequency (as because it affects the integrity of the reactor coolant system, or the ability of SSC to remove decay heat, or makes an initiating event more likely to occur). Licensees must still meet applicable regulatory requirements. As noted in NEI 96-07, departures from the design, fabrication, testing and performance standards in the General Design Criteria are not compatible with a “no more than minimal increase” standard.
Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR), “Energy,” establishes the fundamental regulatory requirements for the integrity of the SG tubes. Specifically, the general design criteria (GDC) in Appendix A, “General Design Criteria for Nuclear Power Plants,” to 10 CFR Part 50, “Domestic Licensing of Production and Utilization Facilities,” state that the RCPB— (1) Shall have “an extremely low probability of abnormal leakage…and gross rupture” (GDC 14, “Reactor Coolant Pressure Boundary”), (2) Shall be designed with sufficient margin” (GDCs 15, “Reactor Coolant System Design,” and 31, “Fracture Prevention of Reactor Coolant Pressure Boundary”), and (3) shall be of “the highest quality standards practical” (GDC 30, “Quality of Reactor Coolant Pressure Boundary”)
Most of the successful steam generators operate at void fractions less than 98.5%, steam pressures > 900 psi and recirculation ratios >4. This ensures that high dry steam is not produced in localized areas of U-tube bundle and tubes and tube supports are not subject to excessive vibrations/tube contact and tube dry-out due to fluid elastic instability, flow-induced vibrations and excessive fluid hydrodynamic pressures. The original San Onofre steam generators had circulation ratios of 3.3, void fractions of 96.1%, steam pressures of 900 psi and did not experience fluid elastic instability in 28 years of operation. All the four San Onofre replacement units had poor circulation ratios of 3.3, void fractions ranging from 98.9-99.6%, steam pressures ranging from 833-942 psi, RCS flows between 74-76 Mlbs/hour, narrow tube to pitch tube diameter, excessive number of tubes (9,727), extremely tall tubes (average length of heated tube increased by 50 inches, equivalent to the addition of ~650 tubes), 116,000 square feet of tube heat transfer area (increased from 104,000 in the OSGs) and virtually no in-plane restraints. Successful Steam Generator manufacturers control a combination of design and operational features to prevent tube/support damage from fluid elastic instability, flow-induced vibrations and excessive fluid hydrodynamic pressures. Because of the customer’s (SCE) desire to increase thermal output from steam generator and profits, Steam Generator manufacturers do not design and test/experiment anti-vibration bar support systems in an operating steam generator to demonstrate its capability to prevent tube/support damage from high void fractions (fluid elastic instability), flow-induced vibrations and excessive fluid hydrodynamic pressures. This is against the 10CFR 50.59 rules and GDC 14, 15 and 30.
The changes in void fractions due to numerous unanalyzed and untested design and operational changes not only increased significantly the frequency of occurrence of a steam generator tube leak in Unit 3 but destroyed the Edison’s newly constructed Billion Dollar 21st Century Safest and Innovative Steam Machines in less than 2 years of operation due fluid elastic instability, flow-induced vibrations and excessive fluid hydrodynamic pressures. In addition, 8 tubes in Unit 3 failed structural and leakage integrity criteria during their in-situ pressure main steam line break pressure testing. The high void fractions ultimately destroyed the RCS Barrier protected by the tubes. This was one of the largest steam generators ever built and represented a significant increase in size from those that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has built in the past. It required Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to evolve a new design beyond that which they currently have available. Such design evolutions required a careful, well thought approach that should have fully evaluated the risks inherent in creating a new and significantly larger steam generator. Such design evolutions challenged the capability of existing models and engineering tools used for proven steam generator designs. Success in developing a new and larger steam generator design required a full understanding of the risks inherent in this process and putting in place measures to manage these risks. Void fraction was an important thermal- hydraulic parameter, related to the probability of tube dry out occurring during power operation (the higher the void fraction, the higher the probability of dry out). Tube dry out is an undesirable phenomenon as it may eventually result in tube cracking. AVB team recognized that the design for SONGS RSGs resulted in higher steam quality (void fraction) and had considered making changes to the design to reduce the void fraction (e.g. using a larger down comer, using larger flow slot design for the tube support plates, and even removing a TSP). But each of the considered changes had unacceptable design consequences and the SCE/MHI AVB design team agreed not to implement them. Among the difficulties associated with the potential changes was the possibility that making them could impede the ability to justify the RSG design under the provisions of 10 CFR 50.59.” In Unit 2, the RSGs were installed and tested in 2009/10 and in Unit 3 in 2010/11. The RSG post-installation test results met acceptance criteria for all specified test parameters except measurements of void fractions to confirm the safety of new design, thus wasting all the money, time and the effort put into their fabrication.
_X__ Implement the activity per plant procedures without obtaining a License Amendment.
Likely Wrong Answer by Utility
__ X__ Request and receive a License Amendment prior to implementation.
Results in more than a discernible, attributable increase in the frequency of occurrence of steam generator tube leakage/cracking/rupture an accident previously evaluated in the final safety analysis report (as updated). –
This is the Right Answer
CaptD says:
One of the smoking “gun” letters?
The SCE Letter to MHI Nov. 30, 2004
http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=ccfadddd-50a3-4947-8a49-45e54e9dd2a4
richard123456columbia says:
My personal opinion :The insurance companies will not cover damages for a melt down of a NPP when it is in good working order, why should the public take the further added risk with a one of a kind jerry rigged repair job that may have long term flaws that no other plant has experienced, who knows what long term maintenance schedules are needed to run this plant, I have no confidence in the plant owners to go above or beyond the normal maintenance they do with a proven design because of the extra costs, they are determined to work the plant at 70% to brake even with no losses at any risk.
Update From FoE:
San Onofre: Friends of the Earth to NRC — Operating unsafe reactor as a nuclear experiment is not an option
Posted May. 24, 2013 / Posted by: Adam Russell
Motion calls for convening hearing panel on license amendments
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Friends of the Earth has filed a motion with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission requesting that a Licensing Board be convened to review license amendments that are required for Southern California Edison’s crippled San Onofre reactors, and provide an opportunity for an adjudicatory public hearing before any decision on restart.
The motion calls on the NRC to implement the decision of its own Atomic Safety Licensing Board, which ruled last week that the current process for evaluating and approving restart of the San Onofre reactor Unit 2 is a de facto license amendment proceeding. The ASLB ruled that without making formal changes in San Onofre’s license to address major safety issues Edison would be in violation of NRC regulations. The licensing board also ruled that a public hearing should be held prior to any decision on a new license.
Friends of the Earth’s motion, filed jointly with the Natural Resources Defense Council, calls on the NRC to convene an ASLB panel to preside over an adjudicatory license amendment proceeding. If the motion is accepted by the NRC, it would require Edison to submit a new license amendment that addresses unresolved safety issues. It would also consolidate the existing and newly required license amendment into one proceeding.
“The ASLB was very clear that operating San Onofre in its present uniquely damaged state would be an ‘experiment’ and outside its safety license requirements. Our motion makes clear to the NRC that moving forward on the current plan without further license amendments is not an option for them or Edison,” said Kendra Ulrich, nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth.
“It’s not that complicated,” Ulrich continued. “An unprecedented safety flaw is found at a nuclear reactor located in a highly active earthquake zone, and the agency’s own judicial safety board says it’s not legal to operate. The ASLB’s order confirms that all the major safety issues that Edison and the NRC have failed to acknowledge, never mind resolve, must be considered by a full license amendment process with an adjudicatory public hearing prior to restart.”
Established by the NRC Commissioners in late 2012 to hear a case brought by Friends of the Earth, the ASLB ruled last week that the current proposal from Edison to restart the reactor was an “experiment” with a reactor that had suffered “unique” phenomenon of steam generator tube damage. Edison has provided no data to prove that it can operate San Onofre without further damage — in fact, its own consultants acknowledge that steam tubes will continue to incur further damage even if the reactor operates at only 70 percent power. Last week nuclear engineers for Friends of the Earth provided evidence to the NRC that operating San Onofre will not only lead to further tube damage and failure but risk a major nuclear accident potentially affecting the lives of millions of people in Southern California.
Both the NRC and Edison in all of their assessments and proceedings have failed to address and resolve important safety issues. These include the vulnerability of the San Onofre steam generators and the nuclear reactor to seismic impact, which could lead to a significant accident and radiation dosage for the public. San Onofre lies within 50 miles of 8.7 million people in Southern California.
Kendra Ulrich, (216) 571-7340, kulrich@foe.org
Shaun Burnie, (202) 251-1862, sburnie@foe.org
Categories: Climate And Energy, News Releases, San Onofre News
Road Map for End to San Onofre Sad Saga – NRC/SCE/MHI/CPUC and Public Awareness Series
– Excuse me for the formatting, misspellings or grammatical errors.
Reference: Nuclear Regulatory Commission [Docket No. 50-361; NRC-2013-00701, Application and Amendment to Facility Operating License Involving Proposed No Significant Hazards Consideration Determination; San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, Unit 2]
Edison has in excess of $32 billion investment in transmission and distribution system. Edison is guaranteed 10-12 rate of return on this investment, which is added to the Ratepayers monthly electric bills. For Edison to claim this money, SCE needs a base-load plant like San Onofre to produce safe, reliable and affordable nuclear power. In other words, no matter what Ted Cravers says, Edison will opt to replace San Onofre Steam Generators, rather than Decommission and Dismantle San Onofre Units 2 & 3, “when push comes to shove.”
Now the existing steam generators are unsafe to operate any power even with MHI’s proposed interim repairs. Therefore, a License Amendment with Public Hearings at this time won’t help. MHI does not have the tools, technology, skills, research and testing facilities to rebuild these complex generators @100% power safe operation, as Edison Management wants it. SCE wrote defective specifications, MHI made tall and innovative claims that they can rebuild these generators better than Westinghouse. SCE/MHI AVB team rejected the adverse design changes and avoided informing the NRC. Now NRC, EIX/SCE Shareholders, MHI, CPUC and Ratepayers are holding the $2 Billion Radiological Garbage Bag and suffering the consequences.
MHI will never be able to rebuild these generators for free as Pete Dietrich wants. MHI says that it will take 5.5 years to rebuild these generators. The new generators for safe operation can be rebuild by MHI to deliver 1500 thermal MWt, so these generators would conform to MHI’s contemporary experience. To avoid fluid elastic instability and flow-induced vibrations, these new generators should have 88% heat transfer area of the MHI replacement generators and operated at 950 psi steam pressure, void fractions of 96% and a recirculation ratio >5. SCE and MHI have to share the cost of new generators and should apply for a 10CFR 50.90 License Amendment with trial like public hearings. MHI can use multiple tube manufacturers and retain AREVA to provide complete independent and detailed design, fabrication and testing oversight for the entire project. This can all be accomplished in less than 2 years with Extended NRC Oversight. SCE should totally keep its hands free of this entire operation.
In addition, Ted Craver should improve the working environment, maintenance, fire safety, procedure compliance, work control, nuclear training, and configuration control at San Onofre. This can be accomplished by retraining the workers, writing simple procedures and firing the existing inefficient, intimidating, retaliatory, discriminating and self-serving SONGS Senior Leadership Team.
San Onofre Sad Saga Continued – NRC/SCE/MHI/SCE Experts/CPUC and Public Awareness Series
Excuse me for the formatting, misspellings or grammatical errors.
1. Because of operational differences between Units 2 (Steam Pressure 942 psi, RCS Flows ~ 74 MLbs/Hr.)& 3 (Steam Pressure 833 psi, RCS Flows ~ 76 MLbs/Hr.), FEI did not occur in Unit 2 (out-of-plane vibrations and/or may be in-plane vibrations existed far below the level of FEI to cause tube-to-tube wear). This finding is consistent with Westinghouse OA. Unit 3 FEI occurred in 4% area of the tubes in the Hot leg due to high steam flows (SG Heat Transfer Coefficient Exceeded by 5 MWt, Change from Nucleate Boiling to Film Boiling), high in-plane fluid velocities (35-50 feet/sec), low tube clearances (0.05 – 0.25 inches), extremely tall tubes, low steam pressures, high RCS flows and Mitsubishi Flowering Effects ( increased the tube-to AVB Gaps in Unit 3 compared to Unit 2 as measured by ECT). SONGS Original Combustion Engineering steam generators were operated at a void fraction of 96.1%, fluid velocities of 22 feet/sec and steam pressures of 900 psi, and a circulation ratio of 3.3. That is why FEI did not happen in Original San Onofre Units 2 & 3 for 28 years, but, these generators did suffer from flow-induced random vibrations. According to Dr. Pettigrew, for optimum steam generator operation, operations and design engineers are advised to keep fluid velocities 16 ksi, which exceeds the ASME Limit of 13 ksi. Review of 170,000 San Onofre Tube Inspections indicates that SCE and its vendors have not used the latest technology probes used by the Canadian and Finland Engineers for detection of incubating and circumferential cracks. These cracks can cause instantaneous tube ruptures during SONGS Unit 2 normal 70% steady state power (at any time in the 5 month operation), anticipated operational occurrences, inadvertent equipment manipulations and Design Basis Accidents. Due to the amount of abnormal and unprecedented degradation reported in thousands of Unit 2 tubes and inadequacy of Unit 2 AVBs to prevent FEI, inspections beyond the current NEI Steam Generator Management Program are required to assure adequate protection of health and safety of 8.4 Million Southern Californians and minimize Environmental, Ecological and Economic Damage from potential nuclear accidents. The following types of scenarios are possible to inflict the above damage:
A. Spontaneous fretting fatigue rupture of a single steam generator tube in the free span with a stuck open relief valve or a broken header
B. Tube Ruptures from Unplanned closing of an isolation valve.
C. Seismically –Induced Tube Rupture
D. Station Blackout, SBO
E. Main Steam Line Break, MSLB
From any tube rupture and leakages, concurrent with containment bypass, these events might cause offsite radiation doses in excess of 10 CFR Part 100 as evaluated in the SONGS FSAR. Any of these two events would cause a simultaneous reactor, turbine, feedwater and reactor coolant trips. Due to feedwater pump trip, the RSG U-bundle secondary water level will shrink and tubes will be uncovered for a period of at least 10 minutes and experience a sharp drop in secondary side pressure. The entire sub-cooled feedwater inventory contained in the faulted RSG will instantaneously flash to high dry steam. The combination of resonant, out-of-plane, in-plane vibrations, jet impingement forces, broken tube fragments and RSG debris will cause large axial, bending, dynamic and cyclic loads on all the tubes, tube support plates, retainer bars and anti-vibration structure. The strength of the welded and mechanical connections of these low frequency retainer bars, retaining bars and bridges have not been analyzed for the effects of these cumulative loads to prevent AVB structure displacement, deformation or collapse during anticipated operational transients and main steam line breaks. The displacement, deformation or collapse of AVB structure along with the large axial, bending, dynamic and cyclic loads can potentially cause thousands of worn, cracked, plugged and stabilized tubes to exceed several times the allowed tube ASME Endurance Limit of 13.6 ksi. If this happens, multiple tube ruptures will occur at tube-support plates, mid-spans, free spans and tube-to-anti-vibration bar notched interfaces. Since all the water from the RSG would escape to the environment, the iodine-131 from un-partitioned reactor coolant leaking out the rupture tubes will also escape to the environment in less than 10 minutes with 60 tons of radioactive coolant. Consistent with Fukushima Task Force Lessons Learnt and NRC Commissioner Meeting Transcripts, this event will be considered as a beyond design basis event, and SONGS Operators will be unable to take any timely mitigation actions to stop a severe nuclear accident in progress. If the prevailing winds are towards San Clemente, consistent with NRC Inspector General Reports, NRC Studies and observations of SONGS Emergency Plan Drills for the last six years, SCE and Offsite agencies would not have time to respond, notify, evacuate, shelter or give Potassium Iodide to the affected residents within the 10-mile affected emergency planning zone. The casualties, and short, long-term cancer affects to the affected population will depend upon the iodine spiking factor and the duration of blowdown, but will significantly exceed the NRC approved SONGS Control Room limit of 5 Rem Total Effective Dose Equivalent (TEDE), and the Exclusion Area Boundary and Low Population Zone limit of 2.5 Rem TEDE
3. MHI tube-to-AVB contact forces to prevent FEI and reduce flow-induced random vibrations based on ECT results, Visual Inspections, Quarter Bundle Model, Statistical Analysis, Manufacturing Dispersions, AVB Twist Forces Testing and New Anti-Vibration Test Data range from 2 N to > 30 N . According to Mitsubishi recent testing data, additional thicker tubes with contact forces in excess of 30N are required in Unit 2 are required to prevent adverse effects of FEI @ @100%RTP. Best on the best available evidence, existing Unit 2 AVBs have a significant smaller contact force (2N) than 30N required to prevent FEI. This data appears to be contradicting and significantly flawed. NRC needs to question MHI and AREVA to determine correct tube-to-AVB contact force number to prevent FEI with tube-bundle uncovered and depressurized during a potential MSLB with Unit 2 at 70% power?
4. The in-plane critical velocities based on latest 2011 research papers, Dr. Pettigrew’s and Dr. Mureithi Testing and MHI Root Cause Data range between 35-50 feet/sec.
5. AREVA, Westinghouse, MHI and SCE conclusions on Unit 2 FEI are conflicting, contradicting, smoking mirrors and ambiguous based on a review of SCE Unit 2 return to Service Reports and NRC Commissioners Transcripts.
6. SCE, NRC AIT, Westinghouse, AREVA, MHI and Intertek have not addressed the combined effects of tube-to-tube wear, circumferential and incubating cracks caused in tubes due to tube-to-tube wear and high cycle metal fatigue caused by fluid elastic instability. One European Nuclear site experienced 3 tube leaks between 2004-2006 due to fluid elastic instability and high cycle fatigue.
7. Based on Unit 3 tube leak and MSLB in-situ testing, SCE has not addressed the effects of fluid elastic instability on multiple SGTRs concurrent with a MSLB in the Updated UFSAR, 10CFR 50.59 and proposed 10CFR 50.92 No Significant Hazards Analysis License Amendment. Operating Unit 2 degraded RSGs @70% power due to the above described potential accidents results in multiple SGTRs due to FEI and incubating cracks and the consequences are as follows:
A. The Proposed License Amendment Would Involve a Significant Increase in the Probability or Consequence of an Accident Previously Evaluated.
B. The Proposed License Amendment Would Involve the Possibility of a New or Different Kind of Accident From Any Accident Previously Evaluated.
C. The Proposed License Amendment Would Involve a Significant Reduction in a Margin of Safety.
In order to issue a finding of no significant hazards considerations, the NRC Staff bears
the burden of showing that the hazards considerations as a result of the ASLB’s recent decision in the CAL proceeding are insignificant. The Staff cannot make that showing, and consequently the proposed finding must be withdrawn and a hearing on the proposed license amendment held by an ASLB before the amendment may be approved by the NRC. As the ASLB recently held with respect to San Onofre Unit 2:
We conclude that until the tube degradation mechanism is fully understood, until reasonable assurance of safe operation of the replacement steam generators is demonstrated, and until there has been a rigorous NRC Staff review appropriate for a licensing action, the operation of Unit 2 would be outside the scope of its operating license because the replacement steam generator design must be considered to be inconsistent with the steam generator design specifications assumed in the FSAR and supporting analysis.
May 23, 2013: California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer told Nuclear Regulatory Chairwoman Dr. Allison Macfarlane that she wants two things before the restart of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station is considered: completion of an investigation and a public hearing. Boxer made her comments Thursday as part of the Senate reconfirmation hearing for Macfarlane, who is seeking another term as chair of the NRC. Boxer scoffed at Southern California Edison’s (SCE) plan to change its operating license to restart the number two reactor at San Onofre at partial capacity. She repeated the U.S. Atomic Safety Licensing Board’s description of the plan as an “experiment.” Boxer commented on SCE’s plan to operate the reactor at 70 percent. “We’ll see what happens, we’ll see how it goes,” Boxer said during the hearing. “That’s like saying I think I fixed the damaged brakes on your car, but don’t drive it over 40 miles per hour.” Boxer repeatedly brought up the 8 million people living within 50 miles of the nuclear plant, saying if someone came to the NRC today and asked for a license to operate a nuclear power plant at that site, “in a seismic and a tsunami zone, we all know every single commissioner would say, ‘don’t you think you could find a better place for it?’”
8. SCE has not addressed the True Root Cause of Unit 3 tube-to-tube wear (Untested and unanalyzed design changes, adverse operational and thermal-hydraulic parameters, human performance errors (Avoidance of 10CFR 50.90 by portraying RSGs as “like for like” replacement, rejecting SCE/MHI AVB Team proposed changes to reduce void fractions by improving circulations ratios, failure to review of FEI research papers by Dr. Pettigrew, Dr. Ivan Cotton, Dr. Dhir, etc., failure to benchmark other successful CE replacement generators (Palo Verde)) and actions to prevent tube-to-tube wear in Unit 2 as required by CAL.
9. Westinghouse tube wear rates calculations are non-conservative and based on old SGs testing, which significantly differ in design compared with San Onofre RSGs.
Boxer tells NRC chair she wants hearing on San Onofre nuke plant http://www.scpr.org/news/2013/05/23/37391/boxer-tells-nrc-chair-she-wants-hearing-on-san-ono/#comments
SCE is on the road to being Unpopular and Bankrupt without Public Support. EIX/SCE Management and Shareholders will find themselves alone holding the Expensive Bag Full of Radioactive Waste – Holding of Useless Proprietary Information is hurting SCE, its Vendors and NRC – It makes Public more suspicious of wrongdoing by SCE, its Vendors and NRC
Subject: Review of SONGS 10CFR50.59 and 50.92 Evaluations – SCE Designed and MHI Fabricated 21st Century Safest & Innovative Replacement Steam Generators
QUIZ for NRC/SCE/MHI/Public SCE Experts and Public
Tube-to-AVB contact forces required to prevent fluid elastic instability in San Onofre Replacement Steam Generators
A. 2N
C. ~ 10N
D. > 30N
E. None of the above or your best guess based on the information provided below
Most of the steam generators operate at void fractions below 98.5%, steam pressures > 900 psi and recirculation ratios >4. This ensures operation of the SG in the nucleate boiling regime (damping of hot SG tubes to prevent in-plane vibrations (Fluid Elastic Instability), optimum operation of the SG thermal performance and minimization of tube vibrations. These operational parameters ensure the prevention of adverse effects of FEI (High Dry Steam, high fluid in-plane velocities, Film Boiling), flow-induced random vibrations and excessive dynamic pressures on tube-to-tube wear, tube-to-AVB/TSP wear, high cycle tube thermal fatigue (development of incubating cracks) and retainer bar-to-tube wear. Along with numerous untested and unapproved design changes made under the false pretense of “like for like” to avoid lengthy NRC 10CFR 50.90 Review and Public Hearings, [Redacted]… designed and [Redacted] fabricated 21st Century Safest and Innovative Replacement Steam Generators were operating outside the above operational parameters to maximize the SG thermal output and profits. MHI Root Cause states, “Thus, not using ATHOS, which predicts higher void fractions than FIT-III at the time of design represented, at most, a missed opportunity to take further design steps, not directed at in-plane FEI, that might have resulted in a different design that might have avoided in-plane FEI. However, the AVB Design Team recognized that the design for
the SONGS RSGs resulted in higher steam quality (void fraction) than previous designs
and had considered making changes to the design to reduce the void fraction (e.g.,
using a larger downcomer, using larger flow slot design for the tube support plates,
and even removing a TSP). But each of the considered changes had unacceptable
consequences and the AVB Design Team agreed not to implement them. Among the
difficulties associated with the potential changes was the possibility that making them
could impede the ability to justify the RSG design under the provisions of 10 C.F.R.
§50.59. Thus, one cannot say that use of a different code than FIT-III would have
prevented the occurrence of the in-plane FEI observed in the SONGs RSGs or that any
feasible design changes arising from the use of a different code would have reduced
the void fraction sufficiently to avoid tube-to-tube wear. For the same reason, an analysis of the cumulative effects of the design changes including the departures from the OSG’s design and MHI’s previously successful designs would not have resulted in a design change that directly addressed in-plane FEI.” And we saw the end result of that [Redacted missed opportunity. Destruction of $ 1 Billion Dollar Steam Generators and Number 1 US Public Safety Concern/Nuclear Scandal, Controversy and Cover-up involving [Redacted] and others. Dr. Pettigrew told Dr. Macfarlane and the NRC Commissioners that [Redacted] AVBs simply do not provide a positive restraint against FEI.
Here is the summary of San Onofre Tube-to-AVB Contact Forces and Accident Scenarios for your benefit:
1. High Void fractions of 99.6%, high steam flows (film boiling), higher thermal reactor power per RSG (RCS Flows ~ 76 Million lbs./hr, 1737 MWt plus), high in-plane fluid velocities (35-50 feet/sec), circulation ratios of 3.3, narrow tube to pitch tube diameter, excessive number of 9,727 tubes, extremely tall tubes (average length of heated tube increased by 50 inches, equivalent addition of 650 new tubes), 116,000 square feet of tube heat transfer area, lack of in-plane restraints, steam generator operation at 833 psi and insufficient tube-to-AVB contact forces ( 2N per (redacted)) and better supports (smaller tube-to-AVB Gaps, Based on ECT Results) caused Flow-Induced Random Vibrations and (Redacted) Flowering Effect in Unit 2 @100%RTP.
3. [Redacted] companies claim that operating and thermal-hydraulic condition were the same in both units, Unit 2 did not experience tube-to-tube wear because of double tube-to AVB contact forces and better supports because of inadvertent accidental Unit 2 AVB design. FEI did not occur in Unit 2, which is consistent with [Redacted]. The [Redacted] Report noted that the operational differences did not make any difference between Units 2 & 3. Throughout this entire paper, we will review [Redacted] claims: (1) About Unit 2 double tube-to AVB contact forces and better supports because of inadvertent accidental design, and (2) About Unit 3 insufficient tube-to AVB contact forces and loose supports because of intentional precision manufacturing.
4. According to [Redacted], a Tube-to-AVB Contact Force of 10N is required to prevent FEI@100%RTP. It is noted that Tube-to-AVB clearances are significantly larger than the SONGS steam generator design clearance of 2 mils diametral. For the present, it is sufficient to note that the forces at AVB locations needed to prevent the onset of fluid-elastic instability are low. In contrast, after instability develops, the amplitude of in-plane motion continuously increases and the forces needed to prevent in-plane motion at any given AVB location become relatively large. Hence shortly after instability occurs, U-bends begin to swing in Mode 1 and overcome hindrance at any AVB location. Calculation of the probability of the onset of in-plane fluid-elastic instability requires information in three areas: stability ratios, contact forces at AVB locations and a criteria for deciding whether AVB supports are effective or ineffective in terms of in-plane support. Stability ratios need to be known as a function of position in the bundle, number of consecutive ineffective supports and power level. Contact forces at AVB locations cannot be determined deterministically since the dispersion of gaps between tubes and AVB supports is random, and thus probabilistic in nature. The primary source of tube-to-AVB contact forces is the restraint provided by the retaining bars and bridges, reacting against the component dimensional dispersion of the tubes and AVBs. Contact forces are available for both cold and hot conditions. Contact forces significantly increase at normal operating temperature and pressure due to diametric expansion of the tubes and thermal growth of the AVBs. [Redacted] has calculated the response of a large U-bend with AVB supports subjected to turbulence and fluid-elastic excitation forces. Various gap (clearances) conditions were included along with contact forces ranging from 1N to 10N. An equal contact force was applied at all 12 AVB locations. Given the uncertain nature of fluid-elastic excitation forces, a direct application of the selected excitation function to SONGS at 100% power is problematic. However the scale of the contact force that prevented in-plane vibration is highly useful. A contact force of 1N did not resist in-plane motion but a force of 10N was completely effective.
5. According to [Redacted] recent testing data, additional thicker tubes with contact forces in excess of 30N are required in Unit 2 are required to prevent adverse effects of FEI @ @100%RTP.
6. Best on the best available evidence, existing Unit 2 AVBs have a significant smaller
contact force (> 2N) than 30N required to prevent FEI.
6, During AOO and MSLB events, Unit 2 at 70% power will experience void fractions of 100%, high steam flows (film boiling), high in-plane fluid velocities (35-50 feet/sec) and jet impingement from flashing feedwater. With contact forces of 2N, Unit 2 tube bundle would not be able to prevent the adverse effects of FEI, Flow-Induced Random Vibrations and Mitsubishi Flowering Effect. Multiple tube-ruptures can occur due to tube-tube wear, full circumferential rupture of tubes can occur due to incubating cracks and the entire degraded Anti-vibration structure can collapse.
Answer . Send email at contact-mnes@mnes-us.com for the correct answer, because all the data is private and proprietary. Release of correct data in the public domain can point to Billion Dollar Mistakes made in the RSG Design, Manufacturing, Testing, Computer Simulation, Mock-up Testing, Statistical Analysis, and Thermal-Hydraulic Operational Analysis.
HAHN Baba says:
Preface: Of particular concern with SONGS Unit 2 restart at reduced power are undetermined and unexamined amount of incubating circumferential cracks located in tubes next to each other caused by fluid-induced random vibrations, high cycle thermal fatigue and in-plane fluid elastic instability. When one circumferentially cracked tube ruptures, the additional stresses can cause multiple or cascading tube ruptures, which can result in a nuclear meltdown. In addition, though the Unit 3 steam generators failed more catastrophically, it appears that there is a much larger pool of tubes out of alignment and in direct contact with support plates in Unit 2. SCE, MHI, AREVA, Intertek, Westinghouse and NRC are ignoring these cracks in their analyses. The difference in management of Steam Generator Tube Rupture between Finland and USA is, that no primary coolant (liquid and steam) release to the environment is allowed in Finland, while in USA, primary steam releases are not forbidden for profits to conduct risky experiments with people’s lives. This situation is unique to San Onofre Steam Generator and the Potential Extent of Condition does not affect any other MHI Steam Generators.
Conclusions: For SCE to restart “Defectively-Designed and Degraded Unit 2”, in accordance with ASLB’s decision today, a full 50.90 License Amendment with trial like public hearing is required, because the pending license 50.92 amendment, CAL Actions, SCE’s response to NRR RAI’s, SCE Unit 2 Return to Service Reports and MHI Root Cause/Technical Evaluations do not fully satisfy the requirement of the Federal Regulations. SCE prepared a defective 50.59 Replacement Steam Generators (RSGs) evaluation and directed MHI not to inform NRC of the RSGs design deficiencies. NRC region IV and AIT Team did a very poor job of the review of the SCE prepared defective 50.59 evaluation and defended SCE by blaming all the mistakes on the MHI. Now from review of the press reports, one is likely to conclude that NRC Commission and NRR are still leaning towards approving SCE’s permission to Restart Unit 2 in violation of the President of The United States, US Congress, Federal Regulations, NRC ASLB Board and against the safety interests of 8.4 Million Southern Californians.
NRC News, May 13 (Reuters) – ASLB: San Onofre Confirmatory Action Letter Process Offers Opportunity for Adjudicatory Hearing: The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) has decided partially in favor of Friends of the Earth that petitioned for a hearing on the NRC’s Confirmatory Action Letter process regarding steam generator issues at the San Onofre nuclear power plant in California. The ASLB is a three-member board of administrative judges independent of the NRC staff that conducts adjudicatory hearings on major agency licensing actions. The board’s decision concludes that this particular Confirmatory Action Letter process, in which San Onofre seeks to restart Unit 2, is effectively a license amendment proceeding. Therefore the Atomic Energy Act and NRC rules give the public the opportunity for an adjudicatory hearing. The Board’s decision provided the public interest group, Friends of the Earth, with the relief it requested – namely, the opportunity for a hearing on the license amendment. Accordingly, the Board’s decision terminates the proceeding at the Board level. The Board also offered reasons why this decision applies only to the unusual facts in the San Onofre process and not to the whole category of Confirmatory Action Letters.
Public Reaction to ASLB Ruling: Damon Moglen of Friends of the Earth called the ruling “a complete rejection of Edison’s plan to restart its damaged nuclear reactors without public review or input.” An SCE spokeswoman said the utility was still reviewing the ruling and declined to comment. Edison’s Chief Executive Ted Craver has said the utility may decide by year end to retire one or both San Onofre reactors if its restart request is denied, citing uncertainty over NRC timing and SCE’s ability to recover costs related to the extended outage. The reactor can only restart if the NRC concludes it can operate safely. Pressure has been growing on the NRC and the utility to agree to a full review of safety issues at San Onofre from elected officials and anti-nuclear groups. The board concluded that SCE’s restart plan, known as the Confirmatory Action Letter process, is effectively a license amendment proceeding that gives the public the right to a hearing with testimony and cross-examination of witnesses.
CPUC News: Two California Public Utility Commission Judges have banned the media and the public from videotaping the hearings on the broken San Onofre nuclear plant run by SCE. The chair of the California Public Utility Commission is the former CEO of SCE and has taken favors from non-profit corporations funded by the SCE. Governor Brown who represents the utility industry has kept this questionable chair in his position of regulating the utilities in California. One of the judges Melanie Darling literally went out of control at the last hearing and tore down a banner after the hearing was adjourned. Maybe she does not like seeing herself in action so shutdown the cameras. Public Groups are requesting that the Commission provide a good-quality webcast of the entire week of evidentiary hearings currently scheduled for May 13-17, 2013. California Public Utilities Commission is strongly advised to allow citizens to videotape the hearings pursuant to the Bagley-Keene Act, in order to maximize transparency in this case and provide public access, especially for affected people, who live near the San Onofre nuclear plant, 450 miles away from the Commission’s courtrooms.
Background: There are hundreds of operating steam generators in the world, which have prevented in-plane fluid elastic instability by keeping the void fractions below 98.5% (Ref. AREVA Operational Assessment data for 5 steam generators, NUREG-1841, NRC Approved Power Uprate Applications, etc.) by operating at steam pressures above 900 psi and steam generator circulation ratios above 4. MHI Root Causes states, “SCE/MHI AVB Design Team recognized that the design for the SONGS RSGs resulted in higher steam quality (void fraction) than previous designs and had considered making changes to the design to reduce the void fraction (e.g., using a larger downcomer, using larger flow slot design for the tube support plates, and even removing a TSP).” So, we assume, that Edison Engineers must have foreseen the impact the problem of high void fractions on increased tube vibrations and refused to make the changes, because it could have impeded the ability to justify the RSG design under the provisions of 10 C.F.R. §50.59, delayed the construction schedule, increased the costs and reduced the profit margins. Increasing the circulation ratios meant reducing the void fractions by increasing the steam pressures, reducing pressure losses, reducing moisture content and less thermal output from the generator. High void fractions cause higher tube vibrations, fluid elastic instability and tube-to-tube wear. MHI/SCE AVB Team missed the boat on Academic Research Papers (2003 through 2006), NUREG-1841 Industry Bench Marking (World’s largest CE replacement steam generators installed in 2002 and partly owned by SCE) and ignored the well-established elementary principles of physics, SG tube vibrations, nucleate boiling, heat transfer, void fractions and circulation ratios by refusing to lower the RSG void fractions. The Original Combustion Engineering Steam Generators operated at 900 psi and a void fraction of 96.1%. That is why these steam generators did not suffer fluid elastic instability in 28 years of operation. Increasing the heat transfer area by 11%, addition of 377 new tubes (4% heat transfer area), the average length of heated tubes by 50 inches (Equivalent addition of 650 tubes or 7% heat transfer area), the steam generator thermal output by 24 MWt to make more profits and refusal to reduce the void fractions was a joint decision, which we assume, was known by members of the MHI/SCE AVB Team and SCE Management, which included the Edison Engineers.
Edison Steam Generator Expert states, “The contract for design, fabrication and delivery of the RSGs was awarded to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. (MHI). As specified, the RSGs were supposed to be a replacement in-kind for the OSGs in terms of form, fit and function. At the same time, however, the RSG specification included many new requirements derived from both industry and SONGS operating experience, and the requirement to use the best and most suitable materials of construction. These requirements were aimed at improving the RSG longevity, reliability, performance and maintainability. Also, the specification called for very tight fabrication tolerances of the components and sub-assemblies, especially the tubesheet and the tube U-bend support structure. In addition, SONGS steam generators are one of the largest in the industry, which called for innovative design solutions and improved fabrication processes when working on the RSGs. Conceivably, the MHI and Edison project teams faced many tough challenges throughout the entire project in the design, manufacturing and QC areas, when striving to meet the specification requirements. Both teams jointly tackled all these challenges in an effective and timely manner. At the end, MHI delivered the RSGs, which incorporated all the latest improvements found throughout the industry, as well as innovative solutions specific to the SONGS RSGs. In Unit 2, the RSGs were installed and tested in 2009/10 and in Unit 3 in 2010/11. The RSG post-installation test results met or exceeded the test acceptance criteria for all specified test parameters, thus properly rewarding the effort put into their fabrication.”
A. Review of SONGS Replacement Steam Generators 10CFR50.59 Evaluation
SCE states, “Having the OSGs replaced with the RSGs will improve efficiency and reliability of Units 2 & 3 by replacing a large number of plugged or otherwise degraded heat transfer tubes in each OSG with new tubes made from thermally-treated Alloy 690, which is less susceptible to degradation than the mill-annealed Alloy 600 material used for OSG heat transfer tubing. Replacement of the steam generators is a replacement in-kind in terms of an overall fit, form and function with no, or minimal, permanent modifications to the plant systems, structures or components (SSCs). Each RSG is designed to produce 7.588E6 lb/hr (vs. 7.414E6 lb/hr for OSGs) of 833 psia (vs. 900 psia for OSGs) saturated steam with void fraction of 99.6% (vs. 96.1% for OSGs) moisture content when supplied with feedwater at 442oF.
A.1 – The major physical differences between the RSGs and OSGs are as follows:
1. The RSGs have a greater number of tubes (9,727 vs. 9,350) and a larger heat transfer surface area than the OSGs (116,100 ft2 vs. ~ 105,000 ft2). The average length of the heated RSG tube is approximately 50 inches more than the average length of the heated OSG tube.
2. The RSG reactor coolant volume is greater than the OSG volume (2003 ft3 vs. 1895 ft3).
3.The RSG tube wall thickness is less than the wall thickness of the OSG tubes (0.0429 in. vs. 0.048 in.).
4. The RSG tubes are Alloy 690 (thermally-treated) while the OSG tubes are Alloy 600 (mill-annealed).
5. The RSG feedwater ring is fabricated from erosion-corrosion resistant Cr-Mo alloy steel with Alloy 690 TT fittings, whereas the OSG feedwater ring is made of carbon steel (with the exception of the flow distribution box).
6. All RSG tubes are U-bend shape, whereas the OSG tubes have both U-bend shape (inner rows of the tube bundle) and square-bend shape (outer rows of the tube bundle).
7. The RSG channel head has a flat bottom, thicker divider plate, as compared to the OSGs, and no stay cylinder.
8. The RSG tube supports consist of 7 broached tube support plates in the straight-leg region and anti-vibration bars in the U-bend region, while the OSG tube supports consist of the egg-crate type supports in the straight-leg region and batwings and vertical strips in the U-bend region.
A.2 – Design Function(s) and/or Method(s) of Evaluation: The design functions of steam generators are to:
1. Function as a part of the reactor coolant pressure boundary (RCPB).
2. Transfer heat between the RCS and main steam system.
3. Remove heat from the RCS to achieve and maintain safe shutdown following design basis accidents (except for a large break LOCA) and other UFSAR-described events.
A.3 – The design functions of the steam generator tubes and tube supports are to:
1. Limit tube flow-induced vibration and reactor coolant pump-induced vibration to acceptable levels during normal operating conditions.
2. Withstand blowdown forces from severance of a steam nozzle and ensure that ASME Code allowable stress limits are met.
3. Maintain acceptable ASME Code stress levels under design basis accident conditions (i.e., to prevent a tube rupture concurrent with other accidents, and to prevent multiple tube ruptures during a postulated single steam generator tube rupture event), and
4. Function as a part of the RCPB.
A.4 – State if the proposed activity:
1. Changes an SSC in a manner that adversely affects the UFSAR/DSAR design function(s) or has an adverse affect on the method of performing or controlling UFSAR/DSAR design function(s).
Yes. After the Unit 3 Leak, it is clear that the RSGs were designed and fabricated poorly compared with the OSGs. RSGs were not OSGs replacement in-kind in terms of design functions. OSGs lasted for 28 years and RSGs were destroyed in less than 2 years. Let us now examine the other differences between Unit 2 and Unit 3’s Operational Factors, which were significant contributors to the “fluid-elastic instability” in SONGS Unit 3 and the tube-to-tube wear resulting in the tube leak.
A.4.1 – Adverse Design/Operational Factors responsible for Fluid Elastic Instability: Low steam generator pressures (SONGS RSGs range 800-850 psi, the primary cause of the onset of severe vibrations) caused high dry steam and high fluid velocities conducive for fluid elastic instability and flow-induced vibrations, whereby U-tube bundle tubes started vibrating with very large amplitudes in the in-plane directions. Extremely hot and vibrating tubes need a little amount of water (aka damping, 1.5% water, steam-water mixture vapor fraction 98.5%). When the void fractions exceed 98.5% and are in the range of 99.5-100%, the extremely hot and vibrating tubes cannot dissipate their energy and return to their original in-plane design position. In effect, one unstable tube drives its neighbor to instability through repeated violent and turbulent impact events which causes tube leakage, tube failures at MSLB test conditions and or unprecedented tube-tube wear, Tube-to-AVB/Tube Support Plates wear, as we saw in SONGS Unit 3. So in review, due to narrow tube pitch to tube diameter, low tube frequency, low tube clearances, in certain portions of the RSGs U-tubes bundle, fluid velocities exceeded the critical velocities due to extremely high steam flows (100% SONGS power conditions outside the industry NORM). These high fluid velocities cause U-tubes to vibrate with very large amplitudes in the in-plane direction and literally hit other the tubes with repeated and violent impacts. Due to lower steam operating pressures (required to generate more heat, electricity and profits) and excessive pressure drops due to high flows and velocities, steam saturation temperature drops. This lowering of steam temperature combined with high heat flux in the hot leg side of the U-tube bundle causes steam dry-outs to form (Vapor fraction >99%), known as “NO Effective Thin Tube Film Damping.” Thin film damping refers to the tendency of the steam inside the generators to create a thin film of water between the RSG tubes and the support structures. That film is enough to help keep the tubes from vibrating with large amplitudes, hitting other tubes violently, and protect the Anti-Vibration Bar support structures and maintain the tube-to-AVB gaps and contact forces. These adverse conditions in SONGS at 70% power operation (RTP) with the present defective design and degraded of RSGs known as fluid elastic instability (Tube-to-Tube Wear, or TTW) can lead to rapid U-tubes failure from fatigue or tube-to-tube wear in Unit 2 due to a main steam line break as seen in SONGS Unit 3 RSG’s. In summary, FEI is a phenomenon where due to SONGS RSGs design intended for high steam flows causes the tubes to vibrate with increasingly larger amplitudes due to the fluid effective flow velocity exceeding its specific limit (critical velocity) for a given tube and its supporting conditions and a given thermal hydraulic environment. This occurs when the amount of energy imparted on the tube by the fluid is greater than the amount of energy that the tube can dissipate back to the fluid and to the supports. The lack of Nucleate boiling on the tube surface or absence of water is found to have a destabilizing effect on fluid-elastic stability.
A.4.2 – Unit 2 FEI Conflicting Operational Data
NRC AIT Report SG Secondary U2/3 Pressure Range 833 – 942 psi
SCE RCE SG Secondary U2/3 Pressure – 833 psi
SONGS Unit 3 RCE Team Anonymous Member – Unit 2 SG Secondary Pressure 863 – 942 psi
SONGS SG System Description Unit 2 SG Pressure Range 892 – 942 psi
Westinghouse OA SG Secondary U2/3 Pressure ~ 838 psi
SONGS Plant Daily Briefing Unit 3 Electrical Generation – 1186 MWe
A.4.3 -Unit 2 FEI Conclusions
A.4.3.1 – NRC AIT Report – Operational Differences between U2/3 – The result of the independent NRC thermal-hydraulic analysis indicated that differences in the actual operation between units and/or individual steam generators had an insignificant impact on the results and in fact, the team did not identify any changes in steam velocities or void fractions that could attribute to the differences in tube wear between the units or steam generators.
A.4.3.2 – SCE Unit 2 Restart Report Enclosure 2 Conclusions – Because of the similarities in design between the Unit 2 and 3 RSGs, it was concluded that FEI in the in-plane direction was also the cause of the TTW in Unit 2.
A.4.3.3 – SCE U2/3 FEI SONGS RCE Team Member Conclusions – FEI did not occur in Unit 2
A.4.3.4 – Westinghouse OA Conclusions: (a) An evaluation of the tube-to-tube wear reported in two tubes in SG 2E089 showed that, most likely, the wear did not result from in-plane vibration of the tubes since all available eddy current data clearly support the analytical results that in-plane vibration could not have occurred in these tubes, and (b) Operational data – ATHOS Model shows no differences in Units 2 & 3
A.4.3.5 – AREVA OA Conclusions – Based on the extremely comprehensive evaluation of both Units, supplemented by thermal hydraulic and FIV analysis, assuming, a priori, that TTW via in-plane fluid-elastic instability cannot develop in Unit 2 would be inappropriate.
A.4.3.6 – SONGS Insider Investigator Unit 2 FEI Conclusions – Due to higher SG pressure (Range 863 – 942 psi) and lower thermal megawatts compared to Unit 3, FEI did not occur in Unit 2. This is consistent with the position of RCE Team Anonymous Member. NRC AIT Report, SCE, Westinghouse and AREVA conclusions on Unit 2 FEI are inconsistent, confusing and inconclusive.
A.4.4 – Possible RSG Degradation Causes:
1. MHI did not benchmark the computer codes for CE steam generators or used 100% mock up for SONGS High Steam Flows and SCE did not check their work.
2. SONGS Certified Design Specification did not specify the value of FEI or SR and MHI did not design the RSGs for in-plane vibrations.
3. SONGS Certified Design Specification implicitly implied MHI to avoid the NRC License Amendment Process and make the tube bundle as tall as possible to achieve the maximum heat transfer area.
4. SCE or MHI did not review NUREG-1841 to see how Westinghouse and BWI were designing CE Replacement Generators AVBs to avoid excessive tube vibrations and areas with high dry steam.
5. SCE/MHI did not review the research papers published in 2003 by Pakistanis Researchers and by Dr.Pettigrew and Dr. Mureithi published in 2006, which states “In nuclear power plant steam generators, U-tubes are very susceptible to undergo fluid elastic instability because of the high velocity of the two-phase mixture flow in the U-tube region and also because of their low natural frequencies in their out of plane modes. In nuclear power plant steam generator design, flat bar supports have been introduced in order to restrain vibrations of the U-tubes in the out of plane direction. Since those supports are not as effective in restraining the in-plane vibrations of the tubes, there is a clear need to verify if fluid elastic instability can occur for a cluster of cylinders preferentially flexible in the flow direction. Almost all the available data about fluid elastic instability of heat exchanger tube bundles concerns tubes that are axisymmetrically flexible. In those cases, the instability is found to be mostly in the direction transverse to the flow. Thus, the direction parallel to the flow has raised less concern in terms of bundle stability.”
6. Westinghouse OA ATHOS Analysis shows Unit 2 had 99.6% vapor fraction (FEI) and fluid velocities of 28 feet/sec, but based on results of ECT inspection, Westinghouse concludes that unit 2 did not experience FEI. Westinghouse also states, “Test data shows that the onset of in-plane (IP) vibration requires much higher velocities than the onset of out-of-plane (OP) fluid-elastic excitation. Hence, a tube that may vibrate in-plane (IP) would definitely be unstable OP. A small AVB gap (3 Mil) that would be considered active in the OP mode would also be active in the IP mode because the small gap will prevent significant in-plane motion due to lack of clearance (gap) for the combined OP and IP motions. Thus, a contact force is not required to prevent significant IP motion. Manufacturing Considerations: None were extensively treated in the SCE root cause evaluation.”
7. AREVA states, “At 100% power, the thermal-hydraulic conditions in the U-bend region of the SONGS replacement steam generators exceeded the past successful operational envelope for U-bend nuclear steam generators based on presently available data. The primary source of tube-to-AVB contact forces is the restraint provided by the retaining bars and bridges, reacting against the component dimensional dispersion of the tubes and AVBs. Contact forces are available for both cold and hot conditions. Contact forces significantly increase at normal operating temperature and pressure due to diametric expansion of the tubes and thermal growth of the AVBs. After fluid elastic instability develops, the amplitude of in-plane motion continuously increases and the forces needed to prevent in-plane motion at any given AVB location become relatively large. Hence shortly after instability occurs, U-bends begin to swing in Mode 1 and overcome hindrance at any AVB location.”
8. Average heated length of the tubes is too much (730 inches in RSGs versus 680 inches in OSGs). Unit 3 has historically produced more power than Unit 2 (1186 MWe vs. 1183 MWe, 1178 MWe vs. 1172). Westinghouse states, “In the U-bend region, the gap velocities are a strong function of power level. The steam flow in the bundle is cumulative and increases as a function of the power level and the bundle height which causes high fluid quality, void fraction, and secondary fluid velocities in the upper bundle.”
9. RSGs were operating at a circulation ratio of 3.3. Most of The CE RSGs are running at a circulation ratio of 5.0 or more.
A.4.5 – Defects or Deviations:
The design of San Onofre Replacement Steam generators (RSGs) are identical (Neglecting the impact of Units 3 and Unit 2, Tube-to-AVB contact forces due to manufacturing errors – See Item A.4.6 below). As shown below, SONGS Unit 2 potentially did not suffer in-plane fluid elastic instability due to operation at higher steam pressures and lower RCS flows. SONGS Unit 3 suffered in-plane fluid elastic instability due to operation at lower steam pressures and higher RCS flows. This conclusion is consistent with Westinghouse Operational Assessment, but challenges the SCE, NRC AIT, AREVA and MHI conclusions. NRC AIT Report, SCE, MHI and AREVA conclusions on Unit 3 and Unit 2 FEI are incomplete, inconsistent, confusing and inconclusive and based on faulty computer simulations and hideous testing data (Shielded under the false pretense of Proprietary information). The analysis in these reports does not meet the intent of NRC CAL ACTION 1, which states “Southern California Edison Company (SCE) will determine the causes of the tube-to-tube interactions that resulted in steam generator tube wear in Unit 3, and will implement actions to prevent loss of integrity due to these causes in the Unit 2 steam generator tubes. SCE will establish a protocol of inspections and/or operational limits for Unit 2, including plans for a mid-cycle shutdown for further inspections.”
Repeated requests to NRC AIT Leader, NRC SONGS Special Panel and NRC Region IV Allegation Coordinator to examine carefully the operational difference between Units 2 & 3 and determine its impact on the tube-to-tube interactions that resulted in steam generator tube wear in Unit 3, and actions to prevent loss of integrity due to these causes in the Unit 2 steam generator tubes have not been addressed to date. NRR has not asked SCE in its RAI(s) the impact of operational differences between Units 2 and 3 on Unit 2 and Unit 3 tube-to-tube wear. Honorable NRC Commissioner Mr. Apostolakis was totally confused on Unit 2 FEI inconsistent statements by SCE, Westinghouse and AREVA. The Author tried to tell this information to SCE and MHI Management in June 2012, but of no avail (See copy of attached Emails and SG Nuclear Notifications).
A.4.6 Contact Force Differences between SONGS Units 2 and 3: NRC AIT, SCE and MHI state that supports were better in Unit 2, so no tube-to-tube wear occurred in Unit 2. Fabrication differences during manufacture of SONGS RSGs caused difference of contact forces in supports between Units 2 & 3. Let us now examine that whether insufficient contact tube-to AVB forces in the Unit 3 upper tube bundle caused “fluid-elastic instability” which was a significant contributor to the tube-to-tube wear resulting in the tube leak.
A.4.6.1 – MHI states, “By design, U-bend support in the in-plane direction was not provided for the SONGS SG’s”. In the design stage, MHI considered that the tube U-bend support in the out-of-plane direction designed for “zero” tube-to-AVB gap in hot condition was sufficient to prevent the tube from becoming fluid-elastic unstable during operation based on the MHI experiences and contemporary practice. MHI postulated that a “zero” gap in the hot condition does not necessarily ensure that the support is active and that contact force between the tube and the AVB is required for the support to be considered active. The most likely cause of the observed tube-to-tube wear is multiple consecutive AVB supports becoming inactive during operation. This is attributed to redistribution of the tube-to-AVB-gaps under the fluid hydrodynamic pressure exerted on the tubes during operation. This phenomenon is called by MHI, “tube bundle flowering” and is postulated to result in a spreading of the tube U-bends in the out-of-plane direction to varying degrees based on their location in the tube bundle (the hydrodynamic pressure varies within the U bend). This tube U-bend spreading causes an increase of the tube-to-AVB gap sizes and decrease of tube-to-AVB contact forces rendering the AVB supports inactive and potentially significantly contributing to tube FEI. Observations Common to BOTH Unit-2 and Unit-3: The AVBs, end caps, and retainer bars were manufactured according to the design. It was confirmed that there were no significant gaps between the AVBs and tubes, which might have contributed to excessive tube vibration because the AVBs appear to be virtually in contact with tubes. MHI states, “The higher than typical void fraction is a result of a very large and tightly packed tube bundle, particularly in the U-bend, with high heat flux in the hot leg side. Because this high void fraction is a potentially major cause of the tube FEI, and consequently unexpected tube wear (as it affects both the flow velocity and the damping factors).”
A.4.6.2 – AREVA states – “The primary source of tube-to-AVB contact forces is the restraint provided by the retaining bars and bridges, reacting against the component dimensional dispersion of the tubes and AVBs. Contact forces are available for both cold and hot conditions. Contact forces significantly increase at normal operating temperature and pressure due to diametric expansion of the tubes and thermal growth of the AVBs. After fluid elastic instability develops, the amplitude of in-plane motion continuously increases and the forces needed to prevent in-plane motion at any given AVB location become relatively large. Hence shortly after instability occurs, U-bends begin to swing in Mode 1 and overcome hindrance at any AVB location.”
A.4.6.3 – Westinghouse states, “Test data shows that the onset of in-plane (IP) vibration requires much higher velocities than the onset of out-of-plane (OP) fluid-elastic excitation. Hence, a tube that may vibrate in-plane (IP) would definitely be unstable OP. A small AVB gap that would be considered active in the OP mode would also be active in the IP mode because the small gap will prevent significant in-plane motion due to lack of clearance (gap) for the combined OP and IP motions. Thus, a contact force is not required to prevent significant IP motion. Manufacturing Considerations: There are several potential manufacturing considerations associated with review of the design drawings based on Westinghouse experience. The first two are related to increased proximity potential that is likely associated with the ECT evidence for proximity. Two others are associated with the AVB configuration and the additional orthogonal support structure that can interact with the first two during manufacturing. Another relates to AVB fabrication tolerances. These potential issues include: (1) The smaller nominal in-plane spacing between large radius U-bend tubes than comparable Westinghouse experience, (2) The much larger relative shrinkage of two sides (cold leg and hot leg) of each tube that can occur within the tubesheet drilling tolerances. Differences in axial shrinkage of tube legs can change the shape of the U-bends and reduce in-plane clearances between tubes from what was installed prior to hydraulic expansion, (3) The potential for the ends of the lateral sets of AVBs (designated as side narrow and side wide on the Design Anti-Vibration Bar Assembly Drawing that are attached to the AVB support structure on the sides of the tube bundle to become displaced from their intended positions during lower shell assembly rotation, (4) The potential for the 13 orthogonal bridge structure segments that are welded to the ends of AVB end cap extensions to produce reactions inside the bundle due to weld shrinkage and added weight during bundle rotation, and (5) Control of AVB fabrication tolerances sufficient to avoid undesirable interactions within the bundle. If AVBs are not flat with no twist in the unrestrained state they can tend to spread tube columns and introduce unexpected gaps greater than nominal inside the bundle away from the fixed weld spacing. The weight of the additional support structure after installation could accentuate any of the above potential issues. There is insufficient evidence to conclude that any of the listed potential issues are directly responsible for the unexpected tube wear, but these issues could all lead to unexpected tube/AVB fit-up conditions that would support the amplitude limited fluid-elastic vibration mechanism. None were extensively treated in the SCE root cause evaluation.”
A.4.6.4 – John Large States, “Causes of Tube and Restraint Component Motion and Wear: My study of the various OAs leads me to the following findings and opinion that; (i) degradation of the tube restraint localities (RBs, AVBs and TSPs) occurs in the absence of fluid elastic instability (FEI) activity; (ii) TTW, acknowledged to arise from in-plane FEI activity, generally occurs where the AVB restraint has deteriorated at one or more localities along the length of individual tubes; (iii) the number of tube wear sites or incidences for AVB/TSP locations outstrips the TTW wear site incidences in the tube free-span locations. I find that the ‘zero-gap’ AVB assembly, which features strongly in the onset of TTW, is clearly designed to cope only with out-of-plane tube motion since there is little designed-in resistance to movement in the in-plane direction – because of this, it is just chance (a combination of manufacturing variations, expansion and pressurization, etc) that determines the in-plane effectiveness of the AVB; (iv) Uniquely, the SONGS RSG fluid regimes are characterized by in-plane activity, which is quite contrary to experience of other SGs used in similar nuclear power plants in which out-of-plane fluid phenomena dominate. Moreover, from the remote probe inspections when the replacement steam generator (RSG) is cold and unpressurized, I consider it impossible to reliably predict the effectiveness of the many thousands of AVB contact points for when the tube bundle is in a hot, pressurized operational state., and (5) v) The combination of the omission of the in-plane AVB restraints, the unique in-plane activity levels of the SONGS RSGs, together the very demanding interpretation of the remote probe data from the cold and depressurized tube inspection, render forecasting the wear of the tubes and many thousands of restraint components when in hot and pressurized service very challenging indeed. John Large continues, “Phasing of AVB-TSP Wear -v- TTW: I reason that, overall, the tube wear process comprises two distinct phases: First, the AVB (and TSP) -to-tube contact points wear with the result that whatever level of effectiveness is in play declines. Then, with the U-bend free-span sections increased by loss of intermediate AVB restraint(s), the individual tubes in the U-bend region are rendered very susceptible to FEI induced motion and TTW. Whereas the OAs commissioned by SCE broadly agree that the wear mechanics comprises two phases, there are strong differences over the cause of the first phase comprising in-plane AVB wear: AREVA claim this is caused by in-plane FEI whereas, the contrary, Mitsubishi (and Westinghouse) favor random perturbations in the fluid flow regime to be the tube motion excitation cause. Put simply: (i) if AREVA is correct then reducing the reactor power to 70% will eliminate FEI, AVB effectiveness will cease to decline further and TTW will be arrested; however, to the contrary, (ii) if Mitsubishi is right then, even at the 70% power level, the AVB restraint effectiveness will continue to decline thereby freeing up longer free-span tube sections that are more susceptible to TTW; or that
(iii) the assertion of neither party is wholly or partly correct. As I have previously stated, I consider that AVB-to-tube wear is not wholly dependent upon FEI activity.
A.4.6.5 – Violette R., Pettigrew M. J. & Mureithi N. W. state (Ref. 1 – See below), “In nuclear power plant steam generators, U-tubes are very susceptible to undergo fluid elastic instability because of the high velocity of the two-phase mixture flow in the U-tube region and also because of their low natural frequencies in their out of plane modes. In nuclear power plant steam generator design, flat bar supports have been introduced in order to restrain vibrations of the U-tubes in the out of plane direction. Since those supports are not as effective in restraining the in-plane vibrations of the tubes, there is a clear need to verify if fluid elastic instability can occur for a cluster of cylinders preferentially flexible in the flow direction. Almost all the available data about fluid elastic instability of heat exchanger tube bundles concerns tubes that are axisymmetrically flexible. In those cases, the instability is found to be mostly in the direction transverse to the flow. Thus, the direction parallel to the flow has raised less concern in terms of bundle stability.” Reference 1: Fluid-elastic instability of an array of tubes preferentially flexible in the flow direction subjected to two-phase cross flow, Violette R., Pettigrew M. J. & Mureithi N. W., 2006, http://yakari.polytechnique.fr/people/revio/masters_research_subject.html
A.4.6.6 – Dr. Pettigrew (Presentation to NRC Commission, February 2013): So, you notice the U-bend — the plane of the U-bend is being installed, and on top of the U-bends are bars. They are anti-vibration bars. And so you can see here that from the point of view of out-of-plane motion, the tubes are really very well supported because you have a large number of bars all around; but from the point of view of in-plane motion, there’s really no positive restraint here to prevent the tube to move in the in-plane direction. Essentially, it relies on friction forces to limit the vibration.
A.4.6.7 – Contact Force Definition: Contact force is the force in which an object comes in contact with another object. Some everyday examples where contact forces are at work are pushing a car up a hill, kicking a ball, or pushing a desk across a room. In the first and third cases the force is continuously applied, while in the second case the force is delivered in a short impulse. The most common instances of contact force include friction, normal force, and tension. Contact force may also be described as the push experienced when two objects are pressed together. The MHI-designed AVBs had zero contact forces in Unit 3 to prevent in-plane fluid elastic instability and subsequently, wear occurred under localized thermal-hydraulic conditions of high steam quality (void fraction) and high flow velocity. Large u-bends were moving with large amplitudes in the in-plane direction without any contact forces imposed by the out-of-plane restraints. The in-plane vibration associated with the wear observed in the Unit 3 RSGs occurred because all of the out-of-plane AVB supports were inactive by design in the in-plane direction. The Unit 3 tube-to-AVB contact force for the tubes with tube-to-tube wear (TTW) was zero. That is why they did not restrain the tubes in the in-plane direction (like a sports car moving with very high speed in freeway express lanes passing by a stalled police car with empty guns and disabled communication systems).
A.4.6.8 – Contact Force Conclusions: SONGS Unit 3 RSG’s were operating outside SONGS Technical Specification Limits for Reactor Thermal Power and Current Licensing Basis for Design Basis Accident Conditions. I agree with MHI that high steam flows and cross-flow velocities combined with narrow tube pitch-to-diameter ratio caused elastic deformation of the U-tube bundle from the beginning of the Unit 3 cycle, which initiated the process of tube-to-AVB wear and insufficient contact forces between tubes and AVBs. Tube bundle distortion is considered a major contributing cause to the mechanism of tube-to-tube/AVB/TSP wear seen in the Unit 3 SG’s. After 11 months of wear, contact forces were virtually eliminated between the tube and AVBs in the areas of highest area of Unit 3 wear as confirmed by ECT and visual inspections. I conclude that FEI and MHI Flowering effect redistributed the tube-to-AVB gaps in Unit 3 RSG’s. FEI did not occur in Unit 2, because of the absence of high steam dryness and NOT the better supports and/or differences in fabrication, which resulted in substantially increased contact forces (reduced looseness) between tubes and AVBs for Unit 2 and prevented FEI from occurring. My findings on Unit 2 FEI are consistent with the findings of AREVA, Westinghouse, John Large, SONGS RCE Anonymous Root Cause Team Member and latest research performed by Eminent Professor Michel Pettigrew and others in 2006. In-plane fluid elastic instability did not happen in Unit 2 because of operational differences, so therefore double contact forces and better supports is just conjecture in Unit 2 to justify the restart of an Unsafe Unit 2.
A.4.7 – Dings and Dents Conclusions: A analysis performed by AREVA shows that there are more dents and dings in SG 2E-089 (Unit 2) compared to SG 3E-089 (Unit 3) by a factor of about 13. Overall, analysis found that nearly 12,000 contact indications were found in both Unit 2 steam generators as opposed to just under 4,100 contact indications in both Unit 3 steam generators. Even more alarming is that fact that these indications in Unit 2 were primarily found distributed very distinctly across entire rows of steam generator tubes, much more so than Unit 3. This testing is performed by measuring signals between supports and tubes inside of the steam generators. When they are in contact together a signal will be registered and based on the strength of the contact one can correlate the size and impact of the indications on the tubes. What these results infer is that there is a large discrepancy between the amount of tubes out of place and touching the supports in the Unit 2 and Unit 3 steam generators. Considering the fact that Southern California Edison has repeatedly stated that steam generators are of like design and that no evidence or data has been provided which showed any design deviation in this regard between the two units, it is likely that this accelerated wear seen in Unit 2 occurred within the last cycle of operation. Simply this means that for every one indication found in Unit 3 steam generators, three indications were found in Unit 2 steam generators. Though the Unit 3 steam generators failed more catastrophically, it appears from this analysis that there is a much larger pool of tubes out of alignment and in direct contact with support plates in Unit 2. During any operation, it is presumed that there will be some vibration and movement of all of the tubes in steam generators, but this is offset by supports and spacing between tubes. However in this case, nearly 12,000 tubes in Unit 2 are already in contact with supports, meaning that with any vibration or movement more contact and ergo contact indications will occur in the tubes regardless of operational power rates.
A.4.8 – RSG 10CFR50.59 Conclusions: The values of the RSG major design parameters are different than the values of the corresponding OSG parameters. The RSG steam flow is slightly higher, the outlet steam pressure is lower and the moisture content is considerably lower than the values for the OSGs. These changes are in a non-conservative direction (increased void fractions) and constitute a significant reduction in margin of safety and increase in probability of cascading tube ruptures over the OSGs.
The RSG heat transfer area is larger than the OSG area (116,100 ft2 vs. ~105,000 ft2) and the RSG tube bundle is taller than the OSG bundle. The larger and taller RSG tube bundle along with unauthorized and untested design changes provided the mechanism for increased void fractions, fluid velocities, fluid elastic instability, flow-induced random vibrations, high cycle thermal fatigue and Mitsubishi Flowering Effect. These factors indicate that the RSGs performed worse than, the OSGs during the events that credit natural circulation. The RSG primary side volume is larger than the OSG volume (2003 ft3 vs. 1895 ft3). Due to this increase, more radioactivity will be released to the environment during multiple tube ruptures caused by anticipated operational occurrences and main steam line break. The RCS volume increase will also result in a slight increase of the containment flooding level, following a LOCA.
The RSG tube wall is thinner than the OSG tube wall (0.0429 in. vs. 0.048 in.). The analysis concluded that a tube would have to be plugged if it contained a flaw to a depth lesser than that for the OSGs (35% vs. 44%). This reduction of the tube plugging limit is non-conservative because hundreds of SONGS Unit 2 & 3 RSGs exceeded this limit and were operating beyond their license.
Based on the above, it is concluded that, the proposed activity significantly and adversely affects the steam generator ability to:
(1)Function as a part of the RCPB
(2)Transfer heat between RCS and main steam system and
(3)Remove heat from the RCS to achieve and maintain safe shutdown following postulated accidents (other than the large break LOCA).
Therefore, it is concluded, that the replacement adversely affected the ability of performing or controlling these design functions. Based on the above, changing the OSGs to RSGs changed an SSC in a manner that adversely affected UFSAR-described design functions or that had an adverse effect on the method of performing or controlling UFSAR-described design functions.
B. SONGS Replacement Steam Generators 10CFR50.92 Evaluation
B.1 Condition of Unit 2 steam Generators: SONGS Unit 2 & 3 RSGs are of the same design. Therefore, the description of unit 3 provided below is also applicable to Unit 2. SONGS Unit 3 RSGs’ unprecedented tube failure and massive tube and AVB/TSP degradation occurred due to fluid elastic instability, flow-induced random vibrations, Mitsubishi Flowering Effect and high cyclic fatigue under the following unique circumstances:
(1) U-tube bundle areas with high dry steam will experienced double in-plane velocities (> 50 feet/sec, based on review of MHI Root Cause, Dr. Pettigrew and other research papers published between 2006-2011) compared with out-of plane velocities assumed (25 feet/sec) to have been predicted by Outdated Out-of-Plane Westinghouse /NRC /MHI /AREVA ATHOS Computer Models,
(2) Lack of positive in-plane restraints and zero damping,
(3) Large number of SONGS Units 2/3 RSG U-bends with tube clearances of only 0.05 inches (Design 0.25 inches, Industry Norm > 0.25 inches),
(4) Excessive number of tubes with narrow tube pitch to tube diameter,
(5) Low in-plane frequency tubes and retainer bars compared with MHI SGs’ higher in-plane frequency tubes and retainer bars,
(6) SONGS’ tubes being much longer than Westinghouse Model 51 steam generators (Average length of heated tube = 730 inches) and other MHI SGs,
(7) MHI RSGs’ unique floating tube bundle with degraded Retainer Bars can collapse due to 100% tube uncovery for 10 minutes under MSLB SG Depressurization, Multiple SGTR SG over-pressurization and lifting of SG Relief Valves, Combination of MSLB and SGTR Conditions, Release of 100% RCS Iodine to Environment,
(8) Large amount of uncertainties and unverified assumptions in MHI, AREVA, Westinghouse and Intertek’s contact force (zero for in-plane vibrations), wear rate and tube stress calculations (4.6 ksi versus 16-17 ksi) and computer modeling, and,
(9) Incomplete tube inspections in SONGS Unit 2. Incubating macroscopic circumferential cracks caused by fluid elastic instability, flow-induced random vibrations and high cycle thermal fatigue are extremely difficult to detect and be accurately sized by nondestructive evaluation techniques including X-ray, ultrasonic, and eddy current based bobbin coil probes, mechanically rotating pancake coil (RPC), etc., which have been used in 170,000 SONGS Tube inspections. State-of-the-art systems: Zetec MIZ-80 iD system, Tecnatom TEDDY+, Circular TE and TM, transmit-receive eddy current array probe C-3 and other specialized radiographic probes capable of detecting sub-surface cracks caused by high cycle thermal fatigue have not been used in the 170,000 SONGS Tube Partial and Limited Inspections as shown below for Unit 2 due to access problems in the most problematic innermost sections of the U-Tube Bundle, the high cost, lack of availability of highly specialized tools and contractors, radiation doses, and time considerations in a rush to start Unit 2. The inspection scope defectively designed and degraded SONGS Unit 2 RSGs should have covered 100% hot leg and cold leg tube inspections, 100% of dents or dings, 100% of tube inspections in the tight radius U-bends, 100% area of the Top of the Tube Sheet and Tube Support Plates.
B.2 SONGS and Offsite Emergency Plans
Current SONGS Updated FSAR, Emergency Plans, San Diego County Multi-hazard Regional Emergency Operations Plans, IPC/Orange County & Other Offsite/State of CA Plans and NRC Emergency Rules/Guidance, SONGS Drills and Exercises are based on a slow occurring Steam Generator Tube Leakage/Rupture caused by anticipated operational transients, which are significantly flawed based on the SONGS Unit 2 realistic scenario described below.
B.3 Main Steam Line Break In Unit 2:
A potential main steam line break occurs outside Containment in SONGS Unit 2 operating at 70% power. This event causes a simultaneous reactor, turbine, feedwater and reactor coolant trips and MSIVs Close (Conservative assumption for the benefit of SCE). Due to feedwater pump trip and SG U-tube bundle depressurization, the RSG U-bundle secondary water level will shrink and tubes will be uncovered for a period of at least 10 minutes and experience a sharp drop/increase in secondary side pressure. The entire sub-cooled feedwater inventory contained in the faulted RSG will instantaneously flash to high dry steam and over-pressurize the steam generators. Loss of Turbine load will also over-pressurize the steam generator. Main steam safety valves located outside the containment will progressively open to prevent over-pressurizing the steam generators and connect the faulty generators to the environment via open steam safety valves. Now for the next 10-15 minutes, the Control Room is busy in trying to trouble shoot and diagnose the changing plant conditions and flipping through 1000 pages of Emergency and Abnormal operating procedures to determine the correct course of mitigation actions.
Meanwhile, during the 10 to 15 minutes, the combination of resonant, out-of-plane, in-plane vibrations, jet impingement forces, and RSG debris will cause large axial, bending, dynamic and cyclic loads on all the tubes, tube support plates, retainer bars and anti-vibration structure. The strength of the welded and mechanical connections of these low frequency retainer bars, retaining bars and bridges have not been analyzed for the effects of these cumulative loads to prevent AVB structure displacement, deformation or collapse during loss of offsite power. The displacement, deformation or collapse of AVB structure introduce new and significant axial, bending, dynamic and cyclic loads, which can potentially cause thousands of worn, cracked, plugged and stabilized tubes to exceed their high cycle fatigue stress levels several times than the allowed tube ASME Endurance Limit of 13.6 ksi. If this happens, multiple circumferential tube ruptures will occur at tube-support plates, mid-spans, free spans and tube-to-anti-vibration bar notched interfaces due to macroscopic circumferential cracks caused by tube-to-tube wear and high cycle thermal fatigue. Since all the steam from the RSG would escape to the environment, the iodine-131 from un-partitioned reactor coolant leaking out the rupture tubes will also escape to the environment in less than 10 minutes with 60 tons of radioactive coolant and steam. Consistent with Fukushima Task Force Lessons Learnt and NRC Commissioner Meeting Transcripts, this event will be considered as a beyond design basis event, and SONGS Operators will be unable to take any timely mitigation actions in a radiation/steam environment to stop a severe nuclear accident in progress and notify the Offsite Agencies.
If the prevailing winds are towards San Clemente, consistent with NRC Inspector General Reports, NRC and Government Studies and observations of SONGS Emergency Plan Drills for the last six years, SCE and Offsite agencies would not have time to respond, notify, evacuate, shelter or give Potassium Iodide to the affected residents within the 10-mile affected emergency planning zone. ODAC, Offsite field monitoring teams, Emergency Vehicles, Helicopters, Orange County Hospitals capabilities will be severely limited or non-functional in a high radiation environment to operate and rescue/transport/shelter disabled, sick, elderly, children, transients and other affected citizens. The casualties, and short, long-term cancer affects to the affected population and ingestion pathway will depend upon the iodine spiking factor and the duration of blowdown, but the offsite releases will significantly exceed the NRC approved SONGS Control Room limit of 5 Rem Total Effective Dose Equivalent (TEDE), and the Exclusion Area Boundary and Low Population Zone limit of 2.5 Rem TEDE.
NOTE: While this event is occurring, San Diego County, Orange County and Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton won’t be able to send radiation monitoring teams into areas around the plant due to high radiation levels to locate the plume and take soil and air samples to determine the extent of the release off plant grounds. That offsite field monitoring data, along with the data from the plant wound not be able to sent to the Offsite Dose Assessment Center (ODAC) located in MESA Emergency Operations Facility for making Protective Action Determinations. The offsite plans are recommended to be revised and feasibility demonstrated via an Emergency Plan Drill using Alternate and Parallel Emergency Operation Facilities located in Irvine and San Diego. The Three Mile Island nuclear accident was not as serious as Chernobyl, but was very confusing and chaotic. 40,000 gallons of radioactive waste was released in the Susquehanna River. 140,000 pregnant women and small children were evacuated as a precautionary measure, but cancer risk was not a serious threat.
If the prevailing winds are towards the Pacific Ocean and San Diego, the Public and SONGS worker casualties will be minimum, and short, long-term cancer affects to the affected human and marine population will depend upon the iodine spiking factor and the duration of blowdown, exceed the NRC approved SONGS Control Room limit of 5 Rem Total Effective Dose Equivalent (TEDE) and the Exclusion Area Boundary and Low Population Zone limit of 2.5 Rem TEDE. The impact on Marine Life and 50 Mile Ingestion Pathway is undetermined.
B.4 – SCE 50.92 License Amendment
SCE has evaluated whether or not a significant hazards consideration is involved with the proposed amendment by focusing on the three standards set forth in 10 CFR 50.92, “Issuance of Amendment”, as discussed below:
1. Does the proposed change involve a significant increase in the probability or consequences of an accident previously evaluated?
Response: Yes
As shown above, the proposed changes affects the probability of multiple SG Tube Ruptures due to a potential main steam line break design basis accident. These changes are in a non-conservative direction (increased void fractions) and constitute a significant reduction in margin of safety and significant increase in probability of cascading tube ruptures over the OSGs. Operation at reduced power is not acceptable under the current licensing basis and operation of the plant will not remain bounded by the assumptions of the analyses of accidents previously evaluated in the UFSAR.
2. Does the proposed change create the possibility of a new or different kind of accident from any accident previously evaluated?
Response: Yes, see above
3. Does the proposed change involve a significant reduction in a margin of safety?
HAHN Baba – NRC/SCE/MHI/Independent Experts/Public Awareness Series
Sincere Thanks to NRC Chairman, Mr. Victor Dricks, Mr. Cale Young, Mr. Ryan Lantz, Mr. Randy Hall and entire NRC Staff. Thanks to NRC for posting this blog. Please excuse me for my grammatical and computer human performance errors. Ted Craver is more worried about his Investment from Transmission & Distribution system than Public Safety or Repairing San Onofre.
With San Onoftre Nukes near death, consumers staring at $3B tab, UT-San Deigo, May 4, 2013
A SCE company spokeswoman said Friday that discussion of fixing the San Onofre plant as “premature.” Yet her CEO is talking openly about permanent shutdown. Here is where it becomes clear that utility executives are not like the rest of us. The incentives that govern regulated monopolies bear no resemblance to those for ordinary businesses.
Fixing San Onofre and selling the power would bring zero profits to Edison or SDG&E. That’s because utilities simply pass on power costs — with no markup for profits — to customers on our bills, regardless of whether the electricity was purchased under a contract or generated by the utility itself. Instead, utilities make their money based on the cash they invest to buy or build assets, such as power lines, smart meters and power plants. Right now regulators allow SDG&E to bill customers at a rate of 10.3 percent a year of its total assets, and Edison gets 10.45 percent.
That’s probably 1,000 times more than banks are paying to use your cash in a savings account, by the way. But regulators figure that utility investors need plenty of incentive to build and maintain the power grid. Here’s the rub: Customers are supposed to pay only for assets that help provide electricity.
Strictly speaking, Edison and SDG&E have no financial interest in selling power from San Onofre. The question for executives is whether regulators will allow them to bill consumers the entire cost of what today is an expensive piece of industrial history on the Camp Pendleton beach.
That bill is high: $700 million and counting for installing the new steam generators in 2010 and 2011 that broke last year; over $1 billion in unfilled costs for the San Onofre plant itself; more than $1 billion in eventual replacement power costs, if the 2012 spending is any guide.
Those are just the direct cash costs. In a report set for release this week, state grid managers are expected to predict Southern California may have trouble keeping the lights on this summer.
Sincere Thanks to NRC Chairman, Mr. Victor Dricks, Mr. Cale Young, Mr. Ryan Lantz, Mr. Randy Hall and entire NRC Staff. Thanks to NRC for posting this blog. Please excuse me for my grammatical and computer human performance errors.
In a 2003 paper, Shahab Khushnood, Zaffar M. Khan, M. Afzaal Malik, Zafar Ullah Koreshi, Mahmood Anwar Khan, College of Electrical & Mechanical Engineering, National University of Sciences and Technology, Rawalpindi, state, “There is a strong need for establishing reliable design procedures for two-phase cross-flow tube bundle vibrations. This could be achieved by carrying out modeling and simulation of the system with fluid–structure interaction focusing on void fraction, and reliable experimental data. Test data on high pressure and temperature conditions are insufficient, therefore a potential challenge lies ahead.” Looks like MHI did not do their home work in 2005 and is trying to justifying the adverse safety and public relations consequences for SCE, which did not agree to lower o the void fraction, because it would have delayed the project, triggered a NRC review, increased the costs and cut down the heat output and profits from the RSGs. But, these lame MHI/SCE excuses are not going to work.” MHI needs to be fined by NRC for its ignorance. NRC needs to have SCE license stripped to operate a nuclear power plant and MHI’s license to supply nuclear power plant components for US Nuclear Reactors. SCE has destroyed Unit 1 and Units 2 & 3 twice. It is time for SCE close its shops and decommission San Onofre. It is time for MHI to close its shops to supply nuclear power plant components for US Nuclear Reactors.
Some Southern Californians demand well-managed, well-maintained, safe, economical, 24/7 reliable nuclear power and grid stability from San Onofre. Others, frustrated with SCE, MHI and NRC refusing to discuss safety issues want to decommission San Onofre. A balance can only be achieved, and the public trust can only be restored by an independent and transparent investigation, conducted by the Office of NRC Inspector General and Senate Committee on Environmental and Public Works. In the end, no matter how long it takes, for SCE to stay in business and earn public trust, San Onofre Leaders have to work very hard and honestly to achieve excellence in Regulatory Compliance, Operational and Public Safety to become an INPO I Plant and make San Onofre work place free of discrimination, retaliation, intimidation and insults to nuclear workers.
Bethann Chambers
Valley Center, California 92082
Bethann@vcweb.org
Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr.
State Capitol, Suite 1173
Dear Governor Brown,
Nearly a year ago I wrote a letter to you voicing my concerns about the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), and to humbly ask you to use the power of your office to investigate the plant’s ongoing declining performance and equipment conditions. During this past year the facility’s declining performance issues have been lost in the shadow of the much bigger problem with premature tube degradation in the recently installed Replacement Steam Generators, and concerns about the plant’s future operation.
My husband, James Chambers, is a Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Licensed Nuclear Reactor Operator for San Onofre Units 2 and 3. He worked at SONGS from 1983 until 2010 when he left his job on medical leave because of work induced health problems. In 2010, my husband came under retaliation by Southern California Edison (SCE) for raising safety concerns and filing allegations of serious violations at the plant with the NRC. When my husband’s medical leave was abruptly terminated, SCE no longer had a job for him; so the company offered him a separation agreement with the stipulation that he not publically disclose any information which might be harmful to SCE or its subsidiaries. SCE is a public utility; the fact that they use their abundant financial resources to actively silence potential critics is a practice which I believe should concern you and all of the members of our state legislature.
It is my firm belief that there are multiple levels of corruption within SCE, the California Public Utilities Commission, and the Interjurisdictional Planning Committee which needs to be rooted out and exposed. Without complete transparency by our public utilities, and the agencies which oversee them; honest public debate about performance, equipment, and environmental issues pertaining to SONGS cannot occur and places the health and safety of the public in jeopardy. Without honesty and
transparency, we run the risk of having a significant nuclear event comparable to Chernobyl or Fukushima in southern California. As I am sure you are well aware of, if there were ever a significant radiological release to the atmosphere at SONGS the area surrounding the plant could become uninhabitable for several decades or longer. It is no small task to clean up radioactive contamination from the environment. This is a serious topic which could impact the future of California.
Currently, SONGS Units 2 and 3 are both shut down because of tube failure and
premature tube wear in the Replacement Steam Generators, and the situation is being
investigated by the NRC. Last October, SCE proposed a plan to run Unit 2 at only 70%
plant power, claiming that this change would eliminate the conditions which led to the
Steam Generator Tube Rupture in Unit 3, and premature wear in both Units’ Steam
Generators. However, a reduction in plant power, which is the measurement relating to
how many megawatts the Turbine Generator produces, can never eliminate the threats
to a Steam Generator Tube Rupture condition as SCE is claiming it will. SONGS Unit 2 is a
Pressurized Water Reactor, and the conditions that have caused the failure of the Steam
Generators are the normal operating pressure of the Reactor, and the flow rate of water
into the Steam Generators. These are fixed pressures and flows that cannot be changed;
therefore, any attempt to run the plant will result in exactly the same conditions which
caused the premature tube wear and tube ruptures in the first year of service of the
Replacement Steam Generators. Please bear in mind that the new metal alloy that was
used and the tube failures that resulted from the first year of service was equivalent to
20-30 years of service in other plants using the original metal alloy. SCE, contrary to the
NRC’s request for complete transparency, has implied that operating the plant at a
reduced power level will reduce the threat of further Steam Generator tube ruptures
and subsequent radioactive release to the environment, when in fact, the threat can
never be removed because of the design of the plant and the weak alloy which the
Replacement Steam Generators are constructed of.
I also believe that SCE’s proposed plan is irresponsible, and shows a serious lack
of conservative decision making principles. “Conservative decision making” is a nuclear
fundamental that means the safest decisions should always be made to protect the
health and safety of the general public, the plant workers, and the environment. If the
NRC approves SCE’s plan, workers in the Operations Department will be required to
start up and run the reactor knowing that the Replacement Steam Generators have
extensive design problems and significant wear which could lead to another tube
rupture and radioactive release to the environment. As the wife of a reactor operator, I
lived through many refueling outages and unit start-ups throughout the 1990’s and
stress that reactor operators experience during normal work conditions. The fact that SCE wants its workers to operate defective equipment shows the flagrant disregard that SCE and SONGS senior management has for the health and safety of nuclear workers at the plant, as well as the people living in the surrounding communities.
According to the findings of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO), San Onofre has been the worst rated nuclear plant in the nation. And according to the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO), San Onofre has been the worst or near worst rated nuclear plant in the nation for industrial safety. And according to the NRC, San Onofre has had the longest running cross cutting issues in Human Performance in the history of U. S. nuclear power. “Cross cutting issues in Human Performance” means that in nearly every department significant errors are being made because workers do not follow required procedural steps. The length and breadth of these issues were so egregious it forced the NRC to revise their procedures because San Onofre was actually outside of all postulated conditions set forth in the NRC procedures governing Human Performance failures. This is very condemning evidence which shows that SONGS has been mismanaged for many years. How much more evidence do we need before an adjudicated public hearing is held to investigate the matter?
The design problems and the conditions which led to the first Steam Generator tube failure in Unit 3 have already been investigated and a root cause analysis has been performed by several industry experts. These analyses confirm that future Steam Generator tube wear and tube ruptures with a resultant radioactive release to the environment are inevitable. Why does SCE need to do a 5 month experimental test run with Unit 2; just to see if the conclusions of the root cause analyses are correct? At what point in time did we decide that doing an experiment with a full scale commercial nuclear reactor was a good idea? What SCE is proposing is unprecedented in the history of U.S. nuclear power. It was an equipment test experiment which led to the nuclear event at Chernobyl in 1986. Didn’t we learn anything from that tragedy?
Public distrust, and nuclear worker distrust of SCE’s management of SONGS has been growing significantly over the past year, and I believe it has reached a boiling point. The electric ratepayers of southern California do not believe they should be held financially responsible for SCE’s engineering mistakes in the design of the Replacement Steam Generators, or for the cost of running a shutdown nuclear facility which has not produced a single megawatt in over a year. As Governor of the state, I believe you have a responsibility to take action on this matter and not leave it to the sole discretion of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to decide the fate and future of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. The NRC’s biggest flaw is that they are neither omnipresent nor omniscient; and they cannot regulate the nuclear power industry as everyone assumes they do. In 2010, when my husband filed serious allegations regarding blatant procedural violations and retaliation against himself for raising safety concerns at the plant, he conveyed to me his experience that after all was said and done the NRC would never actually do anything; and nothing has changed in three years.
I would greatly appreciate a response to this letter. I did not receive a response a year ago when I wrote to your office the first time expressing my concerns about SONGS. Thank you for your time and your dedication to keeping California free from preventable nuclear accidents. In conclusion let me say; the only thing necessary for a nuclear disaster to occur in California is for a good Governor to do nothing.
Mrs. Bethann Chambers Page
SCE website states, “The amendment supports SCE’s plan to initially operate Unit 2 at 70 percent power for five months. SCE asked the NRC to act on the amendment before the end of May to facilitate commencement of the restart process for Unit 2 by June 1 so that the unit will be available to assist in meeting peak summer electricity demand. Following the initial five-month operating period, SCE would shut down Unit 2 for steam generator tube inspections. Based on inspection data, Unit 2 would resume operation at 70 percent power for an appropriate operating period during the remainder of the 18-24 month fuel cycle while SCE updates its analysis to determine the appropriate long-term power level. Operating at 70 percent power prevents conditions that caused the tube-to-tube wear in Unit 3 that resulted in the nuclear plant being shut down since January 2012. SCE and three independent companies with expertise in nuclear generation have confirmed it is safe to operate the Unit 2 steam generators. The NRC has been evaluating these analyses, which are based on exhaustive testing and inspections, since October 2012.”
NRC, SCE and three independent companies plus MHI with expertise in nuclear generation need to sharpen their pencils with “High-Energy Public Safety Wisdom Knives” to evaluate the unintended and adverse consequences of multiple and instantaneous SG tube ruptures due to FEI, FIRV, tube wall thinning, metal fatigue, incubating cracks, and collapse of AVB Structure caused by AOOs and DBAs with Unit 2, @70% Power Operation. The radiological doses from a Unit 2 Nuclear Meltdown will cause a Trillion Dollar ECO Disaster and undetermined causalities and cancer effects, and will destroy Southern California like Fukushima. Southern Californians do not want to flee their homes, businesses and schools because of SCE’s false pretenses of starting dangerous Unit 2 to meet the summer months peak energy needs. Who wants to leave Southern California for SCE’s profits, the land of one of the most majestic, entertaining, tourist, and pristine places in this World?
SONGS Unit 2 Potential Nuclear Meltdown due to Loss of Offsite Power
Preface: Of particular concern with SONGS Unit 2 restart at reduced power are incubating circumferential cracks in tubes next to each other. When one circumferentially cracked tube ruptures, the additional stresses can cause multiple or cascading tube ruptures, which can result in a nuclear meltdown. SCE, MHI, AREVA, Intertek, Westinghouse and NRC are ignoring these cracks. The difference in management of Steam Generator Tube Rupture between Finland and France and USA is, that no primary coolant (liquid and steam) release to the environment is allowed in Finland, while in France and USA, primary steam releases are not forbidden for profits to conduct risky experiments with people’s lives.
Conclusions: As shown below, transformer fires, lightening, offsite grid disturbances, main steam line break or other anticipated operational occurrences can result in automatic reactor, reactor coolant pump, feedwater pump and turbine trips. In these situations, all the nuclear power plants In USA can be safely shutdown using plant’s automatic safety systems and timely operator actions except SONGS Unit 2. However, as shown below, that is not the case with San Onofre Unit 2 operating at reduced power as told by “The San Onofre Insider and Dr. Joram Hopenfeld” to Channel 10 Investigative Team on April 25, 2013. NRC Inspector General Reports show that NRC has allowed safety margins in nuclear power plants to decrease too far. Now, not after an accident in SONGS Unit 2, is the time to consider whether the NRC’s position is prudent (safety overrides production), or political (Forget Barbara Boxer, Representative Ed Markey, Dr. Joram Hopenfeld & 8.4 Million Southern Californians concerns) on Unit 2 restart proposed SCE License Amendment.
A. Background Events:
1. March 15, 1994 – Los Angeles Times, Fire Follows Blast at San Onofre, March 15, 1994 – An electrical transformer blew out with a loud blast at the nuclear power plant here but caused no power interruptions, a Southern California Edison Co. spokesman said Monday.
2. February 05, 2001, Los Angeles Times, Fire Shuts Down San Onofre Unit Reactor – The Fire destroyed Unit 3 switchgear, turbine and the plant was shutdown for 5 months resulting in a loss of 100 Million Dollars.
3. September 8, 2011, SONGs Unit 2 began the inspection period at essentially full power. On September 8, 2011, the unit tripped due to an offsite electrical grid disturbance. Following restoration of the electrical grid, the unit returned to essentially full power on September 11, 2011, and remained there for the duration of the inspection period. Unit 3 began the inspection period at essentially full power. On August 6, 2011, power was reduced to approximately 65 percent to repair main feedwater pump turbine MK006. Following completion of repairs, the unit returned to full power on August 15, 2011. On September 8, 2011, the unit tripped due to an offsite electrical grid disturbance. Following restoration of the electrical grid, the unit returned to essentially full power on September 15, 2011, and remained there for the duration of the inspection period.
4. January 10, 2013: Fire in a main transformer resulted in a reactor trip and an unusual event declaration at a reactor near Houston Tuesday. Transformer at unit 2 of the South Texas Project failed at about 4:40 p.m., according to an event report filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Although the onsite fire brigade extinguished the resulting flames in the switchyard within 16 minutes, the incident took out power to busses supplying reactor systems, which the report indicated resulted in a partial loss of offsite power. The reactor tripped from full power, and two emergency diesel generators energized the affected circuits. According to the report, unit 2 was cooling down under natural circulation because of a loss of power to reactor coolant pumps. Auxiliary feed water systems functioned as needed, and heat was removed using steam generator atmospheric relief valves. A pressurizer power-operated relief valve momentarily opened and reclosed.
5. January 17, 2003: A transformer fire at a nuclear plant injured a security officer on Wednesday night and led to the automatic shutdown of one of the plant’s two reactors. The fire at the Donald C. Cook Nuclear Plant in southwest Michigan also resulted in a brief activation of the site’s emergency plan, the plant’s owner, the American Electric Power Company, said. The security officer was treated for smoke inhalation. When the transformer, which is adjacent to the plant, failed, the plant’s operating system automatically shut down the Unit 1 reactor, which was operating at full power. All safety systems responded appropriately, and the reactor was not damaged, the company said.
6. March 31, 2013: Easter Sunday and Arkansas Nuclear One: A 600-ton component was dropped from a crane while being moved out of the turbine building at Unit 1. At the time of the event, Unit 1 was in a refueling outage with all of the fuel still in the reactor vessel, safely cooled. The accident damaged some electrical equipment that supplies off-site power to the plant. The plant’s emergency diesel generators started and power was quickly restored to the decay heat removal systems. Unit 2, which was operating at full power, automatically shut down when power was lost to a reactor coolant pump due to electrical equipment that was damaged when the component fell. At 9:22 a.m. offsite power to one electrical bus was lost because water from a fire main broken by the falling component caused a short circuit. An emergency diesel generator started up and is supplying power to key safety systems. Unit 2 is cooling down using natural circulation.
7. April 18, 2013 – Shippingport — An Illinois nuclear power plant automatically shut down Wednesday after a lightning strike knocked out its offsite power, Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials said, an unusual event that the Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Station seems to have an added layer of protection against. The LaSalle nuclear power plant in Marseilles, Ill., declared an “unusual event” Wednesday afternoon after it lost offsite power to both of its Mark II reactors. According to an Exelon company statement, power from the switchyard into the site was interrupted during a severe thunderstorm.
8. April 26, 2013: Illinois — On April 17, a reported lighting strike caused off-site power to fail resulting in a chain of events. Units 1 and 2 were reported to have been vented, only one of which was through a filtered system. At this time it is unknown is radiation was released over the populace. At the time of venting the wind was blowing eastward away from the plant. LaSalle Unit 1 and LaSalle Unit 2 have both experienced an automatic reactor scram, in conjunction with a loss of offsite power. This was caused by an apparent lightning strike in the main 345kV/138kV switchyard during a thunderstorm. 138kV line 0112 has been inspected in the field, and heavy damage has been noted on the insulators on two of the three phases on a line lightning arrestor line side.
B. Safety Significance of Transformers Fires: Fires represent half of the risk of core meltdowns at nuclear power plants in the United States, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or NRC. ”In other words, the fire hazard equals all other hazards combined,” said David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists. As one of the most watched-over industries in the world, nuclear power generating plants are required to abide by an abundance of regulations and standards to ensure that the facility, its employees, the environment and the local population are protected from potential hazards. One of the most ominous threats that every nuclear power generating facility faces is the risk of a fire developing within the plant and the associated consequences. There is no shortage of hazards within these facilities; the possibility for fires to ignite from sources such as lube oil, fuel oil or general combustibles within a warehouse are genuine concerns. However, one of the most common sources for ignition – and unfortunately one of the most dangerous as well – are the plant’s transformers. It is no surprise that transformers are inherently high-risk, considering the hundreds of thousands of volts that they transfer on a continuous basis. There are a number of events that can trigger transformer fires, from weather-related incidents to failures stemming from equipment operating beyond its intended service life . While lightning and short circuits in electrical equipment can cause transformer failures, breakdowns in the insulation system are frequently found to be the source of failure. As the insulation material protecting the transformer deteriorates over time from exposure to natural elements, it puts the equipment at risk for failure and subsequently, fires.
C. Safety Significance of Loss of Offsite Power: The offsite power system of a nuclear power plant provides the preferred source of electrical power to all the station auxiliaries. Loss of offsite power condition results in a reactor/turbine/feedwater trip and Main Steam Isolation Valves close accompanied by an immediate shrinking of steam generator inventory below the low-low level setpoint for automatic initiation of auxiliary feed water. The turbine load rejection, the steam generator tube bundle uncovery, and the feed water instantaneous flashing into steam can over-pressurize the steam generators. Main steam atmospheric dump and safety valves will progressively open to prevent over-pressurization of the steam generators and transfer decay heat to the atmosphere. Steam generator tube uncovery is significant because, if the SG tube break locations becomes uncovered for 10 minutes (Westinghouse analysis), a direct path might exist for fission products contained in the primary coolant to be released to the atmosphere without partition with the secondary coolant. Source: NRC Bulletin No. 88-02: Rapidly Propagating Fatigue Cracks In Steam Generator Tubes.
D. Recent Steam Generator Tube Rupture Events
Even with the improved SG inspection programs, operating experience provides examples of tube flaws that were not detected by in-service tube inspections. These flaws were later discovered after accidents and did not satisfy the required structural and accident leakage integrity margins as observed in SONGS Unit 3. There have been five such occurrences from 1987 to 2012:
(1) On July 15, 1987, a steam generator tube rupture event occurred at North Anna, Unit 1 shortly after the unit reached 100% power. The rupture extended circumferentially 360ø around the tube. The cause of the tube rupture has been determined to be high cycle fatigue and flow-induced vibrations.
(2) Indian Point 2—SGTR event in February 2000. This represented a failure to meet structural and leakage integrity performance criteria.
(3) Comanche Peak 1—Failure to meet structural and leakage integrity performance criteria in Fall 2002, as determined by in-situ pressure testing during condition monitoring.
(4) Oconee 2—Failure to meet structural integrity performance criteria in fall 2002, as determined by in-situ pressure testing during condition monitoring.
(5) SONGS 3 —Failure to meet structural integrity performance criteria in 2012, as determined by in-situ pressure testing during condition monitoring.
Of these events, only the tube that leaked under normal operating conditions at SONGS 3 likely would had ruptured with 2 additional tubes, if an MSLB event had occurred during a several-month period preceding the SGTR event in January 2012. This experience indicates that the frequency at which SONGS 2 tubes may be vulnerable to rupture (or leakage from multiple tubes) under MSLB may be above the conditional probability value of 0.05 assumed in Westinghouse, AREVA and Intertek Operational Assessments.
E. Condition of Unit 2 steam Generators: SONGS Unit 2 & 3 RSGs are of the same design. Therefore, the description of unit 3 provided below is also applicable to Unit 2. SONGS Unit 3 RSGs’ unprecedented tube failure and massive tube and AVB/TSP degradation occurred due to fluid elastic instability, flow-induced random vibrations, Mitsubishi Flowering Effect and high cyclic fatigue under the following unique circumstances:
(5) Low frequency small diameter retainer bars (56 HZ) installed to fit the excessive number of SCE requested tubes compared with other MHI SGs’ higher frequency and retainer bars (120 HZ to 1200 HZ), which are not prone to vibrations due to fluid-induced vibrations.
(6) SONGS’ tubes being much longer compared with Westinghouse Model 51 steam generators (Average length of heated tube = 730 inches) and other MHI SGs,
(8) Large amount of uncertainties and unverified assumptions in MHI, AREVA, Westinghouse and Intertek’s contact force modeling (zero for in-plane vibrations), calculation of impact wear coefficients and tube stress calculations (4.6 ksi versus 16-17 ksi) and computer and statistical modeling, and,
(10) SCE states, “Remote visual inspections were performed to confirm the integrity of the RBs. The results of these visual inspections are summarized below: (1) No cracking or degradation of RBs or RB-to-retaining bar welds was observed, and (2) No cracking or degradation of AVB end caps or end cap-to-RB welds was observed.
Note: Remote visual inspections do not ensure that retainer bars or RB-to-retaining bar, AVB end caps or end cap-to-RB welds are not cracked. Cracks in welds can only be detected by using advanced Remote Computer Controlled Low-Frequency Ultrasonic Methods.
F. SONGS and Offsite Emergency Plans
G. Loss of Offsite Power In Unit 2:
A potential accident causes loss of offsite power In SONGs Unit 2 operating at 70% power. This event causes a simultaneous reactor, turbine, feedwater and reactor coolant trips. Due to feedwater pump trip, the RSG U-bundle secondary water level will shrink and tubes will be uncovered for a period of at least 10 minutes and experience a sharp drop/increase in secondary side pressure. The entire sub-cooled feedwater inventory contained in the faulted RSG will instantaneously flash to high dry steam and over-pressurize the steam generators. Loss of Turbine load will also over-pressurize the steam generator. Main steam safety valves located outside the containment will progressively open to prevent over-pressurizing the steam generators and connect the faulty generators to the environment via open steam safety valves. In the midst of 100s of alarms and flashing trouble shooting windows, now for the next 10-15 minutes, the San Onofre Control Room is busy trying to trouble shoot and diagnose the changing plant and transient conditions and flipping through 1000 pages of cumbersome, mind boggling and complex Emergency, Abnormal, Post-Trip, Fire and Severe Management Accident Guideline procedures to determine the correct diagnpstic course of mitigation actions.
Meanwhile, in the plant, during the same 10 to 15 minutes, the combination of resonant, out-of-plane, in-plane vibrations, jet impingement forces, and RSG debris will cause large axial, bending, dynamic and cyclic loads on all the tubes, tube support plates, retainer bars and anti-vibration structure. The strength of the welded and mechanical connections of these low frequency retainer bars, retaining bars and bridges have not been tested and analyzed for the effects of these cumulative loads to prevent AVB structure displacement, deformation or collapse during loss of offsite power. The displacement, deformation or collapse of AVB structure introduces new and significant axial, bending, dynamic and cyclic loads, which can potentially cause thousands of worn, cracked, plugged and stabilized tubes to exceed their high cycle fatigue stress levels several times than the allowed tube ASME Endurance Limit of 13.6 ksi. If this happens, multiple circumferential tube ruptures will occur at tube-support plates, mid-spans, free spans and tube-to-anti-vibration bar notched interfaces due to macroscopic circumferential cracks caused by tube-to-tube wear and high cycle thermal fatigue. Since all the steam from the RSG would escape to the environment, the iodine-131 from un-partitioned reactor coolant leaking out the rupture tubes will also escape to the environment in less than 10 minutes with 60 tons of radioactive coolant and steam. Consistent with Fukushima Task Force Lessons Learnt and NRC Commissioner Meeting Transcripts, this event will be considered as a beyond design basis event, and SONGS Operators will be unable to take any timely mitigation actions in a radiation/steam environment to stop a severe nuclear accident in progress and notify the Offsite Agencies.
NOTE: While this event is occurring, San Diego County, Orange County and Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton would not be able to dispatch radiation monitoring teams into areas around the plant due to high radiation levels to locate the plume and take soil and air samples to determine the extent of the release off plant grounds. That offsite field monitoring data, along with the data from the plant would not be able to be transmitted to the Offsite Dose Assessment Center (ODAC) located in MESA Emergency Operations Facility for making Protective Action Determinations. The offsite plans are recommended to be revised and feasibility demonstrated via an Emergency Plan Drill using Alternate and Parallel Emergency Operation Facilities located in Irvine and San Diego. The Three Mile Island nuclear accident was not as serious as Chernobyl, but was very confusing and chaotic. 40,000 gallons of radioactive waste was released in the Susquehanna River. 140,000 pregnant women and small children were evacuated as a precautionary measure, but the effects of cancer risk are undetermined.
If the prevailing winds are towards the Pacific Ocean, the total immediate casualties, including SONGS workers, will be at a minimum, although exposures could still exceed the NRC approved SONGS Control Room limit of 5 Rem Total Effective Dose Equivalent (TEDE) and the Exclusion Area Boundary and Low Population Zone limit of 2.5 Rem TEDE, depending on the iodine spiking factor and the duration of blowdown.
If the prevailing winds are inland towards San Diego County, the immediate and long-term fatalities and cancer affects will significantly exceed the NRC approved SONGS Control Room limit of 5 Rem Total Effective Dose Equivalent (TEDE) and the Exclusion Area Boundary and Low Population Zone limit of 2.5 Rem TEDE. The impact within the 50 Mile Ingestion Pathway is undetermined.
Defects or Deviations:
NRC AIT Report, SCE, MHI, Westinghouse, Intertek and AREVA conclusions on Unit 3 and Unit 2 FEI are incomplete, inconsistent, confusing and inconclusive and are based on invalidated assumptions, incorrect benchmarking, faulty computer and statistical simulations, and hideous testing data (Shielded under the false pretense of Proprietary information). As shown below, the causes in these reports does not meet the intent of NRC CAL ACTION 1, which states “Southern California Edison Company (SCE) will determine the causes of the tube-to-tube interactions that resulted in steam generator tube wear in Unit 3, and will implement actions to prevent loss of integrity due to these causes in the Unit 2 steam generator tubes. SCE will establish a protocol of inspections and/or operational limits for Unit 2, including plans for a mid-cycle shutdown for further inspections.”
1. The World’s Foremost Renowned Professeur Titulaire, Michel J. Pettigrew, Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, on the subject of fluid elastic instability and turbulence-induced vibration in 1970’s states, “It is concluded that, although there are still areas of uncertainty, most flow-induced vibration problems can be avoided provided that nuclear components are properly analysed at the design stage and that the analyses are supported by adequate testing and development work when required. There has been no case yet where vibration considerations have seriously constrained the designer.”
2. Violette R., Pettigrew M. J. & Mureithi N. W. state in a 2006 research paper, “In nuclear power plant steam generators, U-tubes are very susceptible to undergo fluid elastic instability because of the high velocity of the two-phase mixture flow in the U-tube region and also because of their low natural frequencies in their out of plane modes. In nuclear power plant steam generator design, flat bar supports have been introduced in order to restrain vibrations of the U-tubes in the out of plane direction. Since those supports are not as effective in restraining the in-plane vibrations of the tubes, there is a clear need to verify if fluid elastic instability can occur for a cluster of cylinders preferentially flexible in the flow direction. Almost all the available data about fluid elastic instability of heat exchanger tube bundles concerns tubes that are axisymmetrically flexible. In those cases, the instability is found to be mostly in the direction transverse to the flow. Thus, the direction parallel to the flow has raised less concern in terms of bundle stability.”
3. Channel 10News Question to MHI: Edison says that a letter from MHI to the NRC proves that SCE believed the San Onofre nuclear plant’s steam generators were safe when installed and that safety measures were not sacrificed for licensing reasons. Is that true?
4. MHI Answer: MHI’s top priority is, and always has been, the safe and reliable operation of all the plants and components that it designs, engineers, supplies and supports. In designing steam generators, minimizing tube wear due to tube vibration is always given a high priority, and this was a priority for MHI during the design of the SONGS replacement steam generators (RSGs). The SONGS RSGs were designed according to industry standards and our customer’s specifications. The design went through an extensive review process which included the participation of third-party experts and MHI believed they would operate as expected: safely and successfully. No safety measures were sacrificed in the design.
Note: MHI Root Cause states, “The forced outage of Unit 3 and the subsequent discovery of thousands of U-bend tube wear indications in both Unit 2 and Unit 3 after such a short operating period was wholly unexpected. Such an outcome should have been prevented by the conservative design and the precision manufacture. The identification of the unexpected tube degradation led to an extensive evaluation as to the causes the degradation and the questioning of the original design assumptions.”
5. Root Cause: Root Causes” are defined as the basic reasons [e.g., hardware (design deficiency), process (e.g., mechanistic or operational parameters), or human performance errors (e.g., Root Cause: Root Causes” are defined as the basic reasons [e.g., hardware (design deficiency), process (e.g., mechanistic or operational parameters), or human performance errors (e.g., lack of critical questioning & investigative attitude, lack of solid team work and alignment between the designer and manufacturer, lack of academic research and Industry benchmarking, etc.) for a problem, which if corrected, will prevent recurrence of that problem., etc.) for a problem, which if corrected, will prevent recurrence of that problem.
SONGS SG Root Cause: Negative Safety Culture (Production over Safety)
Contributing Causes
5.1 Human Performance Errors
• Lack of critical questioning & investigative attitude by SCE/MHI
• Lack of solid team work and alignment between MHI & SCE AVB Design Team
• Lack of academic research and Industry benchmarking by SCE/MHI
• Avoidance of 10CFR 50.90 License Amendment Process by SCE/MHI and Defective 10 CFR 50.59 Evaluation/Screen
• Complacency, Ignorance and Time Pressure by SCE/MHI
• Lack of Benchmarking of Computer Codes and Full Scale Mock-up Testing by MHI
• Inexperienced Designer and Low Cost/Inexperienced/Aggressive/Ignorant Manufacturer
NOTE: Blind Trust by NRC Commission in SCE’s and Independent Experts Error Likely Conservative Assumptions, Unexplained Safety Explanations and False Public Safety Sermons and Assurances can Lead to a SONGS Unit 2 Reactor Meltdown, the unintended and adverse consequences of which will destroy Southern California, the land of one of the most majestic, entertaining, tourist and pristine place in this universe.
5.2 Design Deficiencies – SCE
• Increase of the tube bundle heat transfer surface area from 105,000ft2 (OSG) to 116,100 ft2 (an 11% increase) to generate more heat, more heat and more profits
• Increase in the number of tubes from 9,350 (OSG) to 9,727 (RSG), 7% increase in heat transfer surface area and low tube-to-tube clearances
• RSG tube bundle being taller than that of the OSG (Average Length of Heated Tube increase from 680- 750 inches – equivalent to 700 tubes, 7% increase in heat transfer surface area
• Lack of In-Plane AVBs (Incorrect Assumptions)
• Low-frequency 56 HZ retainer bar to fit excessive number of tubes
• Reduction in Tube Wall thickness from 0.048 inches to 0.043 inches to pump more RCS Flows
• Removal of Stay Cylinder
5.3 Operational Causes – To generate more heat, more power and profits – SCE
• Operation at Low Steam Pressures
• Increased Reactor Coolant Flows
• Poor Circulation Ratios
Will the damage of the combined effects of tube-to-tube wear, wall thinning, metal fatigue and undetec can vted incubating cracks in Unit 2 @70% RTP due to In-plane/Out-of-Plane FEI and Flow-Induced Random Vibrations during AOOs and DBAs., create new unforeseen problems like the one they have now. If tube walls have thinned (is very likely) in vital areas, is it likely to vibrate causing more wear and thinning in the already thin tubes and so far not damaged tubes or pipes, as the tube walls thin the frequency of vibration will change, with more then one tube wearing the combined vibration may drastically increase if the vibrations phase together like pushing a swing it takes little to increase the energy more and more until a tube bursts. The sudden shock may cause new damage and/or more tube wall thinning. Trying to jerry rigg a bad design already built, with potential damages so costly if it melts down is not worth the risks, also is built in a bad location for natural damages.
I do not believe a plant with thinning wall tubes is safe from any size earthquake that can shake the tubes, have they ever designed for this problem on any existing or proposed plants?
HAHN Baba
Sincere Thanks to NRC Chairman, Mr. Victor Dricks, Mr. Cale Young, Mr. Ryan Lantz, Mr. Randy Hall and entire NRC Staff. Thanks to NRC for posting this blog.
Orange County Weekly – By Nick Schou Wed., May 1 2013 at 10:17 AM
Southern California Edison, which operates the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), has apparently acknowledged for the first time that it may have no choice but to shutter the aging plant later this year. SCE is hoping that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will approve its application to restart a reactor at the plant which has been shut down since January 2012 at 70 percent power. The NRC is expected to make a decision about this proposal, which is being strongly opposed by environmental groups, within the next month or so. Now, the company is acknowledging that if the NRC denies its request, it will likely close the plant–and may even be forced to do so regardless of how the NRC proceeds. The news came in the form of a conference call between company officials and analysts, and is bolstered by reports SCE has filed with the NRC, according to a CNS news report yesterday. Officials are blaming hundreds of millions of dollars in costs associated with San Onofre’s 15-month shutdown. Specifically, SCE says, repairs and inspections have so far cost $109 million, with an additional replacement power cost of $444 million. San Onofre is one of the oldest nuclear power plants in the country. Its Unit 1 reactor was shut down after 25 years in 1992. As Southern California’s population has exploded in recent decades, questions have lingered about just how safe it is to have a nuclear power plant in such a highly populated area. The plant also sits atop an earthquake fault. Safety issues have plagued the plant in the last several years, with regulators complaining of everything from failing emergency generators to faulty wiring and falsified data (emphasis added).
Jim Messina, Chair, Organizing for Action, for His Excellency, President of the United States, states,” I’ve spent enough time in Washington to know that the way you win a fight with the gun lobby, faced with some of the most powerful special interests, is just to refuse to give up.” Following his example, 8.4 Million Southern Californians will keep questioning NRC and SCE, until they are convinced that SONGS Unit 2 is safe for restart. 8.4 Million Southern Californians pay for SONGS Unit 2, therefore, they are justified in expressing their concerns about their safety.
So far, all the available evidence indicates that the following major problems have not been addressed:
Problem Number 1. The design of San Onofre Replacement Steam generators (RSGs) are identical. SONGS Unit 2 potentially did not suffer in-plane fluid elastic instability due to operation at higher steam pressures and lower RCS flows (Rejecting the impact of double Tube-to-AVB contact forces and better supports responsible for prevention of Unit 2 FEI). SONGS Unit 3 suffered in-plane fluid elastic instability due to operation at lower steam pressures and higher RCS flows (Rejecting the impact of insufficient Tube-to-AVB contact forces and loose supports due to manufacturing errors responsible for Unit 3 FEI). This conclusion is consistent with Westinghouse Operational Assessment, but challenges the SCE, NRC AIT, AREVA and MHI conclusions. NRC AIT Report, SCE, MHI and AREVA conclusions on Unit 3 and Unit 2 FEI are incomplete, inconsistent, confusing and inconclusive and based on faulty computer simulations and hideous testing data (Shielded under the false pretense of MHI Proprietary information). The analysis in these reports does not meet the intent of NRC CAL ACTION 1, which states “Southern California Edison Company (SCE) will determine the causes of the tube-to-tube interactions that resulted in steam generator tube wear in Unit 3, and will implement actions to prevent loss of integrity due to these causes in the Unit 2 steam generator tubes. SCE will establish a protocol of inspections and/or operational limits for Unit 2, including plans for a mid-cycle shutdown for further inspections.” Repeated requests to NRC, SCE and its Independent Experts to examine carefully the operational difference between Units 2 & 3 and determine its impact on CAL Action 1 have not been addressed to date. NRR has not asked SCE in its RAI(s) the impact of operational differences between Units 2 and 3 on Unit 2 and Unit 3 tube-to-tube wear. Honorable NRC Commissioner Mr. Apostolakis was very confused on Unit 2 FEI inconsistent and conflicting statements by SCE, Westinghouse and AREVA.
Required Action 1: To protect NRC Commission’s Independent Public Safety Charter Mission, Honorable NRC Chairman is humbly requested that NRC Office of Inspector General retain an Independent Thermal-Hydraulic Expert to examine the operational differences between Units 2 & 3 during Cycle 16 and determine its impact on NRC CAL Action 1 by examining the entire SONGS Cycle 16 operational data for Units 2 & 3. Unit 2 Restart Permission at 70% power should be contingent on completion of the corrective actions required by NRC CAL Action 1 and 10CFR 50 Appendix B.
Problem Number 2. In light of massive amounts of tube damage (wear), fatigue and tube failure in Unit 3, along with incomplete tube inspections for detection of circumferential incubating cracks in Unit 2, NRC is legally required to ask SCE to check MHI Fatigue Calculations and post the results on its website before any approval of SONGS proposed New License Amendment for restart of Unit 2, to demonstrate that the proposed license amendment (1) Would not involve a significant increase in the probability of an accident previously evaluated in the SONGS FSAR; or, (2) Would not create the possibility of a new or different type of accident previously evaluated in the SONGS FSAR; or, (3) Would not involve a significant reduction in the required margin of safety by operating Unit 2 at 70% power.
Required Action 2: Based on the above review, NRC should ask SCE to provide a calculation justifying the engineering basis of MHI Fatigue Calculations to meet the ASME Code, NRC RG 1.121, the NRC Chairman and its own Standards. The calculation should be performed by a California Licensed Mechanical or Civil Engineer and Independently Verified by a California Licensed Structural Engineer. In addition, SCE and its Independent Experts should address the synergic effects of tube-to-tube wear and high cycle fatigue, which can be caused by in-plane fluid elastic instability in Unit 2 during anticipated operational occurrences and design bases accidents.
I told Ted Craver in December 2012 Public Meeting that even with NRC Permission to restart Unit 2, if an accident happens, the entire burden and responsibility of facing the angry Regulators, Public, News Media and EIX/SCE Board of Directors, Shareholders will be on his shoulders. NRC needs to take its sweet time and address very carefully the combined effects of tube-to-tube wear, wall thinning, metal fatigue and undetected incubating cracks in Unit 2 @70% RTP due to In-plane/Out-of-Plane FEI and Flow-Induced Random Vibrations during AOOs and DBAs. With so many unknowns, No body can predict with 95% probability, 50% confidence that tube ruptures in SONGS Unit 2 won,t result in a nuclear meltdown. Why take more than the significant risk? I believe that the best solution for SONGS is to Re-tube/Repair the RSGs by Westinghouse like PVNGs. This way, both units can be run safely, reliably, economically and @100% RTP till 2042 with a 20-30 Year License Extension.
Now here is the news:
U-T San Diego, April 30, 2013 by Morgan Lee – Nuke Plant May Close, If Restart Denied
Operators of the San Onofre nuclear plant may decide to retire one or both reactors by year-end if regulators deny or delay a request to partially restart the plant. Southern California Edison executives made the announcement Tuesday in regulatory filings and on a conference call with analysts, citing uncertainties about mounting repair and power replacement costs linked to the 15-month outage.
Edison CEO Ted Craver said a decision likely be made before year-end 2013 on whether to shut down Units 2 and 3 if the Nuclear Regulatory has not approved the company’s proposal to restart the Unit 2 reactor at partial power. Edison also pushed back its goal of restarting Unit 2 by June 1.
“Without a restart of Unit 2, a decision to retire one or both units would likely be made before year-end 2013,” the company said. Edison, based in Rosemead, has spent $553 million on the plant, which has been shut since January 2012 because of damaged steam generators.
The company has sought permission from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to restart Unit 2 at reduced capacity to avoid shaking damaged pipes. Costs for repairs and inspections at San Onofre climbed to $109 million and replacement power expenses rose to $444 million through March 31, Edison said in an investor slide presentation today.
San Onofre NRC/SCE/MHI/Public Awareness Series – Please excuse me for any computer or human performance grammatical or spelling errors.
http://www.10news.com/news/investigations/san-onofre-insider-says-nrc-should-not-allow-nuclear-restart-042513
SAN DIEGO – For the first time, a source from inside the San Onofre nuclear power plant has come forward to warn that restarting the power plant is too dangerous.
“There is something grossly wrong,” said the inside source, a safety engineer who worked at San Onofre and has 25 years in the nuclear field. The source, who requested anonymity, is not alone in concerns over the safety San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS).
The concerns stem from inside the concrete containment walls, which house steam generators unique to the plant.
Japanese manufacturer Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) built replacement generators for the aging nuclear plant in 2010 and 2011.
“There were many, many changes,” said Dr. Joe Hopenfeld, a former employee of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). He described himself as pro-nuclear.
Hopenfeld spent his entire professional life working with steam generators and nuclear power. Though he lives in Maryland, he is familiar with San Onofre, which is run by Southern California Edison (SCE).
The new generators were designed to provide low cost power for decades. Instead, they shut it down in just eleven months because of a radiation leak.
“The manufacturer didn’t have experience in this size unit,” said Hopenfeld. “I have reviewed thousands of pages of assessment and reports that Edison has submitted.”
He says the 2011 radiation leak that shuttered the plant revealed a potentially catastrophic problem with the tubes that carry scalding water.
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s a very serious risk,” Hopenfeld said.
Tubes carry water to and from the reactor core. This creates steam, which turns the turbines and produces energy.
“The tubes operate under very high pressure,” Hopenfeld said, adding there is no protection provided between the tubes, which are placed in rows, to keep them from hitting each other.
Our sources said the redesign of the generators had unintended consequences. Tubes began hitting each other, creating cracks.
“These tubes were hitting each other — that’s dangerous,” said Team 10’s anonymous source.
He wants to remain anonymous because he told Team 10 he fears for his safety.
“When they made these changes, they did not look at the academic research nor use critical question and an investigative attitude,” said the source.
Hopenfeld and the inside source said the tubes’ movement — banging into each other — led to unprecedented tube failures.
Of 19,400 tubes, a NRC report found more than 17 percent were damaged.
Hopenfeld said the worst case scenario is a main steam line break, which he says could be caused by tubes cracking, the tube walls thinning or metal fatigue.
The anonymous insider and Hopenfeld said if there is a main steam line break, there is potential for the reactor core to overheat – which could mean a full or partial meltdown.
“Many tubes, and I don’t know how many, have exhausted their fatigue life – they have no fatigue life left,” Hopefeld said.
Just like the airline industry, the effect of fatigue on metal is something of concern in the nuclear industry.
While metal may not show the effects of fatigue to the naked eye, it is weakened after use.
According to Hopenfeld, that is what has happened inside SONGS.
SCE proposed a solution for the restart. The company said out of an abundance of caution, it would operate only Unit Two at 70 percent power if the NRC approves a restart.
Both Team 10 sources said that may reduce risk, but it is no guarantee of safety.
“Maybe the vibrations wouldn’t be as severe, but it doesn’t mean they are going away,” Hopenfeld said.
“If an accident like this happens, (an) emergency plan is not geared to handle such a public safety devastation,” the inside source said. “Those things have never been practiced or demonstrated in a drill scenario.”
SCE did not agree with the insider’s assessment of its disaster drills. A spokeswoman called late Thursday afternoon and said SCE runs drills four times a year and includes community partners.
The spokeswoman said the company plans for any issue that can happen at the plant.
Team 10 obtained an internal safety report that states in part:
With both units in shutdown due to leaks in the Steam Generator tubes, SONGS Senior Management attention is focused on resolving this problem and seeking NRC’s permission to restart the units. With SONGS under NRC, INPO, NOB, Public and Media scrutiny, Station cannot afford the luxury of dealing with adverse performance and publicity in Emergency Preparedness caused by declining SONGS Drill/Exercise Performance (DEP) indicator metric.
The inside source said the report refers to the plant’s drill success rate. The NRC’s website states the Exercise Performance Indicator monitors the “timeliness and accuracy of licensees performance in drills and exercises with opportunities for classification of emergencies…”
Hopenfeld and the inside source said no one can predict what will happen if the plant restarts.
“I am not trying to scare anybody — you can live there, but you should know what the risk is,” Hopenfeld said.
The NRC is expected to make a decision about the possible restart of San Onofre within the coming weeks.
SCE maintains the plant is safe to restart and declined an on-camera interview. SCE did send this statement:
While Dr. Hopenfeld has an extensive resume, his SONGS analysis is significantly flawed, reflecting his lack of specific expertise in tube vibration analysis provided by the three experts that performed SCE’s analysis, which included more than 170,000 inspections.
The NRC is the appropriate authority to evaluate steam generator tube integrity and continues in that oversight and regulatory role for SONGS.
— A fatigue analysis submitted by Dr. Hopenfeld to the CPUC contains many allegations that have been presented before and been refuted; the most obvious example is his criticism of the original initial 50.59 analysis for the Replacement Steam Generator. This issue has been addressed by the NRC in several public venues, and the NRC noted that SCE followed all required regulations in completing the 50.59 analysis.
— Hopenfeld’s fatigue analysis concerning in-plane tube vibration is significantly flawed in that it applies an unreasonably high stress concentration factor based on solid body geometry rather than the more realistic stress concentration factors for a cylindrical geometry applicable to the SONGS steam generator tubes.
SCE also responded to Team 10 questions by sending past news releases sent to regional media. Read those statements here.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is based in Japan. Team 10 emailed MHI specific questions. Here are those questions and answers:
Q: Edison says that a letter from MHI to the NRC proves that SCE believed the San Onofre nuclear plant’s steam generators were safe when installed and that safety measures were not sacrificed for licensing reasons. Is that true?
A: MHI’s top priority is, and always has been, the safe and reliable operation of all the plants and components that it designs, engineers, supplies and supports. In designing steam generators, minimizing tube wear due to tube vibration is always given a high priority, and this was a priority for MHI during the design of the SONGS replacement steam generators (RSGs). The SONGS RSGs were designed according to industry standards and our customer’s specifications. The design went through an extensive review process which included the participation of third-party experts and MHI believed they would operate as expected: safely and successfully. No safety measures were sacrificed in the design.
Q: Why is the NRC’s Augmented Inspection Team (AIT) putting all the blame on MHI and not SCE?
A: It is important to understand that the AIT Report reflected the NRC’s understanding of the issues as of July 2012, and is just one part of an on-going inspection that the NRC has been conducting since the tube leak in one of the SONGS Unit 3 RSGs was detected in January 2012. MHI is committed to cooperating fully with the NRC in its inspection activities and has made and is making available internal MHI documents as they are requested.
Q: MHI knows how to build steam generators. Were Edison’s design specifications faulty (Demanding 11% Additional Heat transfer area) or MHI did not how to build these San Onofre Replacement Steam Generators?
A: MHI has built more than 100 steam generators according to customer specifications, industry standards, practices and operating data and experience. MHI worked closely with SCE on the RSG design and fabrication, using the best available technology to meet the customer’s specified requirements and the industry’s high standards.
The SONGS RSGs experienced an unprecedented condition: in-plane tube vibration resulting in tube-to-tube wear. The NRC and other industry experts have confirmed that the occurrence of in-plane tube vibration causing tube-to-tube wear at SONGS was unexpected and without precedent and that MHI had followed industry practice in its design.
Q: Did SCE exceed the power limits in Unit 3 the generators could safely produce? Is it possible to anticipate these sort of problems? Does MHI know that Unit 2 steam generators were running at much higher pressures than Unit 3?
A: The SGs were designed to operate at the licensed power for SONGs, and to our knowledge that licensed power level was not exceeded. The thermo-hydraulic conditions in the RSGs for both SONGS units have been shown to be the same. The in-plane vibration and related tube-to-tube wear discovered at SONGS had never been previously observed in an operating nuclear power plant of this design. The in-plane tube vibration, observed at the steam generators of Unit 3, was caused by the use of smaller, more uniform tube-to-support gaps than Unit 2, which reduced the contact force available to restrain tube movement in the in-plane direction.
Q: Is there a way to measure fatigue in the tubing you created?
MHI did analyze the potential for fatigue failure of the RSG tubes under operating conditions and determined that fatigue was not a credible tube failure mechanism because the stresses sustained by the tubes due to in-plane vibration are well below the stresses that would cause fatigue failure. The analysis that supports this conclusion is contained in Appendix 16 to the “Tube wear of Unit-3 RSG – Technical Evaluation Report.” It should be noted that the technical reviews and analysis, both by the NRC and industry experts, have not mentioned fatigue failure of the tubing.
A: What is the possibility that the “tubes” at issue could be removed from UNITS 2 & 3? What are the problems you might face in pulling this off? Is this a cost effective solution? Has your firm ever done tube removal at other nuclear facilities? Where and when?
Tubes exhibiting significant wear or which are potentially vulnerable to such wear have already been removed from service at SONGS by plugging. Plugging tubes within the limits set by the plant licensing documents is a standard practice in the industry and poses no safety concern. It has been implemented to some extent or another by all nuclear utilities whose facilities include steam generators.
The Dark Past of San Onofre
The ratio of flow rate of the steam water mixture, which flows through the SG tube bundle, to the flow rate of steam out of the steam nozzle, is called the circulation ratio. It is desirable to maintain a high circulation ratio above 4 (preferably over 5) to reduce the concentration of chemicals, debris, steam blanketing and steam dry-outs, etc., in the SG. San Onofre Unit 3 RSGs had a circulation ratio of around 3.26, which along with high steam flows, narrow tube to pitch diameter, lack-of in-plane restraints, narrow tube clearances, excessive number of extremely tall tubes and low pressure of secondary side (833 psi) caused fluid elastic instability in 4% area of the RSGs. Everything between San Onofre Units 2 and 3 was the same, except Unit 2 was operating with a steam pressure between 892-942 psi (consistent with NRC AIT Report). At low steam pressure and low circulation ratios, a RSG can produce more heat and more thermal megawaats (more profits in the pocket of SCE). But, low steam pressures and low circulation ratio are severe for vibrations, steam blanketing and steam dry-outs. These are basic elementary facts established about the design and operation of nuclear steam generators prior to San Onofre RSG design, which SCE and Mitsubishi should have known.
Because of the high secondary pressure operation, fluid elastic instability did not occur in Unit 2, which is consistent with Westinghouse Operational Assessment. Contact forces play a role in the out-of plane FEI, but SCE/MHI inadvertently designed better supports and double the contact forces in Unit 2 are not the reason that FEI did not occur In Unit 2. That is just an attempt to mislead the public and NRC and is contested based on an in-depth review of conflicting AREVA, Westinghouse, John Large, SCE and MHI Reports.
Now MHI says, “Thus, not using ATHOS, which predicts higher void fractions than FIT-III at the time of design represented, at most, a missed opportunity to take further design steps, not directed at in-plane FEI, that might have resulted in a different design that might have avoided in-plane FEI. However, the AVB Design Team recognized that the design for the SONGS RSGs resulted in higher steam quality (void fraction) than previous designs and had considered making changes to the design to reduce the void fraction (e.g., using a larger downcomer, using larger flow slot design for the tube support plates, and even removing a TSP). But each of the considered changes had unacceptable consequences and the AVB Design Team agreed not to implement them. Among the difficulties associated with the potential changes was the possibility that making them could impede the ability to justify the RSG design under the provisions of 10 C.F.R.§50.59. Thus, one cannot say that use of a different code than FIT-III would have prevented the occurrence of the in-plane FEI observed in the SONGs RSGs or that any feasible design changes arising from the use of a different code would have reduced the void fraction sufficiently to avoid tube-to-tube wear. For the same reason, an analysis of the cumulative effects of the design changes including the departures from the OSG’s design and MHI’s previously successful designs would not have resulted in a design change that directly addressed in-plane FEI.”
The above statement reflects negligence, ignorance, excuses and cover-up both by MHI/SCE. Let us examine what is happening next.
The Dangerous Future of San Onofre
San Onofre Unit 2 Retainer Bar and AVB Performance Analysis during Anticipated Operational Transients and MSLB
San Onofre replacement steam generators (RSGs) consist of about 9,727 extremely tall and very tightly packed inverted U-tubes. The tubes in each RSG, are arranged in a triangular pitch in 142 rows and 177 columns. The tubes form the boundary separating the steam-water mixture in the secondary circuit from the highly pressurized hot radioactive coolant contained in the primary circuit (tubes). After San Onofre Unit 3 Accident, the integrity and the life expectancy of the Unit 2 tubes are therefore of prime concern 8.4 Million Southern Californians.
The tube bundle top region, known as the U-bend region is supported by a floating Anti-Vibration Bar (AVB) structure consisting of three sets of two V-shaped AVBs between each tube column. The AVBs are made of Type 405 ferritic stainless steel and are equipped with two Alloy 690 end caps. Each AVB end cap is welded to an Alloy 690 retaining bar. The continuous retaining bar wraps around the tube bundle to which is fixed the outboard ends of the AV bars. The retaining bar is pulled in, wrapped around the tube bundle by the hairclip-like retainer bar, this being captured in situ by being threaded through the first two rows of tubes, and held in this position by friction between the retainer bar and the inboard top surfaces of the AV bars. Thirteen Alloy 690 bridges run perpendicular to the retaining bars and hold the entire structure together. A total of 24 Alloy 690 chrome-plated retainer bars welded to the retaining bars is provided to prevent AVB structure displacement during SG fabrication and during anticipated operational transients and main steam line breaks.
In San Onofre replacement steam generators, to accommodate the increased number of tubes, the retainer bars are relatively long and thin as compared to the retainer bars in other SGs designed by MHI, resulting in their having low natural frequencies (56 Hz). The retainer bars anchor the AVB structure to the tubes, but are designed such as to not contact the tubes under operating conditions. The AVB structure is not attached to any other SG component and under operating conditions is held in place by friction between the AVBs and the tubes.
In San Onfre replacement steam generators, the relative motion between the tubes and the anti-vibration bars (AVBs), tube support plates, and the retainer bars have resulted in tube wear and fatigue damage in tubes due to fluid elastic instability (FEI), flow-induced random vibrations and hydrodynamic pressures. SCE, Westinghouse, AREVA, MHI and Intertek have not addressed the synergic effects of tube wear and fatigue damage. These adverse phenomena can produce instant (> 10 minutes) multiple tube failures when the stresses generated during vibrations are sufficiently large due to the collapse of unique MHI anti-vibration bar structure and retainer bars during anticipated operational transients and main steam line breaks as discussed below.
MHI reports, “The Steam Generator tube wear adjacent to the retainer bars was identified as creating a potential safety hazard. The maximum wear depth is 90% of the tube thickness. The cause of the tube wear has been determined to be the retainer bars’ random flow-induced vibration caused by the secondary fluid exiting the tube bundle. Since the retainer bar has a low natural frequency, the bar vibrates with a large amplitude. This type tube wear could have an adverse effect on the structural integrity of the tubes, which are part of the pressure boundary. The plugging of the tubes that are adjacent to the retainer bars was performed. MHI has recommended to the purchaser to remove the retainer bars that would have the possibility of vibration with large amplitude or to perform the plugging and stabilizing for the associated tubes.” Plugging of the at-risk tubes is not a satisfactory solution because it is the retainer bar that vibrates via random fluid flow processes at sub FEI critical velocity levels – these are likely to continue in play or, indeed, exacerbate at the proposed U2 restart at 70% power, leading to through-tube abrasion, the detachment of tube fragments, lodging at other unplugged and in-service tube localities, resulting in the so-called ‘foreign object’ tube wear. MHI’s recommendation that those retainer bars at risk of large-amplitude fluid flow excited vibration should be removed or plugging and stabilizing for the associated tubes is, of course, dependent upon reliable analysis to identify the at-risk assemblies. SCE and MHI have a repeated history of catastrophic design failures and cover-ups with San Onofre RSGs.
During anticipated operational transients and main steam line breaks, the whole u-tube bundle will be subject to fluid elastic instability (due to formation of 100% void fractions) and would be connected to the outside environment as described below. According to the latest research papers, the in-plane velocity caused by fluid elastic instability is more than double the out-of-plane velocity caused by flow-induced random vibrations. Retainer bar vibrations caused by flow-induced random vibrations was the reason identified by MHI to remove the retainer bars that would have the possibility of vibration with large amplitude or to perform the plugging and stabilizing for the associated tubes. Retainer bars have not been removed, but more than 180 tubes in SONGS Unit 2 RSGs have been plugged and/or stabilized. The problem stems from that none of the SCE consultants and MHI have analyzed what will happen to the structural integrity of the retainer bars and floating Anti-Vibration Bar (AVB) structure, and thousands of worn, cracked, plugged and stabilized tubes during adverse effects of anticipated operational transients and main steam line breaks. Let us examine the scenarios:
Based on SONGS Unit 3 tube leakage, failure of 8 tubes at main break steam line testing conditions and more than three hundred damaged tubes, the following two potentially risk-significant events have not been considered as beyond-design basis accidents in SONGS NRC Approved FSAR or SCE proposed License Amendment for Unit 2 restart at 70% power with significant adverse consequences:
(1) Operating experience from SONG Unit 3 and design information of RSGs suggests that the potential exists for a line breach to significantly increase RSG leakage, because of resonant, out-of-plane and in-plane vibrations of RSG tubes from a main steam line break. These events could potentially cause increased tube leakage due to multiple tube ruptures resulting from thousands of worn, cracked, plugged and stabilized tubes.
(2) Significant RSG tube leakage could lead to secondary system breaches (lifting of main steam line relief valves) from anticipated operational transients (e.g., a loss of offsite power). The resulting SG secondary side blowdown could further increase tube leakage due to resonant, out-of-plane and in-plane vibrations within the affected SG tube bundle.
From any such leakages, concurrent with containment bypass, these events might cause offsite radiation doses in excess of 10 CFR Part 100 as evaluated in the SONGS FSAR. Any of these two events would cause a simultaneous reactor, turbine, feedwater and reactor coolant trips. Due to feedwater pump trip, the RSG U-bundle secondary water level will shrink and tubes will be uncovered for a period of at least 10 minutes and experience a sharp drop in secondary side pressure. The entire sub-cooled feedwater inventory contained in the faulted RSG will instantaneously flash to high dry steam. The combination of resonant, out-of-plane, in-plane vibrations, jet impingement forces, broken tube fragments and RSG debris will cause large axial, bending, dynamic and cyclic loads on all the tubes, tube support plates, retainer bars and anti-vibration structure. The strength of the welded and mechanical connections of these low frequency retainer bars, retaining bars and bridges have not been analyzed for the effects of these cumulative loads to prevent AVB structure displacement, deformation or collapse during anticipated operational transients and main steam line breaks. The displacement, deformation or collapse of AVB structure along with the large axial, bending, dynamic and cyclic loads can potentially cause thousands of worn, cracked, plugged and stabilized tubes to exceed several times the allowed tube ASME Endurance Limit of 13.6 ksi. If this happens, multiple tube ruptures will occur at tube-support plates, mid-spans, free spans and tube-to-anti-vibration bar notched interfaces. Since all the water from the RSG would escape to the environment, the iodine-131 from un-partitioned reactor coolant leaking out the rupture tubes will also escape to the environment in less than 10 minutes with 60 tons of radioactive coolant. Consistent with Fukushima Task Force Lessons Learnt and NRC Commissioner Meeting Transcripts, this event will be considered as a beyond design basis event, and SONGS Operators will be unable to take any timely mitigation actions to stop a severe nuclear accident in progress. If the prevailing winds are towards San Clemente, consistent with NRC Inspector General Reports, NRC Studies and observations of SONGS Emergency Plan Drills for the last six years, SCE and Offsite agencies would not have time to respond, notify, evacuate, shelter or give Potassium Iodide to the affected residents within the 10-mile affected emergency planning zone. The casualties, and short, long-term cancer affects to the affected population will depend upon the iodine spiking factor and the duration of blowdown, but will significantly exceed the NRC approved SONGS Control Room limit of 5 Rem Total Effective Dose Equivalent (TEDE), and the Exclusion Area Boundary and Low Population Zone limit of 2.5 Rem TEDE.
Preface: It is the legal and moral duty of every United States government official and politician to ensure that public safety is not endangered, whether, it is gun violence, terrorist attacks or radiological accidents. But, that does not seem to be case with NRC preliminary approval of San Onofre proposed License Amendment to Operate Unit 2 at 70% reduced power.
Recommend Action: Office of the Inspector General (OIG), U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is requested to conduct an inquiry concerning the NRC’S handling of issues associated with the San Onofre steam generator tube rupture. This inquiry is required to address concerns raised by 8.4 Million Southern Californians, Numerous Safety Experts and Public Organizations and members of the Congress (Senator Barbara Boxer and Congressman Rd Markey) as a result of some of the issues described below.
Conclusions: It appears that NRC commission has not given proper time to NRC Brilliant NRR and RES Staff to study and evaluate the significant adverse consequences of San Onofre Unit 2 Restart reduced power experiment. The problems with Unit 2 Restart are intentionally buried in reams of worthless paper submitted by SCE and its consultants. It appears that NRC Commission under pressure from Edison Management and Lobbyists has hastily indicated approval of proposed SCE License Amendment with an attempt to bypass the Public Hearing. NRC and SCE want to subvert the Legal Process for questioning by Safety Experts to challenge the fallacies of the SCE License Amendment documents. From the review of NRC Office of Inspector General, Fukushima Task Force, Davis-Besse, Three Mile Island and SONGS Units 2/3 Reports, it appears that NRC is not following its own rules and Lessons Learnt from operating experience of radiological accidents.
San Onofre defectively-designed and degraded 21st Century Safest and Magical Unit 2 floating anti-vibration structure is subject to collapse under adverse consequences of fluid elastic instability, flow-induced vibrations, high cyclic fatigue and Mitsubishi Flowering Effect caused by anticipated operational transients and main steam line breaks even with Unit 2 at reduced power. In San Onofre replacement steam generators, the relative motion between the tubes and the anti-vibration bars (AVBs), the tube support plates, and the retainer bars have resulted in unprecedented tube-to-tube wear and fatigue due to adverse phenomena described above. These adverse phenomena can produce relatively quick tube failures when the stresses generated during severe vibrations of tubes are sufficiently large.
As described in Unit 2 Return to Service Report, Attachment 4, MHI Document L5-04GA564, Appendix 16, page 459 of 474, MHI used a finite element model (“FE”), to conclude that the tubes were subjected to a stress of 4.2 ksi (kilopounds per square inch) . Consequently, MHI concluded that the stress on the tube due to in-plane vibration is under fatigue limit (13.6 ksi) and the structural integrity of the tube is confirmed from the view point of fatigue due to in-plane vibration (page 470 of 474). A review of the MHI report indicates that results are based on two erroneous assumptions. The source of MHI’s error has resulted from how MHI has calculated the increase in the local stress at geometrical discontinuities (notches), which are formed when two metal surfaces come in contact during vibration. Since the worn surfaces of the tubes inside the steam generators cannot be seen, MHI made two incorrect key assumptions, which are inconsistent with the observation that both the tube and the supporting bar are worn into each other. First, MHI assumed that the ASME endurance limit could be applied directly to the notched tube surfaces. Since it is commonly known that surface roughness significantly reduces fatigue life and since the ASME data is for smooth polished surfaces, this assumption would underestimate the amount of fatigue damage. Secondly, when using the Peterson chart, MHI assumed an unrealistically large fillet radius and consequently derived a low concentration stress factor. Large radii would decrease the local stress and cause the tube to fail at a higher level of stress, thereby increasing its fatigue life. Only by using these two, arbitrary, non-conservative assumptions was MHI able to conclude that Unit 2 did not suffer any fatigue damage. When these assumptions are corrected, the opposite conclusion is reached, which is that the tubes will be susceptible to failure from fatigue.
MHI states, “MHI did analyze the potential for fatigue failure of the RSG tubes under operating conditions and determined that fatigue was not a credible tube failure mechanism because the stresses sustained by the tubes due to in-plane vibration are well below the stresses that would cause fatigue failure. The analysis that supports this conclusion is contained in Appendix 16 to the “Tube wear of Unit-3 RSG – Technical Evaluation Report.” Westinghouse, AREVA, SCE and Intertek have failed to address the synergic effects of tube-to-tube wear and high cycle fatigue induced cracks. NRC Brilliant NRR and RES Staff has completely missed this aspect of tube failure, because they are under political time pressure to approve the Restart of Unit 2. Hence, the NRC Commission has failed to fulfill its exclusive responsibility for enforcing radiological health and safety requirements for 8.4 Million Southern Californians. The proposed SCE license amendment does not meet the qualification criteria under 10 CFR 50.92.
Let us discuss why the proposed SCE license amendment does not meet the qualification criteria under 10 CFR 50.92 based on a very basic and fundamental understanding of physics, vibrations, stresses and heat transfer.
Nucleate Boiling Region – In this region of the steam generator, the saturated feedwater picks up energy from the hot reactor coolant tubes and begins to boil. The initial heat transfer process in the tube bundle is called the nucleate boiling. The tubes remain wetted, and small bubbles rapidly form and break away from the surface of the tubes. Nucleate boiling provides a large heat transfer coefficient because of the turbulence resulting from the bubble formation. Most of the primary-to-secondary heat transfer occurs in this region of the tubes – continued below.
Film Boiling Region – Nucleate boiling continues until enough water is vaporized to allow a blanket of high dry saturated steam to form on the tubes; this condition is known as film boiling. The steam blanket forms gradually as the steam quality reaches higher values. It becomes fully developed within a very short axial distance of the tubes. The steam quality and vapor fraction in the film boiling region are 100%.
Nucleate boiling (steam bubble formation is at the tube interface) takes place when the surface temperature of the tube is hotter than the saturated steam-water fluid mixture temperature by a certain amount but where the heat flux is below the critical heat flux. Nucleate boiling occurs when the surface temperature is higher than the steam saturation temperature (TS) by between 7.2 °F to 54 °F. The critical heat flux is the peak on the curve between nucleate boiling and transition boiling. In case of Unit 3, the temperature difference was 75 °F (Departure from Nucleate Boiling) and it was film boiling or very high dry devastating steam (in-plane fluid elastic instability, vapor fraction ~ 99.6-100%) in the Unit 3, four percent region of tube-to-tube wear. In case of Unit 2, the temperature difference was 67 °F and it can be described as some state between nucleate boiling and transition boiling and production of moderate dry steam (out-of-plane random vibrations, vapor fraction ~ 98.5 %) in the region of tube-to-AVB wear. It is highly conceivable, that this moderate dry steam in Unit 2 on the way up from the high region of tube-AVB wear exited the tube bundle as very high dry devastating steam due to additional steam flows, but did not do the damage as Unit 3 because of wider tube clearances in the upper most U-bends.
Steam saturation temperature is a function of steam pressure. Higher the steam pressure, higher the steam saturation temperature and vice-versa. At lower steam pressure, you can produce more heat and more megawatts. This is basic Intermediate College physics and heat transfer knowledge, which SCE and MHI Engineers knew but chose to ignore it by refusing to lower void fraction as described in the MHI Root Cause Analysis. You know why, because it would have produced less heat (less profits for SCE), delayed construction of SGs by modification of SG components, increased the fabrication cost, triggered a lengthy NRC Review, and forced shutdown of old steam Generators costing more money, downtime, inspections and tube plugging.
Nucleate boiling prevents fluid elastic instability and formation of high dry steam. Now SCE and MHI are blaming each other and are coming out with thousands of pages of faulty and unconvincing analysis and trying to wash their ignorance and sins by blaming faulty computer modeling, contact forces and manufacturing errors. It appears that NRC Commission is watching the whole show with sleepy eyes, and rose-colored glasses with blinders, and telling 8.4 Million Southern Californians not to worry. What is in this Billions of Dollars and Public Safety Poker Game for NRC Commission? Like NRC Brilliant Staff is already not in trouble with 8.4 Million Southern Californians with NRC Commission show of favoritism towards SCE. Based on NRC Inspector General and Congressman Ed Markey’s Reports, one is likely to conclude that NRC Officers, who are favorable to for the low performance of Unsafe and INPO 4 Utilities, like SONGS, expect to find a lucrative consulting assignment with a Utility after retirement.
Let us get back to Film Boiling and examine what it will do to Unit 2 SG tubes at 70% power operations in case of a main steam line break. Due to main steam line break event with failure of the main steam isolation valve to close, the steam generator u-tube bundle will be depressurized and the pressure will be atmospheric. From High School physics, everybody knows, that at atmospheric pressure, steam saturation temperature is 212°F. With tube surface temperature at 600°F, the temperature difference between the hot tubes and secondary environment would be approximately 400°F. Steam line break event will cause automatic trip of the reactor, turbine, reactor coolant and feedwater pumps. With the feedwater pumps trip, the U-tube bundle will be uncovered for a period of 10 minutes due to shrinking of SG water level. Now the difference between sub-cooled feedwater temperature of 400°F and tubes temperature is conservatively 150°F. Therefore, feedwater will instantly flash to steam and create high energy jet impingement on tubes. In other words, in a matter of less than I minute, the entire SG will develop film boiling region or would be full of 100% high dry steam, and tubes would beginning to experience the adverse consequences of fluid elastic instability, flow-induced vibrations, high cyclic fatigue and Mitsubishi Flowering Effect. Who knows and can predict the short-term and long-term cancerous effects of offsite radiation doses exceeding the Federal Limits caused by a potential radiological accident in Unit 2.
SONGS Unit 3 RSGs’ unprecedented tube failure and massive tube and AVB/TSP degradation occurred due to fluid elastic instability, flow-induced random vibrations, Mitsubishi Flowering Effect and high cyclic fatigue under the following unique circumstances:
(1) U-tube bundle areas with high dry steam, double in-plane velocities (> 56 feet/sec, Dr. Pettigrew and others, 2006-2011) compared with out-of plane velocities assumed (28 feet/sec) to have been used in William Krotiuk 2002 Report NUREG-1919 TH calculations and predicted by Outdated Out-of-Plane Westinghouse /NRC /MHI /AREVA ATHOS Computer Models,
(3) Large number of SONGS Unit 2 RSG U-bends with tube clearances of only 0.05 inches (Design 0.25 inches, Industry Norm > 0.25 inches),
So from the above basic theory of nucleate and film boiling, we conclude that proposed SCE License Amendment (1) Would involve a significant increase in the probability of an accident previously evaluated in the SONGS FSAR; or, (2) Create the possibility of a new or different type of accident previously evaluated in the SONGS FSAR; or, (3) Would involve a significant reduction in the required margin of safety by operating Unit 2 at 70% power without adequate repairs or replacement.
Margin of safety is related to the confidence in the ability of the fission product barriers to perform their design functions during and following an accident. These barriers include the fuel cladding, the reactor coolant system, and the containment system. As demonstrated above, these barriers would be significantly challenged by operating the Unit 2 at 70% power due to a main steam line break or other anticipated operational transients. The margin of safety will be drastically reduced and NRC cannot ensure that SCE plant operators would be able to protect adequately the health and safety of the public. Therefore, the proposed changes involve a significant reduction in a margin of safety.
SCE License Amendment has not described the changes in plain English so that it can be understood by 8.4 Million Southern Californians without detailed knowledge of nuclear plant design and operation. SCE License Amendment has not identified and discussed the previously causes of San Onofre Unit 3 accident that are affected by the proposed changes in Unit 2 and requested by NRC in Confirmatory Letter and NRR Request for Additional Information (RAI).
FACT: SONGS Unit 3 SG Tubes leaked and failed due to tube-to tube wear, tube-to-AVB wear, tube-to-TSP wear, Retainer Bar-to-tube wear and high cyclic thermal fatigue induced axial, circumferential, macroscopic and microscopic cracks. Fluid elastic instability, flow-induced vibrations and Mitsubishi Flowering Effect responsible for the above catastrophic effects were caused by exceedingly high steam flows overstretching the thermal performance and reducing significantly the safety margin of SGs tubes to maximize SCE profits, low steam generator pressures, high reactor coolant flows, narrow tube pitch to tube diameter ratio, low tube clearances, extremely tall tube bundle and lack of in-plane restraints.
Problem Statement: Two Independent Nuclear Experts Certify that MHI SG Tube Fatigue and Stress Calculations Assumptions are erroneous and based on faulty data. SCE is legally required to certify MHI’s calculations to assure that San Onofre Unit 2 does not pose significant radiological risks at 70% normal steady state power operations, and during Anticipated Operational Transients and Design Basis Accidents.
SCE Preliminary Response: Independent Experts’ Analysis concerning in-plane tube vibration is significantly flawed in that it applies an unreasonably high stress concentration factor based on solid body geometry rather than the more realistic stress concentration factors for a cylindrical geometry applicable to the SONGS steam generator tubes.
MHI Response: MHI did analyze the potential for fatigue failure of the RSG tubes under operating conditions and determined that fatigue was not a credible tube failure mechanism because the stresses sustained by the tubes due to in-plane vibration are well below the stresses that would cause fatigue failure. The analysis that supports this conclusion is contained in Appendix 16 to the “Tube wear of Unit-3 RSG – Technical Evaluation Report.” It should be noted that the technical reviews and analysis, both by the NRC and industry experts, have not mentioned fatigue failure of the tubing.
Introduction: The SG functions as a heat exchanger, by means of which the high temperature pressurized radioactive primary water on the inside of the tubes heats up the non-radioactive secondary water on the outside of the tubes, in order to generate the steam that turns the turbine which in turn generates electricity. In addition to providing a barrier (Reactor Coolant Pressure Boundary) to radioactivity and producing steam, a steam generator has many other important functions. It is the major component in the plant that contributes to safety during transients and/or accidents. A steam generator provides the driving force for natural circulation and facilitates heat removal from the reactor core during a wide range of loss of coolant accidents. Proper steam generator operation is of major safety significance and therefore any changes to its design may have significant safety consequences.
Out-of-plane fluid-elastic instability has been observed in nuclear steam generators in the past and has led to tube bursts at normal operating conditions. However, the observation of in-plane fluid-elastic instability in steam generators of a nuclear power plant is a true paradigm shift. The combined effects of tube-to-tube wear and high cycle thermal fatigue cracks caused by fluid-elastic instability and/or flow-induced random vibrations have been witnessed as sudden tube ruptures in the following nuclear power plants:
North Ana in 1987- NRC Bulletin No. 88-02: Rapidly Propagating Fatigue Cracks In Steam Generator Tubes:
MHI SG Japan 1991 – On February 9th, 1991, leakage of about 55 tons of primary coolant occurred due to the failure of one SG tube in a steam generator built by Mitsubishi in the No. 2 pressurized water reactor at the Mihama nuclear power station in Japan. The tube had been severed, causing the massive leakage of contaminated cooling water. At the same time, water pressure in the core had dropped drastically and the ECCS kicked in, flooding the reactor and shutting it down. If the core had been left exposed, a meltdown — an overheating of the fuel that can, if uncontrolled, lead to a large release of radio-activity — could have occurred. Following week an estimated 7 million Becquerels (Bq) had been released into the sea and an estimated 5 billion Bq of radioactive gas had been released into the atmosphere. This tube rupture caused the first INES level 3 nuclear incident in Japan, which ignited social concerns all over Japan because it shattered the nuclear industries myth of 100% safe reactors! The failed tube was removed from the heat exchanger, and the fracture surface was examined by a scanning electron microscope. Striations, which are a characteristic of fatigue failure, were observed on large portions of the fracture surface, and dimples showing tensile fracture were also observed. However, few traces of stress corrosion cracking and corrosion were found on the fracture surface of the tube. Stress amplitude of the failed tube estimated based on the striation spacing was found to be in the range of around 51 to 60 Million Pascal’s (7391-8702 psi > 1.5 X 5,200 psi, SONGS 3 MSLB Test Pressure).
Indian Point 2, 2000 (See NRC Office of Inspector General Report Below)
Comanche Peak 1, 2002 – Routine inspections at the Comanche Peak nuclear power plant failed to detect a damaged steam generator tube that later ruptured, forcing a shutdown. The flaw in the tube was “clearly identifiable and missed” about 18 months ago by workers for TXU Energy, the plant’s owner and operator, according to the preliminary findings of a special inspection team of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Oconee 2, 2002 —Failure to meet structural integrity performance criteria in fall 2002, as determined by in situ pressure testing during condition monitoring.
Craus NPP: Between 2004 and 2006, three primary-to-secondary leaks occurred at the Cruas NPP: unit 1 in February 2004 and unit 4 in November 2005 and February 2006. The three leaks were all the result of a circumferential crack in the tube at the location where the tube passes through the uppermost tube support plate (TSP #8).
SONGS 3 in 2012 – See NRC AIT Report.
Defect or Deviation: In San Onfre replacement steam generators, the relative motion between the tubes and the anti-vibration bars (AVBs), the tube support plates, and the retainer bars have resulted in tube wear and fatigue damage in tubes due to fluid elastic instability, flow-induced random vibrations, excessive fluid hydrodynamic pressures and Mitsubishi Flowering Effect. These adverse phenomena can produce relatively quick tube failures when the stresses generated during vibrations are sufficiently large. As described in Unit 2 Return to Service Report, Attachment 4, MHI Document L5-04GA564, Appendix 16, page 459 of 474, MHI used a finite element model (“FE”), to calculate that the tubes were subjected to a stress of 4.2 ksi (kilopounds per square inch). Consequently, MHI concluded that the stress on the tube due to in-plane vibration is under fatigue limit (13.6 ksi) and the structural integrity of the tube is confirmed from the view point of fatigue due to in-plane vibration (page 470 of 474). MHI results are based on two erroneous assumptions described below.
The source of MHI’s error described below resulted from how they calculated the increase in the local stress at geometrical discontinuities (notches), which are formed when two metal surfaces come in contact during vibration. Since the worn surfaces of the tubes inside the steam generators U-Tube Bundle region of tube-to-tube wear could not be seen during SONGS Tube Inspections, MHI made two incorrect key assumptions, which are inconsistent with the observation that both the tube and the supporting bar are worn into each other. First, MHI assumed that the ASME endurance limit could be applied directly to the notched tube surfaces. Since it is commonly known in the nuclear and commercial industry that surface roughness significantly reduces fatigue life and since the ASME data is for smooth polished surfaces, this assumption would underestimate the amount of fatigue damage. Secondly, when using the Peterson chart, MHI assumed an unrealistically large fillet radius for sharp corners (Should be zero according to basic knowledge of geometry) and consequently derived a low concentration stress factor. Large radii would decrease the local stress and cause the tube to fail at a higher level of stress, thereby increasing its fatigue life. Only by using these two, arbitrary, non-conservative assumptions was MHI able to conclude that Unit 2 did not suffer any fatigue damage. When these assumptions are corrected, the opposite conclusion is reached, which is that the tubes will be susceptible to failure from fatigue.
Required Action: The NRC Chairman has publically stated that SCE is responsible for the work of MHI, Westinghouse, AREVA and Intertek. In light of SONGS Units 2 & 3 massive amounts of tube damage (wear) and tube failure in Unit 3, along with incomplete tube inspections for detection of circumferential incubating cracks in Unit 2, based on the review of attached reports and governing standards described below, SCE is legally required to check MHI Fatigue Calculations and post the results on its website before any approval of SONGS proposed New License Amendment for restart of Unit 2, to demonstrate:
That the proposed amendment (1) Would not involve a significant increase in the probability of an accident previously evaluated in the SONGS FSAR; or, (2) Would not create the possibility of a new or different type of accident previously evaluated in the SONGS FSAR; or, (3) Would not involve a significant reduction in the required margin of safety by operating Unit 2 at 70% power However, because of the wear damage previously sustained by Unit 2, some tubes may now be susceptible to rapid fatigue failure.
Based on the above review, SCE needs to provide a calculation justifying the engineering basis of the above statement to meet the ASME Code, NRC RG 1.121, the NRC Chairman and its own Standards. The calculation should be performed by a California Licensed Mechanical or Civil Engineer and Independently Verified by a California Licensed Structural Engineer.
NRC OFFICE OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL EVENT INQUIRY TO NRC’S RESPONSE TO THE FEBRUARY 15, 2000, STEAM GENERATOR TUBE RUPTURE AT INDIANA POINT 2
FINDINGS – NRC STAFF DID NOT GET TIME TO REVIEW DOCUMENTS – HISTORY REPEATING WITH UNSAFE SCE LICENSE AMENDMENT ON UNIT 2 RESTART. OIG REPORT SUMMARY
1. NRC’s Oversight of Events Leading Up to the February 15, 2000, Steam Generator Tube Rupture at Indiana Point 2 (IP2)
NRC Office of Inspector General determined that the NRC and nuclear industry had long-standing concerns about the loss of integrity of steam generator tubes used on PWRs due to a variety of degradation mechanisms. Degradation problems particular to Westinghouse Model 44 steam generators resulted in all plants with this model steam generator replacing their steam generators, except IP2. The NRC has also been long aware of steam generator tube and other problems at IP2. Nevertheless, the NRC did not conduct a technical review of the July 29, 1997, IP2 steam generator inspection report when it was submitted to NRR. However, OIG noted that steam generator inspections are of sufficient importance to be included in plant technical specifications. IP2 technical specifications mandate steam generator inspections to be conducted no less than every 24 months and the inspection report to be submitted to the NRC no later than 45 days after completion of the inspection.
OIG also found that had NRC staff or contractor’s with technical expertise evaluated the 1997 results of the IP2 steam generator inspection, the NRC could have identified the flaw in the U-bend of row 2, column 5, in steam generator number 24 that was indicated in the inspection report. This flaw, which was recently determined to be nearly 100 percent through the tube wall in 1997, was the cause of the February 15, 2000, IP2 steam generator tube rupture. OIG found that the 1997 IP2 steam generator inspection results were not reviewed by the NRC staff for technical quality or sufficiency because the staff is not required to conduct such a review.
OIG determined that NRR’s review of a 1999 license amendment request submitted by IP2 was not adequate. The 1999 IP2 license amendment request number 201, asking for a 1 year extension for the steam generator inspection, was approved by NRR based on a safety evaluation completed by a junior engineer with limited experience in steam generator inspection techniques. The safety evaluation review included the junior engineer’s evaluation of the 1997 steam generator inspection results. During the safety evaluation review process the junior engineer was supposed to receive assistance from a senior engineer with extensive steam generator experience. OIG determined that during the amendment review process, the senior engineer did not review the source documents submitted by IP2 nor did he review the 1997 IP2 inspection report. OIG also noted that other technical expertise available to the NRR staff was not employed to review the 1997 inspection report or the amendment request. OIG also found that during the amendment review process, the NRC requested additional information from IP2 in the form of an RAI to clarify outstanding issues relative the steam generator inspection program. Although the junior engineer was not completely satisfied with the response to the RAI, no additional questions were asked by the NRC of IP2.
OIG found nearly no involvement in the amendment request review by either the NRR Project Manager assigned to IP2 or the EMCB Branch Chief. OIG also found that the NRR staff believed that the level of review given to IP2’s license amendment request 201 was acceptable because steam generator issues at IP2 were not viewed as significant to NRC’s oversight and regulation of the plant.
2. NRC Oversight of IP2 Emergency Preparedness Issues
OIG found that the NRC considered IP2 to be a plant that struggled with various challenges in the area of emergency preparedness, but the NRC decided that allowing IP2 time to correct its deficiencies outweighed the benefit of increasing NRC oversight. OIG also found that the NRC inspectors from Region I had concerns about licensee on-site performance during emergency preparedness exercises from 1998 to present. They had identified significant, long-standing weaknesses that had not been corrected. Because of IP2’s poor performance in pre-announced drills of a known scenario, NRC inspectors questioned IP2’s capability to perform during an actual event. OIG learned that recurring weaknesses that had gone uncorrected appeared to play a role in the poor emergency response performance of IP2 during the February 15, 2000, event.
Concerning off-site emergency preparedness issues, OIG found that communication between county EOCs and the NRC was non-existent. County officials view the NRC as the only independent source they have to provide them credible, objective information. Those officials desire personal interaction on a routine basis with the NRC staff of IP2 to discuss plant activities. OIG also determined that disjointed and misinformation from IP2 during the February 15, 2000, incident adversely impacted the off-site emergency preparedness process.
3. Adequacy of NRC Staff’s Review of IP2 Restart Proposal
OIG found that, although there may have been some initial concerns by the NRC staff evaluating IP2’s request for restart, NRC management has not allowed time constraints to impact on the staff’s ability to conduct a thorough review of the data presented by IP2 in its June 2000 restart proposal.
If you cannot see or test a component, then you cannot predict its reliability or safety with significant confidence. Fluid elastic instability, flow-induced vibrations and Mitsubishi Flowering Effect caused tube-to-wear, tube-to-AVB wear, Retainer Bar to tube wear, tube-to-TSP wear, and high-cycle thermal fatigue, axial and circumferential cracks, and incubating cracks. Undetected incubating cracks caused by fluid elastic instability, flow-induced vibrations and Mitsubishi Flowering Effect are of the greatest concern, because they can cause tube leakage or ruptures at 70% power in Unit 2 at any time without notice due to inadvertent component manipulation (opening or closing valves wrong valves), anticipated operational occurrence (loss of offsite power, ATWS) and Design Basis Accidents (Main Steam Line Break, Earthquake) and fire caused by a short circuit or electrical fault in an energized system. Public Safety against radiological accidents cannot be risked in terms of profits or peak electrical demands in summer months. SCE cannot get away with answers to three simple questions, with a quick NRC Review and advertisement in Federal Register. Mitsubishi Fatigue calculations are erroneous and based on hideous data, and do not meet ASME and NRC Regulations. SCE, MHI, Westinghouse, AREVA and Intertek have not addressed the combined synergic effects of tube-to-tube wear and incubating/undetected cracks caused due to adverse effects of fluid elastic instability, flow-induced vibrations and Mitsubishi Flowering Effect. SCE and their consultants cannot answer these questions, So NRC has to prove the safety of Unit 2. Who is going to assure the safety of 8.4 million Southern Californians. NRC cannot sit silent and take no action like a Helpless Police Officer sitting in a Stalled Car with Empty Guns and No radio Communications. Nuclear Wisdom requires safe, time proven and reliable actions. Nuclear regulators cannot be pressured by Billion Dollar Corporations and Powerful Politicians. A nuclear accident in Southern California will have immense and significant adverse consequences beyond the nightmares or dream of a Regulator, Corporation, Citizen or Politician.
SONGS Unit 3 RSGs massive and unprecedented tube failures and AVB/TSP degradation occurred due to fluid elastic instability, flow-induced random vibrations, Mitsubishi Flowering Effect and high cyclic fatigue under the following unique circumstances:
(1) U-tube bundle areas with high dry steam, double in-plane velocities (> 56 feet/sec, Dr. Pettigrew and others, 2006-2011) compared with out-of plane velocities assumed (28 feet/sec) to have been used in William Krotiuk 2002 Report TH calculations and predicted by Westinghouse /NRC /MHI /AREVA ATHOS Computer Models,
(3) Large number of SONGS Unit 2 RSG U-bends with tube clearances of only 0.05 inches (Design 0.25 inches, Industry Norm > 0.25 inches)
(5) Low in-plane frequency tubes and retainer bars compared with MHI SGs higher in-plane frequency tubes and retainer bars
(5) MHI RSGs unique floating tube bundle with degraded Retainer Bars, can collapse due to 100% tube uncovery for 10 minutes under MSLB SG Depressurization, Multiple SGTR SG over-pressurization and lifting of SG Relief Valves, Combination of MSLB and SGTR Conditions, Release of 100% RCS Iodine to Environment
(6) Large amount of uncertainties and unverified assumptions in MHI, AREVA, Westinghouse and Intertek’s contact force (Zero for in-plane vibrations), wear rate and tube stress calculations (4.6 ksi versus 16-17 ksi) and computer modeling, and
(7) Incomplete tube inspections in SONGS Unit 2. Incubating macroscopic circumferential cracks caused by fluid elastic instability, flow-induced random vibrations and high cycle thermal fatigue are extremely difficult to detect and be accurately sized by nondestructive evaluation techniques like X-ray, ultrasonic, and eddy current based bobbin coil probes, mechanically rotating pancake coil (RPC), etc., which have been used in 17,000 SONGS Tube inspections. State-of-the-art systems: Zetec MIZ-80 iD system, Tecnatom TEDDY+, Circular TE and TM, transmit-receive eddy current array probe C-3 and other specialized radiographic probes capable of detecting sub-surface cracks caused by high cycle thermal fatigue have not been used in the 170,000 SONGS Tube Partial and Limited Inspections as shown below for Unit 2 due to access problems in the most problematic inner-most sections of the U-Tube Bundle, the high-cost, lack of availability of highly specialized tools and contractors, radiation doses, and time considerations in a rush to start Unit 2. The inspection scope defectively designed and degraded SONGS Unit 2 RSGs should have covered 100% hot leg and cold leg tube inspections, 100% of dents or dings, 100% of tube inspections in the tight radius U-bends, 100% area of the Top of the Tube Sheet and Tube Support Plates. The combined effects of tube-to-tube wear and high cycle thermal fatigue cracks have been witnessed by sudden tube ruptures in North Ana in 1987, MHI SG in Mihama, Japan in 1991, three tube leakages in French SGs between 2004 through 2006, 20 tube ruptures/leakages in SGs between 1980-2000 in USA, and SONGS 3 in 2012.
In light of SONGS Unit 3 massive tube failures and safety concerns of 8.4 Southern Californians, NRC staff needs to reanalyze NUREG 1919, published 2009, “Resolution of Generic Safety Issue 188: Steam Generator Tube Leaks or Ruptures Concurrent with Containment Bypass from Main Steam Line or Feedwater Line Breaches” before approval of SONGS New License Amendment. This is a one-time Public Safety and Knowledge Test for Brilliant NRC Staff and applies only to SONGS Unit 2 Defectively Designed and Degraded Unit 2 steam Generators. Excellent PR move for NRC to restore its degraded image and allegations of a SCE Captured Agency. Dr. Macfarlane will like it…. Thanks
The following note was sent to me anonymously – Revised for Moderation by HAHN Baba
Sincere Thanks to NRC Chairman, Mr. Victor Dricks, Mr. Cale Young, Mr. Ryan Lantz, Mr. Randy Hall and entire NRC Staff. Thanks to NRC for posting this blog. San Onofre NRC/SCE/MHI/Public Awareness Series – Please excuse me for any computer, or human performance grammatical or spelling errors.
Street rumors are getting stronger by the minute that backed by Insensitive and Public Safety Ignorant Anonymous Power Politician(s), the “Captured & Afraid” NRC and “Penny-Wise & Pound-Foolish” SCE plan to perpetrate another act of Profits and Production Experiment upon the people of Southern California to determine the True Root cause of Replacement Steam Generators (RSGs) degradation and wipe out the mistakes of SCE/MHI Team in the $1 billion RSGs debacle. By allowing Southern California Edison to restart the damaged and defective reactor number two, that has not even been repaired, to experimentally restart at 70% power sometime in June or July 2013. The anonymous writer says that Profits and Production over Safety Experiment is not nuclear and financial wisdom, because many people in California are afraid for the health of their children, their property values, and what would happen if a major nuclear accident happened at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station? By definition, Profits and Production over Safety is a deliberate act to make Profits and Production ignoring Safety of 8.4 Million Southern Californians. Just thinking about the evacuation plan that every Californian knows would not work, and having to shelter in place during a nuclear meltdown at SONGS. Then after the radiation damage to people’s health has been done just like Chernobyl and Fukushima, the government will announce in a month or two (far too late) that in a 10, 20 or 30 mile radius will be an exclusion zone due to high radiation levels, and everyone has to leave their homes and possessions to go live in a refugee camp somewhere in Riverside County. The loss of billions in property values, infrastructure (schools, roads, beaches, farm land and food crops, local governments) personal disruptions and destruction of several millions lives, all put at risk in the name of profits for SCE. What will be the fate of Southern California if this act of Profits and Production over Safety by NRC and SCE are allowed by restart at San Onofre Nuke plant? NRC and SCE need to demonstrate via an EP drill, 100% success of the SONGS/IPC/NRC/FEMA/Offsite Agencies/State of CA Emergency Plan (Classifications, Notifications, Protective Action Determinations, Siren Alert Response, Shelter, Evacuation, Treatment of Sick and Disabled, Viability of Decontamination Centers in Rush Traffic Hours and other considerations following the Scenario described by HAHN Baba on this blog, April 12, 2013 at 2:26 am.
Phase 1 – Chernobyl, Fukushima, Three Mile Island, Mihama, North Ana, Davis-Besse, Turkey Point, Robinson and SONGS Unit 3 Nuclear Accidents/Incidents/Events were caused by a combination of hardware, process and human performance errors. Following the example of Arkansas Unit One Event on Easter Sunday, March 31, 2013, water from a fire main broken by a falling component or a fire damages some electrical equipment that supplies off-site power to the San Onofre Unit 2 Transformers. Unit 2, which is operating at 70% power, automatically shuts down the reactor when off-site power is lost to all reactor coolant pumps. Concurrent with reactor trip, Turbine and feedwater pumps trip.
Phase 2 – Per NRC Information Notice No. 88-31, during the Phase 1 event, the water level on the secondary side could fall below the top of the steam generator tubes for a 10-minute period at the beginning of the event. With tubes uncovered, this condition of ZERO Water in the Unit 2 defectively designed and degraded steam generators would cause fluid elastic instability (FEI), flow-induced random vibrations, excessive hydrodynamic pressures and Mitsubishi Flowering Effect and could conceivably cause the collapse of MHI Anti-vibration structure and failure of retainer bars.
Phase 3 – The faulted steam generator over-pressurizes due to 100% load rejection and leaking/ruptured tubes, and the main steam safety valves per SONGS procedures progressively open to prevent over-pressurizing the faulted steam generator and start releasing steam to the environment. The force of the flashing steam would create high-energy jets, lift loose parts and debris present in the steam generator. These adverse effects would cut holes into already degraded tubes and create additional loading on tube support plates (TSPs) due to heavy build-up of deposits on trefoil/quadrifoil-shaped holes from SG blowdown and crack high cycle fatigue U-bend tubes not supported by an Anti-Vibration Bars (AVB). Due to lack of in-plane restraints, large U-bends supported without AVBs and with clearances of 0.05 inches start to swing violently with large amplitudes (in-plane velocities > 60 feet/sec.) and cause several tubes to leak and with double-ended ruptures in the mid-span, free span and at the junction of 7th tube support plates in a matter of minutes due to tube-tube wear and thousands of undetected macroscopic circumferential cracks. These cumulative adverse conditions in all likelihood would result in additional massive cascading of RSGs tube failures (tubes would excessively rattle or vibrate, hitting other tubes with violent impacts) due to extremely low tube-to-tube clearances and no in-plane effective anti-vibration bar support protection system. This Titanic and adverse effect would involve hundreds of degraded and active SG tubes along with all the inactive (plugged /unstabilized) tubes causing an undetermined amount of simultaneous tube leaks/ruptures. The iodine in the reactor coolant assumed to be dissolved from allowable operational fuel failure or from an iodine spike produced by the transient conditions during the accident could be significantly larger than that previously approved NRC Limits.
Phase 4 – The accident would transport with steam 100% of the iodine contained in the 15,000 gallons of reactor coolant to the environment exceeding the federal regulations within 10 minutes during an extremely fast-paced transient beyond the operator control and failure of defense-in-depth actions. Core Damage Probability (CDP) and Large Early Release Probability (LERP) associated with multiple double-ended rupture of steam generator tubes will significantly increase than previously approved NRC SONGS FSAR Limits. The resulting doses would be significantly higher than the dose consequences analyzed in the SONGS UFSAR for the post-trip SLB event with a concurrent iodine spike. The postulated post-trip SLB with multiple tube ruptures and concurrent iodine spike Exclusion Area Boundary, Low Population Zone, and Control Room doses would be significantly higher than the post-trip SLB Control Room limit of 5 Rem TEDE, and the Exclusion Area Boundary and Low Population Zone limit of 2.5 Rem TEDE.
Phase 5 – SCE DID Actions and unreliable operator actions to detect a leak and to re-pressurize the steam generators as claimed by Edison are not practical to stop a major nuclear accident in Unit 2 in progress in the first 5-15 minutes of the transient during the 5-month trial period.
Phase 6 – Federal regulators signaled on April 10, 2013 that running California’s San Onofre nuclear power plant at reduced power would not pose a significant safety risk — a key step toward a possible restart of one of the idled reactors. The preliminary ruling from Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff represents a victory for operator Southern California Edison, which is pushing for a restart by June and has argued for months that the Unit 2 reactor is safe to run at lower power. But, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., called plans to restart the plant before an investigation is complete “dangerous and premature.”
Phase 7 – Very Strong Street Rumors are that NRC Brilliant Engineers are being pushed to the side by an adamant and very power politician connected with Edison to ignore public questioning of Edison Mistakes. This is America, not Iran or North Korea, where captured politicians for their selfish motives and hidden agendas can erode NRC’s Regulatory Authority, Safety Mission and Public Trust.
Phase 8 – Email to Obama Campaign – Please be kind enough to deliver the following message to His Excellency, The President of United States. We need to close this Public Safety NRC Regulatory Loophole for the safety of 8.4 Million Southern Californians, a majority Democratic State.
I was in a meeting with Ted Craver few weeks ago. He was surrounded by Powerful Politicians, Bank CEO’s, Mayor’s and other Government Officials. He told the audience that Edison has monopoly franchise agreements with cities in Southern California to supply electric power. Edison owns all the transmission and distribution systems in Southern California with an investment of $20 Billion. According to the press reports, there is no shortage of power or problems with grid stability in Southern California. It appears that Edison controls CPUC and ISO; therefore, Edison will stay in the rate-base and keep supplying its generated or borrowed power to Southern California even with San Onofre Unit 2 Shutdown. Edison will continue to make money even with both San Onofre Units Shutdown, until the defectively designed and degraded RSGs are repaired or replaced. In the end, Edison will recover all the money from ratepayers, Insurance Companies and MHI.
The question is why NRC Commission is sticking out its neck for San Onofre, which is an INPO 4 Plant, with the worst regulatory, safety, emergency preparedness, fire, cyber security, retaliation, discrimination, harassment, management and maintenance record. I am saying all this based on my firsthand knowledge as an ex-San Onofre employee, public safety expert and my observations/work as a high-energy line break, fire and emergency preparedness engineer and auditor. I am sure, that NRC will not go through so much public opposition defending another utility with such bad nuclear safety record as San Onofre. SCE Management to cover their own mistakes in the design of replacement steam generators are using their Powerful PR Machine, which is ridiculing Honorable Senator Barbara Boxer, Honorable Representative Ed Markey, Friends of the Earth, Dr. Joram Hopenfeld, Arnie Gundersen, John Large, Professor Daniel Hirsch, MHI, pressuring News Reporters not to publish anything adverse and paying Union Leaders to show up at Public Meetings.
NRC commission has not completed review of SCE Unit 2 Return To Service Reports, SCE Response to NRR RAI’s, DAB Safety Team, Honorable Senator Barbara Boxer, Honorable Representative Ed Markey, Friends of the Earth, Dr. Joram Hopenfeld, Arnie Gundersen, John Large, Professor Daniel Hirsch’ Allegations, NRC san Onofre Special Tube Inspections and yet NRC Commission had indicated approval of SCE’s Special License Amendment designed for subverting NRC Regulatory process, public participation and legal challenges from Public Safety Experts and Attorneys . From NRC’s Commission eagerness and hasty actions, I conclude that NRC is not using its authority properly and using due diligence as an Independent Regulatory Commission in interest of Public Safety. This type of irresponsible NRC behavior directly conflicts and erodes Public Confidence in Public Statements made by you for the NRC Commission’s Safety and Oversight Charter. It gives the clear and undisputed perception that NRC has not learnt any lessons from Three Mile Island, Browns Ferry, Davis-Besse, Fukushima, Chernobyl, Mihama Unit 2, Arkansas Units 1 and 2 Recent Events, SONGS 3 Accident and Dr. Joram Hopenfelds’s concerns. 8.4 Million Southern Californians do not want a Fukushima in their backyards due to blind trust of NRC Commission in the Unsafe Gamble of Restarting of San Onofre Unit 2 for SCE Engineers to sharpen their pencils to learn from their continued mistakes. That is not how the concept of NEI, INPO and NRC well managed, safe, clean and reliable nuclear power works. Please feel free to send me an email, if you need further assistace or have any questions. Sincerely….HAHN Baba
San Onofre NRC/SCE/MHI/Public Awareness Series – Please excuse me for any computer or human performance grammatical or spelling errors
NRC Proposes No Safety Threat Finding With San Onofre. SCE once again finds shelter in NRC Commission’s favorable Findings. NRC Commission’s Finding is in direct conflict with His Excellency President of the United States, Senator Boxer and Representative Edward Markey Open Doctrine and violates the Trust, Rights and Safety of 8.4 million Southern Californians
Summary: Edison International (EIX)’s request for a license amendment for a proposed restart of its crippled California nuclear reactor doesn’t pose significant safety risks, federal regulators said in a preliminary finding. Edison’s request to operate its San Onofre reactor at reduced power does not involve an increased risk of an accident or create the possibility of a new or different accident from those previously evaluated for its license, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in an e-mailed document. The NRC may approve Edison’s license amendment before the 60-day waiting period normally required after a notice is published if no hazards are found, the agency said. The public will have 30 days after the finding is published in the federal register to comment on the NRC’s conclusion before the agency makes a final determination. The document will be published next week, said Victor Dricks, a spokesman for the NRC. Without a finding of a significant hazard, the NRC can issue a license amendment before holding a public hearing, Shaun Burnie, director of nuclear campaigns at Friends of the Earth, said in a telephone interview. “It’s a get out of jail free card,” Burnie said. Edison didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
An approval of the amendment won’t allow the plant to restart, the NRC has said. The agency will make a separate determination of the utility’s restart plan and it may be challenged in meeting Edison’s June deadline, Doug Broaddus, chief of the San Onofre special-projects branch for the NRC, said at an April 3 meeting.
Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, faulted the agency’s preliminary finding.
“The NRC staff proposal, which could pave the way for the restart of the San Onofre nuclear power plant before the investigations of the crippled plant are completed, is dangerous and premature,” Boxer, chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said today in a statement. She also said the plant is in an area that’s at risk of an earthquake and tsunami. Representative Edward Markey of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, joined Boxer in criticizing the agency. Sen. Barbara Boxer blasted a preliminary finding by Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff that restarting a unit at the idled San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station would not present significant safety hazards. Boxer and Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass, sent a letter to the NRC this week demanding that a comprehensive investigation of the plant be completed before any units be permitted to operate. They also said full public hearings should be held before a decision is made. Boxer said in response to the commission staff’s preliminary finding. “It makes absolutely no sense to even consider taking any steps to reopen San Onofre until these investigations look at every aspect of reopening the plant, given the failure of the tubes that carry radioactive water. “In addition, the damaged plant is located in an area at risk of earthquake and tsunami,” she said. “With 8 million people living within 50 miles of this plant, the staff proposal is beyond irresponsible.”
On Monday, Southern California Edison announced it had formalized a request to amend its operating license to allow it to operate its Unit 2 reactor at 70 percent beginning June 1.
Based on in-depth review of academic literature, all available San Onofre Reports and Tube Inspection data, and industry operating experience, it is concluded that in SONGS Unit 2 defectively-designed and degraded steam generators, even at 70% power normal power operations with proposed amended SCE License, multiple double-ended rupture of steam generator tubes can occur at any time due to anticipated operational transients and main steam line break accidents. These steam generator tubes ruptures caused by fluid elasticity in-plane tube-to-tube wear and undetected and un-quantified incubating macroscopic high cycle thermal fatigue circumferential cracks rupturing the active, worn and plugged tubes into two pieces at tube-sheets, tube-support plates, mid and free spans not supported by anti-vibration bars can result in large radiation leaks due to 100% tube-bundle uncovery, flashing sub-cooled feedwater into high dry steam and jet impingement. The steam generator with multiple tube ruptures leads to the conclusion that the steam generator could be full of high dry steam for a significant period of time. The amount of iodine released from the ruptured steam generator could be significantly larger than that previously calculated. A potential radiological accident would transport with steam 100% of the iodine contained in the 15,000 gallons of reactor coolant to the environment exceeding the federal regulations within 10 minutes during an extremely fast-paced transient beyond the operator control and failure of defense-in-depth actions. Core Damage Probability (CDP) and Large Early Release Probability (LERP) associated with multiple double-ended rupture of steam generator tubes will significantly increase than previously approved NRC SONGS FSAR Limits. The resulting doses would be significantly higher than the dose consequences analyzed in the SONGS UFSAR for the post-trip SLB event with a concurrent iodine spike. The postulated post-trip SLB with multiple tube ruptures and concurrent iodine spike Exclusion Area Boundary, Low Population Zone, and Control Room doses would be significantly higher than the post-trip SLB Control Room limit of 5 Rem TEDE, and the Exclusion Area Boundary and Low Population Zone limit of 2.5 Rem TEDE.
Incubating macroscopic circumferential cracks caused by fluid elastic instability, flow-induced random vibrations and high cycle thermal fatigue are extremely difficult to detect and be accurately sized by nondestructive evaluation techniques like X-ray, ultrasonic, and eddy current based bobbin coil probes, mechanically rotating pancake coil (RPC), etc., which have been used in 17,000 SONGS Tube inspections. State-of-the-art systems: Zetec MIZ-80 iD system, Tecnatom TEDDY+, Circular TE and TM, transmit-receive eddy current array probe C-3 and other specialized radiographic probes capable of detecting sub-surface cracks caused by high cycle thermal fatigue have not been used in the 170,000 SONGS Tube Partial and Limited Inspections as shown below for Unit 2 due to access problems in the most problematic inner-most sections of the U-Tube Bundle, the high-cost, lack of availability of highly specialized tools and contractors, radiation doses, and time considerations in a rush to start Unit 2. The inspection scope defectively designed and degraded SONGS Unit 2 RSGs should have covered 100% hot leg and cold leg tube inspections, 100% of dents or dings, 100% of tube inspections in the tight radius U-bends, 100% area of the Top of the Tube Sheet and Tube Support Plates. None of the SCE Global Experts agree amongst themselves with the cause of tube-to-tube wear in Unit 2 and have not addressed the combined synergic effects of tube-to-tube wear and high cycle thermal fatigue cracks in their voluminous 2000 page documents. There are basic errors, invalidated assumptions, incorrect benchmarking of Unit 3 and blunders in Westinghouse, MHI, SCE, Intertek, AREVA and NRC AIT Reports. The combined effects of tube-to-tube wear and high cycle thermal fatigue cracks have been witnessed by sudden tube ruptures in North Ana in 1987 (See Item 7 below), MHI SG in Mihama, Japan in 1991 (See Item 8 below), three tube leakages in French SGs between 2004 through 2006 (See Item 9 below), 20 tube ruptures/leakages in SGs between 1980-2000 in USA, and SONGS 3 in 2012. If SCE is so confident and conservative about safety and prudent actions of their Global Experts, why not provide Independent Experts with the Units 2 & 3 Cycle 16 notarized operational, contact force, tube fatigue analysis and details of tube Inspection data? Independent Experts can be persuaded in interest of public safety to certify beyond NRC validations, whether SCE and their Global Experts are right or wrong about safe claims of restart of Unit 2?
1. SCE states, “Rosemead, Calif. (Dec. 18, 2012) — The Mitsubishi Heavy Industry testing under review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was not consulted or relied upon in developing Southern California Edison’s (SCE) proposed restart plan for Unit 2 – a plan which includes preventive tube-plugging and operating the unit at 70 percent power for a five-month period. SCE’s international team of experts conducted more than 170,000 inspections to understand the tube wear problem, and confirmed the effectiveness of the corrective actions we have identified to solve the tube wear problem. This work included three independent operational assessments of tube wear issues conducted by Areva Inc, North America, Westinghouse Electric Company LLC and Intertek/Aptech, none of whom based their review and recommendations on Mitsubishi’s testing. This was confirmed Tuesday by an NRC administrator at an NRC public meeting in Rockville, Md. SCE submitted technical information to the NRC on Oct. 3 in support of a proposed restart of Unit 2, which is safely offline. The unit will not be restarted until all plans have been approved by the NRC. The Unit 3 restart was not included in that regulatory filing and remains shut down.”
2. SCE SONGS Unit 2 Return to Service Report, Enclosure 2, Section 6.1, “Summary of Inspection Results”, page 22 states, “ This section provides a summary of the different types of tube wear found in the SONGS Unit 2 and 3 SGs. Wear is characterized as a loss of metal on the surface of one or both metallic objects that are in contact during movement. The following types of wear were identified in the SONGS Units 2 and 3 SG tubes:
• AVB wear – wear of the tubing at the tube-to-AVB intersections
• TSP wear – wear of the tubing at the tube-to-TSP intersections
• TTW – wear in the tube free-span sections between the AVBs located in the U-bend region.
• RB wear – wear of the tubing at a location adjacent to a RB (RBs are not designed as tube supports for normal operation)
• FO wear – wear of the tubing at a location adjacent to a FO.
Most of the tube wear identified in the SGs is adjacent to a tube support. Figure 6-1 is a side view of an SG, showing the relationship of the tubes to the two types of tube supports: TSPs in the straight portions and AVBs in the U-bend portions of the tubes. All tubes are adjacent to many of these two types of tube supports. The RB supports are not shown because a very small number of tubes are adjacent to them. TTW indications occurred in the free span sections of the tubes. The “free span” is that section of the tube between support structures (AVBs and TSPs shown in Figure 6-1). TTW occurred almost exclusively in Unit 3 and is located on both the hot and cold leg side of the U-tube. In many cases, the region of the tube with TTW has two separate indications on the extrados and intrados of the tube. The wear indications on neighboring tubes have similar depth and position (ranging from 1.0 to 41 inches long and 4% to 100% through wall) along the U-bend, confirming the tube-to-tube contact. Table 6-1 provides the Wear Depth Summary for each of the four SGs based on eddy current examination results. Detailed results of the examinations performed are provided in the Units 2 and 3 CM reports included as Attachments 2 and 3. Figures 6-2 through 6-5 provide distributions of wear at AVB and TSP supports for all four SGs.”
3. Attachment 2 by AREVA states, ‘The SONGS Unit 2, 2C17 inspection scope occurred in three distinct phases. The first phase followed the planned shutdown for the 2C17 refueling outage and first SG ISI. The next two inspection phases, performed in April and July 2012, were a direct result of a SG tube leak in Unit 3. The tube leak resulted from tube-to-tube wear (TTW) that was caused by fluid-elastic instability. These subsequent inspections are referred to as 2C17 RTS (Return-to-Service) inspections. The second-phase inspection (April 2012) was a full-length U-bend inspection of tubes deemed most susceptible to tube-to-tube wear based on the degradation identified in Unit 3. The third-phase inspection (July 2012) consisted of eddy current testing to measure the gaps between the AVBs and the tubes. Based on the gap measurements, an additional 104 tubes were examined in the U-bend region with the +PointTM coil. Inspections included the following inspection activities for each of the two replacement steam generators (SG 2E-088 and SG 2E-089) using site validated ECT techniques [7]:
• Bobbin Coil Examinations – All in-service tubes, full length tube-end to tube-end – 19,454 Inspections
•The review showed that the +PointTM probe had a slightly improved Probability of Detection (POD) over the bobbin coil. Rotating Coil Examinations – 5492 Inspections
• Tubesheet periphery and divider lane tubes (from 3” above to 1” below the top of the tubesheet), both legs, approximately 3 tubes in from the periphery and 2 tubes in from the divider lane – 4120 Inspections
• Hot Leg, Cold Leg, U-Bend Coil 2, Special Interest and Mag Bias – 377
• Secondary Side Visual Examinations
– Post sludge lancing FOSAR examination at the top-of-tube-sheet (periphery and the divider lane)
– Visual inspections of the upper tube bundle at the 7th TSP and AVB / retainer bar regions
4. Attachment 3 by AREVA is only applicable to unit 3, therefore are not credited.
5. MHI inspections, although very useful per SCE Claims have not been reviewed and not credited.
6. It is assumed, that Westinghouse and Intertek are using the inspections performed by AREVA summarized in item 2 above.
7. SCE has not determined the true cause of Unit 3 Tube-to-Tube wear as required by NRC Confirmation Letter Action 1, which states, “Southern California Edison Company (SCE) will determine the causes of the tube-to- tube interactions that resulted in steam generator tube wear in Unit 3, and will implement actions to prevent loss of integrity due to these causes in the Unit 2 steam generator tubes. SCE will establish a protocol of inspections and/or operational limits for Unit 2, including plans for a mid-cycle shutdown for further inspections.”
8. – NRC Information Notice No. 88-31: May 25, 1988, Steam Generator Tube Rupture Analysis Deficiency
Description of Circumstances: On July 15, 1987, a steam generator tube rupture (600 gallons per minute) event occurred at North Anna Unit 1 shortly after the unit reached 100% power. The cause of the tube rupture has been determined to be high cycle fatigue. The source of the loads is believed to be a combination of a mean stress level in the tube and a superimposed alternating stress (The mean stress is produced by denting of the tube at the uppermost tube support plate, and the alternating stress is the result of out-of-plane deflection of the U-bend portion of the tube above the uppermost support plate, caused by flow-induced vibration). Denting also shifts the maximum tube bending stress to the vicinity of the uppermost tube support plate. The rupture extended circumferentially 360ø around the tube. Based on available information, the staff concludes that the presence of all the following conditions could lead to a rapidly propagating fatigue failure such as occurred at North Anna: (1) Denting at the upper support plate, (2) A fluid-elastic stability ratio approaching that for the tube that ruptured at North Anna, and (3) Absence of effective AVB support.
Following the steam generator tube rupture at North Anna Unit 1 on July 15, 1987, the Virginia Electric and Power Company (VEPCO) modified the flow resistance of the steam generator downcomers at North Anna by the addition of flow baffle plates. This modification necessitated the reanalysis of certain design basis events including rupture of a steam generator tube. The new analysis utilized a revised Westinghouse method for calculating steam generator water mass and indicated that during the event, the water level on the secondary side could fall below the top of the steam generator tubes for a 10-minute period at the beginning of the event.
Steam generator tube uncovery is significant because, if the break location becomes uncovered, a direct path might exist for fission products contained in the primary coolant to be released to the atmosphere without partition with the secondary coolant. VEPCO and Westinghouse reanalyzed the design basis steam generator tube rupture accident for Surry using the revised methods and determined that the steam generator tubes at Surry could also become uncovered even though the Surry plants were not modified by the addition of flow baffle plates.
The licensee further concluded that the offsite dose consequences exceeded those calculated in the Surry Updated Final Safety Analysis Report (UFSAR) because tube uncovery could produce a direct path for fission product release. Based on the Surry results, the analysis of steam generator inventory during a steam generator tube rupture at other plants may show that the steam generator tubes may uncover. Thus, for those plants where the steam generator tubes were thought to remain covered following tube rupture, the previously calculated safety analysis offsite doses might be exceeded and since the primary coolant activity limit in Technical Specifications is based upon the occurrence of this accident, the allowable technical specification limit may be too high.
Discussion: A postulated steam generator tube rupture is one of the design basis accidents analyzed in plant Safety Analysis Reports (SARs). Using conservative assumptions of single failure and loss of offsite power, it must be shown that the offsite dose consequences will be limited to the guideline doses of 10 CFR 100 or a fraction of the guideline doses depending on the assumptions made for iodine spiking. The iodine in the reactor coolant may be previously dissolved from allowable operational fuel failure or may result from an iodine spike which is the sudden increase in coolant iodine concentration produced by the transient conditions during the accident. Mechanisms for transport of the iodine that exits the reactor system to the atmosphere are discussed in Standard Review Plan (NUREG-0800) Section 15.6.3. In determining the amount of iodine that is transported to the atmosphere, credit may be given for “scrubbing” of iodine contained in the steam phase and in the atomized primary coolant droplets suspended in the steam phase for release points which are below the steam generator water level.
The Surry UFSAR assumed that the break is always covered with water so that 99% of the iodine would remain within the steam generator coolant and only 1% would be released through the atmospheric relief valves. The break location is assumed to be always covered in the UFSAR calculations because an initial steam generator water mass that may be non-conservatively large was assumed in order to conservatively account for the possibility of overfill and because steam generator tube failures were thought only to occur close to the tube sheet. The North Anna tube rupture demonstrated that steam generator tube failures can occur near the top of the tube bundle. The revised steam generator water mass calculations by Westinghouse with the assumption that the break occurs at the top of the tube bundle led to the conclusion that the break could be uncovered for a significant period of time. Tube uncovery occurs because of the level shrink that accompanies reactor trip/turbine trip during the tube rupture event. The tubes would be recovered by the flow of auxiliary feedwater into the ruptured steam generator and by the reactor coolant which would be added due to the ruptured tube; however, the amount of iodine released from the ruptured steam generator could be larger than that previously calculated.
9. – MHI SG Tube Rupture Mihama, Japan 1991: On February 9th, 1991, a heat transfer tube (SG tube) in a steam generator of the No. 2 pressurized water reactor at the Mihama nuclear power station of the Kansai Electric Power Company broke off during a rated output operation. As a result, about 55 tons of primary cooling water leaked out from the SG tube into the secondary cooling loop, and the reactor was scrammed by operation of the ECCS (Emergency Core Cooling System). The failure of the SG tube was caused by fretting fatigue resulting from contact of the SG tube with the supporting plate for the SG tubes, because the AVB, which functions to prevent flow-induced vibration, was not inserted deep enough onto the SG tubes in the steam generator. The scale of the accident was ranked “level 3” on the international nuclear events scale (INES). At 13:40, an alarm of a condenser air off take system went off during a rated output operation, warning that the coolant water level in the steam generator was decreasing. At 13:50, an automatic emergency shutdown of the reactor was triggered by the signal of decreasing pressure in the pressurizer. After seven seconds, the ECCS was automatically operated, and coolant water was flooded into the reactor by a high pressure injection pump. However, one main steam isolation valve and one pressurizer relief valve could not be operated by remote control. Therefore, the valve operation was carried out manually. The failed tube was removed from the heat exchanger, and the fracture surface was examined by a scanning electron microscope. Striations, which are a characteristic of fatigue failure, were observed on large portions of the fracture surface, and dimples showing tensile fracture were also observed. However, few traces of stress corrosion cracking and corrosion were found on the fracture surface of the tube. The failure of the tube was, therefore, hypothesized to be due to cyclic loading. The morphology of the fracture surface of the SG tube shows a typical example of the striations formed on the fracture surface of the SG tube. Examination of the other SG tubes near the failed tube showed traces of wearing formed by fretting due to contact between the tubes and the anti-vibration bars on the outer surfaces of the tubes. Stress amplitude of the failed tube estimated based on the striation spacing was found to be in the range of around 51 to 60 MPa. (8.4 Ksi). Occurrence of cyclic loading in the SG tube that had failed was related to the insertion depth of the anti-vibration bar, AVB. The SG tubes were subjected to vibrations due to the flow of secondary coolant outside of the SG tubes. In order to prevent the flow-induced vibration, V-shaped AVBs were installed onto the opposite U-bent SG tubes near the upper part of the steam generator. However, the insertion depth of the AVB for the SG tubes was not enough, because the engineers who installed the AVB did not fully understand the importance of the AVB. In fact, no damage was founding in the SG tubes into which the AVB were inserted to sufficient depth as shown by the design guidelines. Accordingly, the SG tubes were subjected to flow-induced vibration and strongly contacted with the sixth supporting plate, so that the SG tubes incurred damage by fretting fatigue. Inspection of the AVB had not been carried out since installation. In order to provide an opportunity to learn from the accident that resulted in the leakage of primary coolant from the SG tube due to fretting fatigue, the damaged steam generator has been preserved in an exhibition at the Mihama station of the Kansai Electric Power Company. An exhibition is a good way to help everyone to good lessons from an accident. This accident was the first disaster in Japan that resulted in actuation of the ECCS due to leakage of primary coolant in the steam generator. Therefore, the accident caused social concern with nuclear reactors. The international nuclear events scale (INES) is defined by the IAEA to assure coherent reporting of nuclear accident by different official authorities. The INES is characterized from level one to level seven. The level number increases with the scale of the accident. For example, level one is a minor event, and level seven is major accident. The scale of the accident in 1979 resulting in the loss of coolant that occurred in Three Mile Island was ranked level five by the IAEA. The accident reported here was ranked level three.
10. Cruas NPP: Between 2004 and 2006, three primary-to-secondary leaks occurred at the Cruas NPP: unit 1 in February 2004 and unit 4 in November 2005 and February 2006. The three leaks were all the result of a circumferential crack in the tube at the location where the tube passes through the uppermost tube support plate (TSP #8). Analyses carried out by EDF, further to the last two events, resulted in them being attributed to high cycle fatigue of steam generator tubes due to flow-induced vibration. The results of in situ examination initiated by the Cruas NPP operator showed that the flow holes of the uppermost Tube Support Plates (TSPs) were partially or completely blocked by corrosion products. This phenomenon is referred to in this paper as TSP “clogging-up” and it was considered potentially generic for EDF NPP fleet. For the Cruas leakages, it was established that the association of TSP clogging-up and the specificity of the Cruas steam generator (central area in the tube bundle where no tubes are installed) were responsible for a significant increase in the velocity of the secondary fluid in the tube bundle central area. The high velocity of the fluid in this region increases the risk of fluidelastic instability for the tubes. A new fact caused the leakages observed on the Cruas units: the heavy build-up of deposits on the secondary side of the steam generator which changed the flow conditions in the center of the tube bundle. The deposits reduced or blocked water/steam flow through the quadrifoil-shaped holes in TSPs, forcing more water and steam into the center of the tube bundle, which caused the excessive vibration of the tubes near the center of the tube bundle. This excessive vibration due to fluid-elastic instability resulted in fatigue cracking of the tube.
Press Reports and Friends of the Earth state, “Southern California Edison, the majority owner and operator of the idled San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, announced Monday that it has formally proposed changes to its operating license in an effort to start generating electricity at the plant. SCE is hoping that the amendments, which authorize the plant to operate at 70 percent of generating capacity, will be approved by late May. If the NRC grants the necessary approvals, San Onofre could start generating electricity as soon as June 1. SCE contends that the conditions that cause the vibration don’t occur at 70 percent power. The utility plans to run Unit 2 for five months and then shut it down for inspection of the tubes. After the examination, the reactor would resume operating at 70 percent. Data collected during the inspection will determine a long-term power level, according to Edison. Edison wants the NRC to act as “a rubber stamp. It is a request and a red herring to divert attention from major unresolved safety issues and circumvent meaningful public participation. It would be an outrage and a betrayal of the public’s trust if the NRC were to concede to Edison’s demands.” NRC is paid by the American Tax Payers and American Nuclear Utilities to ensure generation of safe and reliable nuclear power. To side with Southern California Edison and an anticipated permission by NRC Commission to grant permission to restart of Unsafe Unit 2 without resolving the Unit 2 safety issues and a Public Hearing would mean: (1) Pressure by Edison Sympathetic Powerful Politicians, Lobbyists, Financial Institutions, Unknown NRC Commissioners and Appointed Government Officials is working for SCE profits over safety, (2) It would be a betrayal of His Excellency, President of United States, Honorable Senator Barbara Boxer and NRC Chairman’s Policies, Commitments and Standards, and (3) An Insult to 8.4 Million Southern Californians, United States Congress, NRC’s Safety Mission and Transparent Public Policy, US Constitution, American Democratic Principles, and Committed Utilities and Brilliant NRC Engineers dedicated with the charter of ensuring public safety and generation of reliable power.
How can NRC believe any reports from the builders and designers, I hope they are double checking every aspects of the plant and not rely on reports that are not supervised by NRC, reports can be skewed to get closer to what they want it to show to the over seers, will they lie because they think they are right and want to show results that favor the NRC to allow restarting.
San Onofre NRC/SCE/MHI/Public Awareness Series – by Hahn Baba
Steam generator tubes leak and rupture despite inspection and plugging. Question is can the operator detect the leak and shutdown the plant. That is a 95% probability of success and 5 percent chance of failing. There have been more than 20 leaks and tube ruptures in the last 30 years in USA with timely detection and shutdown with no reported offsite releases affecting the public or exceeding federal limits. San Onofre MHI generators, I cannot say.. Even at 70% power, there is a much higher chance of multiple leaks and tube ruptures in Unit 2 due to manufacturing defects, cracked and plugged tubes, operational transients, mother nature’s mood, equipment malfunctions and operator errors. SCE has to either satisfy NRC, Dr. Joram Hopenfeld and the Public about safety of Unit 2, repair or replace the defective generators or decommission the plant. So far SCE/MHI/Intertek, Westinghouse and AREVA response is totally unsatisfactory and unconvincing. Customer service and safety always prevails over SCE profits, if NRC and CPUC rules are followed to the Letter…Let us see what NRC Commission does to satisfy 8.4 Million southern Californians, who pay the bills for San Onofre and SCE Management.
Sincere Thanks to NRC Chairman, Mr. Victor Dricks, Mr. Cale Young, Mr. Ryan Lantz, Mr. Randy Hall and entire NRC Staff. Thanks to NRC posting this blog. San Onofre NRC/SCE/MHI/Public Awareness Series – by Hahn Baba
Life is a unique opportunity to serve the society. Society needs Energy, which is safe, economical and reliable. Every form of Energy has drawbacks and risks. SCE is responsible for safety, economics and reliability of Unit 2.
NRC Top SG Expert states (February 2013), “With multiple tube ruptures, you’d have an earlier plant transient and you’d be able to identify the tube or the generator quicker, safety systems would react; so multiple tube ruptures would challenge the operators in a different way. But we have studied that from a risk perspective and we chose not to take regulatory action or regulatory action wasn’t necessary. So in some aspects the operators were benefitted by automatic systems and easier diagnosis, but the timing would create another challenge for them, so..”
Circumferentially cracked tubes can rupture without notice at any time during Unit 2 reduced steady state 70% power perations, anticipated operational transients and main steam line breaks. The additional stresses and jet impingement loads may cause other tubes to rupture and cut into two pieces in a matter of minutes. NRC Rules governing reactor operations simply do not contemplate cascading tube ruptures. Therefore, San Onofre emergency core cooling systems are not designed to prevent a core meltdown if a number of tubes rupture at the same time. Therefore, In accordance with NRC Fukushima Task Force Lessons Learnt, Dr. Joram Hopenfeld’s Analysis and observation of SONGS Operators Poor Performance/Equipment Maintenance/Reliability for the last six years, SONGS Operators and emergency core cooling systems are not capable of preventing a core meltdown caused by multiple cracked tube ruptures in defectively designed and degraded unit 2 SG caused by fluid elastic tube-to-tube wear and undetected high cycle thermal fatigue cracks.
Circumferential cracks are more serious than axial cracks because of concerns for double-ended rupture of steam generator tubes and consequent large leaks. In addition circumferential cracks are considered more difficult to detect and accurately size by nondestructive evaluation techniques like X-ray, (local) ultrasonic, and eddy current based bobbin coil probes, mechanically rotating pancake coil (RPC), etc., which have been used in SONGS Tube Inspections for Unit 2. Circular TE and TM, transmit-receive eddy current array probe C-3 and other specialized radiographic probes capable of detecting sub-surface cracks have not been used in the 170,000 SONGS Tube Inspections for Unit 2 due to cost and time considerations. None of the SCE Global Experts have addressed the combined synergic effects of tube-to-tube wear and high cycle thermal fatigue cracks in their voluminous 2000 page documents. There are basic errors and blunders in Westinghouse, MHI, SCE, Intertek, AREVA and NRC AIT Reports. The combined effects of tube-to-tube wear and high cycle thermal fatigue cracks have been witnessed by sudden tube ruptures in North Ana in 1987, MHI SG in Mihama, Japan in 1991, three tube leakages in French SGs between 2004 through 2006, 20 tube ruptures/leakages in SGs between 1980-2000 in USA, and SONGs 3 in 2012. Because of basic SCE/MHI mistakes, continued cover-ups and subverting the regulatory process since 2004, ratepayers have lost several Billion Dollars and Public Safety has been compromised. If SCE is so confident and conservative about safety and prudent actions of their Global Experts, provide our experts with the Units 2 & 3 Cycle 16 notarized operational, contact force, tube fatigue analysis and tube Inspection data and we will certify beyond NRC ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,whether SCE and their Global Experts are right or wrong about safe restart of Unit 2?
NRC, INPO, CPUC, NEI and Scientists expect SCE to supply safe and reliable power at a reasonable cost and not conduct unsafe experiments at the expense of public safety and charge ratepayers for its mistakes.
San Onofre Restart quoting Albert Einstein, “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Root Causes are defined as the basic reasons (e.g., hardware, process, or human performance) for a problem, which if corrected, will prevent recurrence of that problem.
MHI Root Cause: Insufficient programmatic requirement to assure effective AVB contact force to prevent in-plane fluid elastic instability and random vibration and subsequent wear under high localized thermal-hydraulic conditions (steam quality (void fraction), flow velocity and hydro-dynamic pressure).
HAHN Baba Rebuttal: MHI Answer is Incorrect. Contact force is the force in which an object comes in contact with another object. Examples are pushing a car up a hill or kicking a ball or pushing a desk across a room are some of the everyday examples where contact forces are at work. In the first case the force is continuously applied by the person on the car, while in the second case the force is delivered in a short impulse. The most common instances of this include friction, normal force, and tension. According to forces, contact force may also be described as the push experienced when two objects are pressed together. The MHI designed AVBs had zero contact forces in Unit 3 to prevent in-plane fluid elastic instability and subsequent wear under high localized thermal-hydraulic conditions (steam quality (void fraction) and flow velocity). Large u-bends were moving with large amplitudes in the in-plane direction without any contact forces imposed by out-of the plane restraints. The in-plane vibration associated with the wear observed in the Unit 3 RSGs occurred because all of the out-of-plane AVB supports were inactive by design in the in-plane direction. The Unit 3 tube-to-AVB contact forces on the TTW tubes were Zero, that is why did not restrain the tubes in the in-plane direction (Like a Sports Car moving with very high speed in freeway express toll lanes passing by a Stalled Police Car). In-plane fluid elastic instability did not happen in Unit 2 because of operational differences, so therefore double contact forces and better supports is conjecture in Unit 2 and a pre-planned and ill-conceived SCE reason to justify restart of Unsafe Unit 2. The baseless contact force theory based on hideous statistical data and manufacturing simulations capable of stopping super express velocity induced in-plane vibration is refuted based on in-depth review of Speculative and Incomplete SCE Root Cause Evaluation, Dr. Pettigrew’s 2006 Research Paper, Westinghouse, AREVA, John Large and earlier version of MHI Reports.
NRC AIT Team SCE Root Cause: The combination of unpredicted, adverse thermal hydraulic conditions and insufficient contact forces in the upper tube bundle caused a phenomenon called “fluid-elastic instability” which was a significant contributor to the tube to tube wear resulting in the tube leak. The team concluded that the differences in severity of the tube-to-tube wear between Unit 2 and Unit 3 may be related to the changes to the manufacturing/fabrication of the tubes and other components which may have resulted in increased clearance between the anti-vibration bars and the tubes; (3) Due to modeling errors, the SONGS replacement generators were not designed with adequate thermal hydraulic margin to preclude the onset of fluid-elastic instability.
HAHN Baba Rebuttal: Except contact forces described above, NRC/SCE cause evaluation on SCE created adverse thermal–hydraulic conditions and Mitsubishi faulty computer modeling in Unit 3 is correct. SCE Engineers were running Unit 3 in Test Mode with higher steam flows to check the improvements in Tube-to-AVB support contact forces. But like earthquake and Tsunami in Fukushima and Fire in Chernobyl, the misunderstood experiment destroyed Unit 3. First rule of thumb, like Dr. Pettigrew says, “Avoid in-plane and random vibrations by keeping velocities below 20 feet/sec (SONGS in-plane velocities > 56 feet/sec, out-of-plane velocities > 28 feet/sec). Second rule, “Operate SG at higher pressures (> 900 psi) and circulation ratios > 4 to keep the void fractions less than 98.5%. Third Rule,” Ask Westinghouse/Combustion Engineering how to design anti-vibration bars, which are capable of preventing fluid elastic instability.” Fourth Rule, “ATHOS Models cannot calculate in-plane velocities.”
HAHN Baba Contributing Causes: Too many adverse Design Changes to produce more megawatts, Adverse Operational Parameters, and Human Performance Errors (Lack of Critical Questioning & Investigative Attitude, Lack of Solid Teamwork & Alignment between SCE/MHI Team, Lack of Adequate research and Industry Benchmarking (e.g., NUREG-1841, Palo Verde, etc.) complacence, time pressure)
HAHN Baba Root Cause: Nuclear Safety was compromised Lack of Critical Questioning & Investigative Attitude and undermined by Profits Motivations
Dr. Pettigrew’s Advise*: To prevent the adverse effects of fluid elastic instability and flow-induced random vibrations, need Solid Teamwork & Alignment between Designer & Manufacturer.
* World’s Foremost Renowned and Canadian Research Scientist Professeur Titulaire, Michel J. Pettigrew advise for the last 40 years in a 1976 address to the Canadian Atomic Energy Commission, “Most flow-induced vibration problems, which can be avoided provided that nuclear components are properly analysed at the design stage and that the analyses are supported by adequate testing and development work when required.” SCE/MHI AVB Design Team in 2005 rejected recommendations to reduce high void fractions, which caused fluid elastic instability in Unit 3. The recommendations were rejected by MHI/SCE Team, because it would have cut down the profits due to less electricity production, cost more money to implement changes discussed in MHI Root Cause Evaluation Report, delayed the fabrication and installation process and Triggered a Lengthy NRC 10CFR 50.90 License Amendment and Public Hearing Process. SCE/MHI subverted intentionally the regulatory process. That is what Barbara Boxer was saying.
Here are more quotes from SONGS Insiders:
1. To the best of my recollection, the Root Cause Member told me that Unit 2 was running at higher pressures than Unit 3, that is why Unit 2 did not experience FEI. He had a 2006 paper with him published in 2006 by Dr. Pettigrew in his hand, which warned about the ineffectiveness of the flat bars to prevent fluid elastic instability. He was researching on curved bars, bars with springs, which could be attached to the tubes to prevent in-plane vibrations and repair the RSGs. What the Root Cause Member said matches with SONGS Procedures, Plant Briefing Sheets and NRC AIT Report Data.
2. The Root cause Team leader told to a friend of mine, “I wish that SCE engineers would have made these design changes one at a time and tested them instead of making all the changes at one time.”
3. One of the very highly placed SCE Manager and Corporate Emergency Director (Now retired) told me that all these changes were made without much thought and analysis, which consisted of the substitution of Inconel 690 for Inconel 600 as the tube material. Inconel 690 is more resistant to corrosion than Inconel 600. However, Inconel 690 has a thermal conductivity approximately 10% less than that of Inconel 600. The requirement that the SG’s thermal performance be maintained, in conjunction with maintaining a specified tube plugging margin, SCE told MHI for increasing the tube bundle heat transfer surface area from 105,000 ft2 to 116,100 ft2 (an 11% increase).
4. One of the very highly placed SCE Manager was shaking his head, when he told me, “I wish that SCE Engineers would have duplicated the Palo Verde Replacement Steam Generators and we would not be experiencing this embarrassing day. Combustion Engineering not only designed and replaced six Palo Verde steam generators with considerable improvements and higher thermal megawatt, but solved the problem with the original steam generators.” Please note that San Onofre and Palo Verde Original Steam Generators were designed and fabricated by Combustion Engineering, but Palo Verde steam generators are largest in the world. The Palo Verde Replacement Steam Generators are running fine for the last 10 years without any plugged tubes and San Onofre, everybody knows the story. Now the question is that SCE owns 20% of the share of the Palo Verde and how come SCE Engineers did not contact their counterparts – Answers in the Next Update
NRC, INPO, CPUC, NEI and Scientists expect a responsible nuclear utility to supply safe and reliable power at a reasonable cost and not conduct unsafe experiments at the expense of public safety and charge ratepayers for its mistakes.
NO SIGNIFICANT HAZARDS CONSIDERATION – ANALYSIS OF SCE’S NEW LICENSE AMENDMENT
Dr. John Hopenfeld states, “A steam generator, in addition to providing a barrier to radioactivity and producing steam, has many other important functions. It is the major component in the plant that contributes to safety during transients and accidents. It provides the driving force for natural circulation and it facilitates heat removal from the reactor core during a wide range of loss of coolant accidents. Proper steam generator operation is of major safety significance and therefore any changes to its design may have potential safety consequences. Southern California Edison(“SCE”) has not identified the root cause for the unusually excessive tube wears in the four steam generators (“SGs”) of units 2 and 3 at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, SONGS. Based on my evaluation of the tube wear data and the in situ leak test results it is my opinion that restarting Units 2 and 3 would compromise public safety. The new components in the replacement steam generators (“RSGs”), constituted a major change to the original SGs, this lead to vibrations and the unusual rapid tube wear. The components causing the wear would have to be replaced and the SONGS license amended before the units can be restarted. SCE and MHI did not provide any data to support their contention that the various design change options that were discussed in 2006 by the AVB Design Team would have had no significant effect on flow velocities and steam quality. SCE consultants AREVA, Westinghouse and MHI differed on the root cause of tube vibrations and none of their opinions were based on sound scientific principles. The safety consequences of operating with degraded tubes are more serious than envisioned by the consultants. It is apparent that SCE focused its attention on explaining away errors in the design, fabrication and management of the RSGs. There is no indication that any consideration was given to the long-term safety risk of operating Units 2 and 3, with each containing more than 1500 defects (3401 in all).”
Let us examine, why Dr. Hopenfeld, Arnie Gundersen, John Large, Professor Daniel Hirsh and many other experts are saying that it is not safe to operate at Unit 2 at 70% power, while SCE, AREVA, Westinghouse, MHI, Intertek and the NRC Augmented Inspection Team say that Unit 2 reactor operation at no more than 70 percent power will limit unusual tube wear and is safe to operate by reviewing the following questions:
Let us assess the condition of the defectively designed and degraded U2 RSGS, before we answer the following questions:
• A steam generator, in addition to providing a barrier to radioactivity and producing steam, has many other important functions. It is the major component in the plant that contributes to safety during transients and accidents. It provides the driving force for natural circulation and it facilitates heat removal from the reactor core during a wide range of loss of coolant accidents. Proper steam generator operation is of major safety significance and therefore unanalyzed and untested design changes to SONGS RSGs have created major safety consequences as observed by damages in Units 2 & 3.
• The Root Cause determined by SCE and MHI for both Units 2 & 3 RSGs does not address the exact reason for RSG design and operational flaws. Root Cause is defined as the exact reason (e.g., hardware, process, or human performance) for a problem, which if corrected, will prevent recurrence of that problem. Therefore, SCE/MHI have not determined the exact root cause of the tube-to- tube wear in Unit 3 per CAL ACTION 1, and have not implemented actions to prevent the loss of tube-to-tube wear and demonstrated via a deterministic safety analysis that the AVB structural integrity in the Unit 2 steam generator will be maintained (e.g., collapse of AVB structure and retainer bars failure due to fluid elatic instability) due to Main Steam Line Break (e.g., Mihama, Turkey Point, Robinson), Station Blackout (Fukushima), SG Tube Ruptures ( Mihama, SONGS 3 & 20 other Incidents in US/Europe in the last 20 years) and other anticipated operational transients at power operation between 70 t0 100% power.
• Based on the evaluation of the tube wear data and the in situ leak test results, restarting Units 2 and 3 would compromise public safety. The new components in the replacement steam generators constituted a major change to the original SGs, which lead to the unusual and rapid tube wear. The components causing the wear would have to be replaced and the SONGS license amended before the units can be restarted. The above assessment also applies to SCE proposed five-month test of Unit 2 at 70% of licensed power. After correcting an error in the SCE stress calculations, the present analysis shows that because of the wear damage previously sustained by Unit 2 some tubes will be susceptible to rapid fatigue failure. The tubes will exceed their allowable fatigue life by 22 to 29% during the next operating cycle. The risk of tube rupture increases with operating time but the MHI and Intertek analysis is not capable of quantifying it in terms of operating time. Unit 2 should not be permitted to operate until SCE provides a thorough assessment of the fretting fatigue discussed in Dr. Joram Hopenfeld’s Reports.
• To meet the performance criteria as specified in the plant’s technical specifications (“TS”) it is necessary to relate tube defect geometry to primary/secondary side leakage. When tube degradation is caused only by thinning due to tube-to tube wear, the degree of tube damage can be assessed by modeling, pulling selective tubes for testing or by in-situ pressure testing. In addition to losing strength due to wall thinning, some of the tubes at SONGS have used up a significant fraction of their allowed fatigue life. Such damage cannot be detected by even the NRC Special Tube Inspections due to time, cost, unavailability of high technology probes, contactors, and/or impossible access within the tube bundle or radiation dose limitations. These tubes are significantly susceptible to sudden ruptures without notice and/or early warnings during steady state normal operations at 70% power, Operational Transients (opening or closing of valves, scrams, loss of offsite power, moderate earthquakes, etc.) and under steam line break accidents at other reactors. The stress on the tube [SONGS Unit 3 Tube, which leaked, Row 106 Column 78, 100 percent through wall wear, length of wear – 29 inches] due to in-plane vibration calculated by MSI was 4.2 ksi and shown to be under fatigue limit (13.6 ksi).” In contrast, Dr. Hopenfeld’s calculations in the attached report demonstrate that the stress concentration factor is much higher than calculated by MHI and therefore the fatigue limit of 13.6 ksi will be exceeded by at least 22% (16.7 to 17.5 ksi). Now, the ruptured tube in Mihama experienced out-of-plane FEI and according to the latest research between 2006 -2011 by Dr. Pettigrew and others, the in-plane velocities are double the out-of plane velocities, therefore, during FEI conditions, tubes can realistically experience fatigue of 16.8 ksi. This demonstrates that MHI calculations are under-conservative by a factor of 4, just like the fluid velocities calculated earlier by MHI, which led to the SONGS Unit 3 tube leak, failure of 8 tubes under MSLB testing conditions and loss of more than 35% wall thickness in almost 400 tubes. Fatigue damage has resulted in several tube failures in US, French and Japanese steam generators, yet in spite of its importance, none of the SCE consultants included fatigue in their evaluation of restarting Unit 2.
• Between 2004 and 2006, three primary-to-secondary leaks occurred at the Cruas NPP: unit 1 in February 2004 and unit 4 in November 2005 and February 2006. The three leaks were all the result of a circumferential crack in the tube at the location where the tube passes through the uppermost tube support plate (TSP #8). Analyses carried out for the last two events, resulted in them being attributed to high cycle fatigue of steam generator tubes due to flow-induced vibration.
• On February 9th, 1991, a heat transfer tube (SG tube) in a Mitsubishi steam generator of the No. 2 pressurized water reactor at the Mihama nuclear power station of the Kansai Electric Power Company, broke off during a rated output operation. As a result, about 55 tons of radioactive primary cooling water leaked out from the SG tube into the secondary cooling loop, and the reactor was scrammed by operation of the ECCS (Emergency Core Cooling System). The failure of the SG tube was caused by fretting fatigue resulting from contact of the SG tube with the supporting plate for the SG tubes, because the AVB, which functions to prevent flow-induced vibration, was not inserted deep enough onto the SG tubes in the steam generator. One main steam isolation valve and one pressurizer relief valve could not be operated by remote control. Therefore, the valve operation was carried out manually. The amount of steam released from the main steam relief valve to atmosphere was about 1.3 tons. The amounts of radioactive rare gas and iodine discharged to the atmosphere were about 2.3E10 and 3.4E8 becquerels, respectively. The scale of the accident was ranked “level 3″ on the international nuclear events scale (INES). Stress amplitude of the failed tube estimated based on the striation spacing was found to be in the range of around 51 to 60 MPa (8.4 ksi).
• Unit 2 RSGs have 505 plugged and/or staked tubes. Inspections reveal that there are numerous U-bends in both RSGs with tube-to-tube clearances as small as 0.05 inches (SONGS RSGs Design 0.25 inches, Industry NORM 0.35-0.55 inches). The design distance between tubes on the sides at the intersection with the top TSP should be 0.250 inch plus or minus the small broached hole tolerance. The Nominal Gap between tube and AVB in SONGS RSGs built by Mitsubishi is 0.002″, while in Fort Calhoun RSGs (another US plant built by Mitsubishi) the Nominal Gap is 0.0031”. The tube diameter (d) and pitch (P) Tube Index (P/d) in SONGS RSGs built by Mitsubishi is 1.33-1.433, whereas tube diameter (d) and pitch (P) Tube Index (P/d) in Arkansas Nuclear One Unit 2 RSGs built by Westinghouse is 1.518-1.672. The in-plane tube spacing at Apex in SONGS RSG is (0.298, 0.344, 0.400 inch) whereas at another plant, it is (0.442, 0.502, 0.562 inches). According to Westinghouse, the actual distance may be between 0.040 and 0.120 inch (1-3 mm). According to AREVA, “The nominal distance between extrados and intrados locations of neighboring U-bends in the same plane ranges from 0.25 inches to 0.325 inches due to the tube indexing. There are instances where the closest approach distance is less than this value, based on field measurements using bobbin coil ECT. The bobbin probe on the 140 kHz absolute channel can detect neighboring U-bends if the separation distance is less than approximately 0.15 inches. Using a proximity signal calibration curve, the separation distance between U-bends was measured for all steam generators. The smallest detected U-bend separation distance is close to contact. There are 36 U-bends in Unit 2 SG E-088 and 34 in SG E-089 with a separation less than or equal to 0.050 inches. The separation of the U-bends in Unit 2 with TTW is 0.190 inches as measured by UT. The U-bends with the smaller separation distances are much better candidates for wear by rubbing yet do not exhibit TTW. Intertek states, “There were 4348 indications detected at AVB contact points with a maximum NDE depth of 35%TW during the end-of-cycle (EOC) 16 tube examinations. Wear at tube support plates (TSP) was also detected (364 indications) with a maximum NDE depth of 20%TW.” MHI Tube Plugging Criteria states, “Tubes, which exhibit a potential for losing their integrity during the next operating period due to progressive through-wall wear and/or susceptibility to FEI should be plugged. All tubes with ECT tube-tube wear indications in the free span section should be plugged regardless of the wear depth. Furthermore, tubes with wear indications at the AVB and TSP locations, which are similar to those on the tubes with the wear indication in the free span section, should be preventatively plugged. Tubes with Tube-AVB/TSP wear equal to, or greater than, 35% should be plugged in accordance with Technical Specifications.” Approximately ~ 1600 tubes in Unit 2 steam generators were found with wear indications. Only ~500 tubes out of these were plugged due to wear (Tube-to-Tube/AVB/TSPs). That means ~ 1080 tubes in Unit 2 steam generators with wear indications have not been plugged. These plugged tubes will continue to wear and requires a safety analysis to demonstrate that these tubes will not cause damage to adjacent tubes during accidents and meet the present licensing requirements.
•The following very important issues have not been addressed in Unit 2 Return to Service reports.
1. Long term Implications of restarting any of the SONGS units.
Because of the large number of defects in the tubes, there is a risk that additional tubes will have to be removed from service even if the FEI problem has been solved. Defects such as now exist (more than 3000) are known to form nucleation sites for stress corrosion (SCC) and fatigue cracks. It is important to understand that even though alloy 690 is not as prone to SCC as alloy 600 it is not completely immune to SCC. This problem will become more important as the units age because of crud build up in the tube support plates.
2. 2. Uncertainties in the analyses of Fluid Elastic Instability Analysis (FEI) Long Term Effects.
The consultants did not address uncertainties in sufficient details. Because of the complexity of the technical issues a reviewer, therefore, cannot asses of the robustness of the analysis. John Large states, “A difficulty that I have with the AREVA and, generally, with the other OAs is that whereas the results of analyses, particularly relating probability and confidence, are often resolutely stated, very little of the analytical procedures arriving at the results are open to inspection. Because of the uncertainties I very much doubt that in the present circumstances tube structural integrity could be guaranteed to satisfy the 95% probability at 50% confidence criterion but, that said, AREVA presents no substantial data that enables me to explore and possibly resolve these doubts.” Because the uncertainties in predicting how fatigued tubes can propagate failures, it is impossible to assess quantitatively safety risks. It is believed that a main steam line break (MSLB) represents a bounding case. A conservative estimate of the probability of a large early release of radiation with containment bypass would be 10E-4 per year for any operating cycle. Such risk exceeds NRC’s safety goals. Units 2 and 3 at SONGS have the highest risk of tube rupture related core damage than any other nuclear power plant in the USA.
John Large states, “SCE’s assertion that reducing power to 70% will at the best alleviate, but not eliminate, the TTW and other modes of tube and component wear is little more than hypothesis – the supporting Operational Assessments and analyses have not proven it to be otherwise. I am of the opinion that trialling this hypothesis by putting the SONGS Unit 2 back into service will, because of the uncertainties and unresolved issues involved, embrace a great deal of change, test and experiment. The terms of the Confirmatory Action Letter of March 11 2012, are versed such that to meet compliance the response of SCE via its Return to Service Report,11 must include considerable changes of conditions and procedures that are outside the reference bounds of the present FSAR – this is because the physical condition of the RSGs, and the means by which this is evaluated and projected into future in-service operation, have substantially and irrevocably changed since the current FSAR was approved. The fact that SCE fails to satisfy the requirements of the CAL is neither here nor there, although it illustrates the scope and complexity of the response required. At the time of preparing the CAL, the NRC being well-versed in the failures at the San Onofre nuclear plant, surely must have known that the only satisfactory response to the CAL would indeed require considerable changes, tests and experiments to be implemented.”
SCE’s Answer: No, the proposed changes do not involve a significant increase in the probability or consequences of an accident previously evaluated.
Basis – Please see SCE License Amendment (www. songscommunity.com)
HAHN Baba Response: SCE, its Independent Experts and NRC Augmented Inspection Team investigations and their answers are incorrect and misleading like all the past actions pertaining to: (1) Inability to determine the true reasons for faulty replacement steam generator design, (2) Inability to determine the true root cause of tube-to-tube wear in Unit 3 and take corrective actions to prevent recurrence of tube-tube wear in Unit 2. Because the true causes have not been determined, that is why both San Onofre Units are shutdown, and NRC/SCE/MHI are facing so much opposition from public and Independent Safety Experts. Southern Californians were lucky, that a nuclear meltdown was averted with the Unit 3 accident, and ratepayers have already lost more than a Billion Dollars. The proposed Unit 2 reactor operation at no more than 70 percent power involves more than significant increase in the probability or consequences of a potential Steam Line Break Accident resulting in multiple steam generator tube leakages and/or ruptures than previously evaluated by SCE, their nuclear industry experts or some at the NRC. This is also a new and different type of accident applicable only to the San Onofre Unit 2 & 3 replacement steam generators because of their faulty design, which has not been previously evaluated. The proposed Unit 2 reactor operation at no more than 70 percent power involves a significant reduction in safety because of the reasons stated below.
Basis – The Unit 2 reactor operation at no more than 70 percent power affects the probability or consequences of steam generator tube rupture significantly because many of the steam generators tubes can leak/rupture under the following conditions:
Three different accident scenarios should be considered in attempting to determine accident severity when degraded tubes rupture.
(i) 70% normal Steady State power operations: Due to random variations in local vibration intensity, tube failure will be initiated in a single tube with relatively slow through the wall crack propagation. Such failures likely would be confined to a single tube leakage lending to a may be timely detection and action by operator, or after the 5 month inspection period and removal from service, if the wall thickness exceeds 35%.
(ii) Operational Transients @ 70% power operations. Next in severity are tube ruptures from operational transient (opening or closing of valves, scrams, etc). To ensure that the tubes withstand such transients, the ASME code requires that their Cumulative Usage Factor (“CUF”) be less than one. When the RSGs were installed the predicted CUF was a low number because it was calculated for pristine tubes. The fact that the tubes were stressed to above their endurance limit and they vibrated with frequencies on the order of 10 to 50 HZ, means that their CUF exceeded unity. A tube with CUF >1 would be prone to a rapid crack growth and sudden rupture under operational and DBA transients.
Notes: MHI states, “The stress on the tube [SONGS Unit 3 Tube, which leaked, Row 106 Column 78, 100 percent through wall wear, length of wear – 29 inches] due to in-plane vibration was 4.2 ksi and was under fatigue limit (13.6 ksi).” In contrast, Dr. Hopenfeld’s calculations demonstrate that the stress concentration factor is much higher than calculated by MHI and therefore the fatigue limit of 13.6 ksi will be exceeded by at least 22% (16.7 to 17.5 ksi). Now, the ruptured tube in Mihama experienced out-of-plane FEI and according to the latest research between 2006 -2011 by Dr. Pettigrew and others, the in-plane velocities are double the out-of plane velocities, therefore, during FEI conditions, tubes can realistically experience fatigue of 16.8 ksi. This demonstrates that MHI calculations are under-conservative by a factor of 4, just like the fluid velocities calculated earlier by MHI, which led to the SONGS Unit 3 tube leak, failure of 8 tubes under MSLB testing conditions and loss of more than 35% wall thickness in almost 400 tubes. Now, SONGS Unit 2 RSGs have hundreds of fatigue damaged tubes, which have not been plugged and a number of U-bends with tube-to-tube clearances as low as 0.05 inches, which is almost one fifth of the design clearance of 0.25 inches. In addition, there are some active and pressurized tubes, some of which have lost wall thickness up to 28%, therefore, these tubes are just below the safety margin of 35% of the tube plugging limit. SCE has chosen not to plug these tubes as a conservative measure in their belief that these tubes will not rupture during the next 5 months. In addition to losing strength due to wall thinning, some of the worn tubes at SONGS Unit 2 have used up a significant fraction of their allowed fatigue life. Such damage cannot be detected by even the NRC Special Tube Inspections due to time, cost, unavailability of high technology probes and contactors, and/or impossible access within the tube bundle or radiation dose limitations. These tubes will be significantly susceptible to sudden ruptures without notice or early warnings during steady state normal operations at 70% power due to Operational Transients (opening or closing of valves, scrams, loss of offsite power, lifting of steam safety valves due to SG Over-pressurization, etc.) and can result in accidents like Mihama Unit 2 (Japan, 1991, INES Level 3 nuclear incident) or even leading to a nuclear meltdown.
(iii) Main Steam Line Break (“MSLB”) @ 70% power operations. An MSLB could lead to the most severe consequence for operations with degraded tubes. SCE’s proposed revision to Technical Specification or current licensing basis (“CLB”) at 70% power would require that the plant accommodate such accidents. The MSLB accident is of particular concern, because of what happened at Unit 3. Its unprecedented tube-to-tube wear, never experienced in the 60 years of nuclear steam generator operational history, was caused in a very small section of the tube bundle due to the unanticipated creation of high dry steam (fluid elastic instability). The question is why was this condition unanticipated and how could high dry steam cause so much devastating damage in less than 11 months of operation to these tubes, which were designed to last between 40 to 60 years. Because, SCE, AREVA, Westinghouse, MHI, Intertek and NRC Augmented Inspection Team have not actually answered this important question, Dr. Hopenfeld, Arnie Gundersen, John Large, Professor Daniel Hirsh and other experts are saying that it is not safe to operate Unit 2 at 70% power.
Now, I will try my best to answer the question, why it is unsafe to restart Unit 2 at 70% power?
The most severe design basis accident to meet the SONGS Unit 2 TS 5.5.2.11.b.1 steam generator structural integrity is a MSLB at the first weld outside containment. The outside containment scenario includes the assumption that the main steam isolation valve (MSIV) in the steam line with the least flow resistance fails to close following the main steam isolation signal (MSIS). Super-heating within the SG initiates upon U-tube uncovery as specified in the NRC Information Notice 84-90. The turbine stop valves are assumed to close instantaneously at the time of the reactor trip. This assumption is conservative for a MSLB event because the entire steam inventory at the time of reactor trip is assumed to be forced out the break in 300 seconds or 5 minutes.
The depressurization of the non-isolable steam generator would result in 100% void fractions in the degraded Unit 2 U-Tube bundle due to flashing of the feedwater into steam. This condition of ZERO Water in the steam generators would cause fluid elastic instability (FEI) flow-induced random vibrations, excessive hydrodynamic pressures and Mitsubishi Flowering Effect. The force of the flashing steam would create high-energy jets, lift loose parts and debris present inside the steam generator. These adverse effects would cut holes into already degraded tubes and create additional loading (See Note A below) on tube support plates (TSPs) due to heavy build-up of deposits on trefoil/quadrifoil-shaped holes from SG blowdown and cracked high cycle fatigue U-bend tubes not supported by an Anti-Vibration Bars (AVB). More than 500 tubes were plugged at Unit 2. Even though these tubes would not be not in service, they will continue to wear at the same rate as before. At a certain time, these tubes will break without being detected because no radioactivity will be released. The broken tubes will have relatively low natural frequency and therefore it would be prone for resonance excitation by external forces. The jets, formed at the ends of a broken tube, would cause it to whip and impact adjacent tubes thereby propagating further ruptures. These cumulative adverse conditions in all likelihood would result in a massive cascading of RSGs tube failures (tubes would excessively rattle or vibrate, hitting other tubes with violent impacts) due to extremely low tube-to-tube clearances and no in-plane effective anti-vibration bar support protection system. This Titanic and adverse effect would involve hundreds of degraded and active SG tubes along with all the inactive (plugged /unstabilized) tubes causing an undetermined amount of simultaneous tube leaks/ruptures. Under this adverse scenario, approximately 60 tons of very hot high-pressure radioactive reactor coolant would leak into the secondary system. The release of this amount of radioactive primary coolant, along with an additional approximately 200 tons of steam in the first five to fifteen minutes from a broken steam line would EXCEED the SONGS NRC approved offsite radiological release doses safety margins. So, in essence, the RSG’s are loaded guns, or a nuclear accident like Fukushima, waiting to happen. Any failure under these conditions would allow significant amounts of radiation to escape to the atmosphere and a major Loss of Coolant Accident (LOCA) could easily result causing much wider radiological consequences and even a potential nuclear meltdown of the reactor.
SCE States, “A MSLB alone does not generate sufficient differential pressure to cause tube rupture. (See Notes below). The differential pressure across the SG tubes necessary to cause a rupture will not occur if operators prevent RCS re-pressurization in accordance with Emergency Operating Instructions.”
In Summary: SCE DID Actions and unreliable operator actions to detect a leak and to re-pressurize the steam generators as claimed by Edison are not practical to stop a major nuclear accident in Unit 2 in progress in the first 5-15 minutes of a MSLB during the 5-month trial period.
Notes: This additional loading would exceed: (2) the safety factor of 3.0 against burst under normal steady state full power operation primary-to-secondary pressure differential and a safety factor of 1 .4 against burst applied to the design basis accident primary-to-secondary pressure differentials, and (3) significantly affect burst or collapse pressures determined and assessed in combination with the loads due to a safety factor of 1.2 on the combined primary loads and 1.0 on axial secondary loads. SCE’s planned “defense-in-depth” actions are insufficient to stop multiple tube ruptures due to a main steam line beak event.
2. Does the proposed change create the possibility of a new or different kind of an accident from an accident previously evaluated?
SCE’s Answer: No, the proposed changes do not create the possibility of a new or different kind of an accident from an accident previously evaluated.
HAHN Baba Response: The proposed changes create the distinct possibility of a new or different kind of an accident from an accident previously evaluated. Please see Item 1 above for details.
3. Does the proposed change involve a significant reduction in margin of safety?
SCE’s Answer: No, the proposed changes do not involve a significant reduction in margin of safety.
HAHN Baba Response: The proposed change involves more than a significant reduction in margin of safety. Please see Items 1 and 2 above for details.
Based on the above, HAHN Baba concludes that the proposed amendment involves more than a significant hazards consideration under the standards set forth in 10 CFR 50.92(c), and
accordingly, a finding of “no significant hazards consideration” claimed by SCE is another attempt to to defame, subvert and erode the NRC Regulatory Process. NRC Brilliant Engineers know better what to do this time. Let us wait for the NRC Intelligent Safety Answers.
Researchers have said long ago that nucleate boiling on the tube surfaces has a stabilizing damping effect to preclude fluid-elastic instability. At least 1.5 % water or void fraction less than 98.5% in a steam-water mixture and areas without localized tube dry-out conditions are required in a nuclear steam generator to preclude the onset of fluid elastic instability. A review of NUREG-1841 published during the SCE/MHI design stages of San Onofre Replacement Steam Generators indicates that experienced manufacturers of steam generators (like Westinghouse/CE & BW&I) have used a combination of design and operational features [(high circulation ratios(>4), high steam pressures (> 900 psi) and low friction losses] to keep the void fractions at 98.5% or below and have prevented localized tube dry-out conditions and steam blanketing in more than several hundred operating US Steam Generators. Dr. Pettigrew has emphasized the solid teamwork and alignment between the designer and manufacturers of nuclear power plant components since 1970’s to prevent the adverse effects of fluid elastic instability and flow induced vibrations. Low steam pressures are severe for tube vibrations, but saturated steam also has high enthalpy at low steam pressures. Therefore, from steam generators, by operating at low steam pressures, you can produce more thermal megawatts, and thereby, supply more electricity to the grid.
Per NRR RAI #13, “SONGS RSGs have installed 377 (~4%) more tubes (9,727 versus 9,350) than the OSGs. RSG tubes have a larger average heated length (729.56 in. versus 680.64 in.) than the OSG tubes. These features resulted in larger values for the RSG for heat transfer area, tube-bundle flow area, and tube-bundle water volume.” MHI Root cause states, “Thus, not using ATHOS, which predicts higher void fractions than FIT-III at the time of design represented, at most, a missed opportunity to take further design steps, not directed at in-plane FEI, that might have resulted in a different design that might have avoided in-plane FEI. However, the AVB Design Team recognized that the design for the SONGS RSGs resulted in higher steam quality (void fraction) than previous designs and had considered making changes to the design to reduce the void fraction (e.g., using a larger downcomer, using larger flow slot design for the tube support plates, and even removing a TSP). But each of the considered changes had unacceptable consequences and the AVB Design Team agreed not to implement them. Among the difficulties associated with the potential changes was the possibility that making them could impede the ability to justify the RSG design under the provisions of 10 C.F.R.§50.59. Thus, one cannot say that use of a different code than FIT-III would have prevented the occurrence of the in-plane FEI observed in the SONGs RSGs or that any feasible design changes arising from the use of a different code would have reduced the void fraction sufficiently to avoid tube-to-tube wear. For the same reason, an analysis of the cumulative effects of the design changes including the departures from the OSG’s design and MHI’s previously successful designs would not have resulted in a design change that directly addressed in-plane FEI.”
This design change of average tube heated length (729.56 in. versus 680.64 in.) increase is the most damaging design change made without a 50.90 License Amendment both by MHI and SCE. Mitsubishi was instructed by SCE to make the RSG tubes as tall as possible in orders to maximize the tube heat transfer area. This change caused unacceptable FEI consequences in Unit 3, which may be one of the reasons that U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer and Congressman Edward J. Markey expressed the following concern on February 6, 2013 in their letter to NRC Chairman Allison McFarlane: “Southern California Edison was aware of problems with replacement steam generators at its San Onofre nuclear power plant but chose not to make fixes.” And SCE proudly claims, “These changes result in larger values for the RSG for heat transfer area, tube bundle flow area, and tube bundle water volume. This is beneficial in the short and long term for SB LOCAs, which rely upon the steam generators for RCS heat removal.” In response to Senator Barbara’s letter, SCE states, “The report was submitted to the NRC by MHI months ago as part of the voluminous records, data, information and other materials the NRC has been thoroughly reviewing and inspecting as part of its consideration of SCE’s request to restart Unit 2 safely. It is simply not accurate to suggest, as the letter does, that when they were installed ‘SCE and MHI were aware of serious problems with the design of San Onofre nuclear plant’s steam generators.’ Indeed, MHI, the manufacturer of the steam generators warranted the steam generators to be free from defects for 20 years after installation. SCE would never, and did not install steam generators that it believed would not perform safely. SCE, like other utilities seeking to replace their steam generators, sought to purchase replacement steam generators that would meet or improve upon the safety standards and performance of the original steam generators.”
Press Reports state, “The operator of the troubled San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station wants to put its reactor restart plan into effect on June 1. Doug Broaddus, the chief of the special project branch that oversees the northern San Diego County power plant for the NRC, responded that such a timeline presented “a challenge.” I’m not going to make any commitments as to whether we can make that date or not and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff told Edison officials the company’s June 1 target date might be out of reach, given the complexity of a proposal that comes with reams of technical paperwork. The NRC must stand firm and demand a comprehensive license amendment process that includes all safety issues and the opportunity for a full public hearing, said Kendra Ulrich, nuclear campaigner for Friends of the Earth. Unit 2 is “a severely damaged reactor that is unsafe to operate,” she said.” Press Reports further state, “The future of the heavily damaged Unit 3 reactor, where the radiation leak occurred after a tube break last year, is not clear. Edison has said that because of manufacturing differences, Unit 2’s generators did not suffer the extent of deep tube wear witnessed in its sister. Decaying generator tubes helped push San Onofre’s Unit 1 reactor into retirement in 1992, even though it was designed to run until 2004. The following year, the Trojan nuclear plant, near Portland, Oregon was shuttered because of microscopic cracks in steam generator tubes, cutting years off its expected lifespan. Cracked and corroded generator tubing has vexed the nation’s nuclear industry for years.
Not in so many words, but NRC Chairman has publically stated “SCE is responsible for the work of all its contractors and sub-contractors including MHI, AREVA, Westinghouse and Intertek. Regulators may need to be “buffered” from political winds, but they need to be fully subjected to the pressure of scientific and engineering truth and cannot be allowed to make decisions or order actions that are “independent” of facts. They cannot be allowed to push rules that are aimed at addressing emotional feelings and reinforcing irrational fears.” “Our safety culture, skills and ability were all insufficient,” said Naomi Hirose, president of Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), at a recent news conference for the release of a new report on the Japanese utility company’s response to the Fukushima Daiichi accident in March 2011. The report determined TEPCO’s equipment and safety provisions were insufficient; that the company’s safety measures were inadequate; and that it did a poor job of keeping the public informed.
Let us examine the operator timing issue of multiple tube ruptures about which NRC Staff has been publicly silent since this issue was raised in 2000.
By, Emergency Planning Rules, an operator has 15 minutes to diagnose an event, declare the event, notify the offsite agencies and start taking initial actions to stop the nuclear accident in progress and manually trip the reactor. We have already discussed the potential of multiple tube ruptures caused by a main steam line break in Unit 2 with assumed failure of main steam isolation valve to close, discounted the operators of taking any mitigating safety actions within 5-15 minutes, because reactor will already be tripped by the automatic systems. So let us examine, what automatic systems do and what are the consequences of the steam generator ruptured tubes in first 15 minutes without operator action.
Abnormal operation (Main Steam Line Break) modes of the main steam system consist of rapid (step) reductions in power demand (zero demand) and transients that result in an automatic reactor, turbine, feedwater pump and reactor coolant pump trips. the generic signs of a main steam line break are rapid deterioration of steam generator pressure sudden change in steam generator level, decreasing reactor coolant system temperature and pressure, decreasing pressurizer level, large differential pressure between steam generators of 2250 psi between the tubes and steam generator. SCE states, “MSLB alone does not generate sufficient differential pressure to cause tube rupture. The differential pressure across the SG tubes necessary to cause a rupture will not occur if operators prevent RCS re-pressurization in accordance with Emergency Operating Instructions.”
So now, the steam generator is isolated with Zero Pressure connected to the environment, with 100% Fluid Elastic Instability, Feedwater Jet Impingement on the damaged and cracked tubes and differential pressure between Steam Generators of 2250 psi between the tubes and steam generator and SCE is hoping that operators would stop the auxiliary feedwater flow to the broken generator. So, now what will happen to the tubes, and I will expand on scenario:
According to Federal Regulations, steam generator tubes are required to be designed with extremely low probability of leakage and assumed to maintain structural integrity for 40 years. According to NRC rules and Nuclear Energy Institute Tube Management Program Criteria, these tubes are required to be plugged, and taken out of service, if they lose their wall thickness greater than 35%.
Based on a review of SONGS plant data/procedures, various San Onofre Technical Reports, Academic Research Papers (Dr. Pettigrew and others) and input from a leading professional chemical engineer in the world with Ph.D. from McGill and Post-Doctorate work in two-phase flow, it is concluded: (1) Due to extremely high reactor coolant & steam flows (To generate more power for profits more than the design thermal heat transfer capacity of the steam generators and more thermal reactor power than allowed by NRC), high hot leg heat flux, extremely high in-plane velocities (> 56 feet/sec), very tall tube bundle, narrow tube pitch to tube diameter ratio, low steam pressures, low tube-to-tube clearances, no in-plane restraints (zero contact forces, U-bends free span not supported by effective in-plane anti-vibration bars) and zero water on tube surfaces (film boiling, departure from nucleate boiling), fluid elastic instability, flow induced vibrations and Mitsubishi Flowering Effect in SONGS Unit 3 caused tube-to-tube wear and fatigue cracking causing 1 tube to leak, 8 tubes to fail main steam line break test pressure and 380 tubes lost their wall thickness greater than 35% in only 11 months of operation. Besides the same design defects as Unit 3, SONGS Unit 2 did not experience fluid elastic instability due to lower steam flows and higher steam pressures. Unit 2 has very tall tube bundle, narrow tube pitch to tube diameter ratio, low tube-to-tube clearances (A large number of U-bends with only 0.05 inch clearances, Design clearance = 0.25 inches), no in-plane restraints (zero in-plane contact forces, U-bends free span not supported by effective in-plane anti-vibration bars), low frequency retainer bars, thousands of tubes with undetected tube-to-tube wear and macroscopic cracks, and large number of plugged/stabilized tubes. These tubes would be prone to rapid tube-to-tube wear, crack growth and sudden cascading tube leakages and/or ruptures under operational and DBA transients described below. Once an accident is progress, the situation will be beyond operator control and SONGS Defense–in-Depth Engineered safety features can likely be insufficient to prevent a partial or complete nuclear core meltdown like Fukushima, Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.
The phenomenon of cracking due to high cycle fatigue of U-bend tubes not supported by an Anti-Vibration Bars (AVB) was highlighted as early as 1987 by NRC (tube rupture in the North Anna 1 plant) and Japanese Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1991 (Mihama MHI SG Tube Rupture). Between 2004 and 2006, three primary-to-secondary leaks occurred at the Cruas NPP: Unit 1 in February 2004 and unit 4 in November 2005 and February 2006. The three leaks were all the result of a circumferential crack in the tube at the location where the tube passes through the uppermost tube support plate (TSP #8). The tubes which leaked at Cruas were all located in raw 8 and were not supported by AVB by design. They were not considered sensitive to high cycle fatigue. A new fact caused the leakages observed on the Cruas units: the heavy build-up of deposits on the secondary side of the steam generator which changed the flow conditions in the center of the tube bundle. The deposits reduced or blocked water/steam flow through the quadrifoil-shaped holes in TSPs, forcing more water and steam into the center of the tube bundle, which caused the excessive vibration of the tubes near the center of the tube bundle. This excessive vibration due to fluid-elastic instability resulted in fatigue cracking of the tube.
Based on a leading Public Safety Nuclear Research Scientist and numerous Independent Technical Experts, Southern California Edison has not identified the root cause for the unusually excessive tube wears and loss of fatigue life in the four steam generators (RSGs) of units 2 and 3 at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. The components causing the wear (Anti-Vibration and retainer Bars, and damaged tube bundle) would have to be replaced and the SONGS license amended before the units can be restarted. The above assessment also applies to SCE proposed five-month test of Unit 2 at 70% reduced power. Based upon identification of an error in the MHI stress calculations, the revised analysis shows that because of the wear damage previously sustained by Unit 2, some tubes will be susceptible to rapid fatigue failure. The tubes will exceed their allowable fatigue life by 22 to 29% during the next operating cycle 17. The risk of tube rupture increases with operating time but the SCE/MHI analysis is not capable of quantifying it in terms of operating time.
Because of the unprecedented severity and scale of tube degradation at SONGS 3, there is no data to determine the safety consequences of operations with failure prone tubes. The existing performance criteria are of little help because they were derived from accident progression of tubes with small stress corrosion cracks—rather than accident progression with fatigued tubes. These criteria are not sufficiently conservative because primary to secondary leakage is expected to develop more suddenly when tube failure is caused by fluid elastic instability vibration fatigue. Because the uncertainties in predicting how fatigued tubes can rapidly and instantaneous propagate failures, it is impossible to assess quantitatively safety risks. The assessment by SCE Independent experts was therefore limited to a discussion of discrete accident scenarios without assigning a probability to any specific scenario. It is believed that a main steam line break (MSLB) represents a bounding case. A conservative estimate of the probability of a large early release of radiation with containment bypass would be 10E-4 per year for any operating cycle. Such risk exceeds NRC’s safety goals. Units 2 and 3 at SONGS have the highest risk of tube rupture related core damage than any other nuclear power plant in the US.
Based on review of the AIT report, the March 2013 MHI root cause report, NEI 96-07, and 10 CFR 50.59, it is concluded that SCE did not adhere to the 50.59 guidelines regarding license amendment requirements. A main cause of the RSG failures can be attributed to the fact that the design changes initially were not reviewed by a financially independent and competent engineering organization. The documents produced by SCE following the January 2012 incident contain serious technical flaws and reflect lack of impartiality. SCE and MHI did not provide any data to support their contention that the various design change options discussed in 2006 by the AVB Design Team would have had no significant effect on flow velocities and steam quality. SCE consultants AREVA, Westinghouse and MHI differed on the root cause of tube vibrations and none of their opinions were based on sound scientific principles. The safety consequences of operating with degraded tubes are more serious than envisioned by the consultants. It is apparent that SCE focused its attention on explaining away errors in the design, computer modeling, fabrication and management of the RSGs by MHI. There is no indication that any consideration was given to the long-term safety risk of operating Units 2 and 3, with each containing more than identified 1500 defects (3401 in all) and thousands more unidentified defects.
Westinghouse obtained the K values in their test model MB-2. Since the MB-2 tubes are shorter in length than their model F, the reported values of K are subject to large uncertainties. It is not at all clear how the MB-2 data is applicable to the SONGS RSGs. To appropriately scale the Westinghouse K values to the RSG, it would first be necessary to apply correction factors to allow for the difference in length and tube support geometries. While reducing power level decreases the probability of tube wear it is not at all clear that the 70% power level represents a conservative value when considering the large uncertainties in the Westinghouse analysis.
Thermal-Hydraulic computer codes are based on the porous model, proprietary experimental data and out-of-plane correlations. Sensitivity studies are commonly used to highlight the effects of design changes on code predictions, thereby allowing uncertainty estimates. Since the FIT-lll code has not been benchmarked and MHI has not provided any sensitivity results, it is impossible to tell whether MHI’s predictions were in error due to a faulty computer code or a faulty input. When SCE assigns a confidence level of 50% to certain predicted SR value, it is impossible to assess its validity because the uncertainties are unknown. It is therefore difficult to assess the risk associated with the 70% power operations. An independent reviewer has no choice but to use bounding models to predict risk.
In spite of the synergy between wear and fatigue, SCE did not address it. None of SCE’s consultants apparently considered the synergetic effects of wear and fatigue in their assessment of tube wear in Unit 2 at the reduced power level. For a given tube, the repeated impacts on its surface together with its sliding motion will affect tube wear. The major uncertainty in using the ASME data relates to the incubation period, which depends on the combination of number of impacts and sliding motions. No data is available to clarify this point; physical reasoning would dictate that the ASME plots used by MHI are not sufficiently conservative for the type of wear that has occurred at SONGS.
(i) Steady State Operations. Due to random variations in local vibration intensity tube failure will be initiated in a single tube with relatively slow through the wall crack propagation. Such failures likely would be confined to a single tube lending to a timely detection and removal from service.
(ii) Operational Transients. Next in severity are tube ruptures from operational transient (opening or closing of valves, scrams, etc). To ensure that the tubes withstand such transients, the ASME code requires that their Cumulative Usage Factor (CUF) be less than one. When the RSGs were installed the predicted CUF was a low number because it was calculated for pristine tubes. The fact that the tubes were stressed to above their endurance limit and they vibrated with frequencies on the order of 10 to 50 HZ, means that their CUF exceeded unity. A tube with CUF >1 would be prone to a rapid crack growth and sudden rupture under operational and DBA transients.
(iii) Main Steam Line Break (“MSLB”). An MSLB could lead to the most severe consequence for operations with degraded tubes. SCE’s current licensing base (“CLB”) requires that the plant accommodate such accidents. The MSLB accident is of particular concern to the type of tube failures that occurred at SONGS because of the high excitation frequency. A plugged tube, that has been removed from service, still continues to vibrate and hit other tubes and erode in strength. Eventually, these tubes will breaking in two half during a main steam line break. Each loose end of the broken tube will act as a whip damaging (cutting) adjacent tubes. The energy for the whips originates with the vibrations of the main steam line, the swelling of two-phase mixture during the initial phase of the transient and the energy from jets of any leaking adjacent tubes. In comparison, SCE and NRC state that only few drops of radioactive coolant will escape to the environment with the operator quickly isolating the leaking steam generator. NRC staff at the NRC Emergency Response Center during the accident would be scratching their heads saying, “We have not seen anything like that before, we only studied what happened to cracked tubes during steam line breaks. Our performance technical specifications were based on the behavior of cracked, but strong tubes not paper-thin walled tubes.”
SUMMARY: Unit 2 anti-vibration bar bundle and support structure is not designed for positive in-plane vibrations and it has hundreds of damaged and plugged tubes with unspecified number of undetected and incubation cracks in progress caused by high cycle thermal fatigue. During normal operations at reduced power operations during the 5-month test period, due to anticipated operational transients and main steam line breaks, these damaged tubes due to fluid elastic instability, flow-induced vibrations and Mitsubishi Flowering Effect (Due to the Extremely Tall Tube Bundle compared wit other Mitsubishi Generators) can potentially experience from one tube leakage to cascading tube ruptures beyond operator’s control and can potentially result in a nuclear meltdown. This is consistent with NRC Fukushima Task Force Lessons Learnt. The Reports prepared by NRC AIT Team, SCE, MHI, AREVA, Westinghouse and Intertek are inconsistent, confusing, conflicting, ambiguous, based on invalidated data, faulty computer and statistical modeling and fail to arrive at a clear and concise conclusion. The reports prepared by Dr. Joram Hopenfeld, Arnie Gundersen, John large, Professor Daniel Hirsch and me based on review of plant data/documents, review of research papers and industry benchmarking, and conversations with SONGS insiders (Root Cause Team, Operations Shift Managers, Nuclear Fuels, Hazard Barrier Group, Nuclear Regulatory Affairs, Project Management Organization, etc.) are consistent and clear that Unit 2 is not safe for power at 70% operations.
These factors will be measured on a scale of 0 to 10, 10 being the best and 0 being the worst rating.
Definitions and Ranking
• Highest Safety – Low probability of a tube rupture due to operational transients and main steam line break – 10
• Lowest Safety – Cascading tube ruptures due to operational transients and main steam line break – 0
• High Base-Load Reliability – 24/7 uninterrupted 2100 MWt supply to grid with voltage support -10
• No Base Load Reliability – 730 MWt with frequent shutdown and interrupted supply to grid with only 30% of the time voltage support – 0
• Best Economics – Nuclear plants are the lowest-cost producer of base- load electricity. The average production cost of 2.19 cents per kilowatt-hour includes the costs of operating and maintaining the plant, purchasing fuel and paying for the management of used fuel. (www.nei.org)) -10
• Worst Economics – With SONGS Restart, cost is unknown, but will be highest in the nation – 0
SONGS Unit 2 Restart Statistics
• Lowest Safety – 0
• Worst Economics -0
• No Reliability – 0
• INPO Rating – 4 (Worst Operating Record of A Nuclear Power Plant)
• General Safety Record – Worst in the USA according to NRC Data
• Fire Safety Record – Unit 3 shutdown for 5 months in 2001, $100 Million Loss, falsification of fire watch records for 5 years, 250 ignition sources/welding/grinding/procedure violations between 2010-2012
• Emergency Preparedness Record – Lowest in the nation between 2006-2012, Some of the best Shift Managers, Station Emergency Directors, Corporate Emergency Directors and Plant Operators have resigned, retired or Laid Off
• Cyber Security Initial Awareness Training – Audit found 1300 site workers, Cyber Security Program Manager, Chief Nuclear Officer and several other Directors out of SONGS not EIX procedure compliance
• Management Record – Several of the Chief nuclear Officers have retired or resigned. Some of Present Senior Leadership Directors are inefficient, few are inefficient and retaliating, some are inactive and complacent, and the whole team is production/profit oriented rather than safety oriented
• Steam Generators – 8 Steam generators destroyed by flawed design and mis-operations at a cost of Several Billion Dollars to Rate Payers, Arrangements are on the way to destroy the remaining 2.
• Future – Depends upon NRC, affects the safety of 8.4 Million Californians
• Steam Generator Repair/replacement Project – Estimated Duration – 5 Years – Cost – Unknown – NRC Report: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) inspection team observed various activities associated with the mock-up tests of a portion of the upper tube bundle. The activities being done by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) were conducted to determine if a design modification to repair the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) steam generators was feasible. The design modification testing consisted of anti-vibration bar insertion tests using three different designs. The three different anti-vibration bar designs were:
(1) Thicker – inserted between and parallel to existing anti-vibration bars
(2) 30 Degree – inserted at a 30 degree angle to existing anti-vibration bars, forming intersections with existing anti-vibration bars
(3) Comb – shaped like a comb and will be inserted into the bundle on every other row and then rotated 90 degrees, locking tubes into place between the “teeth” of the comb.
In discussions with MHI personnel, they indicated that the thicker anti-vibration bar will likely be the least difficult to insert and the comb anti-vibration bar the most difficult to insert due to slight differences in the gaps and arrangement of the tubes.
The last option (3) is beneficial for fluid elastic stability (FEI), but also increases significantly the risk of cascading tube ruptures tube rupture @100%, 1729 MWt per RSG @ MSLB Conditions. The first two options (1) (2) are not beneficial for fluid elastic stability. MHI has does not have the tools, technology or skills to repair/replace these flawed and degraded generators, unless MHI works out a deal with Westinghouse to acquire the required tools and skills. If the deal does not work, SCE is only left wit two options, which were recommended a year ago, but were ignored:
Option 1 – Give a turnkey contact to repair/replace the replacement Steam Generators to Westinghouse/Bechtel, Fire/Retire/Lay Of the Inefficient and retaliating Leaders, and Hire Capable and Human Managers, or
Option 2 – Dismantle and Decommission San Onofre Units 2 & 3.
First Strike – 1992 – Decaying generator tubes helped push San Onofre’s Unit 1 reactor into retirement in 1992, even though it was designed to run until 2004.
Second Strike – 2001Power Uprate – To generate more power, Edison Engineers increased the steam flows and lowered the steam generator pressures, which increased vibrations, and shortened the life of Rate Payers Paid Original Steam generators.
Third Strike – 2011 – SONGS Unit 3 – To generate more power, believing that Unit 3 anti-vibration structure was built better than Unit 2, Edison Engineers tested the new supports by increasing the reactor coolant flows, steam flows and lowered the steam generator pressures, which increased vibrations, and destroyed the Rate Payers Paid brand New Replacement Steam generators. Edison has said that because of manufacturing differences, Unit 2′s generators did not suffer the extent of deep tube wear witnessed in its sister plant. Unit 2 was not operating in the test mode and did not experience fluid elastic instability because of lower reactor coolant flows, lower steam flows and higher steam generator pressures. Unit 2 better supports and double the contact forces unproven theory is just a conjecture on the part of SCE/MHI based on hideous data, faulty computer simulations and an excuse to start defectively designed and degraded Unit 2. Unit 2 better supports and double the contact forces unproven theory is just a cheap SCE scheme to charge insurance money from MHI and more money from ratepayers. This bogus and unconvincing theory is contested and challenged based on the available plant data and review of Dr. Pettigrew’s research papers and testimony, John Large, MHI, Westinghouse and AREVA Reports.
Fourth Strike – 2013 – Edison officials are also preparing long-range plans under which the plant might run for years, even though some of Edison’s own research has suggested tube damage could cut short its life span. Precise projections about the future are dependent on a restart — Edison engineers need to study how the reactor behaves at 70 percent power before being able to sharpen longer-range calculations. The plant could be started then shut down, as many as five times during a trial run to assess its operation and safety. “To propose an experiment in which the damaged reactor is repeatedly turned on and off shows a disgraceful contempt for public safety,” said Kendra Ulrich, a spokeswoman for the Friends of the Earth. Unit 2 restart without complete and thorough review by NRC Brilliant Engineers and Public Hearings on the basis of meeting peak summer electricity demands is an unapproved experiment and just a cheap SCE scheme to charge more money from ratepayers.
Last Strike – Albert Einstein, “Any intelligent …. can make things bigger, more complex, and more ….. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.” Ted Craver needs to tell Ron, Pete, Tom, Rich, John, Mike, Vic, Doug and others to stop wasting NRC and Public’s time and money and award a turnkey contract to Westinghouse and Bechtel to repair or replace both Units Steam generators. This will be expensive, but wise long term and an excellent PR move for Ted, Ron, Pete and EIX/SCE shareholders, and will be in the best interests of NRC, INPO, NEI, Nuclear Industry, CPUC and the Concerned Public. Of course, On SCE Federally Leased Territory, SCE can retaliate, discriminate, harass, intimidate, fire, lay off, demote shut up an employee in violation of federal regulation and get away with it due to their power, attorneys, money and political connections, but my friends, this is America, The Greatest Democratic Country in the world, and outside the Federally Leased SCE Controlled Secured Territory, SCE/NRC cannot ignore and shut up the paying and concerned public in violation of the Open Government Doctrine of His Honorable Excellency, The President of the United States, US Justice Department, US Congress and the US Constitution.
Special Thanks to NRC and Moderator Mr. Victor Dricks for posting this blog
SPECIAL Public/NRC/SCE Awareness Series by HAHN Baba
AREVA, The number 2 French manufacturer of nuclear plants in the world states, “Out-of-plane fluid-elastic instability has been observed in nuclear steam generators in the past and has led to tube bursts at normal operating conditions.” Recent history of steam generator tube ruptures is as follows:
• At around 13: 50, on February 9th, 1991, leakage of about 55 tons of primary coolant occurred due to the failure of one SG tube in a steam generator built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in the No. 2 pressurized water reactor at the Mihama nuclear power station in Japan. At the same time, water pressure in the core had dropped drastically and the ECCS kicked in, flooding the reactor and shutting it down. If the core had been left exposed, a meltdown — an overheating of the fuel that can, if uncontrolled, lead to a large release of radioactivity — could have occurred. One main steam isolation valve and one pressurizer relief valve could not be operated by remote control. Therefore, the valve operation was carried out manually. In the following week an estimated 7 million Bq was released into the sea and an estimated 5 billion Bq of radioactive gas was released into the atmosphere. This tube rupture caused the first INES level 3 nuclear incident in Japan, which raised social concerns. In order to provide an opportunity to learn from the accident that resulted in the leakage of primary coolant from the SG tube due to fretting fatigue, the damaged steam generator has been preserved in an exhibition at the Mihama station of the Kansai Electric Power Company. An exhibition is a good way to help everyone to good lessons from an accident. http://www.sozogaku.com/fkd/en/cfen/CB1061010.html
• On 9 August 2004, an accident occurred in a building housing turbines for the Mihama 3 reactor. Hot water and steam leaking from a broken pipe killed four workers and resulted in seven others being injured. The accident had been called Japan’s worst nuclear power accident before the crisis at Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihama_Nuclear_Power_Plant
• Between 2004 and 2006, three primary-to-secondary leaks occurred at the Cruas Nuclear Power Plant in France: unit 1 in February 2004 and unit 4 in November 2005 and February 2006.
http://www.eurosafe-forum.org/files/Presentations2008/Seminar%201/Abstracts/1.5%20Tubes%20support%20plates%20clogging%20up%20of%20French%20PWR%20steam%20generators%20V5%20correct%20figures%20Bodineau_20080923.pdf
The point is that from the above real accident information, you can see a tube rupture can occur in SONGS unit 2 at 70% power due to numerous undetected internal cracks in tubes opening up at any time because of Mother Nature’s Mood, adverse operational conditions and/or equipment/operator failures. There are hundreds of damaged tubes with unknown amount of internal cracks and 100% tube inspection of these damaged tubes with computer controlled high technology laser, radiographic probes and remote video cameras is an extremely difficult, very time consuming and expensive process. SCE, MHI and AREVA have inspected only those areas in Unit 2 steam generators, which were previously damaged, and areas easily accessible with average technology probes. That is why NRC is doing special tube inspections, and nobody really knows or will ever know because of proprietary information, what percent of the steam generator areas, NRC Inspectors with the assistance of their highly specialized and qualified contactors will be able to access and inspect. FYI, under the NRC and NEI steam generator tube inspection and management rules, a tube is required to be plugged, if its looses more than 35% wall thickness. Tubes are only 0.043 inches thick and pressurized with 2200 psi highly radioactive coolant.
Here is what the NRC AIT report states after the Unit 3 tube leak inspection, “At 4:10 p.m., operations personnel evaluated that the primary-to-secondary leak rate exceeded 75 gallons per day on steam generator 3E0-88 and that the leak was increasing at greater than 30 gallons per day per hour, and consequently, initiated a rapid power reduction to be ≤ 50 percent power in one hour and in Mode 3 within the next two hours per Abnormal Operating Instruction SO23-13-14. In accordance with Abnormal Operating Instruction SO23-13-14, when reactor power was less than 35 percent, operations personnel tripped the reactor at 5:31 p.m. to enter Mode 3. These examinations identified over 160 tubes in each steam generator with long free-span indications similar to that found on the leaking tube. More than half of the free-span indications in each steam generator had maximum measured depths exceeding the 35 percent plugging limit in the technical specifications, and ranged to as much as 99 percent (for the non-leaking tubes).”
So now, according to the emergency planning rules, a Shift Manager has only 15 minutes to diagnose the leak and take protective actions to stop the leak. The last time leak was small and growing, but it took operators more than one hour and 20 minutes to trip the reactor. There were also 2 more tubes with loss of 99% wall thickness besides the leaking tube and could have leaked and operators would not have been able to control the plant. Now, if any of these tubes would have busted, steam generator would have pressurized and we would have seen a reoccurrence of 1991 Mihama accident described previously. Southern Californians were lucky, because the SONGS best Shift Manager was on duty. In 2001, Unit 3 was shutdown due to a fire for 5 months due to a combination of faulty alarms and human errors resulting in a loss of 100 Million dollars.
SONGS Emergency Planning drill record is one of the lowest in the nation for the last six years, an average between 94-96%. That means, operator can fail 5% of the time in detecting and diagnosing the problem and bringing the reactor under control in time, if it is a full blown tube rupture. If the reactor is not brought under control in time and if it is one or more than one tube rupture and radioactivity gets into the environment, then it depends upon the wind direction. If the wind is blowing towards the ocean, damage will be minimum to the residents. If the wind blows towards San Clemente, and it is rush-hour traffic, nobody really knows and can estimate the immediate and long-term damage to the human life with untested computer programs and models.
Therefore, there are lot of unknowns with Mother Nature’s Mood, condition of Unit 2 tubes, SONGS equipment failures and SONGS Operators Skills and Intuitions. Is it worth the risks, NRC has to decide. Running at 70% power does not make any economic sense. Can Southern Californians live with the risks and without SONGS in operation, until both units are completely repaired or replaced? Of course, they have lived for 15 months without SONGS and can live for two to three more years by conserving more. I am sure, Southern Californians rather be safe than sorry. SCE can buy surplus power from North and Palo Verde. All the Hospitals, Emergency Rooms have Emergency Generators. Can SCE, MHI or NRC guarantee safety of Southern Californians, ask them? In the end, it is a game of money, politics, power and a chance. Human life is priceless compared to any amount of SCE Profits or temporary inconvenience of living without electricity.
Ace Hoffman says:
I couldn’t have said it better myself…
Thanks to NRC Special San Onofre Review Panel for posting this blog.
San Onofre Billion Dollar Debacle SCE/MHI/NRC Fukushima Lessons Learnt and Public Awareness Series – HAHN BABA
SCE 10CFR 50. 92 (No Significant Hazards Consideration Analysis) License Amendment for San Onofre Nuclear Plant – SCE has to provide NO answer to one of the following 3 questions:
(1) Involve a significant increase in the probability or consequences of an accident previously evaluated; or
(2) Create the possibility of a new or different kind of accident from any accident previously evaluated; or
(3) Involve a significant reduction in a margin of safety.
It appears from a review of all the NRC Regulations and NRC Staff reports/ correspondence that NRC/Industry/NEI/EPRI purposely does not believe in the Ex-NRC Highly Educated, Brilliant Researcher, Eminent Scientist, Public Safety Expert [NAME REDACTED] theory, actual observations and concerns of cracked tubes, cascading tube leaks/ruptures caused by steam line breaks at several power plants (SONGS Unit 2 Scenario -100% void fractions resulting in uncovery of the tube bundle, jet impingement loads on tubes caused by flashing feedwater and stored energy in SG, loose metallic objects and parts of of broken tubes cutting other tubes, 36 U-bends with clearances of 0.05 inches, failure of retainer bars due to FEI velocities causing collapse of Anti-vibration bar bundle and rupturing other pressurized tubes, resonance vibrations and re-pressurization of SG resulting in loss of more coolant, etc.) and operator errors even after what happened with SCE/MHI designed Magical out-of-plane anti-FEI vibration bar bundle in SONGS 3, then the readymade cookbook SCE answers based on knowledge of SONGS 50.59/FSAR Culture are as follows
1) Yes, Operating SONGS Unit 2 between 70-95% power involves more than a minimal increase per SONGS 50.59 Readymade Cookbook, but does NOT Really Involve a significant increase in the probability or consequences of an accident previously evaluated;
(2) Operating SONGS Unit 2 between 70-95% power does NOT Really create the possibility of a new or different kind of accident from any accident previously evaluated; and
(3) Yes, Operating SONGS Unit 2 between 70-95% power involves more than a minimal increase, but does NOT Really involve a significant reduction in a margin of safety.
Then the question is if SCE is so sure of readymade cookbook answers like the Replacement Steam Generator 50.59 Evaluation Conservative NO Answers, why does not SCE want to apply for a License Amendment to operate Unit 2 at 95% power and afraid to go through a questioning public hearing. If SCE applies for a License Amendment to operate Unit 2 at 95% power and goes through a satisfactory public hearing, it makes good economic and public relations sense for SCE. Satisfying the concerned public in a democratic country like USA is key to the future of SCE, NRC, MHI and Nuclear Industry and intentionally avoiding the worried and restless public is an admission of guilt, negligence of duty, and is an indication of SCE using money and political clout to subvert the NRC regulatory process and violation of Federal Regulations. NRC has very brilliant and dedicated safety staff and I hope they do not get trapped and tainted like the Japanese regulators with Fukushima….Very Strong Rumors on the street from several sources that some elected and appointed officials with authority over Senator Barbara Boxer and Dr. Macfarlane are adamant and pushing restart of Unit 2 despite very strong objections from public, technical experts, scientists, Ex-NRC Chiefs, Friends of the Earth, Media and several Safety Organizations. In the End, Southern Californians need safe, reliable, well managed/maintained nuclear plants free of worker retaliation, discrimination and harassment for expressing nuclear safety concerns and Not a SONGS Fukushima in their Backyards.
PROBLEM STATEMENT: Based on review of power data supplied by Southern California Edison for Unit 3 during January 2012, one concludes that SONGS most likely exceeded Unit 3 Reactor Thermal Power allowed Upper NRC Limit of 3478 MWt (Includes Reactor Coolant Pumps contribution of 20 MWt ±0.58% allowed NRC Crossflow UFM instrument Error) ~ 23 times out of 31. NRC needs to review Unit 3 Operational data for 2011 to determine if it was a procedural problem of calibrating the Crossflow UFM instrument system, and if so, why it was not detected and corrected by SCE.
Background: Maximum Power Level Southern California Edison Company (SCE) is authorized to operate the facility at reactor core power levels not in excess of full power (3438 megawatts thermal). Based on its review of the information provided by the SCE regarding the Crossflow UFM system measurement uncertainty and plant power calorimetric measurement uncertainty, the NRC staff finds that the SONGS Units 2 and 3 thermal power measurement uncertainty using the Crossflow UFM is limited to ±0.58 percent of reactor thermal power and can support the proposed increase in licensed reactor power.
February 26, 2013, 89.3 KPCC, Southern California Public Radio, “Boxer says documents from a whistle blower show SoCal Edison was trying to avoid having to reapply for a permit and was “aware” the repairs made to the plant aren’t the ones that should have been done.” I support the Honorable Senator Barbara Boxer 100%. I wish she had taken action earlier.
1. Dr. Pettigrew: So, you notice the U-bend — the plane of the U-bend is being installed, and on top of the U-bends are bars. They are anti-vibration bars. And so you can see here that from the point of view of out-of-plane motion, the tubes are really very well supported because you have a large number of bars all around; but from the point of view of in-plane motion, there’s really no positive restraint here to prevent the tube to move in the in-plane direction. Essentially, it relies on friction forces to limit the vibration.
2. Westinghouse states, “Test data shows that the onset of in-plane (IP) vibration requires much higher velocities than the onset of out-of-plane (OP) fluid-elastic excitation. Hence, a tube that may vibrate in-plane (IP) would definitely be unstable OP. A small AVB gap (3 Mil) that would be considered active in the OP mode would also be active in the IP mode because the small gap will prevent significant in-plane motion due to lack of clearance (gap) for the combined OP and IP motions. Thus, a contact force is not required to prevent significant IP motion. Manufacturing Considerations: None were extensively treated in the SCE root cause evaluation.”
3. AREVA states, “At 100% power, the thermal-hydraulic conditions in the U-bend region of the SONGS replacement steam generators exceeded the past successful operational envelope for U-bend nuclear steam generators based on presently available data. The primary source of tube-to-AVB contact forces is the restraint provided by the retaining bars and bridges, reacting against the component dimensional dispersion of the tubes and AVBs. Contact forces are available for both cold and hot conditions. Contact forces significantly increase at normal operating temperature and pressure due to diametric expansion of the tubes and thermal growth of the AVBs. After fluid elastic instability develops, the amplitude of in-plane motion continuously increases and the forces needed to prevent in-plane motion at any given AVB location become relatively large. Hence shortly after instability occurs, U-bends begin to swing in Mode 1 and overcome hindrance at any AVB location. There are 36 U-bends in Unit 2 SG E-088 and 34 in SG E-089 with a separation less than or equal to 0.050 inches. These tubes are the first ones to break/rupture in 5 months or during an accident.”
4. John Large States, “Causes of Tube and Restraint Component Motion and Wear: My study of the various OAs leads me to the following findings and opinion that; (i) degradation of the tube restraint localities (RBs, AVBs and TSPs) occurs in the absence of fluid elastic instability (FEI) activity; (ii) TTW, acknowledged to arise from in-plane FEI activity, generally occurs where the AVB restraint has deteriorated at one or more localities along the length of individual tubes; (iii) the number of tube wear sites or incidences for AVB/TSP locations outstrips the TTW wear site incidences in the tube free-span locations. I find that the ‘zero-gap’ AVB assembly, which features strongly in the onset of TTW, is clearly designed to cope only with out-of-plane tube motion since there is little designed-in resistance to movement in the in-plane direction – because of this, it is just chance (a combination of manufacturing variations, expansion and pressurization, etc) that determines the in-plane effectiveness of the AVB; (iv) Uniquely, the SONGS RSG fluid regimes are characterized by in-plane activity, which is quite contrary to experience of other SGs used in similar nuclear power plants in which out-of-plane fluid phenomena dominate. Moreover, from the remote probe inspections when the replacement steam generator (RSG) is cold and unpressurized, I consider it impossible to reliably predict the effectiveness of the many thousands of AVB contact points for when the tube bundle is in a hot, pressurized operational state., and (5) v) The combination of the omission of the in-plane AVB restraints, the unique in-plane activity levels of the SONGS RSGs, together the very demanding interpretation of the remote probe data from the cold and depressurized tube inspection, render forecasting the wear of the tubes and many thousands of restraint components when in hot and pressurized service very challenging indeed.
5. John Large continues, “Phasing of AVB-TSP Wear -v- TTW: I reason that, overall, the tube wear process comprises two distinct phases: First, the AVB (and TSP) -to-tube contact points wear with the result that whatever level of effectiveness is in play declines. Then, with the U-bend free-span sections increased by loss of intermediate AVB restraint(s), the individual tubes in the U-bend region are rendered very susceptible to FEI induced motion and TTW. Whereas the OAs commissioned by SCE broadly agree that the wear mechanics comprises two phases, there are strong differences over the cause of the first phase comprising in-plane AVB wear: AREVA claim this is caused by in-plane FEI whereas, the contrary, Mitsubishi (and Westinghouse) favor random perturbations in the fluid flow regime to be the tube motion excitation cause. Put simply: (i) if AREVA is correct then reducing the reactor power to 70% will eliminate FEI, AVB effectiveness will cease to decline further and TTW will be arrested; however, to the contrary, (ii) if Mitsubishi is right then, even at the 70% power level, the AVB restraint effectiveness will continue to decline thereby freeing up longer free-span tube sections that are more susceptible to TTW; or that
6. John Large continues, “Tube Wear Rates – Predicting the In-Service Period: SCE presents the findings of its commissioned OAs in a positive light, claiming that at 70% power the restarted Unit 2 plant will maintain RSG tube integrity for 16 to 18 months of continuous running, that is considerably longer than the proposed 150 day inspection interval. However, closer study of the OAs reveals that the reasoning behind important aspects of the deterioration period for the AVB effectiveness in Unit 2 is flawed, being overly dependent upon a number of uncertainties that I identify and expand upon in my affidavit. Some account of these uncertainties has been taken by AREVA in revising the TTW time-to-burst period down to 2.5 months which is well below the 150 days inspection interval but, without much justification, it determines and front-ends the time-to burst with a further 3.5 month AVB wear-in period, thereby delaying the onset of TTW and the unacceptable level of risk of tube burst to about 1 month longer than the proposed inspection period. I have little confidence in the outcome of the AREVA and other OAs projection of the time period through which the Unit 2 nuclear plant could be reliably expected to operate without a) incurring a tube failure or b) running at a greater risk of a tube failure occurring. This is primarily because (i) it is generally accepted that Unit 2 is following along the same path of deterioration as Unit 3 (AVB wear and loss of effectiveness preceding TTW), although the reasons why it lags so much behind are not at all understood by SCE and, indeed, subject to disagreement between the OA consultants; (ii) moreover, the pattern of AVB breakdown is not clear from the more advanced TTW degradation of Unit 3, thus the extrapolation to Unit 2 is not robust – again, there is disagreement between the OAs on this; so, it follows, (iii) there is very little justification in adding to the time-to-burst for Unit 2 tubes a 3.5 month AVB wear-in period, this is particularly so because so there is no certainty of just where Unit 2 is presently at along the path towards TTW wear. In account of these uncertainties, together with the uniqueness of the in-plane FEI in the SONGS RSGs that I will touch upon later, I consider that restarting Unit 2 to continuous running, even at 70%, will incur a great deal of change, test and experiment.
7. John Large continues, “Plugging of the at-risk tubes is not a satisfactory solution because it is the retainer bar that vibrates via random fluid flow processes at sub FEI critical velocity levels – these are likely to continue in play or, indeed, exacerbate at the proposed U2 restart at 70% power, leading to through-tube abrasion, the detachment of tube fragments, lodging at other unplugged and in-service tube localities, resulting in the so-called ‘foreign object’ tube wear.”
8. Comments from Mel Silberberg [NRC-RES, Retired [Chief, Severe Accident Research Branch; Waste Management Branch] to Region IV: I am disappointed in the composition of the special panel! Where is the representation from NRC-RES? The issues at SONGS involve thermal hydraulics and material science. The NRC-RES and its contractors are experts in these areas. The Office of Research was created by the Congress for such situations. Two RES staff covering these disciplines and one or two consultants, serving as peer-reviewers. Perhaps there needs to be a separate peer review. Public confidence can only be gained using logical, informed measures as I described above. Inspection Reports are only one facet of the problem, no question. However, understanding the reasons for the fluid instability, possible cavitation corrosion effects, etc. are phenomena which require evaluation by T/H as well as materials experts, with appropriate oversight by the ACRS. The SCE, the nuclear industry, the NRC and the public need assurance, not educated guesses. I have not seen a bona fide attempt to understand resolve the issue such that all can be alert to potential problems. I still remain puzzled as to why the ACRS [at least one of the Subcommittees]. I am trying to reach the ACRS Exec. Director to discuss this point. Thank you.”
9. According to NRC Insiders, “NRC does not really have experts in T-H, Materials and QA. You may find one or two at the ACRS and none at the ASLB.”
10. ATHOS Modeling Limitations: NRC AIT Report states, “The result of the independent NRC thermal-hydraulic analysis indicated that differences in the actual operation between units and/or individual steam generators had an insignificant impact on the results and in fact, the team did not identify any changes in steam velocities or void fractions that could attribute to the differences in tube wear between the units or steam generators. The above analyses apply equally to Units 2 and 3, so it does not explain why the accelerated fluid-elastic instability wear damage was significantly greater in Unit 3 steam generators. The ATHOS thermal-hydraulic model predicts bulk fluid behavior based on first principals and empirical correlations and as a result it is not able to evaluate mechanical, fabrication, or structural material differences or other phenomena that may be unique to each steam generator. Therefore this analysis cannot account for these mechanical factors and differences which could very likely also be contributing to the tube degradation.” Based on comments from Dr. Pettigrew and other researchers, the results of ATHOS Models for FEI are very time-consuming and expensive to conduct and the results can vary from 20 to 100%. Westinghouse states, “We’ve performed similar tests in the past, and that’s what our analytical codes are based on, the data from the tests we’ve performed in the past. They may not be as extravagant as Dr. Pettigrew’s, but yeah, we perform tests, and that’s what our models are based on only out of plane. Basically, we’re using the same tools that we’ve used. We’re just staying within our comfort levels. We’re not pushing our design limits. We’re staying with what we know, what’s been proven to work in the past.” AREVA Staes, “And our analysis codes also are based upon testing that was performed in mockups and boilers in France, which is where most of the design work occurs for the replacements. But they — those tests were performed in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s to validate some of the design changes that they were making to the components. In the same context, we are in France developing a new thermal hydraulic code. That’s been underway, but as you might imagine, the development of a code that has to handle so many variables and these conditions that are very uncertain, it’s time — you know, you have to vet the process and make sure that, again, you’re staying in the bounds of what you’ve known and your technology that you’ve used, and continually use that to benchmark anything new that you’re working on or that you’re developing. But as far as the pinnacle of the replacement market or the replacement design, I would say that most of it is fairly standard, you know, at this point. I don’t think there’s anything outside of the norm that anyone is looking at.” John Large states, “The input energy is the dynamic velocity (~ ) of the two-phase fluid impinging on the tube. The energy dissipation is via damping which is strongly related to the two-phase mix of the fluid, here water and steam as described by the void fraction. Increase in steam content, a greater void fraction, reduces the damping and, correspondingly, the increased volume results in an increase of the impinging velocity. AREVA states, “At 100% power, the thermal-hydraulic conditions in the u-bend region of the SONGS replacement steam generators exceed the past successful operational envelope for U-bend nuclear steam generators based on presently available data.” The inference here is that AREVA is comparing like-with-like, but that would require AREVA having undertaken an ATHOS flow analysis48 for each of the comparative SGs. This I consider unlikely because for this AREVA would have required access to very detailed information on the design geometry and flow paths throughout the comparative SG tube bundles – being a designer/manufacturer of steam generators itself, I very much doubt that AREVA would have had access to such proprietary information from competitor manufacturers. So since it is unlikely that AREVA would have carried out an ATHOS computer simulation for each of the five (A to F) comparative nuclear plants, then analysis is unlikely to be directly comparing two-phase fluid flow velocity distribution in the critical FEI regions of the SONGS and comparative plant SG tube bundles. I can only surmise that the analysis comparison is between the mean or average velocity within the overall tube bundle for SONGs and each of the comparative plants. Moreover, since the velocity distributions within each of the comparative plants, because of different design geometries, flow areas, etc, will not be identical, it is very unlikely that the mean or average velocity provides even a crude basis of comparison of the FEI potential of the SONGS RSGs.” The question is as Arnie Gundersen asks, “How similar to the SONGS S/Gs are these other S/Gs? Do the other steam generators, for example, use alloy 670 tubes and have similar spacing, similar support structures, etc.? To the best of my knowledge and belief, no other steam generator in the nation is as large as those at San Onofre with broached tube supports, a tight Combustion Engineering tube pitch, and no stay cylinder. Therefore, comparing San Onofre to “several other successfully operating large S/G’s” is simply not a valid engineering or scientific comparison.”
11. Controversy regarding Removal of Central Stay Cylinder: Palo Verde and ANO Unit One 2 replaced the RSGs without removing the central stay cylinder, added more tubes and made the tubes taller (Read NUREG-1841) with NRC Region IV blessings and SONGS avoided that Blessing because it did not believe in the NRC Blessing Process in 2004 and 2013 as demonstrated in Yesterday’s SCE/NRC Meeting. . NRC AIT Report states, “The licensee’s bid specification required that the stay cylinder feature of the original steam generators be eliminated to maximize the number of tubes that could be installed in the replacement steam generators and to mitigate past problems with tube wear at tube supports caused by relatively cool water and high flow velocities in the central part of the tube bundle.” Elimination of the stay cylinder to increase the added 377 tubes and increase the average length of the heated tubes for increasing the heat transfer area by ~ 11% in The RSGs caused the following problems: (a) John Large states, “Indeed, this need to increase the heat transfer area (ie putting more tubes into the RSGs) and, with this, reducing the steamside flow area, may have been a strong contributory factor to the enhanced FEI activity in the SONGS FSGs. Moreover, the location of the additional tubing, particularly in what I would describe as the lower swirl space immediately above the tube support sheet, may have contributed to and/or determined the unique in-plane flow characteristics of the SONGS RSGs.” (b) Arnie Gundersen states, “The center section of the original San Onofre steam generators contained a key structural element called a “stay cylinder” and no steam generator tubes. In 2005 or early 2006, Edison made a management decision to eliminate this vital support pillar and add additional tubes in its place. In the original steam generator design, there was no heat input in this central area of the steam generator, because there were no tubes to add the heat. When Edison added almost 400 tubes (4% of the tubes) to the center of the tube bundle in the San Onofre Replacement Steam Generators, Edison effectively increased the power distribution to the center of the steam generator. This radical and unanalyzed design change moved 4% of the heat to the inside of the tube bundle while reducing the heat by 4% to the outside of the tube bundle. Adding this heat to the center of the bundle was then exacerbated by removing the egg crate tube supports and replacing them with a broached tube support plate design that further reduced flow to the center of the steam generator. As the NRC confirmed in its AIT report, a large steam void has developed near where the additional tubes were added in the Replacement Steam Generators (called fluid elastic instability) that allows many types of excess vibrations to occur. Fairewinds review of Figure 1 below from Edison’s Condition Report clearly shows that the location within the steam generators where the steam “fluid elastic instability” has developed is precisely the region where the extra heat created by the 400 new tubes would create an excess of steam and various vibrational modes. While 4% may seem like a small change, it is not. Each San Onofre reactor generates a total thermal output of approximately 3400 megawatts of heat. If one mathematically converts 4% of 3400 megawatts of heat, it equals 135 megawatts, or to illustrate it differently: 180,000 horsepower of thermal heat that was transferred from the outside of the tube bundles to the center, (c) Unit 3 has historically produced more power than Unit 2 (1186 MWe vs. 1183 MWe, 1178 MWe vs. 1172 MWe). Westinghouse states, “In the U-bend region, the gap velocities are a strong function of power level. The steam flow in the bundle is cumulative and increases as a function of the power level and the bundle height which causes high fluid quality, void fraction, and secondary fluid velocities in the upper bundle.” According to the Plant Procedures, Unit 3 RCS flow is 79.79 Million Ibs/hour and the delta T between Hot leg and Cold Leg is 58 degrees Fahrenheit. According to the SONGS Plant Procedures, Unit 2 RCS flow is 75.76 Million Ibs/hour and the delta T between Hot leg and Cold Leg is 57 degrees Fahrenheit. I go along with Westinghouse that higher power of 79.79 Million Ibs/hour caused FEI in Unit 3, because steam saturation temperature was achieved due to lower secondary side pressures of 833 psi and poor circulation ratios of 3.3 earlier in the U-tube bundle than anticipated due to increased average length of the tubes from 680 inches to 730 inches. The critical heat flux was achieved in Unit 3 area of wear ( ~ Hot Leg side Columns 75 -90, Rows 90-120, vertically located z-axis cut at about 20 inches above the 7th TSP) due to increased height of the bundle and narrow tube to pitch diameter. This caused high fluid quality, void fraction, and secondary fluid velocities in Unit 3 area of TTW. Unit 2 did not experience FEI, because power levels were low and critical heat flux was lower at the same point of wear as Unit 3, and by the time steam-water mixture achieved high fluid quality, void fraction, and secondary fluid velocities, it exited the u-tube bundle. It is also my observation, that FEI is an intermittent phenomena controlled by the varying circulation ratios and pressures in the steam generator. When this happens, the RCS return flow temperature in the cold leg is higher than usual, say by 4 degree Farenheit, even though the power is at a steady state level subject to CROSSFLOW uncertainty calculation of 0.5%. FEI causes movement of U-Tubes with large amplitudes starting from the tube sheet to the top of the U-bend and this could have conceivably caused tube-to-tube violent impact at the bottom of the tube sheet registering VLPMS alarms in Unit 3. Since Unit 2 did not experience FEI, no VLPMS alarms occurred in Unit 2.
12. Palo Verde RSG Design: The tube supports have three basic configurationsl-() horizontal grids (eggcrates/lattice) that provide support to the vertical run of the tubes, (2) vertical grids that provide vertical and horizontal support to the horizontal run of the tubes in the upper bend region, and (3) diagonal strips (batwings) that provide out-of-plane support to the 90-degree bends. The upper tube bundle support system (1) supports the horizontal tube spans against high velocity, two-phase cross flow, (2) permits an expanded vertical tube pitch (from 1.0 inch to 1.75 inches) so as to promote free flow through the bend region and prevent low-flow dryout regions, and (3) supports the upper tube bundle via structural beams against postulated accident condition loads, seismic loads, transportation loads, and dead weight. The U-bend support structure for the replacement steam generator differs from the original design in that it includes welded connections between the vertical grids and the diagonal (batwing) supports. Other features of the U-bend support system are that the batwings bisect the 90-degree bends, the bend region supports are perforated and narrower than the original design, and the bend region supports have ventilation holes. These changes in design improve the thermal/hydraulic conditions in the upper bundle region, preventing crevice dryout and reducing secondary-side fouling, as well as addressing tube-wear phenomena observed in the original steam generator. The diagonal strips (batwings) are located at every row and are designed to prevent out-of-plane deflection and thus preclude the deflection amplitude required for fatigue. The replacement steam generator design has an increased circulation ratio when compared to the original steam generator.
13. ANO Unit 2 RSG Design: Strict ovality control was implemented during the manufacture of the tubes to limit dimensional variability in the U-bend region. The thickness of the AVBs was also tightly controlled. To limit the potential for U-bend vibration and wear, AVBs support the U-bends. The AVBs provide sufficient support to the U-bend so that all the tubes remain elastically stable even if it is assumed that some of the support points are inactive. The AVBs in adjacent columns are inserted to different depths (i.e., staggered) to limit the U-bend pressure drop and to discourage the formation of flow stagnation regions. The AVBs are nearly perpendicular to the centerline of the tubes at all locations in the U-bend region to provide support without unnecessary tube contact. These features provide margin against flow stagnation, corrosion, and tube vibration.
14. The NRC AIT Report states, “The team identified that the design of the replacement steam generators did not expect any potential vibration concerns in the area of the tube bundle where the retainer bars were located. The basis for Mitsubishi’s design philosophy relied on the following factors: (a) Based on the calculated natural frequency of the retainer bar, Mitsubishi considered that there would not be a resonant vibration condition relative to the flow conditions in the location of retainer bars, and (b) The vibration analysis of the tube bundle only considered out-of-plane vibration because in-plane vibration was not expected to be an operational concern for the retainer bars. The outermost tubes were considered the least susceptible to flow-elastic instability; therefore retainer bar locations were not included in the vibration analysis. Retainer Bars in other MHI SGs range with a frequency between 120-1180. Because of the excessive number of tubes due to change of Alloy 600MA to Alloy 690TT, the tube-to-tube clearance tightened towards the apex of the U-bend. Therefore, the restraint assemblies required a smaller diameter retainer bar with 56 HZ frequency in order to fit between the tube rows.
15. SCE SNO states: As a plant operator, I have operational control over two of the three components needed for in-plane fluid elastic instability. Specifically, reducing power can reduce steam velocity and reduce steam dryness sufficiently to preclude in-plane fluid elastic instability since the conditions for fluid elastic instability no longer occur concurrently.
16. SCE In Enclosure 2 states, “A Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) was performed to analyze the risk impact of the degraded SG tubes on SONGS Unit 3 SG 3E-088 with respect to two cases: (1) any increased likelihood of an independent SG tube rupture (SGTR) at normal operating differential pressure (NODP), or (2) due to a SGTR induced by an excess steam demand event, also referred to as a main steam line break (MSLB). The SONGS PRA model was used to calculate the increases in Core Damage Probability (CDP) and Large Early Release Probability (LERP) associated with each case. In both cases, all postulated core damage sequences are assumed to result in a large early release since the containment will be bypassed due to the SGTR; therefore, the calculated CDP and LERP are equal. The total Incremental LERP (ILERP) due to the degraded SG tubes (i.e., the sum of the two analyzed cases) was determined to be less than 2×10-7. This small increase in risk is attributed to two factors. First, the exposure time for the postulated increased independent SGTR initiating event frequency case was very short (0.1 Effective Full Power Month (EFPM)). Second, a MSLB alone does not generate sufficient differential pressure to cause tube rupture in Case 2. The differential pressure across the SG tubes necessary to cause a rupture will not occur if operators prevent RCS re-pressurization in accordance with Emergency Operating Instructions.
17. So from the above Information, I conclude that the “As-designed and Degraded Unit 2 RSG Tube-Bundle is not capable of preventing the FEI caused multiple tube ruptures from a MSLB with failure of a MSIV to close. We saw that in Unit 3 with failure of 8 tubes at MSLB test conditions. SCE SNO says, he has control of the plant operations, but SCE Enclosure 2 contradicts SNO with an “If statement” by stating,” The differential pressure across the SG tubes necessary to cause a rupture will not occur if operators prevent RCS re-pressurization in accordance with Emergency Operating Instructions.”
18. Operator Action as claimed by Edison to detect the leak by N-16 and other radiation monitors and the ability to re-pressurize the steam generators are not practical to stop a major nuclear accident in Unit 2 in progress in the first 15 minutes of a MSLB due to the following factors:
• The operator action will not work due to the short duration of the initial and devastating event, the radiation/steam environment, communication errors between the control room and field operators due to sonic booms and hissing steam noises (sound-powered phones, pagers, cell phones and radios will not work in such an environment), darkness, difficult terrain and other unknown equipment failures/troubles [e.g. San Onofre’s auxiliary feed-water steam supply piping, which would provide water to the steam generators, if their main supply was lost is vulnerable to a big flood; A big fire in auxiliary feed-water pump room would knock 2 out of three pump’s electrical circuits, etc.], and other contingencies.
• During a partial walk down of the Unit 2 high-pressure safety injection system in August 2011, NRC inspectors found a drain valve partially open, when it was required to be closed. “Operations personnel failed to implement instructions for filling, venting, draining, startup, shutdown, and changing modes of operation for emergency core cooling systems as written,” the NRC said. “seismic class I valves continue to be miss positioned, safety-related plant systems may be unable to accomplish their safety functions after an accident”.
• One of the well-known SONGS Shift Managers told SCE Management that he was not going to put his “License on the line” by operating a “Defective Unit.” Several other shift managers have retired rather than work for SONGS’ Profit-Motivated and Retaliating Management.
• The Operator Union has warned the SCE Management that with the proposed operator reductions, it will not be safe to restart Unit 2.
• There have been 10 SGTRs (or significant leaks) in U.S. PWRs from 1975 to 2000. Human performance weaknesses, such as misdiagnosis, substantial delays in isolating the faulted steam generator, and delayed initiation of the residual heat removal system, have been identified in these events. The events also involved unnecessary radiation releases; lack of RCS subcooled margin, excessive RCS cooldown rates, and overfilling the SG because of human or procedural problems.
• Additional complications would add to operator burdens. These include high noise levels preventing normal communications; RCS cooldown with potential recriticality; actions to recover RWST inventory; many radiation alarms, unexpected high radiation areas in the turbine building, and atmospheric releases; fire alarms and fires from steam and shrapnel from the break; and emergency communications with local, state, and Federal governments diverting operations personnel before the technical support center is manned or additional operations personnel arrive on site. The Halden Control Room Staffing study found poor operator performance in one of two simulations of a SG leak with a failed open SG safety relief valve, as well as simulations where crew size was decreased to attend to other duties.
• Below are some of the weaknesses witnessed during review and/or observation of the Simulator Evaluations, Emergency Planning Drills and discussions with the Shift Managers during 2012. Each weakness may be attributed to one or the other Drills/Exercise Performance (DEP) Miss-classifications:
A. Unclear and confusing Emergency Action Levels (EALs) and less than adequate Basis Documents.
B. Too many Priority Reading Assignments to clarify the EALs and Basis Document.
C. Lack of solid teamwork between the Operating Crew, Control Room Supervisor (CRS), Station Technical Advisor (STA) and Emergency Coordinator/Shift Manager (EC/SM).
D. Crew members confused and concerned about their roles and responsibilities. Crewmembers held back or failed to provide information, which resulted in SM and CRS to trip the reactor.
E. Poor communications between the Operating Crew, CRS, STA and EC. Briefs were ineffective at focusing on the crew priorities. Three way communication not used for direction or when providing information relative to plant status.
F. Poor diagnostics/interpretation of the transient events by the Operating Crew, CRS, STA and EC. Serious omissions, delays, or errors made in interpreting indications resulting in degraded plant conditions. Failed to use, or misused, or misinterpreted indications that resulted in improper diagnosis.
G. Procedures were not followed correctly which impeded plant recovery or caused unnecessary degradation of plant conditions. Crews did not recognize EOI Entry Conditions.
H. Repeat failures of the STA to provide consistent & independent check of the EAL by EC.
I. Lack of Stringent Operations Department/NTD Evaluation and Remediation Criteria for SM/STA/ Operations Crew to achieve excellence and eliminate above shortcomings to prevent DEP Failures.
J. Lack of practice by the Operating Crews, CRS, STA and EC following the coaching/critique provided by the OPS SM Supervisor and NTD Evaluators.
• During the April, 2012 Fire Notification of Unusual Event, it took 40 minutes between the Control Room and Electricians to find the drawings to determine the location of the breaker to de-energize the power to the electrical panel in the Unit 2 turbine building to extinguish the fire and terminate the event. Luckily, the Unit 2 was in shutdown and the SONGS Fire Department was present at the scene to extinguish the fire, if it got out of the control. Later it was determined, that the Fire Department and Control room did not take timely action to extinguish the fire due to an over-conservative fire procedure.
• In 2001, Ratepayers lost 100 million dollars in a Unit 3 Switchgear fire due to faulty alarms and miscommunication between the SONGS Fire Department and Control Room. Unit 3 was in shutdown for 5 months due to Main Turbine repairs, which was damaged in the fire event.
• During the 2011 NRC/FFEMA Evaluated Exercise, the General Emergency Declaration was missed by 29 Minutes due to a communication error between the Emergency Offsite Facility Health Physics Supervisor and Technical Support Center Station Emergency Director. If this was a real event, the public would have been potentially subject to offsite radiation releases unnecessarily for 29 minutes.
THANKS To NRC FOR POSTING THIS BLOG
Subject: 2-6-2013: Senator Barbara Boxer Letter To The Honorable Allison M. Macfarlane (Continued)
So what is new. SCE and MHI have been avoiding regulatory process since 2004 under the pretense of, “like for like.” NRC Region IV has not done anything to stop that. Now Cat is out of the bag. Senator Barbara was advised in August 2012, and a recommendation was made to form a Joint Task Force of Justice Department, Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and NRC to investigate both SCE/MHI. But, that recommendation was swept under the rug for reasons unknown.
Email To President Obama’s Campaign – info@2013pic.org
Attention: Your Excellency Honorable President Barack Obama, Greatest People’s President in the Modern History of United States
Continued cover-up by NRC Region IV, Southern California Edison and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station Replacement Generators has become a nightmare for 8.4 Million Southern Californians. Here is a copy of a press release FYI.
On Wednesday February 6, 2013 , Sen. Barbara Boxer pressed federal regulators to open an investigation at the plant after uncovering documents that she said suggest that Southern California Edison took engineering shortcuts and compromised safety. The Democratic senator said in a letter to Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chair Allison Macfarlane that a confidential report obtained by her office shows Edison and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the Japan-based company that built the plant’s steam generators, were aware of design problems before the equipment was installed in 2009 and 2010. Boxer, who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee, said the report written by Mitsubishi raises concerns that Edison and its contractor rejected safety modifications and sidestepped a more rigorous safety review. “Safety, not regulatory short cuts, must be the driving factor in the design of nuclear facilities, as well as NRC’s determination on whether (San Onofre) can be restarted,” Boxer said in a letter co-signed by Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass.
Billion Dollar Safety Question is who is telling the truth? It is time now that a Joint Task Force of Justice Department, Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and NRC ASLB & San Onofre Special Panel be created to investigate both SCE/MHI Engineers, NRC Region IV and NRC AIT Engineers involved with San Onofre and let them testify under oath. I will testify under oath to help everybody with whatever I know on the Joint Task force. 8.4 Million Southern Californians will certainly appreciate their President’s help in resolving this matter of Great National Interest.
FEI did not occur in Unit 2, because, (1) It was the absence of high steam dryness ALONE in Unit 2 that FEI did not occur in Unit 2 (emphasis added), and (2) Not because of the better supports (Dietrich is stating backwards and claiming incorrectly) and/or differences in fabrication, which resulted in substantially increased contact forces (reduced looseness) between tubes and AVBs for Unit 2 and prevented FEI from occurring. These supports are designed for out-of plane protection and not for-in plane protection. MHI stated, “In the design stage, MHI assumed that the tube support in the out-of-plane direction with “zero” tube-to-AVB gap in hot condition was sufficient to prevent tube from becoming fluid-elastic unstable during operation. But, the recent SONGS experience shows that the flat bar AVBs does not provide friction forces required to prevent tubes from vibrating in the in-plane direction and eventually becoming fluid-elastic unstable under high local secondary thermal-hydraulic conditions such as in the SONGS RSGs. In addition, MHI concludes that in the Unit-3 RSGs low tube and AVB fabrication dimensional dispersion causes that the tube-to-AVB contact forces are not sufficient to prevent the in-plane motion of tubes. Because of pressure from NRC and SCE and to continue Business in United States, MHI has reverted its stand from its original design position and contemporary experience. Honorable Senator Barbara Boxer is absolutely right, when she contends, “Mitsubishi and Edison were aware of safety problems with steam generators before the equipment was installed starting in 2009 but rejected some enhancements to avoid a more rigorous regulatory review. SCE and MHI accepted some adjustments to the replacement steam generators, further safety modifications were found to have “unacceptable consequences” and were rejected: “Among the difficulties associated with the potential changes was the possibility that making them could impede the ability to justify the RSG [replacement steam generator] design” without the requirement for a license amendment. The Report also indicates that SCE’s and MHI’s decision to reject additional safety modifications contributed to the faulty steam generators and the shutdown of reactor Units 2 and 3.” DAB Safety Team member warned Senator Barbara Boxer of similar concerns in August 2012, but the warning were swept under the rug for reasons unknown. DAB Safety Team findings on Unit 2 FEI and supports are consistent with the findings of AREVA, Westinghouse, John Large, SONGS RCE Anonymous Root Cause Team Member and latest research performed by Eminent Professor Michel Pettigrew and others in 2006. Therefore, SCE claims that insufficient contact forces in Unit 3 Tube-to-AVB Gaps ALONE caused tube “to” tube wear are misleading, erroneous and designed to put the blame on MHI for purposes of making SCE look good in the public’s eyes and for collecting insurance money from MHI’s manufacturing so called defects….. Thanks HAHN Baba
Subject: 2-6-2013: Senator Barbara Boxer Letter To The Honorable Allison M. Macfarlane
Billion Dollar Safety Question is who is telling the truth? It is time now that Joint Task Force of Justice Department, Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and NRC ASLB & San Onofre Special Panel be created to investigate both SCE/MHI Engineers, NRC Region IV and NRC AIT Engineers involved with San Onofre and let them testify under oath. I will testify under oath to help everybody with whatever I know on the Joint Task force.
On Wednesday, Sen. Barbara Boxer pressed federal regulators to open an investigation at the plant after uncovering documents that she said suggest that Southern California Edison took engineering shortcuts and compromised safety. The Democratic senator said in a letter to Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chair Allison Macfarlane that a confidential report obtained by her office shows Edison and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the Japan-based company that built the plant’s steam generators, were aware of design problems before the equipment was installed in 2009 and 2010. Boxer, who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee, said the report written by Mitsubishi raises concerns that Edison and its contractor rejected safety modifications and sidestepped a more rigorous safety review. “Safety, not regulatory short cuts, must be the driving factor in the design of nuclear facilities, as well as NRC’s determination on whether (San Onofre) can be restarted,” Boxer said in a letter co-signed by Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass.
But Edison said in a statement “it is simply not accurate” to suggest the company was aware of design problems, and pointed out the equipment carried a 20-year warranty against defects. “SCE would never, and did not, install steam generators that it believed would not perform safely,” the company said. Edison “sought to purchase replacement steam generators that would meet or
Mitsubishi said design decisions were made “in accordance with well-established and accepted industry standards” along with a wealth of operating experience. “Nothing is more important to us than the safe design and manufacturing of nuclear-energy facilities,” a company statement said. “A thorough investigation has been ongoing and will continue. We will continue cooperating fully.”
In a statement, the NRC said it received the letter and “will review all available information in making a judgment as to whether the plant would meet our safety standards if restart were permitted.”
We have become aware of new information contained in a 2012 Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) document entitled “Root Cause Analysis Report for tube wear identified in the Unit 2 and Unit 3 Steam Generators of San Onofre Generating Station” (Report). The Report indicates that Southern California Edison (SCE) and MHI were aware of serious problems with the design of San Onofre nuclear power plant’s replacement steam generators before they were installed. Further, the Report asserts that SCE and MHI rejected enhanced safety modifications and avoided triggering a more rigorous license amendment and safety review process.
For example, the Report states that although SCE and MHI accepted some adjustments to the replacement steam generators, further safety modifications were found to have “unacceptable consequences” and were rejected: “Among the difficulties associated with the potential changes was the possibility that making them could impede the ability to justify the RSG [replacement steam generator] design” without the requirement for a license amendment. The Report also indicates that SCE’s and MHI’s decision to reject additional safety modifications contributed to the faulty steam generators and the shutdown of reactor Units 2 and 3.
This newly-obtained information concerns us greatly, and we urge the NRC to immediately conduct a thorough investigation into whether SCE and MHI did in fact fail to make needed safety enhancements to avoid the license amendment process. All people in our nation, including the 8.7 million people who live within 50 miles of the San Onofre plant, must have confidence in the NRC’s commitment to put safety before any other concern. We believe this alarming Report raises serious concerns about SCE’s and MHI’s past actions. Safety, not regulatory short cuts, must be the driving factor in the design of nuclear facilities, as well as NRC’s determination on whether Units 2 and 3 can be restarted.
So what is new. SCE and MHI have been avoiding regulatory process since 2004 under the pretense of, “like for like.” NRC Region IV has not done anything to stop that. Now Cat is out of the bag. Senator Barbara was advised in August 2012, and a recommendation was made to form a Joint Task Force of Justice Department, Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and NRC to investigate both SCE/MHI. But, that recommendation was swept under the rug for reasons unknown. Anyhow, the bottom line is neither, SCE nor MHI have the knowhow to design/build a CE Replacement Steam Generator. That being said, only Westinghouse has the skills and technology to design and build a CE Replacement Steam Generator. SCE was told that in June of 2012. But the problem is nobody listens, until it is too late. For example, Westinghouse/Combustion Engineering designed several CE Replacement Generators in 2000-2005 (e.g., PVNGS 1, 2, 3, ANO-2, etc.), which are running successfully. NRC Region IV licensed these generators with assistance from NRC Commission under a 50.90 process with a “Critical Questioning and Investigative Attitude.” During San Onofre Replacement Generator Design, Installation & Accident Investigation Process, NRC Region IV has been acting as a silent observer going along with SCE instead of a strict regulator for reasons unknown.
AREVA says in its Operational Assessment, ” Weaver and Schneider [16], in 1983, examined the flow induced response of heat exchanger U-tubes with flat bar supports. It is worth quoting the first
conclusion of their paper: “The effect of flat bar supports with small clearance is to act as apparent nodal points for flow-induced tube response. They not only prevented the out-of-plane mode as expected but also the in-plane modes. No in-plane instabilities were observed, even when the flow velocity was increased to three times that expected to cause instability in the apparently unsupported first in-plane mode.” Additionally, in an effort to encourage the development of in-plane instability, Weaver and Schneider substantially increased the clearances between flat bar supports and U-tubes, but no in-plane instability was observed. Other investigators, notably Westinghouse, have deliberately searched for in-plane instability with only support from flat bars and have not detected the phenomena. However in 2005, Janzen, Hagburg, Pettigrew and Taylor reported in-plane instability. The abstract to their paper states, “For the first time in a U-bend tube bundle with liquid or two-phase flow, instability was observed in both the out-of-plane and in-plane direction.”
A document published in 2006, “Fluid-elastic instability of an array of tubes preferentially flexible in the flow direction subjected to two-phase cross flow. (http://yakari.polytechnique.fr/people/revio/masters_research_subject.html) by Violette R., Pettigrew M. J. & Mureithi N. W. stated, “In nuclear power plant steam generators, U-tubes are very susceptible to undergo fluid elastic instability because of the high velocity of the two-phase mixture flow in the U-tube region and also because of their low natural frequencies in their out of plane modes. In nuclear power plant steam generator design, flat bar supports have been introduced in order to restrain vibrations of the U-tubes in the out of plane direction. Since those supports are not as effective in restraining the in-plane vibrations of the tubes, there is a clear need to verify if fluid elastic instability can occur for a cluster of cylinders preferentially flexible in the flow direction.” Retainer bars also suffer with similar problems. SONGS Root cause team members told SCE Management about the problems with ineffective flat bars, but no body listed and they kept repeating only one phrase, “insufficient tube-AVB contact forces caused FEI. Westinghouse and AREVA said, Guys, Once FEI starts, contact forces do not count.
The point is when you are designing and building such a complex steam generator as a San Onofre replacement steam generator, whether it is a designer or manufacturer, one is supposed to keep up with the latest university research and industry benchmarking. It is absolutely clear that SCE and MHI did not do that. They both broke the federal regulations, public trust, wasted 1 Billion Dollars of Rate Payer’s Money and almost created twin accidents. What is the use of crying now. It appears, now NRC is going on behalf of SCE to Japan to supervise MHI’s quality assurance activities associated with the mock-up and testing of re-designed anti-vibration bars that may be used as a long-term repair of both Unit 2 and Unit 3 San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) steam generators. As I have said with John Large, Arnie Gundersen, Professor Daniel Hirsch, David Lochbaum, and dozen other anonymous steam generator experts and DAB Safety Team before, these defectively-designed and degraded generators will not withstand a MSLB or other anticipated transients due to FEI even at 70% power.
The bottom line is that MHI was a subcontractor to Westinghouse and they make huge claims, but really do not how to design a CE Replacement Generator. SCE also makes huge claims and preaches safety sermons, but is not a steam generator designer. So NRC is wasting their valuable time with SCE and MHI and wasting money of Southern California’s Rate Payers and putting their safety on line. So I request NRC Chairman, NRC ASLB & San Onofre Special Panel Members, Please tell Westinghouse to build replacement steam generators for San Onofre and tell Ted Craver and Pete Dietrich to fire the SCE Retaliating and inefficient management, work on producing safe electricity and build public trust and respect both for SCE and NRC. Thanks once again to Mr. Victor Dricks for posting this blog.
Help Ever Hurt Never Baba says:
The Research by the World’s Number 1 Expert in 2006 shows that flat bars are not effective to protect the SG tubes from the adverse effects of Fluid Elastic instability and Low Frequency reatainer bars can damage tubes from turbulence induced random vibrations. According to SONGS insiders, SONGS RCE Team had access to this information. But the results were both ignored by SCE and MHi. Transparenecy and accountabilty is the rule of law for a licensee and its contractor for nuclear safety. if this information true, it is a blatant violation of federal regulations and public trust by SCE and MHI. Senator Barbara Boxer was warned of these types of cover ups in August 2012 and investigation by Justice Department was requested. These recommendations were swept under the rug for reasons unknown. Thanks to Mr. Victor Dricks for posting this blog.
Big News ==> New Letter to NRC from Boxer ==> Investigate SCE and MHI http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?llr=4xdmoojab&v=001C8QXJYUMj5dcQ4dDSveBDByVNMmLB65YxIzi0_9_gVamJ_ZETvM2v1U38RPd6IPnB2rd_cOhapemnwrqO-lgo9IEGBbdZbRfMYrXw-6g7aZn-hO-WNEs7A%3D%3D …
SPECIAL EIX CEO/Chairman Awareness Series by HAHN Baba
Promoting “Critical Questioning & Investigative Attitude”
EIX CEO/Chairman Ted Craver should follow the example of wise decision taken by Brilliant Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers and shutdown the Terminally Sick San Onofre just like Terminally Sick Crystal River. The EIX/SCE should review alternatives to replace the power produced by San Onofre by construction of new, state-of-the-art, natural gas-fueled/solar 50-100 MW plants installed throughout the grid. The decision to retire the Terminally Sick San Onofre nuclear plant would be the best in overall interests of Southern California Customers/Public, EIX Investors/Shareholders, the State of California, CPUC and NRC Region IV. The decision would be very difficult, but it would be the right economical and safety choice and politically popular.
Courtesy of The DAB Safety Team
A total of 24 Alloy 690, chrome-plated retainer bars welded to the retaining bars are provided to prevent AVB structure displacement during SG fabrication and during a limiting design basis accident such as a main steam line break. The retainer bars anchor the AVB structure to the tubes, but are designed not to contact the tubes under operating conditions. As shown in Section 5.5, Edison response to NRR RAI #15, SCE states, “The limited vibration amplitude of the tubes and retainer bar, combined with stabilizer development, prevents developing wear displacement /wear geometry that could severe any of the tubes adjacent to the retainer bars, either in the short term or long term.” This statement is unacceptable, because the conclusions appear to be drawn without any publicly available SCE auditable scientific/testing data and structural, materials engineering and thermal-hydraulic calculations. The structural integrity of SONGS Unit 2 replacement steam generators degraded retainer bar system welds, retainer bars, stabilized and non-stabilized plugged tubes to withstand combined loads that result from postulated accident conditions events as assumed in the RSG Design/FSAR Analysis has not been demonstrated. This includes a design basis earthquake (DBE) in combination with a LOCA (multiple SG tube leak and/or rupture events due to FEI caused by U-tube bundle uncovery) and MSLB (high energy flashing feedwater jet impingement and loose parts causing multiple tube leak and/or rupture events due to SG depressurization). Like John Large says,”Put another way, the extensive and rapid rates of tube wear experience at the SONGS Unit 2 and Unit 3 RSGs, have necessitated an extensive raft of analysis, assessments and projections to qualify, or otherwise, that Unit 2 is fit for purpose. Not only is this prequalifying work unique to the San Onofre nuclear plant, much of it has never been undertaken before so, it follows, its inclusion in safety considerations must be a new and hitherto unconsidered component now required to be incorporated into an updated version of the FSAR.”
San Onofre NRC AIT Report, SCE Unit 3 Cause Evaluation, SCE Unit 2 Return to Service Reports, SCE Response to NRR RAIs, San Onofre Special Tube Inspection Reports and 10 CFR 50.59/FSAR Justifications need to be thoroughly reviewed and a GAP Analysis prepared by NRC NRR, Civil, Mechanical, Chemical, Materials, Structural, Electrical/I&C, T/H Engineers, Computer Modeling and San Onofre Special NRC Panel Members. San Onofre Special NRC Panel Members need to make accurate and precise engineering decisions based on validated and auditable facts in accordance with Honorable and Respected Dr. McFarlane’s High Standards. These decisions have to be made without any political/financial/time pressures from EIX/SCE Officers, CPUC Chairman, NRC Commissioners, Pro-SCE Politicians, Attorneys or Industry Lobbyists. Ex NRC Branch Chiefs (Dr. Joram Hopenfeld, Mel Silberberg, etc.), Anonymous “Critical Questioning & Investigative Attitude” Genius NRC Branch Chief, US Public, San Onofre Workers and Southern Californians would appreciate San Onofre Special NRC Panel Members “Critical Questioning & Investigative Attitude”, True, Unbiased and Diligent Public Safety Efforts.
Causes of SONGS Unit 3 Replacement Steam Generators Fluid Elastic Instability
Subject: Promoting Human Performance Tool “Critical Questioning & Investigative Attitude”
SONGS Unit 3 FEI Root Cause: Lack of “Critical Questioning & Investigative Attitude” by SCE/MHI
Design Causes: Narrow tube pitch/diameter ratio, too many tall tubes and lack-of in-plane supports
Operational Causes: High Steam Flows, High Steam Velocities and Low Steam Pressures
Primary Mechanistic Cause: Fluid Elastic Instability AKA Vapor Fraction >99.6% AKA Steam Dry-outs, Lack of Tube Damping (No Thin Water Film on Tube to Release Heat)
Secondary Mechanistic Causes: Flow-induced Random Vibrations, Excessive Hydrodynamic Pressures (Mitsubishi Flowering effect)
Human Performance Errors:
1. Lack of Solid Team Work, Alignment and Design Reviews
2. Avoidance of 10CFR 50.90 Amendment Process
3. Financial and Time Pressures
4. Lack of Academic and Industry Benchmarking
5. Complacence and Negligence
6. Lack of NRC Region IV Strict Oversight
7. Lack of skills, experience and technology to design & build a CE Replacement Steam Generators
San Onofre Special Public/NRC/SCE Awareness Series by HAHN Baba
Edison has said exhaustive research by its team of global experts demonstrates the safety of what it calls a conservative plan to re-open SONGS Unit 2. NRC AIT Team/Edison and its team of global experts are not sure among themselves, whether fluid elastic instability occurred in Unit 2. San Onofre NRC AIT Report, SCE Unit 3 Cause Evaluation, SCE Unit 2 Return to Service Reports, SCE Response to NRR RAIs, San Onofre Special Tube Inspection Reports and 10 CFR 50.59/FSAR Justifications need to be thoroughly reviewed and a GAP Analysis prepared by brilliant NRC NRR, Civil, Mechanical, Chemical, Materials, Structural, Electrical/I&C, T/H Engineers, Computer Modeling and San Onofre Special NRC Panel Members. San Onofre Special NRC Panel Members need to make accurate and precise engineering decisions based on validated and auditable facts in accordance with Honorable and Respected Dr. McFarlane’s High Standards. These decisions have to be made without any political/financial/time pressures from EIX/SCE Officers, CPUC Chairman, NRC Commissioners, Pro-SCE Politicians, Attorneys or Industry Lobbyists. Ex NRC Branch Chiefs (Dr. Joram Hopenfeld, Mel Silberberg , etc.), Anonymous “Critical Questioning & Investigative Attitude” Genius NRC Branch Chief, US Public, San Onofre Workers and Southern Californians would appreciate San Onofre Special NRC Panel Members “Critical Questioning & Investigative Attitude”, True, Unbiased and Diligent Public Safety Efforts. More and more Southern Californians, Cities, Businesses, School Districts are joining every day the chorus to press Federal Regulators to hold a trial-like hearing before deciding whether the San Onofre nuclear plant is safe to reopen. Newly elected San Diego Congressman Vargas said, “When he was an assemblyman he questioned industry executives under oath during the California’s energy crisis. Vargas said that process could be effective for San Onofre as long as those questioning majority owner Southern California Edison executives know what they’re talking about. “Get experts in there,” Vargas said. “To ask them true questions: is it really safe do you really have this under control if not why are you firing it up? Makes no sense. The only reason they’re doing this is they want to get some money and if it sits vacant for a long time they actually can’t recoup their investment.” Federal Regulators have no choice to abide by the wishes of Southern Californians, because they pay for the cost of San Onofre and their safety is at risk. SCE, its global experts and NRC have nothing at risk in this unapproved and potentially lethal experiment. Thanks to Mr. Victor Dricks for Posting this Blog.
I think that California does not NEED any nuclear power plants since they have plenty of spare capacity without relying on nuclear generation! Add in the RISK of an Earthquake and/or a Tsunami and the fact that California has plenty of sunshine, not to mention the possibility of off shore (out of sight of those on land) wind generation and you realize that California could become an Energy exporter, all without any nuclear generation or the massive amount of waste they create! The only thing keeping California from going Non-Nuclear is the “Public Utilities” which now have a strangle-hold on the states Political Leadership and their Utility Regulators…
Critical Questioning & Investigative Attitude Quiz
An unnamed US Nuclear Power Plant increased its power by 7.5 % and increased the heat transfer surface area of its Replacement steam Generators by 25%. The RSG design addressed Fluid Elastic Instability, Flow -induced Random Vibrations and compared the results with Several Operating Reactors. It will be interesting to find out if NRC region IV can answer what was the name of that US Plant and how the RSG heat transfer surface area was increased. Did this plant apply for a 50.90 License Amendment and which NRC Branch checked the results of Thermal-Hydraulic Modeling/FEI/FIRV Vibrations? Thanks to Mr. Victor Dricks for Posting this Blog.
Mel Silberberg says:
I am trying to reach Dr. Hackett.
Mel Silberberg, USNRC Retired
Courtesy of DAB Safety Team
Press Release – The DAB Safety Team: January 31, 2013
Four More Statements From NRC Region IV Augmented Inspection Team (AIT) That Require A Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR) Investigation And Resolution.
The DAB Safety Team Has Transmitted The Following Request To The Offices Of Chairman Of The NRC, The California Attorney General and Senator Barbara Boxer’s Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW).
1. NRC AIT in its report dated November 09, 2012 (Re: NRC ADAMS Library Accession Number ML 2012010 – Unresolved Item 05000362/2012007-03, “Evaluation of Unit 3 Vibration and Loose Parts Monitoring System Alarms (V&LPM)”) closed the referenced item by stating that, “The inspectors determined that the licensee properly responded to and evaluated the alarms and followed the applicable station alarm procedures and vendor recommendations. Subsequently, the licensee requested from the vendor an in-depth evaluation of the available acoustical data, which was documented in Nuclear Notification NN 201818719. This evaluation established the likely source of the alarms. The results were inconclusive because of limitations with the monitoring system. Specifically, because of sensor locations (lower portion of the steam generator below the tube sheet in the support structure) and sensitivity, it was not possible to determine the exact source of the Unit 3 alarms. Westinghouse engineering personnel performed an evaluation (Evaluation 201818719-SPT-2) of acoustical data and determined from the shape and intensity of the particular responses that the acoustic source was not likely from the upper bundle of the replacement steam generator or related to the tube-to-tube wear. The licensee (SCE) is considering additional sensor locations which are not required, but may help with monitoring the upper bundle region of the steam generator during power operation. The results of this additional monitoring and increased sensor sensitivity may provide the licensee with a potential means to monitor for tube-to-tube degradation.” (The wonders of of this improved version of V&LPM system related to of tube-tube wear as claimed by AIT Team and SCE and questioned by NRR as NO detection capability below). According to the December 18, 2012 SCE NRC Public meeting Press and Webcast Reports, Edison officials came under sharp questioning about the Vibration and Loose Parts Monitoring System monitors at a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission panel meeting in Maryland. Richard Stattel of the NRC’s Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR) Instrumentation Branch told the Edison Officials in a roaring and loud voice on an international live web cast, “The equipment could not do the job described by the company or provide additional safety if the plant is restarted. The instrumentation that you’re proposing … does not appear to be capable of detecting the conditions that would lead to actual tube wear.” Edison depicted the equipment in its restart plan as an important safety measure “but it doesn’t appear to do that.” See the DAB Safety Team’s Press Release + 12-12-28 Thirty Alarms Demonstrates SONGS Unsafe for details on this subject.
DAB Safety Team Comments: The NRR is saying loud and clear that both NRC AIT and SCE Engineers need to understand the basic functions of “Safety-Grade” Instrumentation and the concept of “tube-to-tube” wear (Fluid Elastic Instability). Since there are no means of monitoring tube wall thinning while the plant is in service, the risk of tube burst is wholly dependent upon the accuracy and reliability of SCE’s “Safety-Grade” Instrumentation. The DAB Safety Team has stated earlier that NRC AIT Report is just a replication of SCE Root Cause Evaluation and not a true assessment by an Independent Regulator tasked with ensuring Public Safety. On December 21, 2012, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) blog posted a letter from Chairman Macfarlane titled, “A Visit to Japan: Reflections from the Chairman.” She said, “Regulators may need to be “buffered” from political winds, but they need to be fully subjected to the pressure of scientific and engineering truth and cannot be allowed to make decisions or order actions that are “independent” of facts.” According to the March 16, 2012 Press reports, Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW), and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) sent a letter to the Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Dr. Gregory Jaczko, calling on the NRC to perform a thorough inspection at the San Onofre plant, located in San Clemente. The collusion and casual relationship between NRC AIT Team and SCE requires an Investigation by the Offices of NRC Chairman and Honorable and respected Senator Barbara Boxer to determine the impact on both future US reactor operations and emergency preparedness planning. This investigation by the AIT does not meet the Honorable and Respected NRC Chairman’s Standards.
2. NRC AIT in its report dated November 11, 2012 (Re: Unresolved Item 05000362/2012007-03, “Evaluation of Retainer Bars Vibration during the Original Design of the Replacement Steam Generators”) closed the referenced item by stating that, “The inspectors determined that the licensee’s failure to verify the adequacy of the retainer bar design as required by SONGS Procedure SO123-XXIV-37.8.26 was of very low safety significance (Green) based on NRC Inspection Manual Chapter 0609.04, “Phase 1 – Initial Screening and Characterization of Findings,” and Inspection Manual Chapter 0609, Appendix A, “The Significance Determination Process (SDP) for Findings At-Power,” because the finding did not involve a degraded steam generator tube condition where one tube could not sustain 3 times the differential pressure across a tube during normal full power, steady state operation and none of the replacement steam generators violated the “accident leakage” performance criterion in plant Technical Specifications as a result of the retainer bar vibrations. The licensee also implemented actions to inspect all affected tubes in Unit 2 and 3 and remove from service all those tubes surrounding the smaller retainer bars that could wear due to vibration of the retainer bar. Because this violation has been determined to be of very low safety significance (Green) and has been entered in the licensee’s corrective action program as SONGS Nuclear Notification (NN) 201843216, it will be dispositioned as a non-cited violation in accordance with Section 2.3.2 of the NRC’s Enforcement Policy.”
John Large, internationally known Consulting Engineer, Chartered Engineer, Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Graduate Member of the Institution Civil Engineers, Learned Member of the Nuclear Institute and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts states concerning SONGS Restart Unit 2 in his testimony to the Atomic Safety Licensing Board, “In October 2012 MHI reported directly to the NRC safety concerns about the retainer bars: The Steam Generator tube wear adjacent to the retainer bars was identified as creating a potential safety hazard. The maximum wear depth is 90% of the tube thickness. The cause of the tube wear has been determined to be the retainer bars’ random flow-induced vibration caused by the secondary fluid exiting the tube bundle. Since the retainer bar has a low natural frequency, the bar vibrates with a large amplitude. This type tube wear could have an adverse effect on the structural integrity of the tubes, which are part of the pressure boundary. The plugging of the tubes that are adjacent to the retainer bars was performed. MHI has recommended to the purchaser [SCE] to remove the retainer bars that would have the possibility of vibration with large amplitude or to perform the plugging and stabilizing for the associated tubes. According to MHI, it is the lower resonance frequency of the smaller diameter retainer bars that is susceptible to turbulent two-phase flow exciting the bar into its prime resonance or some harmonic frequency thereof [p10, item 3].14 Whatever, a number of the tubes capturing the retainer bar had sustained abraded wear from interaction with it. These tubes comprised six tubes in U2 and four tubes in U3, with seven tubes in total showing wear greater than the 35% limit of the tube wall thickness for which isolation from service is required by plugging with, as previously noted, an incidence site in one of U2 RSGs having worn through 90% of its wall thickness. I agree with the findings of MHI that the tube wear at the retainer bar localities arises because of random flow induced (not FEI) vibration of the retainer bar itself, it being entirely independent of any tube motion excited from other sources. However, MHI’s advice to either plug the local tubes and/or remove the retainer bars at risk raises two issues unique to the retainer bar and its sub-assembly: (i) Plugging of the at-risk tubes is not a satisfactory solution because it is the retainer bar that vibrates via random fluid flow processes at sub FEI critical velocity levels – these are likely to continue in play or, indeed, exacerbate at the proposed U2 restart at 70% power, leading to through-tube abrasion, the detachment of tube fragments, lodging at other unplugged and in-service tube localities, resulting in the so-called ‘foreign object’ tube wear; (ii) MHI’s recommendation that those retainer bars at risk of large-amplitude fluid flow excited vibration should be removed is, of course, dependent upon reliable analysis to identify the at-risk assemblies; and, importantly, and (iii) this restraint system probably also serves to contain the tube bundle geometry during a main line steam break (MSLB) design basis event, so any change or removal of the retaining bar assemblage would require a full safety justification.”
Westinghouse states, “For most of the straight leg section of the tube, the gap velocities at lower power levels and at 100% power are similar. The recirculating fluid flow rate is relatively constant at all power levels. However, in the U-bend region, the gap velocities are a strong function of power level. The steam flow in the bundle is cumulative and increases as a function of the power level and the bundle height which causes high fluid quality, void fraction, and secondary fluid velocities in the upper bundle.”
SCE in its November 30, 2012, NRC Presentation stated, “Four tubes with retainer bars wear above 35% limit in Unit 2 were plugged.” The NRC website states, “The severity of one of the wear indications at a Unit 2 retainer bar was significant enough (90 percent thru-wall) to warrant in-situ pressure testing. This pressure test confirmed the structural integrity of this tube (there was no leakage).”
DAB Safety Team Comments: Let us summarize what John Large and Westinghouse are saying: (1) Plugging of the at-risk tubes is not a satisfactory solution because it is the retainer bar that vibrates via random fluid flow processes at sub FEI critical velocity levels – these are likely to continue to vibrate or, indeed, exacerbate at the proposed U2 restart at 70% power, leading to through-tube abrasion, the detachment of tube fragments, lodging at other unplugged and/or in-service tube localities, resulting in the so-called ‘foreign object’ tube wear, (2) For most of the straight leg section of the tube, the gap velocities at lower power levels and at 100% power are similar. Therefore, even at 70% power, the tube-to-retainer bar wear will continue at the same rate as 100% power and plugging the tubes is not a satisfactory solution in terms of reducing the active tubes rupture safety risks. SCE is not stating the facts either in its Root Cause Evaluation nor in its NRC Presentation. Two better questions are, “How many tubes in Unit 2 have what amounts of fatigue cracks and why has SCE not used state-of-the-art technology to visually examine all RSG tubes at San Onofre?” What this really means is that Southern Californians were lucky once again, that Unit 2 just happened to be shutdown for refueling! Otherwise, one or more worn tubes could have leaked or failed due to a design bases accident and/or any unanticipated transients. Almost 180 tubes had to be plugged and stabilized in Unit 2 Replacement Steam Generators due to retainer bar design mistakes. In addition, no reports are available to determine the extent of tube fatigue damage or damage to the small retainer bars caused by the worn tubes and whether the damaged retaining bars are strong enough to restrain the movement of the anti-vibration bar assembly during a main steam line break design basis event (Ref: NRR RAI #32). The design of the retainer bars approved by SCE and manufactured by MHI clearly violated the Code of Federal Regulations, 10 CFR Part 50, GDC 14, “RCPB—shall have “an extremely low probability of abnormal leakage…and gross rupture” and Appendix B, Criterion III, “Design Control.” The DAB Safety Team’s opinion is that NRC AIT is treating the retainer bar mistakes and its design approval by SCE just as a routine matter like “No big deal, nothing happened, so who cares” instead of performing the strict enforcement required of an Independent Regulator tasked with ensuring Public Safety. This investigation by the AIT does not meet the Honorable and Respected NRC Chairman’s Standards.
3. NRC AIT in its report dated November 11, 2012 (Re: Unresolved Item 05000362/2012007-08, “Non-Conservative Thermal-Hydraulic Model Results”) states that, “The licensee and Mitsubishi continued to evaluate this unresolved item and no final conclusions were reached at the time of the inspection. The NRC is continuing to perform independent reviews of existing information, and will conduct additional reviews as new information becomes available.” In the original Report in July 2012, the NRC AIT concluded that, “Due to modeling errors, the SONGS replacement generators were not designed with adequate thermal hydraulic margin to preclude the onset of fluid-elastic instability.”
John Large states, “I identify a number of issues with the … AREVA Tube-to-Tube Report, including: (i) it is not exactly clear which properties are being represented on the spider diagram for comparison with the other operational SGs; even so (ii) since it is most unlikely that AREVA has undertaken a comprehensive (ATHOS) simulation of each of the five nominated SGs, the comparisons drawn are likely to be between aggregate or bulk flows within the entire tube bundle of each SG; (iii) as acknowledged by AREVA, the SONGS RSGs are dominated by in-plane flow regimes whereas all other SGs are characterized by out-of-plane flow regimes; and (iv) none of the comparative SGs has been identified. In other words, … I cannot reason how, are making a direct comparison of the complex two-phase fluid cross-flow situation in the SONGS and other five comparative plant steam generators, then these figures only provide the bases of a somewhat meaningless comparisons. A complete understanding of the causation of the in-plane FEI is essential to ensure that the SONGS Unit 2 plant is acceptably safe to restart and, once restarted, predictably safe to continue in operation over the proposed 150 day inspection interval. To the contrary, the understanding presented by SCE is neither comprehensive nor convincing. In my opinion, simply sweeping the FEI issue under the carpet on the basis of (in- or out-of-plane) FEI will not reoccur at 70% power is not only disingenuous but foolhardy.”
Arnie Gundersen states, “The AIT report indicated that the change to the FIT-III evaluation methodology was not discussed as part of Edison’s 50.59 screening because the details of thermal hydraulic models used for the design of the OSG were not discussed in the original FSAR. It should have been obvious to Edison that FIT-III has not been benchmarked and had not been previously used in licensing procedures showing that the use of FIT-III might have an adverse effect on the FSAR safety analysis thus necessitating the entire license amendment review and public hearing process. As noted by the AIT, Edison approved the use of FIT-III code even though the code was not benchmarked nor identified as acceptable in the FSAR. Consequently, Edison operated San Onofre without knowing the uncertainties in the Replacement Steam Generators’ performance characteristics. Predicted liquid levels, pressure drops, vibrations, and temperatures at both Units 2 and 3 were all subject to unknown uncertainties during both normal and abnormal operations. In my opinion, by approving the use of an un-benchmarked and untested design tool like FIT-III, Edison did not meet the requirements expected from a nuclear licensee. Use of an un-benchmarked computer code that is not included in the FSAR protocol demands a formal FSAR license amendment process including the requisite public hearings.”
Arnie Gundersen further states, “The AIT reported that FIT-III predictions differed considerably in comparison to an Electric Power Research Institute developed code named ATHOS. FIT-III predicted lower flow velocities and void fractions that were not conservative compared to ATHOS. The AIT Report neglected an analysis of the root cause of the critical differences between FIT-III and ATHOS, and the negative impact such lax calculational modeling had on the design, fabrication, and successful operation of the San Onofre RSGs. Had Edison sought the required FSAR license amendment, differences between FIT-III and ATHOS would have been identified six years ago. The AIT did not address the possibility that the lack of conservatism in FIT-III predictions, in addition to causing tube vibrations, could also result in non-conservative predictions of the behavior of the steam generator pressure vessel and associated main steam piping during accident conditions that are required to be analyzed in the FSAR. The AIT noted that the non-conservatisms in FIT-III are a contributor to the failure by Edison to adequately calculate the San Onofre RSG tube vibrations. But equally important, the AIT failed to address that FIT-III could also create non-conservative predictions of the behavior of the steam generator pressure vessel and associated main steam piping during accident conditions that are required to be analyzed in the FSAR. Such a conclusion implies that damage to the steam generator pressure vessel itself, and not just the tubes, might have occurred at San Onofre and remains unanalyzed by either Edison or the NRC. The probability of an accident exceeding the plant’s Current Design Basis is increased by the radically different Edison Replacement Steam Generators. Hence, the risks involved in operating the San Onofre RSGs should have been addressed as part of an FSAR license amendment and hearing process. It is my professional opinion that Edison should have applied for the 50.59 process so that the FSAR license amendment evaluation and public hearings would have occurred six years ago, prior to creating an accident scenario and facing losses that by the end of this process will easily total more than $1 Billion. The seriousness of the licensing and safety impact of the damaged RSGs at San Onofre cannot be overstated or underestimated. Any Design Basis Accident (DBA) as defined in the FSAR needs to be accurately modeled in order to protect public health and safety. The FSAR’s DBA analysis including the extent of tube leakage in the event of a Main Steam Line Break significantly impacts the design and implementation of Emergency Evacuation Plans. In the event of a steam line break accident in the San Onofre Replacement Steam Generators with the degraded condition of the tubes, an accident would have occurred that is more severe than any design basis accident scenario previously analyzed by Edison in the FSAR. Such a DBA steam line break accident would render the San Onofre emergency plan totally inadequate and most likely cause a permanent evacuation of a large portion of Southern California.”
DAB Safety Team Comments: After the June 18, 2012 public Meeting, the NRC AIT Team Chief announced to the world, “The computer simulation used by Mitsubishi during the design of the steam generators had under-predicted velocities of steam and water inside the steam generators by factors of three to four times.” Now, six months later, the AIT Team is saying the matter is unresolved. The AIT Team is just repeating what SCE says or is not sure what they said four months ago. ATHOS Modeling results are not reliable, because the results by NRC AIT Team, Westinghouse, MHI, AREVA and Independent Experts show that fluid elastic instability occurred both in Units 3 and 2. The investigations in the Root cause of SONGS Unit 3 FEI regarding computer modeling have not been completed by NRC AIT Team, SCE and MHI. FEI did not occur in Unit 2 according to DAB Safety Team and Westinghouse. As also shown in other DAB Safety Team reports, FEI was not caused in Unit 3 by tube-to AVB gaps as claimed by NRC AIT Team and SCE. This is consistent with the findings of Westinghouse, AREVA, MHI, John Large and SONGS Anonymous Insiders. The AIT Team is hurting its own credibility by issuing contradicting and conflicting statements. This investigation by the AIT does not meet the NRC Chairman’s Standards.
4. NRC AIT report dated November 11, 2012 (Re: Unresolved Item 05000362/2012007-10, “Evaluation of Departure of Methods of Evaluation for 10 CFR 50.59 Processes”) closed the referenced item by stating: (a) The change from ANSYS to ABAQUS did not require a license amendment prior to implementing the change, so with respect to section 2.10.D.6 of the NRC Enforcement Manual, there is no reasonable likelihood that the change from ANSYS to ABAQUS would ever require NRC approval. Therefore, in accordance with the NRC Enforcement Manual, the inspectors determined that the licensee’s change from ANSYS to ABAQUS was a minor violation of 10 CFR 50.59(d)(1), and (b)n Based on this, the inspectors determined that the licensee had changed from using ANSYS and STRUDL to analyze several events for the original steam generators, to using only ANSYS to analyze a single limiting event for the replacement steam generators. Therefore, because the licensee did not change the method described in the Updated Final Safety Analysis Report, the inspectors concluded that the licensee did not need to obtain a license amendment prior to implementing that change. In the original Report in July 2012, the NRR technical specialist reviewed SCE’s 10 CFR 50.59 evaluation and found two instances that failed to adequately address whether the change involved a departure of the method of evaluation described in the updated final safety analysis report: (a) Use of ABAQUS instead of ANSYS: The SCE’s 50.59 evaluation incorrectly determined that using the ABAQUS instead of ANSYS was a change to an element of the method described in the updated final safety analysis report did not constitute changing from a method described in the updated final safety analysis report to another method, and as such, did not mention whether ABAQUS has been approved by the NRC for this application.
(b) Use of ANSYS instead of STRUDL and ANSYS: While SCE’s 50.59 evaluation correctly considered this a change from a method described in the FSAR to another method, the 50.59 evaluation did not mention whether the method has been approved by NRC for this application.
NRC AIT Report states, “For the Unit 2 and Unit 3 replacement steam generators, the licensee determined that the proposed activity did not adversely affect a design function, or the method of performing or controlling a design function described in the updated final safety analysis report. The licensee evaluated the following updated final safety analysis report design functions in the 50.59 screening: Steam Generator Design Functions. Let us examine the effect of these changes on Steam Generator Design Functions: The design functions of the steam generators tubes and tube supports are to: (1.) Limit tube flow-induced vibration to acceptable levels during normal operating conditions, and (2) Prevent a tube rupture concurrent with other accidents.
Change Number 1: 105,000 square feet tube heat transfer area in OSGs; 116,100 square feet tube heat transfer area in RSGs; 11.1% increase in heat transfer area, which is more than a minimal change of 10% in the non-conservative direction. Change accomplished by addition of 377 tubes in the central region by removal of stay cylinder and increasing the length of 9727 tubes by > 7 inches in each of the four RSGs.
Change Number 2: Operating Secondary Pressure – OSGs: 900 psi, RSG: 833 psi ~ 10% change
– A catastrophic change for onset and ongoing exponential fluid elastic instability
Change Number 3: Tube wall thickness was reduced from 0.048 inches to 0.043 to pump more reactor coolant through the tubes > 11.6% change – The latest academic research indicates that the tube vibrations become large as T/D decreases and L/D increases, because the in-plane tube vibrations strongly depend on the dynamic characteristics of tubes such as the natural frequency and the damping ability.
Four other changes: Moisture content was reduced from 0.2% to 0.1% to improve SG performance, RCS Volume was increased from 1895 cubic feet to 2003 cubic feet, RCS Flow was increased from 198,000 gpm to 209,000 gpm, feedwater flow was increased from 7.4 million pound per hour to 7.6 million pound per hour and AVBs were not designed to prevent against adverse effects of fluid elastic instability (In-plane vibrations, Tube-to-Tube wear, steam dry-outs). These unapproved and unanalyzed changes were claimed to be a conservative decision and improvements in the RSGs from OSGs were presented as a “like for Like” change. No mixing baffles were added in the SONGS RSGs to improve the T/H Performance in the RSGs. FEI and SR Values were not provided by SCE in the RSG Design Specifications. SCE told MHI to avoid the NRC Approval… MHI neither provided in-plane supports, nor provided the operational criteria to prevent FEI in one of the largest steam generators with such high steam flows. MHI did not benchmark CE SG Computer codes or design details, neither did SCE, nor did SCE check the work of MHI. And Honorable and Respected Dr. McFarlane says, “SCE is responsible for the work of its vendors and contractors. Look at Palo Verde RSGs, a Success Story and SONGS RSGs, a $ Billion Blunder….
NRC AIT Report states, “The licensee’s bid specification required that the stay cylinder feature of the original steam generators be eliminated to maximize the number of tubes that could be installed in the replacement steam generators and to mitigate past problems with tube wear at tube supports caused by relatively cool water and high flow velocities in the central part of the tube bundle. Mitsubishi employed a broached trefoil tube support plates instead of the egg crate supports in the original design. In addition to providing for better control of tube to support plate gaps and easier assembly, the broached tube support plates were intended to address past problems with the egg crate supports by providing less line of contact and faster flow between the tubes and support plates, reducing the potential for deposit buildup and corrosion.”
Arnie Gundersen states, “As the NRC confirmed in its AIT report, a large steam void has developed near where the additional tubes were added in the Replacement Steam Generators (called fluid elastic instability) that allows many types of excess vibrations to occur. Fairewinds review of Edison’s Condition Report clearly shows that the location within the steam generators where the steam “fluid elastic instability” has developed is precisely the region where the extra heat created by the 400 new tubes would create an excess of steam and various vibrational modes.”
NRC AIT report states, “Mitsubishi’s preliminary explanation of the failure mechanism started with the combination of two factors: (1) a relatively small tube pitch to tube diameter ratio (P/D), and (2) high void fraction in the tube bundle area where the tube-to-tube wear was identified. The small pitch to diameter ratio was a fixed parameter in the replacement steam generators established by the nominal center-to-center distance between adjacent tubes (P) and the nominal outside diameter of the tubes (D). The high void fraction was identified from the results of Mitsubishi’s thermal-hydraulic model for the secondary side of the replacement steam generators. Mitsubishi considered that the combination of these two factors may have resulted in favorable conditions for in-plane tube vibration based, in part, on the results of recent studies in fluid-elastic instability.” Mitsubishi also states, “Low secondary pressures are severe for vibration.”
John Large states, “Referring to the short section of the FSAR provided to me by SCE, which I understand is not to be amended for the Unit 2 restart: (a) there is no account of the changes that have been made in the evaluation of the tube structural and leakage integrity, that is from the stage of predicting those tubes at risk of TTW and other forms of wear, the tube thinning wear rates, through to the nature of the tube failure being unique to the type and extent of the wear pattern and tube thinning; and (b) the methods of deducing, mainly by unproven inference, from the probe inspection results particularly to determine the in-plane AVB effectiveness, includes unacceptably large elements of test and experimentation that are inconsistent with the analyses and descriptions of the FSAR.”
DAB Safety Team Comments: Therefore, the DAB Safety Team concludes that the changes in design functions of the RSGs tubes and tube supports described above definitely: a) did not limit tube flow-induced vibration to acceptable levels during normal operating conditions and, b) involved a significant reduction in a margin of safety – Failure of 8 Unit 3 SG Tubes under MSLB test conditions and significant TTW > 35% of ~381 tubes in Unit 3 RSGs. A multiple tube failure event, if actually would have occurred during a MSLB would have resulted in a significant increase in the off-site radiological consequences over the single tube burst event, if currently considered in the SONGS approved FSAR by NRC Region IV. The Replacement Steam Generator (RSG) modifications at San Onofre increased both the likelihood of equipment failure and the radiological consequence of such failure and therefore directly affect the FSAR Current Design Basis. The AIT has no business contradicting conclusions made earlier by the NRR technical specialist. This investigation by the AIT does not meet the NRC Chairman’s Standards.
NRC Region IV Response to DAB Safety Team Analysis of SONGS 10 CFR 50.59 Evaluation Comments: The NRC has already conducted several reviews of the 10 CFR 50.59 documents associated with the replacement of the steam generators at SONGS. These reviews involved NRC inspectors from multiple offices including Region IV, Region II and the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation at NRC headquarters. The results of these reviews are contained in NRC two inspection reports that are available at http://www.nrc.gov/info-finder/reactor/songs/tube-degradation.html. [see the Augmented Inspection Team Report dated July 18, 2012, and the Augmented Inspection Team Follow-Up Report dated November 9, 2012]. It is worthy of note that the NRC staff is currently reviewing 10 CFR 50.59 documents associated with the licensee’s proposed restart activities. The results of the ongoing review will be documented in a future inspection report.
Comments from Mel Silberberg [NRC-RES, Retired [Chief, Severe Accident Research Branch; Waste Management Branch] to Region IV: I am disappointed in the composition of the special panel! Where is the representation from NRC-RES? The issues at SONGS involve thermal hydraulics and material science. The NRC-RES and its contractors are experts in these areas. The Office of Research was created by the Congress for such situations. Two RES staff covering these disciplines and one or two consultants, serving as peer-reviewers. Perhaps there needs to be a separate peer review. Public confidence can only be gained using logical, informed measures as I described above. Inspection Reports are only one facet of the problem, no question. However, understanding the reasons for the fluid instability, possible cavitation corrosion effects, etc. are phenomena which require evaluation by T/H as well as materials experts, with appropriate oversight by the ACRS. The SCE, the nuclear industry, the NRC and the public need assurance, not educated guesses. I have not seen a bona fide attempt to understand resolve the issue such that all can be alert to potential problems. I still remain puzzled as to why the ACRS [at least one of the Subcommittees]. I am trying to reach the ACRS Exec. Director to discuss this point. Thank you.”
DAB Safety Team Further Comments: NRC Region IV Inspectors need to be re-trained in interpretation of significance of 10 CFR 50.59 Evaluation rules and meaning of changes in design function on safety evaluations. Simply sweeping the 10 CFR 50.59 mistakes under the carpet on the basis of meaningless statements, “The NRC has already conducted several reviews of the 10 CFR 50.59 documents associated with the replacement of the steam generators at SONGS. The present SONGS NRC approved for the total S/G tube leakage assumes a limit of 1 gpm for all S/Gs, which ensures that the dosage contribution from the tube leakage will be limited to a small fraction of 10CFR100 limits in the event of either a S/G tube rupture or steam line break. The 1 gpm limit is consistent with the assumptions used in the analysis of these accidents.
The 0.5 gpm (720 gpd) leakage limit per S/G ensures that S/G tube integrity is maintained in the event of a main steam line rupture or under LOCA conditions.” These reviews of 10 CFR 50.59 and SONGS FSAR S/G tube rupture limits from NRC inspectors from multiple offices including Region IV, Region II and the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation at NRC headquarters” are not only disingenuous but foolhardy. A single tube leakage and/or rupture could result in a nuclear incident or accident with tube leakages assumed in the current SONGS FSAR as shown in the Table below. A multiple tube failure event for all phases of the reactor in-core fuel cycle, would result in a significant increase in the off-site radiological consequences (e.g., Fukushima, Chernobyl, etc.) over the single tube burst event currently considered in the FSAR. The rapid and extraordinarily severe wear that resulted in the 2012 failures of all of Edison’s San Onofre Replacement Steam Generators was the result of Edison’s 2005 decision to radically change the RSG design and to claim that the Part 50.59 licensing process did not apply. Arnie Gundersen and DAB Safety Team have stated consistently that San Onofre Replacement Steam Generator tube damage discovered in 2012 was so severe and extensive that both reactors have been operating in violation of their NRC FSAR license design basis as defined in their Technical Specifications. While the NRC Augmented Inspection Team (AIT) briefly described how Edison addressed its 50.59 requirements, the evidence shows that Edison did not comply with the NEI guidelines for implementing 50.59. Published reports indicate that the strategic decision made by Edison that the 50.59 process would not be applied to the RSGs was made by corporate officials before any engineering personnel had actually performed the 50.59 engineering analysis. Consequently, Edison made a management decision to claim that the 50.59 process did not apply and therefore San Onofre was not required to seek NRC approval for the proposed changes at San Onofre Units 2 and 3. These unlicensed unapproved design changes to the containment boundary violated Federal Regulations and therefore the FSAR must be amended prior Unit 2 Restart to reflect multiple steam generator tube ruptures with MSLB plus DBE due to Edison’s significant untested and unanalyzed modifications.The DAB Safety Team: Don, Ace and a BATTERY of safety-conscious San Onofre insiders plus industry experts from around the world who wish to remain anonymous. These volunteers assist the DAB Safety Team by sharing knowledge, opinions and insight but are not responsible for the contents of the DAB Safety Team’s reports. We continue to work together as a Safety Team to prepare additional DAB Safety Team Documents, which explain in detail why a SONGS restart is unsafe at any power level without a Full/Thorough/Transparent NRC 50.90 License Amendment and Evidentiary Public Hearings.
Our Mission: To prevent a Trillion Dollar Eco-Disaster like Fukushima, from happening in the USA.
Copyright January 31, 2013 by The DAB Safety Team. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast or redistributed without crediting the DAB Safety Team. The contents cannot be altered without the Written Permission of the DAB Safety Team Leader and/or the DAB Safety Team’s Attorney… Thanks to NRC Moderator for Posting this Blog. HAHN Baba
Southern Californians need safe, affordable, reliable, well managed, well maintained and excellently operated nuclear power plants, where workers are free for raising nuclear safety and personnel concerns and Rate Payers, Regulators, Politicians and News Media are Proud. San Onofre does not meet any of the above listed criteria. With that said, SCE has to meet all of the above criteria or Decommission San Onofre. Thanks To the NRC Moderator for posting this blog… HAHN Baba
I predict that time will show that a nuclear accident (not a nuclear incident) was narrowly avoided at SanO on January 31, 2012 only because of shear luck, due to the timing of the discovery of Edison’s poorly in-house designed replacement steam generators (RSG). Had that Unit 3 tube been just a tiny bit stronger and not leaked when it did; then with both Unit 2 & 3 back online, if a main steam line break or something similar occurred, we now know that it would have probably resulted in the complete venting of the core coolant within minutes, and we all know what that means…
SanO is now a 1.5 Billion Dollar RED FLAG that illustrates how easy NRC regulations can be gamed (without ANY enforcement penalties) which allow Utilities/Operators to make changes that have enormous implications to safety and the Public Health, with little to N☢ actual oversight, until it is to late!
The two basic problems at Fukushima, Japan were that:
(1) TEPCO’s regulator pushed too much paper instead of being “hands on”.
(2) TEPCO had total control over what data the public had access to, which prevented any real oversight by the public.
The USA cannot afford a Trillion Dollar Eco-Disaster like Fukushima, that is why the NRC needs to “overhaul” how it enforces its current regulations and develop new regulations ASAP to patch all the regulatory holes that now exist!
The first step is to really open up the entire NRC process to the public, so that true public oversight can take place, instead of the flawed system we now have, as SanO illustrates all too well! As it is now, the public does not have enough access to NRC documents, reports and/or data which prevents all knowledgable people from providing true input into the decision making process.
Or said another way, we cannot afford to have a Trillion Dollar Eco-Disaster in the USA for any reason and that includes GREED…
What we don’t know can indeed hurt US, especially if it is radioactive!
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth an AIT Report…
The latest video from Friends of the Earth US:
Salute to Mel Silberberg, If you do reach the Exec. Director of ACRS, please tell him to contact the DAB Safety Team, we have posted more factual data/information* about San Onofre’s FEI problems than anybody else! The DAB Safety Team’s documents explain in detail why a SONGS restart is unsafe at any power level, especially without a Full/Thorough/Transparent NRC 50.90 License Amendment and Evidentiary Public Hearings. For much more from the DAB Safety Team, please visit the link* below.
* https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0BweZ3c0aFXcFZGpvRlo4aXJCT2s/edit?pli=1
BIG TIP: The Attorney General of CA has now requested Party Status in the CPUC investigation of Edison’s San Onofre Debacle!
Moderator says:
Note from the Moderator: Information about the NRC Inspector General’s HotLine is located here: http://www.nrc.gov/insp-gen/oighotline.html . The Office of the Inspector General at NRC established the Hotline (1-800-233-3497) program to provide the NRC employee, other government employee, licensee/utility employee, contractor employee, and the public with a confidential means of reporting incidences of suspicious activity to the OIG concerning fraud, waste, abuse, and employee or management misconduct. Mismanagement of agency programs or danger to public health and safety may also be reported through the Hotline.
Hi Mr. Mel Silberberg Can you please comment on the following….. Thanks HAHN Baba
Subject: FYI – Exchange of Notes
To: Victor.Dricks@nrc.govHelpAllHurtNeverBaba January 29, 2013 at 1:04 am
Request for independent re-review of SONGS 50.59 Screen/Evaluation by NRC Region II – Please send me an email after you complete the review ASAP. These guys who performed the screen and evaluations are very close friends of mine and I want to make sure they were on the right track. Trying to help my friends and NRC Region IV. Thanks… HAHN Baba
Moderator January 29, 2013 at 2:21 pm
The NRC has already conducted several reviews of the 10 CFR 50.59 documents associated with the replacement of the steam generators at SONGS. These reviews involved NRC inspectors from multiple offices including Region IV, Region II and the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation at NRC headquarters. The results of these reviews are contained in NRC two inspection reports that are available at http://www.nrc.gov/info-finder/reactor/songs/tube-degradation.html. [see the Augmented Inspection Team Report dated July 18, 2012, and the Augmented Inspection Team Follow-Up Report dated November 9, 2012]. It is worthy of note that the NRC staff is currently reviewing 10 CFR 50.59 documents associated with the licensee’s proposed restart activities. The results of the ongoing review will be documented in a future inspection report.
HelpAllHurtNeverBaba January 29, 2013 at 8:34 pm Your comment is awaiting moderation.
Mr. Dricks, Respectfully, Along with Arnie Gundersen and John Large, I totally disagree with the NRC assessments on SONGS 10 CFR 50.59 RSG Evaluations. I was qualified SONGS 50.59 Screener/Evaluator for a decade besides being qualified at several other nuclear power plants. I have performed numerous 50.59 changes and reviews at SONGS. The changes shown below were claimed by Edison to be in the conservative direction and improvements.
NRC AIT Report states, “For the Unit 2 and Unit 3 replacement steam generators, the licensee determined that the proposed activity did not adversely affect a design function, or the method of performing or controlling a design function described in the updated final safety analysis report. The licensee evaluated the following updated final safety analysis report design functions in the 50.59 screening: Steam Generator Design Functions….
Let us examine the effect of these changes on Steam Generator Design Functions and then you go back to your peers for more soul searching/research and provide more arguments and we will go from there:
The design functions of the steam generators tubes and tube supports are to: (1.) Limit tube flow-induced vibration to acceptable levels during normal operating conditions, and (2) Prevent a tube rupture concurrent with other accidents.
Change Number 1: 105,000 square feet tube heat transfer area in OSGs; 116,100 square feet tube heat transfer area in RSGs; 11.1% increase in heat transfer area, which is more than a minimal change of 10% in the non-conservative direction. Change accomplished by addition of 377 tubes in the central region by removal of stay cylinder and increasing the length of 9727 tubes by > 7 inches.
Change Number 3: Tube wall thickness was reduced from 0.048 inches to 0.043 to pump more reactor coolant through the tubes > 10% change
Other changes: Moisture content was reduced from 0.2% to 0.1% to improve SG performance, RCS Volume was increased from 1895 cubic feet to 2003 cubic feet, RCS Flow was increased from 198,000 gpm to 209,000 gpm, feedwater flow was increased from 7.4 million pound per hour to 7.6 million pound per hour and AVBs were not designed to prevent against adverse effects of fluid elastic instability (In-plane vibrations, Tube-to-Tube wear, steam dry-outs). These unapproved and unanalyzed changes were claimed to be a conservative decision and improvements in the RSGs from OSGs were presented as a “like for Like” change. No mixing baffles were added in the SONGS RSGs to improve the T/H Performance in the RSGs. FEI and SR Values were not provided by SCE in the RSG Design Specifications. SCE told MHI to avoid the NRC Approval…… MHI did not either provided in-plane supports, or provided the operational criteria to prevent FEI in one of the largest steam generators with such high steam flows. MHI did not benchmark CE SG Computer codes or design details, neither did SCE, nor did SCE check the work of MHI. And Dr. McFarlane says, “SCE is responsible for the work of its vendors and contractors. Look at Palo Verde RSGs, a Success Story and SONGS RSGs, a $ Billion Blunder….
NOTE: ATHOS Modeling results are not reliable, because the results by NRC AIT Team, Westinghouse, MHI, AREVA and Independent Experts show that fluid elastic instability occurred both in Units 3 and 2. The investigations in the Root cause of SONGS Unit 3 FEI regarding computer modeling have not been completed by NRC AIT Team, SCE and MHI. FEI did not occur in Unit 2 according to DAB Safety Team and Westinghouse. As also shown in other DAB Safety Team reports, FEI was not caused in Unit 3 by tube-to AVB gaps as claimed by NRC AIT Team and SCE. This is consistent with the findings of Westinghouse, AREVA, MHI, John Large and SONGS Anonymous Insiders.
Problems in SONGS Original CE Steam Generators: In the Original 2001 Power Uprate Application (NRC ADAMS Accession Number ML010950020), “Proposed Change Number NPF-10115-514 Increase in Reactor Power to 3438 MWt San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station Units 2 and 3”, SCE stated “ By the above reference Southern California Edison (SCE) submitted Amendment Application Numbers 207 and 192 to the facility operating licenses for the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), Units 2 and 3, respectively, to increase the licensed reactor thermal power level to 3438 MWt. At 100% power operation, steam generator pressures typically vary between 800 psia and 815 psia, compared to the original nominal design operating pressure of 900 psia. Wear at tube support structures is a known degradation mechanism at SONGS. At SONGS, rapid wear was observed on tubes surrounding the stay cylinder in the center of the steam generator during the first cycle of operation. Many tubes in the most susceptible region around the stay cylinder have been preventively plugged. The first preventive plugging was done after 0.7 EFPY of operation. The preventively plugged region was expanded during the Cycle 3 outage. Typical active wear in CE designed steam generators has occurred at the support structures in the upper bundle region of the steam generator. These supports consist of diagonal straps (frequently called bat wings) and vertical strap supports. This currently active wear mechanism is influenced by both flow velocities and tube to support gap wear. The variable influenced by the proposed uprate is the inner bundle flow velocities. The hydrodynamic stability of a steam generator is characterized by the damping factor. A negative value of this parameter indicates a stable unit, i.e., small perturbations of steam pressure or circulation ratio will diminish rather than grow in amplitude. The damping factors remain highly negative, at a level comparable to the current design, for all cases. Thus, the steam generators remain hydrodynamically stable for all uprate cases. Based on a projected increase of 2.3% in the secondary side fluid velocity, normal operation flow induced vibration analysis is impacted by the velocity increase. Current analysis considered that tubes with more than one consecutive inactive eggcrate were staked and plugged, and two nonconsecutive inactive eggcrates are acceptable. The Stability Ratio (SR) is defined as: SR = Veff/Vcr, where, Veff= effective velocity, Vcr = critical velocity; and Values of SR 35% of ~381 tubes in Unit 3 RSGs.
Palo Verde made similar changes to their RSGs under a 50.90 License Amendment. PVNGS Generators are running after 10 years with very little tube plugging whereas the above changes in SONGS RSGs destroyed Unit 3 and crippled Unit 2 RSGs. Because of these adverse design changes, everybody is on the run: NRC Region IV, SCE, Mitsubishi, California Public Utilities Commission, Senator Barbara Boxer and Senator Dianne Feinstein. NRC Region IV, Westinghouse, AREVA, MHI, World’s Experts, SCE (Except DAB Safety Team SONGS Anonymous Insiders) are not sure whether fluid elastic instability in Unit 2 occurred or not. Southern Californians Ratepayers have lost $1 Billion in this game without electricity and now are faced with the trauma of restart of defectively-designed and degraded Unit 2 due to SCE’s continued mistakes. I am just trying to help, so please, wake up NRC Region IV and San Onofre Special Panel, Your charter is public safety and not whether SCE looses or makes money. I guarantee that SCE will make more money by admitting their mistakes and win NRC/Public Confidence by correcting their mistakes and using “Critical Questioning & Investigative Attitude” in the future. Remember, Mr. Dricks, Truth always prevails….. HAHN BABA
Allegation – NRC Region IV Violating Presidential Directive and the Public Trust
ttps://docs.google.com/folder/d/0BweZ3c0aFXcFZGpvRlo4aXJCT2s/edit?docId=1S3tUKp-sV-rS2OFMY0Z-A1H4BJ4Ha1ftiow7577tsdY
snip:
SONGS UNIT 3 RSG ROOT CAUSE: It appears that Complacent SCE and Inexperienced MHI Engineers did not perform proper academic research and industry benchmarking about the potential adverse consequences of the reduction of original CE steam generator pressures from 900 psi to say, 800 psi on fluid elastic instability and flow-induced vibrations. These lower secondary steam operating pressures (800-833 psia) are the primary cause for shortening the life of SONGS Original Combustion Engineering Generators due to increased tube wear and plugging caused by flow-induced random vibrations and destruction of SONGS Unit 3 Replacement Steam Generators due to flow-induced random vibrations, Mitsubishi flowering effects and steam voids or steam dry-outs (AKA fluid elastic instability). In addition, SCE Engineers prepared a defective 10 CFR 50.59 Evaluation and design specifications, which were not challenged by MHI, and/or adequately reviewed by NRC Region IV. MHI at the direction of SCE Engineers made numerous untested and unanalyzed design changes to the steam generators under the pretense of “like for like”, and even the NRC’s Region IV administrator Elmo Collins said, “The guts of the machinery look …. Different.”
Special Public Awareness Series – SONGS $1Billion Dollar Radiation Steaming Crucibles
Unbiased and Factual Information provided for the benefit of NRC San Onofre Special Panel
Addressed To: Ryan Lantz, Brian Benney, Randy Hall, Edwin Hackett, Dan Dorman, Victor Dricks
Good Moring Mr. Dricks, SONGS Insider Information from Anonymous Sources and From DAB Safety team for SONGS Special Onofre Team – Response appreciated from the San Onofre Special Panel
A NRC Branch Chief gifted with MIT Intelligence, Intuition and a Sixth Sense, who is an acquaintance of mine, told me at an Industry Conference, “Sir, to resolve any complex technical problem and understand unclear regulations, you have to, ‘Read and reread in between the lines’, use, ‘Critical questioning and an investigative attitude’ and ‘Solid teamwork & alignment.”
Allegation – NRC AIT Report Incomplete, Inconclusive, Inconsistent and Unacceptable
SONGS UNIT 3 RSG REAL ROOT CAUSE: Lack of “Critical Questioning & Investigative Attitude” by SCE, MHI, NRC Region IV and the AIT Members.
NOTE: ATHOS Modeling results are not reliable, because the results by NRC AIT Team, Westinghouse, MHI, AREVA and Independent Experts show that fluid elastic instability occurred both in Units 3 and 2. The investigations in the Root cause of SONGS Unit 3 FEI regarding computer modeling have not been completed by NRC AIT Team, SCE and MHI. As shown in item 3 below, FEI did not occur in Unit 2 according to DAB Safety Team and Westinghouse. As also shown in other DAB Safety Team reports, FEI was not caused in Unit 3 by tube-to AVB gaps as bogusly claimed by NRC AIT Team and SCE. This is consistent with the findings of Westinghouse, AREVA, MHI, John Large and SONGS Anonymous Insiders.
The concerns raised by Dr. Hopenfeld are extremely important safety issues. As the ACRS stated:
• Steam generators constitute more than 50% of the surface area of the primary pressure boundary in a pressurized water reactor.
• Unlike other parts of the reactor pressure boundary, the barrier to fission product release provided by the steam generator tubes is not reinforced by the reactor containment as an additional barrier.”
• Leakage of primary coolant through openings in the steam generator tubes could deplete the inventory of water available for the long-term cooling of the core in the event of an accident. In the decade since Dr. Hopenfeld first raised his safety concerns, the NRC has allowed many nuclear plants to continue operating nuclear power plants with literally thousands of steam generator tubes that are known to be fatigue cracked! The ACRS concluded that the NRC staff made these regulatory decisions using incomplete and inaccurate information. After receiving the ACRS’s report, the NRC staff considered Hopenfeld’s concerns “resolved” even though it had taken no action to address the numerous recommendations in the ACRS report.
Mel Silberberg January 21, 2013 at 6:31 pm US NRC Blog
I am disappointed in the composition of the special panel! Where is the representation from NRC-RES? The issues at SONGS involve thermal hydraulics and material science. The NRC-RES and its contractors are experts in these areas. The Office of Research was created by the Congress for such situations. Two RES staff covering these disciplines and one or two consultants, serving as peer-reviewers. Perhaps there needs to be a separate peer review. Public confidence can only be gained using logical, informed measures as I described above.
Mel Silberberg, NRC-RES, Retired [Chief, Severe Accident Research Branch; Waste Management Branch.
1. Changes in SONGS RSGs from Original CE OSGs In the SONGS RSGs: the number of tubes were increased by 377 and made > 7 inches taller to achieve 11% increase in Heat transfer Area of Tubes to increase 24MWt per RSG, tube wall thickness was reduced from 0.048 inches to 0.043 to pump more reactor coolant through the tubes, moisture content was reduced from 0.2% to 0.1% to improve SG performance , secondary pressure was reduced from 900 psi to 833 psi to push more heat from the reactor coolant to the feedwater, RCS Volume was increased from 1895 cubic feet to 2003 cubic feet, RCS Flow was increased from 198,000 gpm to 209,000 gpm, feedwater flow was increased from 7.4 million pound per hour to 7.6 million pound per hour and AVBs were not designed to prevent against adverse effects of fluid elastic instability (In-plane vibrations, Tube-to-Tube wear, steam dry-outs). These unapproved and unanalyzed changes were claimed to be a conservative move and improvements in the RSGs from OSGs under a “like for Like” change. No mixing baffles were added in the SONGS RSGs to improve the T/H Performance and eliminate dead zones in the RSGs. Palo Verde made similar changes to their RSGs under a 50.90 License Amendment. PVNGS Generators are running after 10 years with very little tube plugging whereas the above changes in SONGS RSGs destroyed Unit 3 and crippled Unit 2 RSGs. These fatal changes definitely: a) Caused a significant increase in the probability or consequences of an accident previously evaluated (SGTR) and, b) involve a significant reduction in a margin of safety – Failure of 8 Unit 3 SG Tubes under MSLB test conditions and significant TTW > 35% of ~381 tubes in Unit 3 RSGs.
2. Problems in SONGS Original CE Steam Generators: In the Original 2001 Power Uprate Application (NRC ADAMS Accession Number ML010950020), “Proposed Change Number NPF-10115-514 Increase in Reactor Power to 3438 MWt San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station Units 2 and 3”, SCE stated “ By the above reference Southern California Edison (SCE) submitted Amendment Application Numbers 207 and 192 to the facility operating licenses for the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), Units 2 and 3, respectively, to increase the licensed reactor thermal power level to 3438 MWt. At 100% power operation, steam generator pressures typically vary between 800 psia and 815 psia, compared to the original nominal design operating pressure of 900 psia. Wear at tube support structures is a known degradation mechanism at SONGS. At SONGS, rapid wear was observed on tubes surrounding the stay cylinder in the center of the steam generator during the first cycle of operation. Many tubes in the most susceptible region around the stay cylinder have been preventively plugged. The first preventive plugging was done after 0.7 EFPY of operation. The preventively plugged region was expanded during the Cycle 3 outage. Typical active wear in CE designed steam generators has occurred at the support structures in the upper bundle region of the steam generator. These supports consist of diagonal straps (frequently called bat wings) and vertical strap supports. This currently active wear mechanism is influenced by both flow velocities and tube to support gap wear. The variable influenced by the proposed uprate is the inner bundle flow velocities. The hydrodynamic stability of a steam generator is characterized by the damping factor. A negative value of this parameter indicates a stable unit, i.e., small perturbations of steam pressure or circulation ratio will diminish rather than grow in amplitude. The damping factors remain highly negative, at a level comparable to the current design, for all cases. Thus, the steam generators remain hydrodynamically stable for all uprate cases.Based on a projected increase of 2.3% in the secondary side fluid velocity, normal operation flow induced vibration analysis is impacted by the velocity increase. Current analysis considered that tubes with more than one consecutive inactive eggcrate were staked and plugged, and two nonconsecutive inactive eggcrates are acceptable. The Stability Ratio (SR) is defined as: SR = Veff/Vcr, where, Veff= effective velocity, Vcr = critical velocity; and Values of SR 99%), known as “NO Effective Thin Tube Film Damping.” Thin film damping refers to the tendency of the steam inside the generators to create a thin film of water between the RSG tubes and the support structures and each other. That film is enough to help keep the tubes from vibrating with large amplitudes, hitting other tubes violently, and to protect the Anti-Vibration Bar support structures and maintain the tube-to-AVB gaps and contact forces. These adverse conditions in Unit 2 at 70% power operation (RTP) with the present defective design and degraded RSGs, known as fluid elastic instability (Tube-to-Tube Wear, or TTW) can lead to rapid U-tube failure from fatigue or tube-to-tube wear in Unit 2 due to a main steam line break as seen in Unit 3’s RSG’s. In summary, FEI is a phenomenon where due to San Onofre RSGs design intended for high steam flows causes the tubes to vibrate with increasingly larger amplitudes due to the fluid effective flow velocity exceeding its specific limit (critical velocity) for a given tube and its supporting conditions and a given thermal hydraulic environment. This occurs when the amount of energy imparted on the tube by the fluid is greater than the amount of energy that the tube can dissipate back to the fluid and to the supports. The lack of Nucleate boiling on the tube surface or absence of water is found to have a destabilizing effect on fluid-elastic stability.
C.2 – Unit 2 FEI Conflicting Operational Data
• NRC AIT Report SG Secondary U2/3 Pressure Range 833 – 942 psi
• SCE RCE SG Secondary U2/3 Pressure – 833 psi
• RCE Team Anonymous Member – Unit 2 SG Secondary Pressure 863 psi
• SONGS SG System Description Unit 2 SG Pressure Range 892 – 942 psi
• Westinghouse OA SG Secondary U2/3 Pressure ~ 838 psi, Void Fraction 99.55%
• SCE Enclosure 2, MHI ATHOS results – U2/3 Void Fraction 99.6%
• SCE Enclosure 2, Independent Expert results – ATHOS U2/3 Void Fraction 99.4%
• DAB Safety Team SG Secondary U2 Pressure 863 -942 psi, Void Fraction 96-98%
• SONGS Plant Daily Briefing Unit 3 Electrical Generation – 1186 MWe
C.3 – Unit 2 FEI Conclusions
C.3.1 – NRC AIT Report – Operational Differences between U2/3 – The NRC analysis indicated a correlation with the tube-to-tube wear based on a combination of high void fraction and high steam velocities. It should be noted that the traditional forcing function, fluid velocity squared times density, does not show good agreement with the tube-to-tube wear patterns. This indicated that the high quality steam fluid velocities and high void fraction may be sufficiently high to cause conditions in the generators conducive for onset of fluid-elastic instability.
The ATHOS code predicted regions of high void fraction and high steam velocities are
super-imposed with tube-to-tube wear indications from Unit 3 steam generator 3E0-88
The above analyses apply equally to Units 2 and 3, so it does not explain why the accelerated fluid-elastic instability wear damage was significantly greater in Unit 3steam generators. The result of the independent NRC thermal-hydraulic analysis indicated that differences in the actual operation between units and/or individual steam generators had an insignificant impact on the results and in fact, the team did not identify any changes in steam velocities or void fractions that could attribute to the differences in tube wear between the units or steam generators.
C.3.2 – SCE Unit 2 Restart Report Enclosure 2 Conclusions – Because of the similarities in design between the Unit 2 and 3 RSGs, it was concluded that FEI in the in-plane direction was also the cause of the TTW in Unit 2.
C.3.3 – SCE U2 FEI SONGS RCE Team Anonymous Member Conclusions – FEI did not occur in Unit 2.
C.3.4 – Westinghouse OA Conclusions: (a) An evaluation of the tube-to-tube wear reported in two tubes in SG 2E089 showed that, most likely, the wear did not result from in-plane vibration of the tubes since all available eddy current data clearly support the analytical results that in-plane vibration could not have occurred in these tubes, and (b) Operational data – Westinghouse ATHOS Model shows no operational differences in Units 2 & 3 (void fraction ~99.6%) and then Westinghouse says in (a) above that FEI did not occur in Unit 2. Westinghouse is contradicting its own statement.
C.3.5 – AREVA OA Conclusions – Based on the extremely comprehensive evaluation of both Units, supplemented by thermal hydraulic and FIV analysis, assuming, a priori, that TTW via in-plane fluid-elastic instability cannot develop in Unit 2 would be inappropriate.
C.3.6 – John Large States, “I note here that there are three clear conflicts of findings between the OAs: From AREVA that AVB-to-tube and TTW result from in-plane FEI, contrasted to Westinghouse that there is no in-plane FEI but most probably it was out-of-plane FEI, and from MHI that certain AVB-to-tube wear results in the absence of in-plane FEI from just turbulent flow. My opinion is that such conflicting disagreement over the cause of TTW reflects poorly on the depth of understanding of the crucially important FEI issue by each of these SCE consultants and the designer/manufacturer of the RSGs.”
C.3.7 – DAB Safety Team Conclusions – Due to higher SG pressure (Range 863 – 942 psi) and lower thermal megawatts as compared to Unit 3, FEI did not occur in Unit 2. This is consistent with the position of RCE Team Anonymous Member. The NRC AIT Report, SCE, Westinghouse, MHI, Independent Expert and AREVA conclusions on Unit 2 FEI are Contradicting, Confusing, Inconclusive, Full of Smoking Mirrors, Inconsistent and Unacceptable
PROBBABLE ROOT CAUSE: Lack of “Critical Questioning & Investigative Attitude” of SCE Supplied Operational Data by Westinghouse, AREVA, MHI and Other World’s Leading Experts
Victor: Inspection Reports are only one facet of the problem, no question. However,understanding the reasons for the fluid instability, possible cavitation corrosion effects, etc.are phenomena which require evaluation by T/H as well as materials experts, with appropriate oversight by the ACRS. The SCE, the nuclear industry, the NRC and the public need assurance, not educated guesses. I have not seen a bona fide attempt to understand resolve the issue such that all can be alert to potential problems. I still remain puzzled as to why the ACRS [ at least one of the Subcommittees]. i am trying to reach the ACRS Exec. Director to discuss this point. Thank you.
Mel Silberberg
To: NRC Moderator Mr. Victor Dricks, Senior Public Affairs Officer, NRC Region IV
Special Thanks to NRC Moderator Mr. Victor Dricks, Senior Public Affairs Officer, NRC Region IV for Posting this Blog
Special Public Awareness Series – US #1 Nuclear Safety Concern
Contrary to what the PUC news release led the public to believe the PUC issued a “scoping” memorandum today limiting the review of San Onofre issues to those helpful to SCE and hurtful The scoping memo makes a mockery of the PUC “investigation” because it allows only a very limited review of the issues: (1) assessing the reasonableness of SCE’s actions and expenditures after the outage; (2) whether SCE’s 2012 expenditures for SONGs was reasonable; (3) the reasonableness of SCE’s expenditures for community outreach; and (4) whether SCE should refund any money they were allowed to keep under the General Rate Case issued in December 2012.
Here is what will not be allowed: (1) whether SCE was imprudent and unreasonable in spending $800 million for the 4 new generators to replace the previous generators which tube problems, when the new generators had tube problems worse than those replaced; (2) whether the 4 generators should be taken out of the rate base. The Scoping Order does not address the first question and pushes off the second to some undetermined time in the future. The PUC has mislead the People of California by issuing a news release announcing an investigation while issuing an order that does not permit a reasonable investigation.
It is clear that the PUC has decided to get San Onofre back in operation as soon as possible. The PUC “investigation” is nothing more than a cynical public relations stunt.
Special Thanks to NRC Moderator Mr. Victor Dricks, Senior Public Affairs Officer, NRC Region IV for Posting this Blog – Special Public Awareness Series – US #1 Nuclear Safety Concern
Portions of the following information have been extracted from the DAB Safety Team Reports (Search Google Drive for DAB Safety Team & Related Info). It is the DAB Safety Team’s goal to help educate both the NRC and the Public by providing unbiased, logical and factual information in order to help assess the real dangers of any San Onofre Unit 2 restart. According to Press Reports and San Onofre Insiders, Unit 2 permission for restart by the NRC is imminent yet the REAL Root Cause for the $1 Billion destruction of Units 2 and 3 RSGs (Including equipment cost and expenses) has not yet even been determined. The Public does not know the status of SCE’s ongoing cause evaluations, SCE’s response to 32 NRR’s RAI’s and NRC’s Special San Onofre Inspections. We like to remind NRC San Onofre Special Panel, what NRC Chairman Macfarlane said during her recent Fukushima Trip, “Regulators may need to be ‘buffered’ from political winds, but they need to be fully subjected to the pressure of scientific and engineering truth and cannot be allowed to make decisions or order actions that are ‘independent’ of facts.” The NRC rush to a faulty judgment cannot be allowed to compromise Public Safety just to please SCE, as this conflicts with President Obama’s Policy, the new NRC Chairman’s Standards and the advice of NRC retired Branch Chiefs who have spoken out.
Comments – SONGS Unit 2 Restart Reports Contradicting, Confusing, Inconclusive, Smoking Mirrors, Inconsistent and Unacceptable
PROBBABLE ROOT CAUSE: Lack of “Critical Questioning & Investigative Attitude” of SCE Supplied Operational Data by Westinghouse, AREVA, MHI and Other World’s Leading Experts –
Public to Judge for themselves
.C. Let us now examine the other differences between Unit 2 and Unit 3’s Operational Factors, which were significant contributors to the “fluid-elastic instability” in San Onofre Unit 3 and the tube-to-tube wear resulting in the tube leak.
C.1 – Adverse Design/Operational Factors responsible for Fluid Elastic Instability: Low steam generator pressures (SONGS RSGs range 800-850 psi, the primary cause of the onset of severe vibrations) allow the onset of FEI, whereby U-tube bundle tubes start vibrating with very large amplitudes in the in-plane directions. Extremely hot and vibrating tubes need a little amount of water (aka damping, 1.5% water, steam-water mixture vapor Fraction 99.5%). Without the water, the extremely hot and vibrating tubes cannot dissipate their energy. In effect, one unstable tube drives its neighbor to instability through repeated violent impact events which causes tube leakage, tube failures at MSLB test conditions and/or unprecedented tube-tube wear, Tube-to-AVB/Tube Support Plates wear, as we saw in San Onofre Unit 3. So in review, due to narrow tube pitch to tube diameter, tube natural frequency, low tube clearances, in certain portions of the RSGs U-tubes bundle, fluid velocities exceed the critical velocities due to extremely high steam flows (100% power conditions). These high fluid velocities cause U-tubes to vibrate with very large amplitudes in the in-plane direction and literally hit other tubes with repeated and violent impacts. Due to lower secondary steam operating pressures (required to generate more heat, electricity and profits) and excessive pressure drops due to high flows and velocities, steam saturation temperature drops. This lowering of steam saturation temperature combined with high heat flux in the hot leg side of the U-tube bundle causes steam dry-outs to form (Vapor fraction >99%), known as “NO Effective Thin Tube Film Damping.” Thin film damping refers to the tendency of the steam inside the generators to create a thin film of water between the RSG tubes and the support structures and each other. That film is enough to help keep the tubes from vibrating with large amplitudes, hitting other tubes violently, and to protect the Anti-Vibration Bar support structures and maintain the tube-to-AVB gaps and contact forces. These adverse conditions in Unit 2 at 70% power operation (RTP) with the present defective design and degraded RSGs, known as fluid elastic instability (Tube-to-Tube Wear, or TTW) can lead to rapid U-tube failure from fatigue or tube-to-tube wear in Unit 2 due to a main steam line break as seen in Unit 3’s RSG’s. In summary, FEI is a phenomenon where due to San Onofre RSGs design intended for high steam flows causes the tubes to vibrate with increasingly larger amplitudes due to the fluid effective flow velocity exceeding its specific limit (critical velocity) for a given tube and its supporting conditions and a given thermal hydraulic environment. This occurs when the amount of energy imparted on the tube by the fluid is greater than the amount of energy that the tube can dissipate back to the fluid and to the supports. The lack of Nucleate boiling on the tube surface or absence of water is found to have a destabilizing effect on fluid-elastic stability.
C.3.8 – The NRC San Onofre Special Review Panel should direct other branches within the NRC (NRC-RES and/or the ACRS) to review the above data without any prior “turf” bias and present their findings to the public for review and comment prior to any restart decision being made by the NRC.
Hi Mr. Steinberg, Please See
DAB Safety Team Media Alert 13-01-28
1. NRC AIT Report Incomplete, Inconclusive, Inconsistent and Unacceptable
2. SONGS UNIT 3 RSG REAL ROOT CAUSE: Lack of “Critical Questioning & Investigative Attitude” by SCE, MHI and NRC Region IV and AIT Team.
Google Drive – DAB Safety Team & Related Info Share …
docs.google.com/folder/d/0BweZ3c0aFXcFZGpvRlo4…
Hi Mr. Silberberg, Brilliant Question And Great Recommendation… My Salute … HAHN BABA
SONGS RSG Failure Root Cause – Lack of “Critical questioning and an investigative attitude” by SCE, MHI and NRC Region IV
A NRC Branch Chief gifted with MIT Intelligence, Intuition and a Sixth Sense, who is an acquantaince of mine, told me at an Industry Conference, “Sir to resolve any complex technical problem and understand unclear regulations, you have to, ‘Read and reread in between the lines’, use, ‘Critical questioning and an investigative attitude’ and ‘Solid teamwork & alignment.”
Thanks to NRC for posting this comment.. HAHN BABA
Portions of the following information has been extracted from the DAB Safety Team Reports (Search Google Drive for DAB Safety Team & Related Info). DAB Safety Team is a group of Public Service Oriented Southern Californians and Anonymous San Onofre Insiders trying to help the NRC and Public by providing unbiased, logical and factual information to assess the real dangers of San Onofre Unit 2. Unit 2 permission for restart by NRC is imminent and REAL Root Cause for destruction of $1 Billion Units 2 and 3 RSGs (Includes equipment cost and expenses) has not even been determined. Public Safety by NRC in a rush to judgment cannot be compromised due to please profit-motivated SCE.
Commenting on the NRC Augmented Inspection Team San Onofre Report… Just trying to help NRC Augmented Inspection Team Chief and NRC San Onofre Special Panel.. Thanking to the Moderator for posting this comment HAHN Baba
NOTE: Highly recommend that NRC Augmented Inspection Team and NRC San Onofre Special Panel thoroughly review SONGS Unit 2 Return to Service MHI, AREVA, Westinghouse, DAB Safety Team and John Large Reports and carefully examine the operational differences between Unit 2 and 3 and then update the NRC AIT report with real Root cause for FEI in Unit 3 and NO FEI in Unit 2.
The AIT inspection concluded that: (1) SCE was adequately pursuing the causes of the
unexpected steam generator tube-to-tube degradation. In an effort to identify the causes, SCE retained a significant number of outside industry experts, consultants, and steam generator manufacturers, including Westinghouse and AREVA to perform thermal-hydraulic and flow induced vibration modeling and analysis; (2) The combination of unpredicted, adverse thermal hydraulic conditions and insufficient contact forces in the upper tube bundle caused a phenomenon called “fluid-elastic instability” which was a significant contributor to the tube to tube wear resulting in the tube leak. The team concluded that the differences in severity of the tube-to-tube wear between Unit 2 and Unit 3 may be related to the changes to the manufacturing/fabrication of the tubes and other components which may have resulted in increased clearance between the anti-vibration bars and the tubes; (3) Due to modeling errors, the SONGS replacement generators were not designed with adequate thermal hydraulic margin to preclude the onset of fluid-elastic instability. Unless changes are made to the operation or configuration of the steam generators, high fluid velocities and high void fractions in localized regions in the u-bend will continue to cause excessive tube wear and accelerated wear that could result in tube leakage and/or tube rupture; (4) The thermal hydraulic phenomena contributing to the fluid-elastic instability is present in both Unit 2 and 3 steam generators; (5) Based on the updated final safety analysis report description of the original steam generators, the steam generators major design changes were appropriately reviewed in accordance with the 10 CFR 50.59 requirements.
So based on a review of the AIT Report and World’s Experts, the potential causes, which were significant contributors to the “fluid-elastic instability” in SONGS Unit 3 and the tube-to-tube wear resulting in the tube leak are as follows:
A. Insufficient contact tube-to AVB forces and differences in manufacturing/fabrication of the tubes and other components between Units 2 & 3
B. Due to modeling errors, the SONGS replacement generators were not designed with adequate thermal hydraulic margin to preclude the onset of fluid-elastic instability.
C. Operational Factors
A. Let us now examine that whether insufficient contact tube-to AVB forces in the Unit 3 upper tube bundle caused “fluid-elastic instability” which was a significant contributor to the tube-to-tube wear resulting in the tube leak.
A.1- MHI states, “By design, U-bend support in the in-plane direction was not provided for the SONGS SG’s”. In the design stage, MHI considered that the tube U-bend support in the out-of-plane direction designed for “zero” tube-to-AVB gap in hot condition was sufficient to prevent the tube from becoming fluid-elastic unstable during operation based on the MHI experiences and contemporary practice. MHI postulated that a “zero” gap in the hot condition does not necessarily ensure that the support is active and that contact force between the tube and the AVB is required for the support to be considered active. The most likely cause of the observed tube-to-tube wear is multiple consecutive AVB supports becoming inactive during operation. This is attributed to redistribution of the tube-to-AVB-gaps under the fluid hydrodynamic pressure exerted on the tubes during operation. This phenomenon is called by MHI, “tube bundle flowering” and is postulated to result in a spreading of the tube U-bends in the out-of-plane direction to varying degrees based on their location in the tube bundle (the hydrodynamic pressure varies within the U bend). This tube U-bend spreading causes an increase of the tube-to-AVB gap sizes and decrease of tube-to-AVB contact forces rendering the AVB supports inactive and potentially significantly contributing to tube FEI. Observations Common to BOTH Unit-2 and Unit-3: The AVBs, end caps, and retainer bars were manufactured according to the design. It was confirmed that there were no significant gaps between the AVBs and tubes, which might have contributed to excessive tube vibration because the AVBs appear to be virtually in contact with tubes. MHI states, “The higher than typical void fraction is a result of a very large and tightly packed tube bundle, particularly in the U-bend, with high heat flux in the hot leg side. Because this high void fraction is a potentially major cause of the tube FEI, and consequently unexpected tube wear (as it affects both the flow velocity and the damping factors).”
A.2 – AREVA states, “At 100% power, the thermal-hydraulic conditions in the U-bend region of the SONGS replacement steam generators exceeded the past successful operational envelope for U-bend nuclear steam generators based on presently available data. The primary source of tube-to-AVB contact forces is the restraint provided by the retaining bars and bridges, reacting against the component dimensional dispersion of the tubes and AVBs. Contact forces are available for both cold and hot conditions. Contact forces significantly increase at normal operating temperature and pressure due to diametric expansion of the tubes and thermal growth of the AVBs. After fluid elastic instability develops, the amplitude of in-plane motion continuously increases and the forces needed to prevent in-plane motion at any given AVB location become relatively large. Hence shortly after instability occurs, U-bends begin to swing in Mode 1 and overcome hindrance at any AVB location.”
A.3 – Westinghouse states, “Test data shows that the onset of in-plane (IP) vibration requires much higher velocities than the onset of out-of-plane (OP) fluid-elastic excitation. Hence, a tube that may vibrate in-plane (IP) would definitely be unstable OP. A small AVB gap that would be considered active in the OP mode would also be active in the IP mode because the small gap will prevent significant in-plane motion due to lack of clearance (gap) for the combined OP and IP motions. Thus, a contact force is not required to prevent significant IP motion. Manufacturing Considerations: There are several potential manufacturing considerations associated with review of the design drawings based on Westinghouse experience. The first two are related to increased proximity potential that is likely associated with the ECT evidence for proximity. Two others are associated with the AVB configuration and the additional orthogonal support structure that can interact with the first two during manufacturing. Another relates to AVB fabrication tolerances. These potential issues include: (1) The smaller nominal in-plane spacing between large radius U-bend tubes than comparable Westinghouse experience, (2) The much larger relative shrinkage of two sides (cold leg and hot leg) of each tube that can occur within the tubesheet drilling tolerances. Differences in axial shrinkage of tube legs can change the shape of the U-bends and reduce in-plane clearances between tubes from what was installed prior to hydraulic expansion, (3) The potential for the ends of the lateral sets of AVBs (designated as side narrow and side wide on the Design Anti-Vibration Bar Assembly Drawing that are attached to the AVB support structure on the sides of the tube bundle to become displaced from their intended positions during lower shell assembly rotation, (4) The potential for the 13 orthogonal bridge structure segments that are welded to the ends of AVB end cap extensions to produce reactions inside the bundle due to weld shrinkage and added weight during bundle rotation, and (5) Control of AVB fabrication tolerances sufficient to avoid undesirable interactions within the bundle. If AVBs are not flat with no twist in the unrestrained state they can tend to spread tube columns and introduce unexpected gaps greater than nominal inside the bundle away from the fixed weld spacing. The weight of the additional support structure after installation could accentuate any of the above potential issues. There is insufficient evidence to conclude that any of the listed potential issues are directly responsible for the unexpected tube wear, but these issues could all lead to unexpected tube/AVB fit-up conditions that would support the amplitude limited fluid-elastic vibration mechanism. None were extensively treated in the SCE root cause evaluation.”
A.4 -HAHN Baba concludes that SONGS Unit 3 RSG’s were operating outside SONGS Technical Specification Limits for Reactor Thermal Power and Current Licensing Basis for Design Basis Accident Conditions. HAHN Baba further agrees with MHI that high steam flows and cross-flow velocities combined with narrow tube pitch-to-diameter ratio caused elastic deformation of the U-tube bundle from the beginning of the Unit 3 cycle, which initiated the process of tube-to-AVB wear and insufficient contact forces between tubes and AVBs. Tube bundle distortion is considered a major contributing cause to the mechanism of tube-to-tube/AVB/TSP wear seen in the Unit 3 SG’s. After 11 months of wear, contact forces were virtually eliminated between the tube and AVBs in the areas of highest area of Unit 3 wear as confirmed by ECT and visual inspections. Therefore, based on a review of MHI, AREVA and Westinghouse excerpts shown below, the HAHN Baba concludes that FEI and MHI Flowering effect redistributed the tube-to-AVB gaps in Unit 3 RSG’s. It is the HAHN Baba’s opinion that NRC and SCE claims that insufficient contact forces in Unit 3 Tube-to-AVB Gaps ALONE caused tube “to” tube wear are misleading, erroneous and designed to put the blame on MHI for purposes of making SCE look good in the public’s eyes and for collecting insurance money from MHI’s manufacturing so called defects.
B. Let us now examine of effects of modeling errors, that the SONGS replacement generators were not designed with adequate thermal hydraulic margin to preclude the onset of fluid-elastic instability.
B.1 – NRC AIT Report states, “The ATHOS thermal-hydraulic model predicts bulk fluid behavior based on first principals and empirical correlations and as a result, it is not able to evaluate mechanical, fabrication, or structural material differences or other phenomena that may be unique to each steam generator. Therefore this analysis cannot account for these mechanical factors and differences which could very likely also be contributing to the tube degradation.”
B.2 – Ivan Cotton states, “Fluid elastic instability is one of the most damaging types of instabilities encountered in heat exchangers and steam generators and can impose a severe economic penalty on the power and chemical industries. At present our understanding of the mechanisms leading to fluid-elastic instability is very limited and more experiments are needed to more fully delineate the conditions for the onset of fluid-elastic instability.” Such experimentation should only be done in a sealed lab, NOT our environment with the lives of eight million local residents at stake in the outcome!
B.3 – Ishihara, Kunihiko and Kitayama state, “Tube vibrations become large as tube thickness/diameter ratio (T/D) increases and tube length/diameter ratio (L/D) decreases, and the tube vibrations strongly depend on the dynamic characteristics of tubes such as the natural frequency and the damping ability.”
B.4 – Fairewinde states, “Realistically, the 3-D steam analysis is not accurate enough to apply to such important safety related determinations. To make such mathematical risk 3-D analysis, a very large margin of error must be applied, and that has not been done. For example, if the 3-D steam analysis determines that plugging 100 tubes is a solution, then plugging ten times that number might be the appropriate solution due to the mathematical errors in the 3-D analysis being applied by Edison and Mitsubishi.”
B.5 – Mitra, V.K. Dhir, I. Catton state, “ Flow induced vibrations in heat exchanger tubes have led to numerous accidents and economic losses in the past. Efforts have been made to systematically study the cause of these vibrations and develop remedial design criteria for their avoidance. Instability was clearly seen in single phase and two-phase flow and the critical flow velocity was found to be proportional to tube mass. It is also found that nucleate boiling on the tube surface is also found to have a stabilizing effect on fluid-elastic instability.
B.6 – SCE states that SONGS Unit 3 Damage (FEI) was caused due to outdated MHI Thermal-Hydraulic Computer Models. According to NRC AIT Report, SONGS did not specify the value of FEI in its Design and Performance Specifications SO23-617-1. Academic Researchers have discussed and warned about the adverse effects of fluid elastic instability (tube-to-tube wear) in nuclear steam generators since 1970’s. Westinghouse and Combustion Engineering (CE) have designed CE engineering replacement steam generators (RSGs) to prevent the adverse effects of fluid elastic instability since 2000’s (e.g., PVNGS).
B.7 – The NRC AIT Report dated November 9, 2012 states, “the FIT-III thermal-hydraulic model was still in-progress at the time of the inspection and no final conclusions were reached for the cause of the non-conservative flow velocities, which were used as inputs in the tube vibration analysis and resulted in non-conservative stability ratios. Since the licensee had not completed the cause evaluation for this unresolved item, the inspectors were not able to make a final
determination of whether a performance deficiency or violation of NRC requirements
occurred. The inspectors were informed that Mitsubishi was performing an evaluation of the
potential factors that contributed to the low flow velocities in FIT-III relative to the velocities calculated by the ATHOS model developed after the tube leak event in Unit 3. This evaluation was included in Document SO23-617-1-M1530, Revision 1, which also intended to demonstrate the validity of FIT-III results for the original tube vibration analysis. This evaluation was still being finalized and not yet approved by Edison. The licensee and Mitsubishi continued to evaluate this unresolved item and no final conclusions were reached at the time of the inspection. The NRC is continuing to perform independent reviews of existing information, and will conduct additional reviews as new information becomes available. In another related finding, NRC inspectors stated, “SCE Engineers did not meet Procedure SO123-XXIV-37.8.26 requirements to ensure the design of the retainer bar was adequate with respect to the certified design specification. Specifically, the licensee failed to ensure that there was sufficient analytical effort in the design methodology of the anti-vibration bar assembly to support the conclusion that tube wear would not occur as a result of contact with the retainer bars due to flow-induced vibration. The inspectors determined that the requirements for flow-induced vibration in the certified design specification, along with the expectations in Procedure SO123-XXIV-37.8.26, provided sufficient information to reasonably foresee the inadequate design of the retainer bars during
the review and approval of design Calculations SO23-617-1-C749 and SO23-617-1-C157, including the associated design drawings provided by Mitsubishi.
B.8 – Arnie Gundersen states, “Not only is Mitsubishi unfamiliar with the tightly packed CE design, but Edison’s engineers added so many untested variables to the new fabrication that this new design had a significantly increased risk of failure. As a result of the very tight pitch to diameter ratios used in the original CE steam generators, Mitsubishi fabricated a broached plate design that allows almost no water to reach the top of the steam generator.
The maximum quality of the water/steam mixture at the top of the steam generator in the U-Bend region should be approximately 40 to 50 percent, i.e. half water and half steam. With the Mitsubishi design the top of the U-tubes are almost dry in some regions. Without liquid in the mixture, there is no damping against vibration, and therefore a severe fluid-elastic instability developed.
Because of the Edison/Mitsubishi steam generator changes, the top of the new steam generator is starved for water therefore making tube vibration inevitable. Furthermore, the problem appears to be exacerbated by Mitsubishi’s three-dimensional thermal-hydraulic analysis determining how the steam and water mix at the top of the tubes that has been benchmarked against the Westinghouse design but not the original CE design.
The real problem in the replacement steam generators at San Onofre is that too much steam and too little water is causing the tubes to vibrate violently in the U-bend region. The tubes are quickly wearing themselves thin enough to completely fail pressure testing. Even if the new tubes are actively not leaking or have not ruptured, the tubes in the Mitsubishi fabrication are at risk of bursting in a main steam line accident scenario and spewing radiation into the air.”
B.9 – John Large, Internationally Known Scientist and Chartered Nuclear Engineer from London says about the SONGS Unit 2 Replacement Steam Generators (RSGs) AVB Structure, “It impossible to reliably predict the effectiveness of the many thousands of AVB contact points for when the tube bundle is in a hot, pressurized operational state. The combination of the omission of the in-plane AVB restraints, the unique in-plane activity levels of the SONGS RSGs, together the very demanding interpretation of the remote probe data from the cold and depressurized tube inspection, render forecasting the wear of the tubes and many thousands of restraint components when in hot and pressurized service very challenging indeed.”
B.10 – HAHN Baba Comment to Limitations of ATHOS thermal-hydraulic Models: SCE and MHI are both negligent because they did a very poor job of Industry and Academic Research benchmarking regarding the applicability of thermal-hydraulic computer models during the redesign of SONGS original CE SGs. SCE is negligent because they did not check the results of MHI’s outdated Thermal-Hydraulic Computer Models to meet their specification requirements. This does not meet the NRC Chairman’s Standards. Therefore, the DAB Safety Team concludes that SCE claims as stated above are not factual. SCE engineers did not check the work of MHI with a critical and questioning attitude and did not meet the 10CFR50, Appendix B, Quality assurance Standards and or NRC Regulations
C. Let us now examine the other operational factors, which were significant contributors to the “fluid-elastic instability” in SONGS Unit 3 and the tube-to-tube wear resulting in the tube leak.
C.1 – Low steam generator pressures (1 causes the onset of FEI). At the onset of FEI, U-tube bundle tubes start vibrating with very large amplitudes in the in-plane directions. Extremely hot and vibrating tubes need a little amount of water (aka damping, 1.5% water, steam-water mixture vapor Fraction 99.5%). When this happens, the extremely hot and vibrating tubes cannot dissipate their energy and return to their original in-plane design position. In effect, one unstable tube drives its neighbor to instability through repeated violent and turbulent impact events which causes tube leakage, tube failures at MSLB test conditions and or unprecedented tube-tube wear, Tube-to-AVB/Tube Support Plates wear, as we saw in SONGS Unit 3. So in review, due to narrow tube pitch to tube diameter, low tube wall thickness/diameter ratio, high tube length/diameter ratio, low tube clearences, in certain portions of the RSGs U-tubes bundle, fluid velocities exceed the critical velocities due to extremely high steam flows (100% SONGS power conditions outside the industry NORM). These high fluid velocities cause U-tubes to vibrate with very large amplitudes in the in-plane direction and literally hit other the tubes with repeated and violent impacts. Due to lower steam operating pressures (required to generate more heat, electricity and profits) and excessive pressure drops due to high flows and velocities, steam saturation temperature drops. This lowering of steam temperature combined with high heat flux in the hot leg side of the U-tube bundle causes steam dry-outs to form (Vapor fraction >99%), known as “NO Effective Thin Tube Film Damping.” Thin film damping refers to the tendency of the steam inside the generators to create a thin film of water between the RSG tubes and the support structures. That film is enough to help keep the tubes from vibrating with large amplitudes, hitting other tubes violently, and protect the Anti-Vibration Bar support structures and maintain the tube-to-AVB gaps and contact forces. These adverse conditions in SONGS at 70% power operation (RTP) with the present defective design and degraded of RSGs known as fluid elastic instability (Tube-to-Tube Wear, or TTW) can lead to rapid U-tubes failure from fatigue or tube-to-tube wear in Unit 2 due to a main steam line break as seen in SONGS Unit 3 RSG’s. In summary, FEI is a phenomenon where due to SONGS RSGs design intended for high steam flows causes the tubes to vibrate with increasingly larger amplitudes due to the fluid effective flow velocity exceeding its specific limit (critical velocity) for a given tube and its supporting conditions and a given thermal hydraulic environment. This occurs when the amount of energy imparted on the tube by the fluid is greater than the amount of energy that the tube can dissipate back to the fluid and to the supports. Nucleate boiling on the tube surface or a little amount of water (aka damping, 1.5% water, steam-water mixture vapor fraction <98.5%) is found to have a stabilizing effect on fluid-elastic instability.
C.2 – For more information, please see comments posted by HelpAllHurtNeverBaba, January 18, 2013 at 12:20 am on this blog
Edwin Hackett, Executive Director ACRS ==> Main number is 301-415-7360
A major first step should be to really open up the entire NRC process to the public, so that true public oversight can take place, instead of the flawed system we now have, as SanO illustrates all to well! As it is now, the public does not have enough access to NRC reports and/or data which prevents all knowledgable people from providing input into the decision making process.
Great comment – I’m looking forward to additional posts from you – Salute!
Getting far more qualified people involved and especially professionals from outside of the NRC and most importantly from outside of Region IV, is the first step toward answering basic reactor fatigue safety questions that we now know, affect the entire US Nuclear Fleet. If we learned nothing else from the Fukushima tragedy, we now know that when it come to reactor safety, the widest possible public review can only help insure against future nuclear accidents.
Since you are a QA professional I urge you to read :
“Press Release 13-01-22 ATHOS Validity Questioned, Qualifying Investigation Required”
Validity of ATHOS computer model requires NRR Qualifying Investigation. (3 Pages)
https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0BweZ3c0aFXcFZGpvRlo4aXJCT2s/edit?docId=1ltCb57ciXRaOkhK1rhc2BaB0ACXf7MwcSDZZyEAkFDI
or this one for much more in-depth technical information:
“Response to NRR RAI #32 – Technical”
The SCE cannot provide an ACCEPTABLE operational assessment to the NRR, therefore NO RESTART IS POSSIBLE and here ARE THE TECHNICAL REASONS WHY (50 Pages)
https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0BweZ3c0aFXcFZGpvRlo4aXJCT2s/edit?docId=0BweZ3c0aFXcFX05DMWxKNmZXUTA
and/or the even the longer paper:
“SCE NRC Presentation analysis + 14 Questions 12-12-17”
Technical document includes 14 questions affecting US Reactor SAFETY, that the NRC, NRR and RES Regulators need to ask SCE at their 12/18/12 NRR/RES Meeting. (78 Pages)
https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0BweZ3c0aFXcFZGpvRlo4aXJCT2s/edit?docId=0BweZ3c0aFXcFRzBqZUJROWRYNlE
As a professional for many years in manufacturing quality assurance, the first thing that comes to mind is effective root cause analysis. Have all the factors relating to the root cause of the problem been solidly determined? And if so, has this potential for failure been examined at all other plants that might have similar equipment setups?
Has a failure mode and effects anaysis (FMEA) been conducted to ensure that all potential aspects of failure are considered for retrofitting, including the potential that something at the plant contributed to the failures?
As another poster opined, over 8 million people live in the area. I think root cause analysis and FMEA study are crucial pieces to help ensure the safety of the plant and the surrounding population.
San Onofre is rated by the Institute of Nuclear Operations (INPO) as an INPO 4 Plant (The Worst Nuclear Plant Rating) and it should also should be rated in NRC Region IV Response Column V (Worst rating) and not in the NRC Response Column I (Best Nuclear Plant Rating).
San Onofre is the worst nuclear plant in the country with the worst safety record, worst retaliation record, an INPO 4 rating and it is a mockery to place it in NRC Response Column I. NRC Region IV by listing San Onofre in NRC Response Column I, is putting its credibility on line and is displaying clear trends of collusion with SCE. It would be informative to learn who made the decision on San Onofre’s current ranking and why…
If the NRC San Onofre Special Review Panel wants to be welcomed by Southern Californians at their upcoming February 12 Public Meeting with SCE , the NRC needs to change San Onofre’s rating to NRC Response Column V, which will reflect current reality instead of just wishful thinking.
Definitions of NRC Response Columns:
Column I – All performance indicators and NRC inspection findings are GREEN
Column II – No more than two WHITE inputs in different cornerstones.
Cornerstone objectives fully met.
Column III – One degraded cornerstone (two WHITE inputs or one YELLOW input
or three WHITE inputs in any strategic area).
Cornerstone objectives met with minimal reduction in safety margin.
Column IV – Repetitive degraded cornerstone, multiple degraded cornerstones,
or multiple YELLOW inputs, or one RED input. Cornerstone objectives
met with long-standing issues or significant reduction in safety margin.
Response at NRC Agency level
• Executive Director for Operations to hold public meeting with senior
• Utility develops performance improvement plan with NRC oversight
• NRC team inspection focused on cause of degraded performance
• Demand for Information, Confirmatory Action Letter
Column V. Unacceptable Performance, Unacceptable reduction in safety margin
•Plant not permitted to operate
ACRS briefings on event-driven issues typically occur after the NRC staff has finished with inspection and oversight activities, which continue with SONGS. The ACRS main number is 301-415-7360
Edwin Hackett
@ Mr. Dricks “No, the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safety (ACRS) has not requested a meeting with the NRC technical staff on SONGS related issues.
Especially since SanO’s RSG tubing now has more damage that ALL the rest of the nuclear fleet combined!
What are they waiting for, and how would a public person contact the Chief of ACRS?
Publicly available NRC documents related to the steam generator problems at San Onofre are posted in ADAMS and on the special web page at: http://www.nrc.gov/info-finder/reactor/songs/tube-degradation.html
RE: Mel Silberberg, please look at any of the end of any of DAB Safety Team’s documents for more about DAB… https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0BweZ3c0aFXcFZGpvRlo4aXJCT2s/edit
No, the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safety (ACRS) has not requested a meeting with the NRC technical staff on SONGS related issues.
Reasonable assurance is given when licensees comply with NRC regulations. That said, the NRC is always looking at the adequacy of its regulations to ensure safety.
In reply to Mr. Silberberg: You sir are correct, we need MORE not LESS information made public in order that knowledgeable people can fact check exactly what is happening at SanO. To hide most of the data behind a veil of secrecy, is no longer acceptable especially since that practice is what has resulted in the current 1 to 1.5 billion dollar debacle at SanO.
This is the first time in the US Nuclear Fleet that what Dr. Joram Hopenfeld, (who also retired from the NRC staff) first described (what we now call the Hopenfeld Effect) as a cascade of SG tube failures, has actually been observed in a Steam Generator (See Response to NRR RAI -32 – Technical ==> Attachment 3 https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0BweZ3c0aFXcFZGpvRlo4aXJCT2s/edit?docId=0BweZ3c0aFXcFX05DMWxKNmZXUTA).
• Steam generators constitute more than 50% of the surface area of the primary pressure boundary in a pressurized water reactor.
• Unlike other parts of the reactor pressure boundary, the barrier to fission product release provided by the steam generator tubes is not reinforced by the reactor containment as an additional barrier.”
• Leakage of primary coolant through openings in the steam generator tubes could deplete the inventory of water available for the long-term cooling of the core in the event of an accident.
In the decade since Dr. Hopenfeld first raised his safety concerns, the NRC has allowed many nuclear plants to continue operating nuclear power plants with literally thousands of steam generator tubes that are known to be fatigue cracked! The ACRS concluded that the NRC staff made these regulatory decisions using incomplete and inaccurate information. After receiving the ACRS’s report, the NRC staff considered Hopenfeld’s concerns “resolved” even though it had taken no action to address the numerous recommendations in the ACRS report. The NRC must now formally address Dr. Hopenfeld’s concerns as soon as possible. In the interim, the NRC must stop making decisions affecting the lives of millions of Americans when it lacks “defensible technical basis” because the US cannot afford a Trillion Dollar Eco-Disaster like Fukushima, due to RSG tube failures caused by poor design, fatigue or any other combination of reasons.”
Because the Hopenfeld Effect has now been proven as factual, the NRC must re-evaluated it’s “dated” thinking and its computer modeling about SG failures which now only allows for a single SG tube failure ASAP… In fact, I predict that time will show that a nuclear accident (not a nuclear incident) was narrowly avoided at SanO on January 31, 2012 only because of shear luck, due to the timing of the discovery of Edison’s poorly in-house designed replacement steam generators (RSG). Had that Unit 3 tube been just a tiny bit stronger and not leaked when it did; then with both Unit 2 & 3 back online when a MSLB occurred, we now know that it would have resulted in the complete venting of the core coolant within minutes…
This is why what happened at SanO (as the locals like to say) is so important and why the NRC has to “get it right” this time; the safety of the entire US nuclear fleet depends upon it! Just as many basic design problems were discovered after the Fukushima tragedy, Sano has become the model of what NOT to do for all future RSG design engineers globally and demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt why having a qualified public review process is so important, especially where the risk of a radioactive “Trillion Dollar Eco-Disaster” is involved.
Reply to CapD: What is the DAB?
Mr. Dricks. Would you please make the documents containing the findings of these experts public by posting them on the NRC website, because these are NRC documents and not Licensee documents. Please do it to assure the public of NRC independent conclusions, because public pays all the bills for the government via taxes. Thanks.
A DAB Safety Team Request to the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research (NRR) Thermal-Hydraulic Experts.
Please carefully review the SONGS Unit 2 Restart Reports (done by SCE, Westinghouse, AREVA and MHI), SCE Unit 3 Root Cause Evaluation, NRC AIT Report, ATHOS Modeling Results and Unit 2 Operational Data and then arrive: (1) At an unanimous, clear and concise conclusion whether FEI occurred in Unit 2 or not, and (2) Provide a GAP ANALYSIS (The scientific and engineering reasons why all these reports are so different) prior the February 12, 2013 NRC Public Meeting.
This will be most helpful for everyone on the Special Hearing Panel and the public at large.
===> BTW: The DAB Safety Team will show you ours after the NRC shows US theirs…
From Mr. Dricks’s NRC Feb. 12, 2013 Meeting notice “NRC TO MEET PUBLIC TO DISCUSS SAN ONOFRE NUCLEAR GENERATING STATION STEAM GENERATOR ISSUES”
” A leak in a Unit 3 steam generator tube on Jan. 31, 2012, led to the shutdown of that unit. The other reactor, Unit 2, was shut down for maintenance and refueling at the time. Subsequent inspections of the nearly new steam generators in both units found unexpected wear. Both units remain safely shut down and will not be permitted to restart until NRC has reasonable assurance they can be operated safely.”
To Mr. Dricks’s: PLEASE define “reasonable assurance,” as the Health and Safety of 8 Million people living in southern California (within 50 miles of SanO), who are depending upon the NRC to “get it right this time after failing to get it right last time,” because the USA cannot afford a Trillion Dollar Eco-Disaster like Fukushima where the Japanese nuclear regulators thought they had everything covered before 3/11/11 and time proved them tragically wrong.
To Hiddencamper Thanks for the info but I did mean that Edison “gamed” the process when they did their 50.59, for more see https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0BweZ3c0aFXcFZGpvRlo4aXJCT2s/edit?docId=1NpccIjm-2NhFc8uvEHT6GLPE6-LDD-aPasHtRVem3VQ
Using “technical experts from headquarters” is not the same thing as having them DIRECT this SPECIAL panel’s “discovery” process! As populated now, this review panel can insure that Region IV stays in charge of its own investigation, which should not be the case, since SanO problems were caused in part by Region IV in the first place due to lax enforcement!
Salute to Mel Silberberg for his great comment!
As I have also posted, the NRC needs to populate this panel with people from outside Region IV for obvious reasons and also technical reasons as Mr. Silberberg mentions above.
Perhaps Mel would consider helping the DAB Safety Team’s “Battery of Nuclear Experts”, if so our contact info is listed on any of our documents posted here: https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0BweZ3c0aFXcFZGpvRlo4aXJCT2s/edit
Thank you Victor. Was the SONGS problem discussed with the ACSR? If so please send a reference to the meeting. Why wasn’t their an intensive, public peer review meeting (conference ) involving experts from around the world, including EPRI, comparing their analyses. The SONGS issues were so surprising – we’ve been using steam generators for so long, one has to suspect some new phenomena and or condition never seen before. Given the financial impact and safety significance–the public demands reassurance. Peer reviews are done for this reason. The cost of the shutdown, new generators, and replacement power cost to SCE is over a billion dollars!
If I were the industry I would be concerned– this is not a nuclear problem- but the general public doesn’t know the difference. You need to answer these questions at the Public Meeting next month in Carlsbad.
Region IV used technical experts from headquarters, including the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research, as part of the Augmented Team Inspection following the steam generator tube leak. These technical experts have continued to advise and make recommendations to the Oversight Panel, as the NRC has conducted follow-up inspections and reviews the SONGS CAL response. Before the NRC makes a restart decision, it will ensure all the appropriate discipline experts, including thermal hydraulics and materials, have reviewed their respective areas of technical expertise.
Respected Mr. Mel Silberberg, NRC RES Retired; former Chief of Severe Accident Research Branch … I totally agree with your comments. Just as a reminder…. NRC website states, “As an independent regulatory agency that prides itself on openness, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is pleased to take an active role in President Barack Obama’s Open Government Initiative, with its focus on open, accountable, and accessible government. The NRC has a long history of, and commitment to, transparency, participation, and collaboration in our regulatory activities.”
During FOE presentation: Top NRC official fell asleep during presentation — “His eyes were rolling back and his head was bobbling like a little bobble doll” — Process designed to freeze public out. This type of behavior during public presentations on matters of life and death for Southern Californians conflicts with NRC’s commitment to participation in regulatory activities and President Barack Obama’s Open Government Initiative, with its focus on open, accountable, and accessible government. This is one example, so what is new. NRC needs to shift gears and take a very aggressive, prudent and super-conservative approach, commensurate with its authority granted by the Public, President Obama and United States Congress, when it comes to SCE and San Onofre’s profit-motivated and repeatedly dangerous public safety-ventures.
Thanks for your very kind comments. I am just a very average person, lucky to be working with a very dedicated and highly technical team trying to establish facts about San Onofre.
The “Corporate Support” portion of my title refers to oversight of budget and staffing for the NRC’s program for licensing and oversight activities involving operating reactors. Most NRR staff members are actively involved in public support and outreach through, among other things, timely posting of public records to the agency’s document management system, ADAMS, and through planning and participating in public meetings on many diverse topics. In addition, NRR is supported in public outreach by other offices, including the role of the Office of Public Affairs in providing social media such as this blog.
Dan Dorman
SanO Nuclear Denial*?
Perhaps this panel will also explain why “severe accident” is not even listed in it’s 130 page NRC Collection of Abbreviations, especially since there are two classes of accident: postulated accidents and severe accidents.
* http://is.gd/XPjMd0
The illogical belief that Nature cannot destroy any land based nuclear reactor, any place anytime 24/7/365!
The latest from DAB Safety Team on SanO:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ltCb57ciXRaOkhK1rhc2BaB0ACXf7MwcSDZZyEAkFDI/edit
Question: If Dan Dorman, is the deputy director for engineering and CORPORATE support in the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR), who at the NRR is tasked with providing PUBLIC SUPPORT?
Trying to help San Onofre Special Panel,,, Thanks to NRC Moderation for Posting… HAHNBaba
Credit of DAB Safety Team Press Release 12-12-20
Prior to Issue of any decision regarding restart for Unit 2, SCE needs to demonstrate the viability of Operator Actions for an earthquake, main steam line break or other unanticipated transients in a Full NRC/FEMA Evaluated Emergency Plan Exercise collocated by NRC Head Quarters and evaluated by IPC/Industry Emergency Preparedness/Reactor Oversight and NRR Experts using the following:
• Fully Staffed Control Room or Simulator, Technical Support Center, Operations Support Center, Emergency Offsite Facility, Joint Information Center and Fire Department
• Ability for Accurate & Timely detection of a tube leak using N-16 radiation detection system and initiation of operator actions
• Ability for Accurate & Timely Identification, Trouble Shooting, Diagnostics and Mitigation of the above events using VLPMS accelerometers for detecting actual tube vibrations for fluid elasticity Mitigation
• Ability for Accurate & Timely demonstration of actual tube vibration noise from background noise and the required threshold identification criteria, that would be applied to reach the conclusion that tube vibration is occurring and the number of affected damaged and worn tubes
• Ability for Accurate & Timely use of Emergency, Abnormal & Severe Accident Management Procedures
• Demonstration of Excellent Communications, Solid Team Work & Alignment, Critical Questioning & Investigative Attitude between all Emergency Operating Facilities, NRC Headquarters, Federal Emergency Management Agency, State of California and Offsite Agencies including Offsite Dose Assessment Committee, California Highway Patrol, Fire Departments, News Media, Emergency Medical Facilities and Public Interest Groups
• Ability for demonstration of Accurate & Timely Emergency Declarations, Offsite Notifications / Communications, and Protective Actions Recommendations & Decisions
• Ability for prompt notification, evacuation and/or sheltering of disabled, transient and permanent residents in the Emergency Planning Zone during rush traffic hours
• 100 % Accuracy in Emergency Declarations, Offsite Notifications / Communications, and Protective Actions Recommendations & Decisions
• No more than 5 Drill/Exercise Weaknesses
correction–on the fifth line, after ‘peer-reviewers’ please add [should be added to the panel.]
The issues involved in the SONGS steam generator encompass thermal-hydraulics and material science and technology. I am extremely upset and disappointed in the lack of judgement displayed by senior NRC management and the Commission in the glaring omission of the NRC Office of Research[RES] from playing a major role in this special panel. It is at times like this that RES was created by the Congress.to get an independent, confirmatory assessment of abnormal behavior in a nuclear plant.hThe Chairman should insist on the following additions to the panelOne staff expert on thermal-hydraulicsand one staff expert in material science. In addition two consultants from the unverities and or national labs serve on the panel, as peer reviewers. you can not win public confidence in your findingwithout these additions to the to the panel.
Mel Silberberg, NRC RES Retired; former Chief of Severe Accident Research Branch.
Just trying to help the NRC San Onofre Special Panel with some of the facts:
1. NRC Augmented Inspection Team Report and SCE Cause evaluations on both San Onofre Unit 3 and 2 FEI are still unresolved and open based:
A. ATHOS limitations disputed by John Large, Arnie Gundersen, Academic Research Scholars and DAB Safety Team,
B. Insufficient tube-to-AVB contact forces on Unit 3 disputed by DAB Safety Team, Westinghouse, MHI, AREVA and John Large, and
C. Operational Factors based on the information from San Onofre Plant Data disputed by SONGS Root Cause Team Member and DAB Safety Team.
Therefore, the decision of NRC San Onofre Special Panel should take into account the above facts. Thanks to the NRC Moderator for posting this information.
1. San Onofre Emergency Preparedness DEP Indicator Value is consistently amongst the lowest in the US Nuclear Power Plants,
2. The Shift Manager Training Guru was on duty at the time of San Onofre Unit 3 Accident, so the reactor was shutdown in a timely and safe manner. Southern Californians were lucky,
3. The other best known Shift Manager resigned due to differences with plant management,
4. The best known Station and Corporate Emergency Directors have retired,
5. The other Shift Managers, Station and Corporate Emergency Directors record of accomplishment is for NRC San Onofre Special Panel to judge,
6. The Manager of Plant Operations is very knowledgeable, and
7. Therefore, the probability of success to avert another potential accident due to Restart of Defectively-Designed and Degraded Unit 2 Replacement Steam Generators at 70% power is 50% based upon who is on duty at the time of the accident (due to a design bases main steam line break or other anticipated operational occurrences).
Therefore, the decision of NRC San Onofre Special Panel should take into account the above facts. Thanks for posting.
EPRI, NRC, Westinghouse, AREVA and MHI ATHOS thermal-hydraulic computer models cannot accurately account for all the mechanical and structural unknowns, and extremely narrow tube-to-tube clearance differences, which would very likely govern the catastrophic tube-to-tube wear (fluid elastic instability) in San Onofre Unit 2 during a main steam line break or other anticipated operational occurrences at 70% power. Computer Modeling predictions are as good as the input based on the as-built hot pressurized U-Tube Bundle Anti-Vibration Structure behavior, which nobody knows. John Large, Internationally Known Scientist and Chartered Nuclear Engineer from London says about the SONGS Unit 2 Replacement Steam Generators (RSGs) AVB Structure, “It impossible to reliably predict the effectiveness of the many thousands of AVB contact points for when the tube bundle is in a hot, pressurized operational state. The combination of the omission of the in-plane AVB restraints, the unique in-plane activity levels of the SONGS RSGs, together the very demanding interpretation of the remote probe data from the cold and depressurized tube inspection, render forecasting the wear of the tubes and many thousands of restraint components when in hot and pressurized service very challenging indeed.”
Hiddencamper says:
The 50.59 is required for ANY change in the plant. The 50.59 was performed. 50.59 is what says you don’t need a license amendment.
I think you’re talking about the 50.90 process for a license amendment.
maccad says:
@HelpAllHurtNeverBaba
Thanks for your interesting and very-well written comment!
joffan7 says:
It’s sloppy reading like that that makes your opinions so mistaken. I didn’t ask any questions, so you can’t possibly answer them. All your responses were in error.
1. Unit 2 steam generator has no leaks, exactly as I said.
2. All tubes have been inspected and tubes with wear blocked. Your nonsensical “visual inspection” is not an option and in any case is not the best technology for assessment.
3. Undertaking a test run, especially one with no adverse consequences, is the rational way to proceed to improve understanding of the situation and possible future scenarios.
4. Understanding likelihood is an essential part of risk management.
5. A leak or break in steam generator tubes has no prospect of causing a loss of coolant accident, no matter what fantasy incident you decide to give an acronym to. Adding “that is factual” to your daydreams does not make it any more likely.
6. Your “calculations” are immaterial; reality dictates that no such outcome will occur.
James Greenidge says:
Wish nuclear opponents would just come clean and just say you’re not concerned of any fix or even perfect reactors but just want them all the hell out of here as a matter of “conscience”. This way meetings can deal with the more open-minded concerned who don’t belittle and disparage the family-loving engineers and technicians who are investing their time and effort not only fixing reactor issues but making them even safer than they are now. Yes, safe reactors are an contradiction to hard-core antis, but the historic mortality record of nuclear reactors is unassailable and enviable, especially since it’s pretty hypocritical to other energy sources slide with their score of the tens thousands killed and maimed just by accidents alone. It seems some safety concerns are barking up the wrong bogeyman to me.
James Greenidge
Queens NY
The more that take interest and demand an open 50.59 process before any restart decision, the safer all of California and the rest of the US will be…
It’s thinking like that that has gotten Edison and too many of the NRC’s regulators into hot water!
BTW in answer to your questions:
1. One RSG failed in less than a year of operation (starting from NEW) and now has more damaged, worn and plugged tubes that the entire rest of the US Nuclear fleet.
2. Both Unit 2 and Unit 3 have a unknown amount of wear because Edison has not visually inspected all the thousands of tubes using the best technology to insure safety, because then they would be forced to exceed their tube plugging limitation!
3. This is nothing but using San as a TEST site instead of a proven safe reactor/RSG as the law demands.
4. Even thinking 50-50, either it will or will not have a nuclear incident, it’s N☢T worth the Gamble!
5. Wrong, worse case is a Fukushima-type event/disaster after a MSLB… That is factual!
6. We calculated that within 5 minutes, a cascading tube failure would doom the reactor core, because of loos of coolant which would be vented to the atmosphere, all beyond the ability of the Operators to prevent!
Chairman Allison Macfarlane said Unit 2 would not be permitted to restart unless the NRC has reasonable assurance it can be operated safely. Let us examine at the scenario below and determine whether NRC can have that reasonable assurance or not? Thanks to NRC for posting this blog. Just trying to help… HelpAllHurtNeverBaba
Let us examine, what John Large, Internationally Known Scientist and Chartered Nuclear Engineer from London says about the SONGS Unit 2 Replacement Steam Generators (RSGs) AVB Structure, “It impossible to reliably predict the effectiveness of the many thousands of AVB contact points for when the tube bundle is in a hot, pressurized operational state. The combination of the omission of the in-plane AVB restraints, the unique in-plane activity levels of the SONGS RSGs, together the very demanding interpretation of the remote probe data from the cold and depressurized tube inspection, render forecasting the wear of the tubes and many thousands of restraint components when in hot and pressurized service very challenging indeed.”
Let us examine, what MHI says about tube-to-AVB Gaps, “The most likely cause of the observed tube-to-tube wear is multiple consecutive AVB supports becoming inactive during operation. This is attributed to redistribution of the tube-to-AVB-gaps under the fluid hydrodynamic pressure exerted on the tubes during operation. This phenomenon is called by MHI, “tube bundle flowering” and is postulated to result in a spreading of the tube U-bends in the out-of-plane direction to varying degrees based on their location in the tube bundle (the hydrodynamic pressure varies within the U bend). This tube U-bend spreading causes an increase of the tube-to-AVB gap sizes and decrease of tube-to-AVB contact forces rendering the AVB supports inactive and potentially significantly contributing to tube FEI.”
Let us examine, what AREVA says about tube-to-AVB Gaps, “Contact forces significantly increase at normal operating temperature and pressure due to diametric expansion of the tubes and thermal growth of the AVBs. After fluid elastic instability develops, the amplitude of in-plane motion continuously increases and the forces needed to prevent in-plane motion at any given AVB location become relatively large. Hence shortly after instability occurs, U-bends begin to swing in Mode 1 and overcome hindrance at any AVB location.”
Let us examine, what Westinghouse says about tube-to-AVB Gaps, “Test data shows that the onset of in-plane (IP) vibration requires much higher velocities than the onset of out-of-plane (OP) fluid-elastic excitation. Hence, a tube that may vibrate in-plane (IP) would definitely be unstable OP. A small AVB gap that would be considered active in the OP mode would also be active in the IP mode because the small gap will prevent significant in-plane motion due to lack of clearance (gap) for the combined OP and IP motions. Thus, a contact force is not required to prevent significant IP motion.”
Let us examine, what John Large says further, “There is no account of the changes that have been made in the evaluation of the tube structural and leakage integrity, that is from the stage of predicting those tubes at risk of TTW and other forms of wear, the tube thinning wear rates, through to the nature of the tube failure being unique to the type and extent of the wear pattern and tube thinning; and the methods of deducing, mainly by unproven inference, from the probe inspection results particularly to determine the in-plane AVB effectiveness, includes unacceptably large elements of test and experimentation that are inconsistent with the analyses and descriptions of the FSAR. I provide a number of explicit examples where I consider that the circumstances and risks accompanying the proposed restart of Unit 2 will result in unacceptable levels of test and experiment.
What these World Known Experts are saying is that this degraded tube bundle cannot prevent multiple tube ruptures from fluid elastic instability as we saw by the failure of 8 tubes in Unit 3 RSGs under Main Steam Line Break (MSLB) test conditions.
Main Steam Line Break (MSLB) Scenario: The most severe design basis accident to meet the SONGS Unit 2 TS 5.5.2.11.b.1 steam generator structural integrity is a MSLB at the first weld outside containment. This assumption minimizes the flow resistance between the break and the affected SG and maximizes the mass & energy (M&E) release. The analyses focus on M&E releases at licensed Rated Thermal Power (RTP or 100% Power). The outside containment case includes the assumption that the main steam isolation valve (MSIV) in the steam line with the least flow resistance fails to close following the main steam isolation signal (MSIS). This assumption maximizes the M&E release during a MSLB outside of the containment. Super-heating within the SG initiates upon U-tube uncovery as specified in the NRC Information Notice 84-90. The turbine stop valves are assumed to close instantaneously at the time of the reactor trip. This assumption is conservative for a MSLB event because the entire steam inventory at the time of reactor trip is assumed to be forced out the break in 300 seconds or 5 minutes. No Operator action outside Control Room can be credited, if it takes less than 30 minutes.
The depressurization of the non-isolable steam generator would result in 100% void fractions in the degraded Unit 2 U-Tube bundle due to instant flashing of the sub-cooled 440 degrees Fahrenheit feedwater into steam. This condition of ZERO Water in the steam generators would cause fluid elastic instability (FEI), flow-induced random vibrations and excessive hydrodynamic pressures (Mitsubishi Flowering Effect). The force of the flashing steam would create high-energy jets, lifting loose parts and debris present in the steam generator, which would do additional damage by cutting holes into the already degraded tubes and creating additional loading (See Note A below) on the tube support plates (TSPs) due to heavy build-up of deposits on trefoil/quadrifoil-shaped holes from SG blowdown and crack the high cycle fatigued U-bend tubes not supported by Anti-Vibration Bars (AVB). These cumulative adverse conditions in all likelihood would result in a massive cascading of RSG’s tube failures (tubes would excessively rattle or vibrate, hitting other tubes with violent impacts) due to extremely low tube-to-tube clearances and no effective or non-existent in-plane anti-vibration bar support protection system. This jackhammering effect would involve hundreds of degraded active SG tubes along with all the inactive (plugged /unstabilized) tubes causing a catastrophic amount of simultaneous tube leaks/ruptures. Under this adverse scenario, approximately 60 tons of very hot high-pressure radioactive reactor coolant would leak into the secondary system. The release of this amount of radioactive primary coolant, along with an additional approximately 200 tons of steam in the first five to fifteen minutes from a broken steam line would EXCEED the SONGS NRC approved offsite radiological release doses safety margins based on assumption of a single tube rupture in the SONGS FSAR. So, in essence, these RSG’s are like loaded guns, or a Fukushima-type nuclear accident, waiting to happen. Any failure under these conditions would allow significant amounts of radiation to escape to the atmosphere and a major Loss of Coolant Accident (LOCA) could easily result causing much wider radiological consequences and even a potential nuclear meltdown of the reactor.
SCE states, “A MSLB alone does not generate sufficient differential pressure to cause tube rupture. The differential pressure across the SG tubes necessary to cause a rupture will not occur if operators (See Note B below) prevent RCS re-pressurization in accordance with Emergency Operating Instructions.” SCE’s suggested DID Actions and proven unreliable operator actions to detect a leak and/or to re-pressurize the steam generators as claimed by Edison are not practical to stop a major nuclear accident from occurring in Unit 2 in the first 5-15 minutes of a MSLB during the proposed 5-month trial period.
A. Plugging of the at-risk tubes is not a satisfactory solution because it is the retainer bar that vibrates via random fluid flow processes at sub FEI critical velocity levels – these are likely to continue in play or, indeed, exacerbate at the proposed U2 restart at 70% power, leading to through-tube abrasion, the detachment of tube fragments, lodging at other unplugged and in-service tube localities, resulting in the so-called ‘foreign object’ tube wear. This additional loading would exceed: (1) the safety factor of 3.0 against burst under normal steady state full power operation primary-to-secondary pressure differential and a safety factor of 1.4 against burst applied to the design basis accident primary-to-secondary pressure differentials, and (2) significantly affect burst or collapse pressures determined and assessed in combination with the loads due to a safety factor of 1.2 on the combined primary loads and 1.0 on axial secondary loads. [emphasis added
B. SCE’s suggested “defense-in-depth” actions are insufficient to stop multiple tube ruptures due to the short duration of a main steam line beak event. Human performance weaknesses, such as mis-diagnoses, substantial delays in isolating the faulted steam generator, communication errors and delayed initiation of the residual heat removal system, have been identified in past events at SONGS and other US Nuclear Power Plants. The events also involved unnecessary radiation releases, lack of RCS subcooled margin, excessive RCS cooldown rates, and overfilling the SG because of human or procedural problems.
TRILLION DOLLAR ECONOMIC-ENVIRONMENT-HUMAN DISASTER QUIZ: If NRC Region IV Special Technical Panel can determine whether Southern Californians have reasonable assurance that a Fukushima will not occur by granting Unit 2 Restart Permission to Profit-Motivated Gambler SCE? If Fukushima occurs, who is liable, Nuclear Utilities, Insurance Carriers, Federal Government, State of California, CPUC, NRC Commissioners, NRC Region IV, EIX/SCE Shareholders & Employees or Affected Southern Californians?
Lets be scientifically rigorous, SCE’s Richard St. Onge has as much of a chance of explaining how FEI destroyed Unit 2 and 3 at SanO by pointing to their poorly in-hous designed 620 ton replacement steam generator, as NRC Chairman Allison Macfarlane would have of explaining how dip/slip effects earthquakes by pointing to the earth! This photo is an insult to the intelligence of your readers and the Director of the NRC, who happens to be a World Class Geologist…
SCE’S PR MACHINE IS CAPABLE OF OVERCOMING ALL HURDLES, EXCEPT GOOD SCIENCE AND SAFETY
Here is much more about: NRC Violating Presidential Directive and the Public Trust https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0BweZ3c0aFXcFZGpvRlo4aXJCT2s/edit?docId=1QnQRbpsWgxn5xVftt-fmBBaPohF5m5OXyQgyWuz8vJI
San Onofre Unit 2 Restart Decision by NRC Imminent – SCE’s PR Machine Is Capable Of Overcoming ALL Hurdles, Except Good Science And Safety
NRC’s enforcement history, drama and pre-rehearsed tough questions, press reports, casual relationship and/or protection of SCE officials and utility biased public meetings are just old and cheap regulatory tricks that are now being used to protect the NRC’s own public image and to fool the public into believing that the NRC is really concerned about public safety regarding SCE’s Restart Plan. The Justice Department & NRR Officials need to set up a legal/technical taskforce to publically question Edison’s design and MHI Engineer’s listed below under oath regarding their:
Understanding of their legal obligations under the 10 CFR 50.59 Process,
Understanding of problems with the original steam generators,
Critical questioning and professional/investigative skills,
Efforts made in industry and academic benchmarking to identify and resolve problems
with the original steam generators
What part did they play in the preparation of design specifications, fabrication, computer
modeling, mock-up testing, anti-vibration bar structure, and research required to prevent
the adverse effects of fluid elasticity and flow-induced random vibrations in these unique
San Onofre Combustion Engineering replacement generators.
Any NRC decision to grant a restart of Unit 2 without a formal 50.90 licensing review along with public participation will be seen as an invitation to risk a Fukushima-type disaster happening in Southern California.
S0 NRC does not want to shut it down, they hand it off to others that will and wipe their hands of it, cowards. We now know they will allow it, what a scam.
Gee, it looks so shiny and new you can see their reflections! And why does St. Onge have different color booties on? Is that like a leadership color or something?
I too believe an unbiased review team shouldn’t have any Region IV NRC personnel on it. They’ve already shown gross incompetence, industry bias, and unsound judgement. We don’t need any more of that here. The AIT already utterly failed to find the root cause, and failed to declare Units 2 and 3 inoperable as they should have, thus allowing SCE to proceed to ask for a restart license — maybe even the same lousy engineers and executives who built/approved the first failed redesign. It makes further sense to have non-region IV personnel for the simple reason that this problem — FEI — potentially affects the entire PWR nuclear industry, so they might as well get used to it. Other reactors (and their inspectors) should also be reanalyzing what might happen in a MSLB condition with degraded tubes, or in any event — design basis or other — that ruptures multiple SG tubes. Boeing ain’t got half the problems our nuclear fleet has — and by the way, what kind of batteries do we use at SanO???
Dear Mr. Art Howell
NRC’s Region IV Deputy Regional Administrator
FYI and Help – Courtesy of DAB Safety Team
Please read Media Alert 13-01-17 Allegation – NRC Violating President’s Directive And the Public Trust and other San Onofre Papers by searching DAB Safety Team & Related Information on Google Drive.
Personal Note: If you want to know more SCE Safety and Retaliation Issues and examine the evidence with my and NRC attorneys present about SCE Management, Retaliation, Safety Issues and San Onofre $1 Billion Radiation Steaming Crucible Watergate Insider Secrets, please visit me in Southern California for a Face-To-Face Technical Meeting. These concerns have already been relayed to Senator Barbara Boxer. Please feel free to send me an email helpallcqiascnp@yahoo.com. Thanks HELPAllHurtNeverBaba
OK, let’s be efficient here. I can do this panel’s remaining work in one comment.
1. Past performance of this steam generator: no leaks
2. Past work: block tubes showing any sign of wear
3. Proposal: operate the reactor for a shorter period than produced the previous wear, reevaluate afterwards
4. Likely outcome: safe operation with intact steam generator due to points 1,2,3 @ probability > 99%
5. Worst case outcome: tube leak/break in steam generator
6. Worst case consequence: immediate detection, reactor shutdown, no safety implications
Conclusion: Restart SONGS 2 immediately.
The above Panel should N☢T be co-chaired by anyone in Region IV, since their supervision of Edison has been called into question and the panel should include at least one and preferably two outside experts to insure that this HISTORIC NRC/NRR Panel is not just covering up for the NRC (and Edison) to protect its own public image!
FEI does not care about NRC internal politics, nor does it follow inter-office memo’s or yield to graft.
Previous Previous post: Improving Communication at the NRC
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Location: Finding Aid Database Digital Content Virtual Folder
Leon Williams Papers: Box 35, Virtual Folder 6: Children - Foster Care, 1993-1994 | Special Collections & University Archives
http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/nas/streaming/dept/scuastaf/collections/Williams/Box35/Williams-Box35Folder06.pdf
Leon Williams Papers: Box 35, Virtual Folder 6: Children - Foster Care, 1993-1994
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Phys. Desc:
1 letter, 1 meeting minutes, 1 agenda.
ms-0398.035.006
Leon Williams Papers, 1961-2006 Series 3: Professional Files, 1966-2003 Sub-Series 3: District IV, 1966-2003 Sub-Series 1: Chief of Staff Files, 1970-2000 Sub-Series 2: Subject Files, 1978-1994 Box 35 Folder 6: Children - Foster Care, 1993-1994
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Webb county
Laredo Community College
Laredo Community College in Laredo
(Rating 3.4 based on 5 reviews)
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Athletic associations
Laredo Community College offers 140-degree programs. Student-to-faculty ratio is 23:1. 2 high safety сampuses. 44.3% are women, and 55.7% are men. Laredo Community College is a member of 2 athletic associations. The average annual total cost of attendance at Laredo Community College is 4540$, that is at the level of national average. 19% of full-time Laredo Community College students completed their education in 150 percent of time: graduation rate is at the level of national average. Average salary after attending is $28,700, so if you studied 2 years, you’ll get your funds back in less than 2 years.
The Laredo Community College is a public and non-academic-year institution, so it’s net price represents an average of all programs and includes only undergraduates who first enrolled in the fall term and pay in-state tuition and receive Title IV aid.
Depending on the federal state, or institutional grant and available, Laredo Community College students in your income bracket may pay more of less than the overall average costs.
$75,001 - $110,000 $7,092
5287 of Laredo Community College undergraduates were awarded with some type of financial aid, it’s 64 percents of all undergraduate students. This makes Laredo Community College number 61 in the amount of financial aid awarded to students among all educational institutions in Texas.
Students at Laredo Community College awarded 4 types of loans or aids, the biggest percent of students received a federal, state, local or institutional grant aid.
Member of National Athletic Association
Member of National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA)
Laredo Community College graduation rate is below the national average.
19% of full-time students enrolled for the first time to Laredo Community College completed the education program and got a degree in 150 percent of the expected time of completion.
Graduation rate is the percentage of institution’s new-entering, first-time, first-year undergraduate students who complete their program within 150% of the published time for the program. Graduation rate excludes a huge number of students. This indicator doesn’t take into account students of nontraditional enrollments - part-time students, students who enroll mid-year, and who transfer from one institution to another. So graduation rate alone can create a misleading perception. Completion rate in the form of total number of students receiving any types of awards/degrees creates a complete picture. Combining this data with graduation rate is a better way to compare educational institutions.
The student-to-faculty ratio at Laredo Community College is 23:1, that means that for every 23 students the institution has one professor, lecturer or specialist with a degree in education. Lower student-to-faculty ratio is better - it means that professors can dedicate more time and attention to each student.
In Laredo Community College the biggest percent of students are enrolled in on-campus courses.
Here are the students enrolled exclusively in distance education courses at Laredo Community College and grouped by their location. Distance education courses are the most popular for students located in Texas.
The percentage of crimes on Fort McIntosh Campus
The campus located by West End Washington St. address in Laredo, Texas.
Fort McIntosh Campus in comparison of all branches in the US. It is calculated as the average percent of crimes yearly by five years of data for every campus, based on an overall number of students studying there. The branch is the middle size campus of Laredo Community College with 0.06% of maximum crimes a year. The most often crimes detected on Fort McIntosh Campus are burglary and motor vehicle theft.
The percentage of crimes on South Campus
The campus located by 5500 South Zapata Highway address in Laredo, Texas.
South Campus in comparison of all branches in the US. It is calculated as the average percent of crimes yearly by five years of data for every campus, based on an overall number of students studying there. The branch is the middle size campus of Laredo Community College with 0.01% of maximum crimes a year. The only type of crimes detected on South Campus is burglary.
Laredo Community College offers 140 programs in total: 58 are for Associate's degree, 54 - for 1-year, but less than-2-year certificate programs, and 28 are less than 1-year certificate programs.
This is one of the lowest number of programs in comparison with other 471 universities in Texas state. Laredo Community College is one of the few institutions in Texas that offers an Associate's degree program.
Here you can find the data on instructional activity in measured in total credit and/or contact hours delivered by institutions during a 12-month period. Also we shown the Texas state average data to help you compare.
Laredo Community College provides coursework for undergraduate students оnly.
In 2014-2015 academic year estimated full-time equivalent undergraduate enrollment was 8695 students with 3277572 both contact and credit hours for 12-month instructional activity period.
The most popular majors counted as percentage breakdown of degrees awarded in every single discipline in Laredo Community College
13% — Liberal Arts and Sciences, General Studies and Humanities
7% — Health Professions and Related Programs
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Student Reviews and Ratings for Laredo Community College
Nichole Hernandezsecon
The women working at the registration office are very rude & unprofessional. If they don’t enjoy interacting respectfully with people then maybe they should pursue other employment.
Harley Pierrepontsecon
The president of this college is a megalomaniac. Avoid at all cost.
Javier Villegassecon
Amazing place, nice service and all.
Eduardo Castillosecon
Ok prices, great at customer service, and they are very friendly.
Ruby Hernandezsecon
Professors are kind and try their best to help you pass the courses. The classes are also, not crazy expensive.
Address: West End Washington St
Institution's internet website address: laredo.edu
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Topic Networking
SubTopic Wireless networks
Campus Area Networks
SD-WAN and SDN
SMB Business Networks
How to select a wireless access point vendor
With so many wireless access point vendors on the market, which ones do you recommend to your clients and choose for their networks? Using the selection criteria in this tip -- including standards, interoperability and security -- you'll be able to sort through the wireless access point vendors and find those products that best fit the needs of your clients.
Jim Geier, Contributor
There are many wireless access point vendors now with products on the market, leaving you with a tough decision -- which ones to recommend to a client and eventually use on a project. Some of these wireless access points barely satisfy the 802.11 standard, making them most suitable for homes and clients with small offices. Others have rich features that extend well beyond the standard, which are ideal for higher-end, enterprise-wide solutions.
If you're deploying a small wireless LAN for a client, then you'll likely search online for the least expensive wireless access point using a site like CNET or purchase them at your local office supply or home electronics store. For midsized or enterprise customers, you need to spend some time comparing wireless access point vendors to make the best decision based on a client's requirements. Features that seem insignificant in a smaller wireless LAN environment often have tremendous payoffs in larger ones.
Selection criteria to consider
Standards. There are two primary standards for wireless access points today: 802.11a and 802.11g. 802.11n is also available, but has not yet been officially ratified. Ratification should occur within the next year or so. The advantage of 802.11n over 802.11a and 802.11g is much higher performance. In addition, 802.11n is backward-compatible. As a result, strongly consider implementing 802.11n, but be certain to ensure that the vendor you choose will allow easy upgrades (such as firmware updates) to the future ratified version of the standard.
Interoperability. To guarantee interoperability, choose products with Wi-Fi Alliance certification. This maximizes cross-vendor interoperability: Wi-Fi-certified radio network interface controllers (NICs) will interface effectively with a Wi-Fi-compliant wireless access point, assuming that they operate in the same radio frequency spectrum (such as 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz).
Upgradeability. Because wireless LAN standards are evolving rapidly, the wireless access point you choose for a client should support firmware upgrades. It's also advantageous if the firmware upgrade can be done from a central access point, which then automatically distributes the upgrade to the other access points on the network.
Ruggedness. If the access point will reside in a client's office, plastic casing should suffice. However, warehouses and manufacturing plants will likely require the more rugged, aluminum casing. Thus, consider the operating environment and select an access point that is tough enough.
Regulatory. Wireless access point vendors must certify wireless access points with the appropriate regulatory body before offering them for sale in a particular country. This is a slow and tedious process. As a result, be sure the vendor you choose has products available for the applicable country, especially if you'll be deploying the wireless LAN outside of the U.S.
Operating temperatures. Wireless access points don't have any problems operating within typical office environments where temperatures are comfortable for humans. A warehouse or manufacturing plant, however, can have temperatures that are very hot or cold depending on the local climate. Consequently, ensure your client's new wireless access point can withstand extreme temperatures if their requirements call for these types of locations.
Security. The 802.11 standard offers wired equivalent privacy (WEP) for encrypting data sent between wireless stations, but the vulnerabilities of WEP are well documented. As a result, vendors offering enterprise-grade wireless access points generally include enhanced security features, such as IEEE 802.1X along with dynamic key allocation and management. Most wireless access point vendors also offer 802.11i and the Wi-Fi Alliance's Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA), which are much better than the original WEP. Carefully assess needs for security, and choose a wireless access point with adequate security mechanisms.
Range. Wireless access points with range enhancements are beneficial to minimize the number and overall costs of access points. In general, longer range reduces overall costs to the client because fewer access points are needed. Be careful, though, when comparing wireless access point specifications from different vendors. One wireless access point vendor may boast long-range capability, but they may be using a higher-gain antenna. Other wireless access points, if using this higher-gain antenna, may offer the same or better range. The idea here is to read the test specifications carefully.
Installation and support tools. For enterprise wireless LANs, installation and support tools become an important aspect when choosing access points. In general, most access points have various methods, such as Telnet and HTTP, for support staff to configuration and management purposes. Enterprise-grade access point solutions offer management tools that enable easy configuration of all access points from a central, remote location.
Best practices for access point placement
Be aware of other enhanced features that can reduce installation and support headaches at a client site. For example, installers must choose proper radio channels when installing multiple wireless access points within close proximity to minimize inter-access point interference, which can degrade the performance of a wireless LAN. Some wireless access point vendors make your life much easier by offering automatic channel selection. The wireless access point senses the presence of other access points and attempts to adjust to a quieter channel. Keep in mind, however, that sometimes automatic channel selection causes voice calls on wireless LANs to drop connections, which can be irritating to users.
Transmit power. Most wireless access points will transmit at different power levels, such as 30 and 100 milliwatts. Some applications may require relatively lower power levels, such as when deploying access points close together to boost capacity. If you need extremely low power levels, your list of potential wireless access point vendors will be much smaller. Some wireless access points will go as low as one milliwatt, but not many do.
Antennas. Even though the antenna is a passive device, it's a vital element of a wireless LAN. Various access points have nonremovable antennas, and some have external connectors to provide flexibility in choosing antenna types. Those that support external antennas provide the most flexibility, which is especially important for enterprise solutions. Vendors generally sell different types of antennas, or you can buy through a third-party company specializing in antennas.
Price. Price obviously plays an important role when making a decision on what products to purchase for a client. An access point with a higher price, though, could be the best one to choose. As a result, carefully consider the installation and support tools that a higher-priced wireless access point may include. It could be worth the extra money if the higher-priced wireless access point saves you considerable time when installing and supporting the wireless LAN.
Availability. Even though a wireless access point vendor may have a particular product on the market, it may have difficulty fulfilling your order in time. This is especially true if you're purchasing a new model. Allow some padding in time estimates for new products, and consider availability when comparing vendors.
You can use the above criteria to produce a list of the top several wireless access point vendors and select a preferred vendor for satisfying your requirements. For larger projects, however, also consider evaluating several of the products through testing before making a final decision. For example, you could install a small prototype in a lab setting to compare and contrast security mechanisms and performance of your top three vendors. There's nothing better than a live comparison, but be sure to judge them equally using common test criteria.
Jim Geier is principal consultant of Wireless-Nets Ltd. and assists companies with the design, implementation and testing of wireless LANs. Jim is author of over a dozen books, including Deploying Voice over Wireless LANs (Cisco Press) and Implementing 802.1X Security Solutions (Wiley).
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Frozen Tickets
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Frozen Details
Frozen is a Broadway show based on the 2013 hit Disney film. The film turned out to be the highest-grossing animated feature film in history and, now, the characters that everyone has grown to love are hitting the stage. Inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale, The Snow Queen, Frozen is a tale of friendship, bravery, and loyalty. The plot is set around Princess Anna of Arendelle who sets off on a journey alongside an iceman named Kristoff, his loyal reindeer, and a friendly snowman named Olaf to find her sister, Queen Elsa of Arendelle.
Elsa has the power to create ice and snow with her bare hands, while her sister Anna is a warm girl with a sunny disposition. An accident from when they were younger leaves them separated, with secrets peppered between them, but ultimately they find their way back to each other.
What made Frozen so unique was that the creators worked to blend together features of both computer-generated imagery (CGI) and traditional hand-drawn animation. This mix of new technology and effects paired with traditional methods captivated audiences around the world. A lot of research went into this film as well; visuals were inspired by the region of Scandinavia, specifically Norway. Several research trips went into creating Frozen, including excursions to Quebec City, Wyoming, and Norway.
And then, of course, there was "Let It Go," the iconic song from the movie that fans have been singing for years since its release. Nobody could, in fact, let it go! Folks around the world have been recording their children singing along to this song, and even if you haven't seen the movie, you've probably heard of it. In fact, the song ended up winning several awards. Idina Menzel, who voiced Elsa and sang Let It Go, took home the Radio Disney Music Award for Favorite Song from a Movie or TV Show. At the 57th Annual Grammy Awards, the Frozen soundtrack won the Grammy Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media.
The movie itself took home a number of awards for its incredible storyline and graphics as well. Frozen was awarded the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film, the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film, and the Blimp Award for Favorite Animated Movie. The voice cast included the wonderful Kristen Bell as Anna, Idina Menzel as Elsa, and Josh Gad as Olaf.
Though the show will be sure to replicate much of what fans love about the movie, it also features new songs and story material.
Frequently Asked Questions About Frozen
What is Frozen the Broadway Musical about?
Frozen the Broadway Musical tells the story of Queen Elsa who has magical ice powers and accidentally starts an eternal winter in her kingdom. After Elsa flees the kingdom, her sister, Princess Anna, sets off on a journey alongside an iceman named Kristoff, his loyal reindeer, and a friendly snowman named Olaf to find her sister.
How much are Frozen tickets?
Frozen ticket prices on the secondary market can vary widely depending on the location, day of the week, season, and other factors. Frozen tickets can be found for as low as $82.00, however the national average is $121.00.
What's Frozen's tour schedule?
The 2020 Frozen tour schedule is listed below.
Dates City Location
Open run New York, NY St. James Theatre
Dec 4 - Feb 2, 2020 Los Angeles, CA Pantages Theatre
Feb 7 - Mar 1 Seattle, WA Paramount Theatre
Mar 5 - Mar 22 Portland, OR Keller Auditorium
Mar 26 - Apr 12 San Diego, CA San Diego Civic Theatre
Apr 15 - May 3 Salt Lake City, UT Eccles Theater
May 6 - May 31 Minneaplis, MN Orpheum Theatre
Jun 3 - Jun 14 Tulsa, OK Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Jun 17 - Jul 12 Dallas, TX Music Hall at Fair Park
Jul 15 - Aug 16 Cleveland, OH State Theatre - The Playhouse Square Center
Oct 7 - Oct 18 Charlotte, NC Belk Theater
Oct 21 - Jan 3, 2021 Chicago, IL Cadillac Palace Theatre
What is the recommended age for Frozen on Broadway?
Most shows will have both a recommended age limit and minimum age requirements. Generally, children under the age of 4 are not permitted at Broadway shows. Frozen is intended for ages 8 and up.
How long is Frozen on Broadway?
Frozen is approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes, with one intermission.
What should I wear to Frozen the Broadway Musical?
There is no specific dress code for Frozen the Broadway Musical. Some people like to dress up an others will go in jeans. It is recommended to avoid anything too casual such as tank tops and cut off shorts.
Who was in the original cast of Frozen?
The original cast of Frozen includes:
Anna Patti Murin
Elsa Caissie Levy
Kristoff Jelani Alladin
Hans John Riddle
Olaf Greg Hildreth
Pabbie Timothy Hughes
Weselton Robert Creighton
Oaken Kevin Del Aguila
Sven Andrew Pirozzi
Young Anna Audrey Bennett & Mattea Conforti
Young Elsa Brooklyn Nelson & Ayla Schwartz
Queen Iduna Ann Sanders
King Agnarr James Brown III
Bulda Olivia Phillip
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The Best Broadway Shows in 2020: Everything You Need to Know
Use code BROADWAY20 at checkout to save $20 on your purchase of $100 or more! Check out our ever-growing, always-updating, comprehensive directory of Broadway theater! (Or check out our festiva Pro tip: Looking for info on a specific play? Find it alphabetized below, or by hitting ctrl+F and typing its name into the search bar.…
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Performing At
Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles, CA
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St. James Theatre in New York, NY
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Web Dynpro — Not Just for Java Developers Anymore
by Karl Kessler | SAPinsider
Karl Kessler,
One of the standout features of SAP NetWeaver is its support for open technology and user interfaces that are browser-based, model-driven, device-independent, and accessible — in short, everything today's Web applications require. SAP NetWeaver's UI technology, Web Dynpro, is a first-class approach to building application content designed to run in SAP NetWeaver Portal. And because Web Dynpro is language-independent by design, it's not just for Java developers. Those application developers who are fluent in ABAP and have mastered Web enablement through BSPs will now be able to build Web Dynpro applications in a familiar development environment with substantial support for efficient, reliable development that they can reuse and — best of all — that requires minimal coding.
Some Background on Web Dynpro
From the very beginning, the Web Dynpro metamodel was designed in a programming-language-neutral way. Web Dynpro uses the model-view-controller (MVC) approach to Web interface development (see sidebar below, "Similar Functions, Different Tools"), so that a Web Dynpro component and all its pieces have the same semantics whether they are written in ABAP or Java. The very first version of the Web Dynpro development environment to be delivered was for Java-based projects. It included strong tool support from SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio based on the powerful, open-source tooling platform Eclipse. The resulting customer projects typically target SAP NetWeaver Application Server Java as the runtime environment.
But what if your team has strong ABAP skills and a background in BSP programming? Or perhaps the backend services you would like to address are not fully exposed as the Web services or remote function modules required for Java model binding? Or what if, from a performance point of view, you cannot afford a decoupling of UI logic executed on the server and the underlying business logic? What if you already have working ABAP software maintenance in place but cannot quickly set up a development infrastructure for Java? In all these cases, Web Dynpro ABAP can help.
This article takes you on a quick tour through the tools of Web Dynpro ABAP and walks you through a simple flight report example to highlight new and updated tools in the familiar ABAP environment.
Web Dynpro ABAP is part of SAP NetWeaver 2004s, which is the foundation for the shipment of the mySAP Business Suite, most prominently mySAP ERP 2005. As its name suggests, Web Dynpro ABAP uses exactly the same metamodel as its cousin Web Dynpro Java, and their views, models, and controllers share the same semantics — so there is no need for developers to learn a new UI paradigm. The main differences between Web Dynpro Java and ABAP are simple ones designed to make it easy for developers to transition between traditional ABAP projects and Web Dynpro applications:
The Web Dynpro ABAP design-time environment is embedded directly in the ABAP Workbench. (For a look at how the tools are similar in functionality, see the sidebar "A Brief Guide to Web Dynpro Terminolgy for ABAP Developers.") Web Dynpro artifacts (components, views, models, etc.) are listed just like any other of your ABAP-based projects and BSP applications. ABAP developers can access all projects in the same way and in a familiar environment.
ABAP developers won't find any surprises in the development infrastructure, either. The correction and transport system keeps track of all changes, versions them, and helps propagate the Web Dynpro application from development to production — just as you would do with any BSP or dynpro-based applications.
The execution platform is the ABAP server, rather than the Java server. This ABAP server produces application content ready to be seamlessly integrated into the SAP NetWeaver Portal. Features like portal eventing can be used between applications written in ABAP and in Java or generated by Visual Composer.
The story of Web Dynpro ABAP sounds simple: it's easy and efficient to create a modern Web UI with very little coding and in a familiar ABAP development environment. As with Web Dynpro for Java, however, while creating the UI is simple, the Web Dynpro tools within the ABAP Workbench are highly sophisticated. This article takes you on a quick tour through the tools to showcase their capabilities, walking through a simple flight report example that touches all major editors (see the result in Figure 1). We created this same interface with Web Dynpro Java in a previous column.1 As with Web Dynpro Java, you might be surprised by how little coding is required.
The Final Flight Search Interface, Automatically Generated and Viewed in the Browser
A Brief Guide to Web Dynpro Terminology for ABAP Developers
Web Dynpro strictly follows the model-view-controller (MVC) paradigm, meaning that any application you design with Web Dynpro cleanly separates the layout and the interaction code from the business data.* In this widespread UI-development paradigm, the component consists of three basic parts:
Model — The model indicates the business data to be manipulated and corresponds to the global data and tables of the module pool.
View — The layout information is all held in the view, which corresponds roughly to fields and subscreens in the traditional dynpro model.
Controller — The controller manages the interaction of the interface. This corresponds to the flow logic in the classical dynpro model.
Some other Web Dynpro terms include:
Context — The context is technically a hierarchy of variables related to the user interface. ABAP developers can think of the context as being similar to the field list, while the dynpro fields are similar to the view. The field transport then automatically copies the values from the program to the user interface and vice versa. Likewise, variables of the Web Dynpro context are copied back and forth to corresponding Web Dynpro view fields.
Service controller — A service controller is a controller that encapsulates a service call. In the example we walk through in this article, this is a simple BAPI call.
Component — A component is a modular unit with various interfaces (both programmatic and UI-oriented).
* For an overview of MVC, see my article in the April-June 2003 issue of SAP Insider, as well as the article by Dr. Peter Tillert in the October-December 2003 issue, entitled "How to Streamline User Interfaces: Web Dynpro Makes Software Reuse a Reality" (www.SAPinsider.com).
Similar Functions, Different Tools
Here is a quick look at the tools used for various designing tasks with dynpro and their corresponding tools when using the Web Dynpro model.
Tool Aspect Dynpro Web Dynpro
Layout Screen Painter
Field List Editor View Designer
Context Editor
Outline of program/component Object Browser Web Dynpro Explorer
Event code ABAP Editor ABAP Editor
Navigation Implicit in code Navigation Modeler
Data flow Implicit in code Data Modeler
New Workbench Tools for Web Dynpro ABAP
This article will introduce new or updated tools that SAP has added to the familiar ABAP environment, including:
Web Dynpro Explorer
Web Dynpro Designer
Web Dynpro Wizard
New updates to editing code in the ABAP Workbench
Let's jump directly into our example, beginning with the ABAP Development Workbench (transaction SE80). In Figure 2, you can see that the dropdown box now includes a new category for Web Dynpro Component/Interfaces. Here's where our work starts.
Launching the ABAP Development Workbench in SAP NetWeaver 2004s
The Web Dynpro Component
You can think of a Web Dynpro component as a modular unit with various interfaces (both programmatic and UI-oriented). To start the process, name your new component (z_bapiflight in our example). Once you enter this component name, a dialog pops up to actually begin creating the Web Dynpro component in the Web Dynpro Explorer. Here, you'll be asked to fill in the typical correction and transport information. In our result, shown in Figure 3, the outline of the newly created Web Dynpro component is on the left and some dependency information is on the right.
Viewing the Newly Created Web Dynpro Component
One of the outstanding features of the Web Dynpro model is its ability to have data attached on various levels (e.g., the view and the controller). This is much like the classic dynpro, which had a similar feature based on field lists and dynpro fields; a field transport then automatically copied the values from the program to the UI and vice versa.
Web Dynpro follows this tradition, but in a much more fine-grained way. This is the context, which is technically a hierarchy of variables related to parts of the user interface. You can attach a context to a view on the view level and to a component on the component level, which is not necessarily visualized. Once you have defined the contexts at the various levels, you can then graphically map context nodes in the Context Editor and the information flows automatically — you will see this in our example.
Web Dynpro View and Designer
A view contains all visual controls, such as buttons, labels, and fields. From the outline menu, we create a new view, which can be edited in the Web Dynpro Designer (see Figure 4). The Web Dynpro Designer is a WYSIWYG tool that immediately renders what you have changed so far. On the left you see a rich palette of graphical controls at your disposal, grouped by category. You simply drag and drop controls into your layout. On the upper right, the control is incrementally built, and below you find the usual list of properties for that control.
A View of the Web Dynpro Designer
Now that the view is complete, we need to manage how these controls function — in this case, we'll focus on a key control in our interface, the "Search Flights" button (the Get List function). At the controller level, we could start to maintain the layout manually, but there is a much faster method: the Web Dynpro Wizard. This wizard helps you derive a lot of properties for input fields and output fields automatically. Launch the wizard from the context menu of the Web Dynpro Explorer and a dialog pops up asking you for the specification of a service controller. In our example, this is a simple BAPI call, but it could be a simple function module or a Web service call as well.
The wizard guides you through a series of steps (see Figure 5) where you first select a controller that should contain the service call (I simply used the component controller), then you specify a service type (function module), then the name of the function module or BAPI to be called, and finally the parameters of the BAPI that should be reflected in the context.
The Web Dynpro Wizard for Generating the Service Call
The final result of the wizard is the context for the service call triggered by the Get List button, as shown in Figure 6. The context hierarchy on the right side contains the DESTINATION_FROM and DESTINATION_TO fields, which will serve as search criteria, and the FLIGHT_LIST as the result table.
The Controller Context for the Service Call Invoked by the Search Flights Button, Generated from the Web Dynpro Wizard
Defining the Graphical Layout of the Interface
Now that we have created the context for the service call, let's quickly specify the graphical layout of our application (see Figure 7), including mapping the controller to the view. In Figure 7, you see how the controller context and the view context are mapped. The Web Dynpro runtime will transport the search fields (in our example, DESTINATION_FROM and DESTINATION_TO) from the view to the BAPI call, execute the BAPI, and place the result table back in the view context again so that the Web Dynpro rendering can produce the output page in the browser.
Mapping the Controller and View Contexts
Once you've defined the mapping, you can derive a container form that renders all the fields plus their labels derived from the BAPI definition simply by selecting a context node for DESTINATION_FROM and selecting the relevant fields.
To launch the BAPI from the user interface, we need to add a button, associate an action with the button, and place the BAPI call inside. The code is then presented in the brand-new ABAP Editor, which is full of features that make it worthy of its own "Under Development" column (see sidebar, "The New ABAP Editor with Web Dynpro ABAP").
But, as I mentioned above, Web Dynpro is not the place to dive into code. Of course, you probably won't get away with no coding, but the Web Dynpro development environment is designed to capitalize on reuse and keep manual coding to a minimum. So instead, we'll focus here on the last step, where we add a table to the layout and specify its binding. The result is shown in Figure 8.
The Final Layout of the Flight List Interface with Table Binding and Object Properties
The New ABAP Editor with Web Dynpro ABAP
A complete discussion of the new ABAP Editor is certainly beyond the scope of this article, but here is a list of some of its more outstanding features:
Coloring and highlighting that reflects the ABAP syntax.
Source code compression that allows you to fold and unfold a syntactical structure, such as method…endmethod. For example, you can expand or collapse a "while loop" so you can hide the code inside the loop.
Macros, which mean less typing for developers. For example, you can generate "if-then-else" constructs to save development time and effort.
Code snippets, which allow developers to cut and later paste some lines of code. For example, you can reuse a sort function later on that you don't currently need.
A lot of personalization extras, including color assignments, indentation rules, etc.
A future "Under Development" column will cover the ABAP Editor in more detail. For more on the new ABAP Editor, please see www.sdn.sap.com --> Web Application Server --> ABAP.
New ABAP Editor
Launch the Application
We're almost done. What is missing is the proper embedding of the view in the component's window (see Figure 9) and the creation of a starting point for the application. Once you test your application, data flows from the input fields to the BAPI call, and the results of the BAPI call are immediately and automatically sent back to the table control, which is finally rendered in the browser, as shown back in Figure 1.
Web Dynpro Builder
This step completes our quick tour. Although the application was a simple example, it touched on the important areas of the Web Dynpro tools set inside the ABAP Workbench.
More Advanced Features of Web Dynpro ABAP
Web Dynpro has much more to offer than simple input/output handling. Maybe you saw the rich palette of controls in the view layer back in Figure 4. Besides offering nice features such as predefined business graphics and embedded Microsoft Office applications, Web Dynpro hosts a complete form design environment based on Adobe Designer. Here you can define interactive forms that exchange contextual data with Web Dynpro controls as if they were properly built in. During runtime the Adobe formula is then processed in the Web Dynpro context. Features like context mapping are applicable here as well.
Other features also ease development and make for richer interfaces. For example, you can take advantage of personalization features that allow an end user to customize the order of columns that are displayed — and hide columns that are not needed — in a large table. In addition, portal integration (e.g., portal eventing), definition and reuse of Web Dynpro components, and the Web Dynpro ALV, which has similar capabilities as its counterpart in the ABAP controls world,2 are also now available with Web Dynpro ABAP.
For more information, please visit www.sdn.sap.com --> Web Application Server --> ABAP to view tutorials about Web Dynpro ABAP's additional features.
Web Dynpro ABAP is a strong model-driven tooling environment based on the classical ABAP infrastructure. The focus of Web Dynpro ABAP is not just on getting interfaces ready for use as iViews or for browser-based access.
It's also on making it easier for developers to create these interfaces, whether it's functionally, with a familiar development environment, or technically, with final Web application interfaces that can integrate with and run in SAP NetWeaver Portal.
The best news of all for ABAP developers is that you'll be typing in less code and making better use of the applications you've already built: coding is reduced to a minimum in Web Dynpro applications, and reuse is a key part of the Web Dynpro strategy.
If you currently develop applications based on BSP, you should look at whether Web Dynpro offers additional choices and more abstraction than low-level HTML code.
For more information, please visit www.sdn.sap.com --> Web Application Server --> ABAP or help.sap.com (and search for Web Dynpro ABAP).
1- See "Under Development: Your 'Easy Way In' to Web Dynpro Development: New Design-Time Tools Now Available with SAP Web Application Server 6.30" in the April-June 2003 issue of SAP Insider (www.SAPinsider.com).
2- Beyond the Web Dynpro controls layer, Web Dynpro ALV offers a lot of prebuilt functions for filtering, sorting, and totaling similar to the classic ALV.
Karl Kessler joined SAP in 1992. He is the Product Manager of the SAP NetWeaver foundation, which includes SAP NetWeaver Application Server, Web Dynpro, ABAP Workbench, and SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio, and is responsible for all rollout activities. You can reach him via email at karl.kessler@sap.com.
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Business planning cycle nhspca
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Home homework help lines Year 11 physics the world communicates
Year 11 physics the world communicates
Types[ edit ] Ontological dualism makes dual commitments about the nature of existence as it relates to mind and matter, and can be divided into three different types: Substance dualism asserts that mind and matter are fundamentally distinct kinds of foundations.
Inventor, robotics enthusiast Simone Giertz runs a YouTube channel about robotics. Simone Giertz is a Swedish inventor, YouTuber and robotics enthusiast.
The World Communicates NOTES
She is world-renowned for her useless machines and has risen to the very top of the field -- mainly because the field is very tiny and not of interest to the general populace. Rajiv Laroia is a curious engineer driven by the need to solve impactful problems through innovation.
He is the CTO and co-founder of Light, a computational camera company, founded with the vision of reimaging mobile photography.
With Laroia's direction, Light has introduced the world's first computational camera.
Laroia also invented much of the technology behind the LTE 4G wireless standard and today powers global mobile connectivity. He was inducted into the Innovations Hall of Fame, University of Maryland, College Park, and he has more than issued patents and more than pending.
Melanie Shapiro Identity entrepreneur Melanie Shapiro is working to build a decentralized future where people have sovereignty over their identity and data, unlocking a new paradigm of personal freedom and global mobility.
When individuals don't have control over their identity, personhood and human rights are hindered. Melanie Shapiro is the CEO and co-founder of Token, which builds wearable technology that enables people to have more control over their digital identity, allowing for increased mobility and greater security of personal data.
She previously created Case, a biometrically secured hardware bitcoin wallet with global data connectivity.
At Token, Shapiro draws heavily on her PhD in consumer behavior to design a natural experience layer for cryptographic authentication in order to bring an end to insecure identity artifacts like passwords, credit card numbers and centrally stored personal data. She is passionate about the consumerization and democratization of cryptography, since it's the foundation that enables both secure authentication and sovereign identity in a digital world.
Shotwell is a member of the SpaceX Board of Directors. Prior to joining SpaceX, Shotwell spent more than 10 years at the Aerospace Corporation, holding positions in space systems engineering and technology and project management.
Shotwell was subsequently recruited to be director of Microcosm's space systems division, managing space system technologies, serving on the executive committee and directing corporate business development. SpaceX supports science, technology, engineering and math STEM programs locally as well as national engineering programs and competitions.
She has authored dozens of papers on a variety of space-related subjects. Chris Anderson is the Curator of TED, a nonprofit devoted to sharing valuable ideas, primarily through the medium of 'TED Talks' -- short talks that are offered free online to a global audience.
Chris was born in a remote village in Pakistan in He spent his early years in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, where his parents worked as medical missionaries, and he attended an American school in the Himalayas for his early education.
After boarding school in Bath, England, he went on to Oxford University, graduating in with a degree in philosophy, politics and economics. Chris then trained as a journalist, working in newspapers and radio, including two years producing a world news service in the Seychelles Islands.
Back in the UK inChris was captivated by the personal computer revolution and became an editor at one of the UK's early computer magazines.the world communicates PRELIMINARY PHYSICS SYLLABUS NOTES – ANDREW HARVEY 6 1.
Many communication technologies use applications of reflection and refraction of electromagnetic waves * describe and apply the law of reflection and explain the effect of reflection from a plane surface on waves Reflection – When a wave strikes a boundary, it bounces back.
The World Communicates 1. The wave model can be used to explain how current technologies transfer information * describe the energy transformations required in one of the following: mobile telephone, fax/ modem, radio and television.
The World Communicates 1. The wave model can be used to explain how current technologies transfer information * describe the energy transformations required in one of the following: mobile telephone, fax/ modem, radio and television Energy transmission in mobile telephone.
Free notes to study and revise for Year 7 to HSC and UNSW Engineering and Commerce subjects. This website is a culmination of articles and user comments that discuss evidence of God based on Science, Philosophy, and Experience.
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Year 11 Physics The World Communicates | Science-stein Secondary School Science
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Mike Adams and Steve Quayle on the Hagmann Report live show – people already telling me it’s the best interview they’ve heard all year – direct link – full show
For whatever reason, the stars aligned today as I joined Steve Quayle and Doug Hagmann on the “Hagmann Tonight” show to discuss a whirlwind of hard-core topics: 5G beam weapons, bioengineered vaccine depopulation weapons, gene transfer technology and “genetic morphing” effects, survival against the globalists, the rise of demonic influence in the transgenderism agenda, the coming attempted civil war ignition in Virginia and much more. (Two full hours of nearly uninterrupted bombshells…)
Watch the full video interview at this link.
(Note that the voice sync delay in this video is not anything due to my studio or audio gear. It seems to be a video capture sync issue on the recording side, and I’ll mention this to Doug in our next conversation.)
Without any real planning, this just turned out to be one of the most fascinating unscripted discussions of the year, according to listeners and fans who have been hammering my phone text and Steve Quayle’s email after seeing the full show. (Which is nearly two hours, almost uninterrupted.) I still haven’t quite figure out what specifically has generated this response, honestly.
“People are e-mailing me saying it’s one of the est shows they have ever heard,” exclaims Steve Quayle on his website, SteveQuayle.com. And I’m being texted bizarre messages like, “You guys were on fire! MORE, PLEEZE!”
Doug Hagmann is an American patriot and investigator who has over the years become a legend in alternative media. You will find some of the most provocative and well-informed guests on his show, which is a long format, unscripted discussion that declares no topic out of bounds.
Doug had seen my “Oblivion Agenda” presentation in Branson, MO earlier this year, and he was so intrigued by the information, he invited me to join his broadcast tonight with Steve Quayle. That presentation, if you’re curious is available on this DVD set from GenSix.com. (Not an affiliate link. I’m not compensated for DVD sales.)
So without any particular topics in mind — not even a single sheet of bullet points or anything — we dove into some of the most mind-bending subjects of our modern era, including geoengineering, terraforming and the chemical alteration of the atmosphere as part of a globalist agenda to literally exterminate humankind.
Doug was a very professional host, and I enjoyed the talk. People are raving about it, which I suppose comes from the unique combination of all three of us being on the same show at the same time. Steve Quayle’s mind contains an absolute treasure chest of knowledge about ancient civilizations, extraterrestrials, giants, exotic weapon systems and, more recently, plate tectonics and radical geological activity across the West Coast and Pacific Rim.
You’ve simply got to hear this highly unusual combination of the three of us laying out truth bombshell after truth bombshell on so many subjects, you’ll have to listen twice just to absorb it all.
Somebody remind Hagmann that he needs to launch his channel on Brighteon.com so we can make sure if he’s ever banned by YouTube, we’ll have safe copies of all this knowledge on Brighteon!
Watch here and share everywhere:
www.hagmannreportlive.com/mike-adams-steve-quayle-survival-of-the-globalists-agenda-is-victory-full-show-12-19-19/
Tagged Under: apocalypse, Collapse, Doug Hagmann, extermination, Globalism, humanity, Steve Quayle, survival
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Sicilian News
Sicilylab
Illegal expropriation and occupation, Etna Park sentenced to maximum compensation
The Administrative Justice Council of Palermo sentenced the Etna Park to a maxi compensation of 1,255,207.34 euros, in favor of the former owners of the "Bevacqua Houses" of Piedimonte etneo, for illegal expropriation and occupation.
In order to pay, the institution asked the Sicilian Region for an extraordinary contribution of 870 thousand euros, but if help does not come, he is ready to sell two historic houses: the "Grande Albergo dell’Etna" in the Serra la Nave district in Ragalna and "Villa Manganelli" in Zafferana Etna.
The property at the center of the dispute falls in zone C of the protected area and consists of "a wood, a hazel grove and a complex of buildings dating back to 1803, called" Bevacqua houses ", today known as" hiking base point 13 ".
The CGA closed an almost twenty-year affair, establishing the amount of compensation (judgment 988/2019); the second instance administrative judges, in fact, had decided on the merit 9 years ago with the annulment of both the expropriation decree of the municipality of Piedimento etneo (year 2003) and the emergency occupation measures of the Etna Park ( 2002), accepting appeals which in 2006 had been rejected by Tar Catania.
It reads in a recently published resolution of the body's Executive Committee (65/2019) chaired by the extraordinary commissioner Salvatore Gabriele Ragusa: «The parties did not reach a definitive agreement on the sum to be paid and the Park Authority proceeded, in 2013, on the basis of autonomous definition of the sum and supported by the opinion of the Provincial Commission expropriate, to make the sums deposited available to the expropriated company at the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (capital fate of € 110,834.05) as well as additional amounts of interest of € 55,668.55 paid ».
In the 2019 budget, the Etna park has set aside another 140,932.96 euros and to cover the residual 871,842.44 the Council (resolution 40/2019), which is made up of the mayors of the municipalities falling within it, endorsed the one-off request to the Regional Department of the Territory and the Environment put forward by the Committee. In the alternative, to meet the costs, the board authorized the management of the park: to ask the company for an installment over several years; to start, as an alternative, the sales procedures of the "Grande Albergo dell’Etna" in the Serra la Nave district in Ragalna and "Villa Manganelli" in Zafferana Etna.
«Two of the most representative and most valuable and valuable historical structures of the Etna Park» which have been considered «level 1» and therefore included in the final list of 55 assets of the first range (high priority), of great cultural interest and tourism, of the national project "Valore Paese-Dimore" ", announced a press release of 7 January 2014, still available today in the news on the institutional website of the Etna Park, with reference to the" Grande Albergo "and" Villa Manganelli ".
Now there is expectation for the decisions of the regional councilor for the territory and the environment, Salvatore Cordaro, and the president of the Sicilian region, Nello Musumeci.
The post Illegal expropriation and occupation, Etna Park sentenced to maximum compensation appeared first on Palermo-24h.
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Sicilylab is your news, entertainment, music fashion website. We provide you with the latest breaking news and videos straight from Sicily.
Contact us: info@sicilylab.com
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Yep, More Shakespeare Criticism
From a Passionate POC's Perspective
“your actions are my dreams”: A biased post in praise of Oregon Shakespeare Festival @OSFashland
Posted on January 1, 2014 by Dawn Monique Williams Standard
2013 was a transformative year for me. In many ways I came into my own: I found my voice, I followed my passions, I made new friends, and called a new place home for a spell. I found my tribe, my place, and I started to leave behind playing little. Shakespeare in so many ways was at the root of all this change.
I LOVE language. I recognize its power. Its malleability. It is political. It is potent. And when I say “that ish cray,” or “he’s totes adorbs,” it is not because I want to sound like a 13 year girl from the Central Valley, but because I understand that I own language. It is my possession, the words I speak locate me inside (and outside) of communities, conversations, and canons. There is conformity, defiance, and subversion in the manipulation and/or order of words. Shakespeare is my favorite of all wordsmiths (and yo, he was totes down with the elision, so I think he’d support my vernacular. Obvi). He is my favorite dramatist because his words bear the weight of action. Yes, absolutely gorgeous poetry, but poems that can stand, run, hell take flight. And so to my point, I spent the first 6 months of 2013 in residence at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, a language based theatre where words bear the weight of action.
Now many people in the theatre world lovingly/jokingly/mockingly refer to OSF as the Disneyland of Theatre. A place where in 5 days you can see 9 plays in rep. For me it certainly was a wonderland, but not an exit through the gift shop here’s your “someone went to Ashland and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt” kind of touristy theatre of glitz and gimmicks. But a theatre land all my own, where people onstage looked like me. Where plays were directed by people that share my cultural values. Where the words diversity and inclusion bear the weight of action.
By no means is OSF perfect, (“tis a consummation devoutly to be wished”) but where other theatres talk the talk, OSF walks the thorny, uncomfortable, but all too necessary walk. So it’s no surprise that while at this language based, namesake theatre, I fell in love. I fell in love not just with the organization, but with the people who ARE the organization. People who think like me and share my values, but not always, yet even in disagreement they work toward understanding, compassion, and meaningful exchange. People who identified that “the inclusion of diverse people, ideas, cultures and traditions enriches both our insights into the work we present on stage and our relationships with each other,” and “are committed to diversity in all areas of our work and in our audiences.” I fell in love with the people who do the hard work everyday to achieve, maintain, and keep central that mission.
OSF does 4 Shakespeares a season, along side world premieres of new plays by living writers (both male AND female). They produce musicals and American classics. Last season Tennessee Williams ran in rep with August Wilson, and Tanya Saracho, and Lerner and Lowe. King Lear played opposite fresh of the presses The Liquid Plain, and a new musical, The Unfortunates, that defies genre. And they employed white actors, black actors, Latino/a actors, Asian actors, Armenian, Iranian, deaf, average sized, and differently-abled actors.
As a director who is female, a person of color, and overwhelming drawn to classic plays, I haven’t always felt invited to the American Theatre party. OSF not only invited me, but said “gurl you betta get yo ass in here.” Ok, no one literally said that to me, (I reckon you recognize hyperbole when you see it), but I found a place where it didn’t feel so strange to love Shakespeare (while black…). And so as I embark on 2014 away from my OSF family, I feel comfort in knowing that my tribe exists, that they will dive into the work for this season in a few days knowing my spirit is with them, that I can always call and visit home, and that the American Theatre has either offered me a standing invite by way of OSF or I can use my badge to crash the party.
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Light at end of tunnel for farmers who ‘come clean’ on Eskom debt
Small farmers are demanding more than just a rebate, though. They want a preferential rate
Bongani Fuzile
It was a dream come true for Lumka Mhletywa when her application for a dairy farm in Macleantown, Eastern Cape, was approved by the department of rural development and land reform (DRDLR).
Under the 30-year lease agreement, she repays the mortgage monthly and will, at the end of the term, becomes the owner of the land.
She took over the farm with a number of dairy cattle and ran it for a few months when she encountered her first hurdle: she was unable to pay her Eskom electricity bills. Now there seems to be a light at the end of an otherwise dark tunnel with the power utility’s nationwide #ComeCleanCampaign, which calls for people who owe money to come forward and get a 50% discount.
This includes private residents and business owners.
She is one of the emerging farmers battling to keep the lights on because of the Eskom tariffs. Like others in her dire financial position, she wants Eskom to offer emerging farmers a preferential rate.
Speaking to Times Select, Mhletywa said she had to sell some of her cattle to settle her Eskom account. “I was now selling the cattle to pay the bills, but I stopped paying, as this electricity was too expensive,” she said.
“My farm was a new farm, I had nothing, and I was just unable to keep up. I was scared of losing the farm. Last year in November, I was owing R85,000 and today maybe it’s way over R100,000.”
She said though she was not making a profit, Eskom was billing her the same amount every month. Now her electricity had been cut off.
She’s not alone though. Cwayita Mboni, also a female dairy farmer in Newlands, Eastern Cape, suffered a similar fate. “I had to use my savings to settle Eskom bills. I’ve suffered a lot, and I’ve got nothing today ... I operated at a loss,” said Mboni.
She said Eskom was treating them like commercial farmers. “We need relief; farmers are abandoning their farms. This Eskom plan can assist a number of farmers.”
Walter Nongqo, also an emerging farmer, said he had to take a loan to pay his R4,000 Eskom bill. “We would have loved to have the electricity that is cheap and affordable. I was struggling to get R4,000 to pay Eskom,” he said.
Nongqo said they could not afford to install solar panels as an alternative electricity source.
“We could not get any funding for that. The plan was to run away from Eskom to have our own source of power, which is cheaper.”
The Eskom rebate brings hope though.
“If we can somehow manage to get out of our debt, we can start producing for the country. We are into farming not to feed our stomachs but the country,” said Mhletywa.
Eskom spokesperson Khulu Phasiwe said the customer incentive campaign offer had received an overwhelming response when it was launched in Mpumalanga and had therefore been extended to the Free State, Limpopo, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and North West. “Other provinces will follow in the next financial year.
“The repercussions for those who choose not to take advantage of this generous offer will be severe, as Eskom will disconnect illegal power users from the system after the deadline,” said Phasiwe.
The power utility said they would not show mercy to those who did not come clean. “They will not qualify for the discount, and they will be disconnected until such time that the full remedial charge fee has been paid.”
Eskom said the discounted fee offer would expire on March 31. National African Farmers Association’s Pumza Vitshima said the power cuts were hitting farmers heavily, most of the victims being emerging farmers.
She said because of the drought, most farmers relied on boreholes, which needed electricity for the pumps.
“We are calling for government to come assist us in these farms. Emerging inexperienced black farmers were given these farms to run, but the honest mistake DRDLR did was not to speak to Eskom to cut this fixed cost system,” said Vitshima. Eskom previously said electricity theft was a threat to SA’s economic growth and remained one of the most serious but “under-reported crimes in spite of the fact that the country loses at least R20bn a year to electricity theft”.
The main problem was illegal connections, nonpayment, meter tampering, meter bypassing and ghost vending.
• People wishing to make use of the offer must visit their nearest Eskom office with their account, and complete the necessary forms to arrange for a payment plan.
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Shepard and the American flag on the Moon during Apollo 14 in February 1971
Mission type
Manned lunar landing
NASA[1]
CSM: 1971-008A
LM: 1971-008C
SATCAT no.
CSM: 4900
LM: 4905
Mission duration
9 days, 1 minute, 58 seconds
Spacecraft properties
Apollo CSM-110
Apollo LM-8
CSM: North American Rockwell
LM: Grumman
Launch mass
102,084 pounds (46,305 kg)
Landing mass
11,481 pounds (5,208 kg)
Crew size
Alan B. Shepard Jr.
Stuart A. Roosa
Edgar D. Mitchell
CSM: Kitty Hawk
LM: Antares
Start of mission
January 31, 1971 (1971-01-31)
Launch site
Kennedy LC-39A
End of mission
Recovered by
USS New Orleans
Landing date
February 9, 1971 (1971-02-10)
Landing site
South Pacific Ocean
27°1′S 172°39′W / 27.017°S 172.650°W / -27.017; -172.650 (Apollo 14 splashdown)
Orbital parameters
Selenocentric
16.9 kilometers (9.1 nmi)
Apocynthion
108.9 kilometers (58.8 nmi)
Lunar orbiter
Spacecraft component
Command and service module
Orbital insertion
Orbital departure
Lunar module
Return launch
Fra Mauro
Template:Lunar coords and quad cat
Sample mass
42.80 kilograms (94.35 lb)
Surface EVAs
EVA duration
Total: 9 hours, 22 minutes, 31 seconds
First: 4 hours, 47 minutes, 50 seconds
Second 4 hours, 34 minutes, 41 seconds
Docking with LM
Docking date
Undocking date
Docking with LM ascent stage
Left to right: Mitchell, Shepard, Roosa
Apollo program
← Apollo 13
Apollo 15 →
Apollo 14 was the eighth manned mission in the Apollo program. It was the third mission to land on the Moon. The nine-day mission left the Earth on January 31, 1971, and landed on the Moon on February 5. The Lunar Module landed in the Fra Mauro formation; this had been the target of the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission. During the two walks on the Moon's surface, 93.2 lb (42 kg) of moon rock was collected. Several experiments, including seismic studies, were carried out. Commander Alan Shepard famously hit two golf balls on the lunar surface with a makeshift club he had brought from Earth. Command Module Pilot Stuart Roosa took several hundred seeds on the mission, many of which were planted on return, resulting in the so-called Moon trees.[2] The pilot of the Lunar Module was Dr. Edgar Mitchell.
LRO finds the site[change | change source]
In June 2009, the NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter was able to photograph the Apollo 14 landing site. The base of the lunar module and the astronauts footprints on the Moon's suface could be clearly seen.[3]
↑ Orloff, Richard W. (September 2004) [First published 2000]. "Table of Contents". Apollo by the Numbers: A Statistical Reference. NASA History Division, Office of Policy and Plans. NASA History Series. Washington, D.C.: NASA. ISBN 0-16-050631-X. LCCN 00061677. NASA SP-2000-4029. Archived from the original on September 6, 2007. Retrieved July 17, 2013. Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (help)
↑ "The Moon Trees". NASA. Retrieved 2009-12-23.
↑ "New images of Moon landing sites". news.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2009-07-19.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Apollo 14.
Retrieved from "https://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Apollo_14&oldid=6615200"
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New General Catalogue
The New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars[1] is a list of stars and nebulae. It is abbreviated NGC, and is sometimes called just New General Catalogue. It has 7,840[1] objects on it. These objects are called "NGC objects". It was created by John Louis Emil Dreyer in 1888. It's the most famous and known deep-sky catalogue for amateur astronomy. Most of observations were rewarded by William Herschel and his son, and expanded by the known catalogue Index Catalogues I and II, adding about 5000 new objects. South Hemisphere objects are less studied than North Hemisphere objects, observed by John Herschel. New General Catalogue had some mistakes, that were corrected in a special revised edition: RNGC
NGC 2000.0[change | change source]
It's a copy of NGC objects using J2000.0 coordenates created in 1988[2]
Spiral galaxy NGC 3982, with blue clusters and dark regions. You can see this galaxy with a little telescope in Ursa Major constellation
NGC 7814, spiral galaxy in Pegasus constellation. It has more than 15 denominations
The Andromeda Galaxy or NGC 224 it's a galaxy in Andromeda constellation. It's one of the most visible, known and brightest galaxies.
↑ 1.0 1.1 "The NGC/IC Project".
↑ "NGC/IC Free Star Charts".
The Interactive NGC Catalog online
Retrieved from "https://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=New_General_Catalogue&oldid=6217334"
Astronomical catalogues
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Coaches: curious calls, assertions, admonitions in Week 9
ARNIE STAPLETON (AP Pro Football Writer)
November 6, 2018, 7:05 AM UTC
Cleveland Browns head coach Gregg Williams, left, yells instructions to players during the first half of an NFL football game against the Kansas City Chiefs, Sunday, Nov. 4, 2018, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Ron Schwane)
DENVER (AP) -- Coaches made some curious calls, assertions and admonitions in Week 9 as the NFL hit the halfway point with some real head-scratchers.
Oakland coach Jon Gruden insisted the silver and black is still golden, saying he's getting calls from players dying to play for the Raiders (1-7) next season.
Hue Jackson suggested the Browns should have shown more patience before showing him the door with a 3-36-1 record, and his replacement, Gregg Williams, swore he'd turned down multiple head coaching offers since his firing by the Bills in 2003.
Matt Patricia, the latest disciple of Bill Belichick to discover just how hard it is to win without Tom Brady, had no problem with a reporter's question so much as his poor posture, apparently averse to any kind of slump.
And Broncos embattled coach Vance Joseph admitted he got greedy in sending Brandon McManus out for a 62-yard field goal with 22 seconds left before halftime Sunday, a costly decision that backfired and resulted in a six-point swing in a gut-wrenching two-point loss to the Texans.
RAIDERS NADIRS
In an interview with Fox Sports that aired before Oakland's 34-3 shellacking at the hands of the 49ers, Gruden told Raiders Hall of Famer Howie Long that said his trades of two of his biggest stars in Khalil Mack and Amari Cooper hasn't affected other players' desires to play for the Raiders in 2019.
''I got a cellphone just like you and everybody else,'' Gruden said. ''I get a lot of phone calls from people that are dying to come play here. I'm just telling you. They're dying to play for the Raiders.''
Oakland may have nearly $70 million cap space to go with three first-round draft picks next April, but doesn't talking to potential free agents teeter on tampering?
HUE'S VIEW
Jackson said he could have turned things around in Cleveland if given more time.
''I was surprised that I was not given the opportunity to display what I could do as a play caller with a much more talented roster,'' Jackson told Cleveland.com after he was fired along with offensive coordinator Todd Haley following the Browns' 25th consecutive road loss.
Jackson said he thought No. 1 overall pick Baker Mayfield will be successful but he lamented the Browns passing on quarterbacks Carson Wentz, Deshaun Watson and Patrick Mahomes in recent years as Cleveland chose to stockpile draft picks.
WILD WILLIAMS
The real eye-opener in Cleveland was Williams' wild claims in his first news conference as interim head coach. Williams had served as defensive coordinator for several teams since his firing as head coach in Buffalo 15 years ago, but he said that was only because he had turned down multiple offers to be a head coach again.
He said he had ''11 letters sent in to interview for head coaching jobs'' and ''four of them I didn't even have to show up, just sign the contract and come.''
The NFL suspended Williams for the 2012 season after ruling that while the Saints defensive coordinator he orchestrated a program by which players were paid for knocking opponents from a game.
''That thing was a long time ago,'' Williams said when asked if he ever imagined being a head coach again. ''That's nothing that we're talking about now.''
SERGEANT SIT-UP-STRAIGHT
Detroit's rookie head coach had a terse exchange with a reporter while discussing the Lions' trade of leading receiver Golden Tate to the Philadelphia Eagles, a team they could be fighting in the NFL wild-card race, for a third-round pick, a move that could hurt in the short-term but pay dividends down the road.
When the reporter asked why he thought this move makes the Lions better, Patricia snapped, ''Do me a favor and just kind of sit up, just like, have a little respect for the process.''
This from a coach who wore sweatpants to meet the media during Super Bowl week last February.
The reporter promptly sat up straight, asked his question again, and Patricia politely answered.
After the Lions' 24-9 loss at Minnesota in which Matthew Stafford was sacked 10 times, the Detroit News trolled Patricia with this bold headline above a photo of the prone QB: ''Poor Posture .''
VEXED VANCE
Joseph lost for the 17th time in 25 games Sunday when Brandon McManus missed a 51-yard field goal as time expired, turning a potential 20-19 thriller into a crushing 19-17 loss to the Texans and former teammate Demaryius Thomas.
Joseph was left to answer questions for two days about his questionable decisions at the end of both halves.
McManus also missed from 62 yards in the second quarter, leaving the Texans with the ball at the Broncos 48 and 18 seconds left, enough time for Deshaun Watson to get Houston into field goal range itself.
The six-point swing proved the difference when McManus missed consecutive field goals for the first time in his five-year NFL career, pushing his 51-yarder wide right as time expired in the fourth quarter.
''The one before half, that was totally on me. I was chasing points,'' Joseph said Monday.
But the game-ender? No apologies for not trying to get closer after reaching the Texans 33.
Not with Whitney Mercilus, Jadeveon Clowney and J.J. Watt working against a makeshift line that had lost center Matt Paradis to a broken right leg earlier in the game.
Said Joseph: ''I wasn't going to expose our quarterback and our O-line to that pass rush one more time and now if they make a play, now we're all idiots, right?''
More AP NFL: https://apnews.com/tag/NFL and https://twitter.com/AP-NFL
Follow Arnie Melendrez Stapleton on Twitter: http://twitter.com/arniestapleton
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WNBPA opts out of CBA to begin negotiations for better pay, conditions, marketing
Cassandra NegleyYahoo Sports Contributor
November 1, 2018, 6:39 PM UTC
The WNBPA opted out of the CBA on Thursday behind President Nneka Ogwumike. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File)
The WNBA and its players union will begin their long-awaited negotiations now that the WNBPA opted out of the collective bargaining agreement, announced Thursday afternoon.
#BetOnWomen #ThePowerOfTheW pic.twitter.com/IllftAwHi8
— WNBPA (@TheWNBPA) November 1, 2018
The decision was available due to a clause in the CBA, which would have run through 2021. The deadline for either side to use the opt-out clause was Thursday. It allows players to negotiate earlier while the CBA runs through the 2019 season. By then a new CBA will have to be in place.
The WNBA put out its own statement, acknowledging the move and its commitment to “an open and good-faith negotiation that is rooted in the financial realities of our business.”
NBA Deputy Commissioner and Chief Operating Officer Mark Tatum, who is overseeing the WNBA on an interim basis, released the following statement today regarding the WNBPA intention to opt out of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement: pic.twitter.com/mYG0pKJ2SM
— WNBA (@WNBA) November 1, 2018
WNBA players have increasingly voiced displeasure this summer over issues such as compensation, working conditions and media coverage.
WNBA ready to ‘bet on women’
Minutes before the WNBPA Twitter account released its statement, The Players’ Tribune tweeted out a piece by WNBPA President Nneka Ogwumike and the WNBPA board titled “Bet on Women” that made the exclusive announcement.
Ogwumike described what it may look like to others and what it actually means to them.
To me, opting out means not just believing in ourselves, but going one step further: betting on ourselves. It means being a group of empowered women, in the year 2018, not just feeling fed up with the status quo, but going one step further: rejecting the status quo. And it means taking a stand, not just for the greatest women’s basketball players of today, but going one step further: taking a stand for the greatest women’s basketball players of tomorrow.
Ogwumike said the WNBPA is looking for transparency and knowledge — she said players don’t see the financial numbers — so that they can make “common-sense changes that will help our players’ quality of life.”
What do WNBA players want?
WNBA players have been vocal this year about salaries, especially directly after the NBA G League’s “Select Contract” announcement.
The max contract in the WNBA is $115,500 with $2,000 increases per season, according to High Post Hoops. Rookies come in earning more like $50,000, which is around what Rookie of the Year A’ja Wilson made in 2018. Many players, especially early in their career, go overseas to play during the WNBA offseason creating a life of year-round basketball and no rest.
All-time leading scorer Diana Taurasi was actually paid by her Russian team to sit out the 2015 WNBA season so she could be well rested to play for them, which is where she made 15 times more than in the U.S. It’s something Brittney Griner, as recently as last month, suggested might begin happening more if issues continue.
As Ogwumike mentioned in her Players’ Tribune piece, there’s no specific information on how much revenue the WNBA brings in or how much of that the players take in salary. It’s been estimated at 20 percent, while it’s 50 percent in the NBA.
The women are not looking for equal salary to NBA players, simply a bigger cut.
But, just as with the USA women’s hockey team negotiations, it’s not all about the money. WNBA players want better marketing, better playing conditions and a better, more player-friendly schedule.
Ogwumike made the point of a 6-foot-9 “superstar taking a red-eye cross-country and having an economy seat instead of an exit row. Often with delays.” After hours cramped up she then has to play a professional sporting event against fellow top athletes in accommodations that again aren’t always well-suited for them.
The Las Vegas Aces forfeited a late-season game this year due to delays with a commercial flight and all four teams in the WNBA semifinals were forced to relocate games at some point during the playoffs due to arena conflicts.
That’s not to mention practice issues, such as those that Bleacher Report chronicled last week with players struggling to find gyms in which to practice and tripping over garbage when they did.
The WNBPA is also seeking better marketing of its players, a surefire way to grow fan bases and invest in a league it feels is sometimes left behind.
• Reporter’s bad posture ripped by Lions coach
• More Kaepernick snubs as untested QBs get shots
• Vincent Goodwill: Jimmy Butler deal may not help either side
• Pete Thamel: Durkin situation shows Maryland’s incompetence
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POWRi Enters Broadcast & Marketing Agreement With SPEED SPORT
Home Sprints & Midgets Other Sprint Cars Last Minute Track Swaps Working For All Stars
Last Minute Track Swaps Working For All Stars
Todd Ridgeway
Trevor Baker (45) battles Rico Abreu at Wayne County Speedway earlier this week. (Paul Arch Photo)
WAVERLY, Ohio – Mother Nature has had her way with the 37th annual Ohio Sprint Speedweek for the Ollie’s Bargain Outlet All Star Circuit of Champions.
As a result, tracks have developed a unique and different way to promote and get races in that otherwise would be canceled.
By the time Tuesday rolled around for the fifth race day of Ohio Sprint Speedweek, there had only been two shows completed, at Attica Raceway Park and Muskingum County Speedway.
With a less than good looking forecast, the suggestion was made that if Tuesday’s event at Sharon Speedway rained out, the race would move west down the road to Wayne County Speedway, where the series was rained out on Monday.
“Just from a series standpoint, we know people take vacations for speedweek, and my boss came to me and asked my thoughts on asking other tracks to act on replacements outside of the normal speedweek if we lose a race,” said Ollie’s Bargain Outlet All Star Circuit of Champions Director Eric Walls. “So I got on the phone and started making phone calls. Jason and Kristen at Wayne County stepped up to the plate first. They want to race as bad as we do, it’s been a bad year, not just here, but all across the country. We know they want to race, and that’s what our racers do, they race.”
Series and track officials didn’t get the chance to test the idea Tuesday as both tracks canceled because of bad weather.
Sticking to their guns, the All Stars and Wayne County announced again that if Wednesday’s race at Atomic Speedway were rained out, the series would shift to Wayne County instead.
This time the rain stayed south of Wayne County while storms struck Atomic, forcing that track to cancel. With 12 hours of notice and promotion through social media, with support and help from surrounding dirt tracks, Wayne County and the All Star Circuit of Champions were able to pull the event off. Fans filled the grandstands while 37 cars showed up to race.
“I am an old school guy, I use some, active, social media, but after seeing what happened at Wayne County it really opened my eyes and I hope it opened other promoter’s eyes for that matter,” Walls said. “It just goes to show you the power of social media to promote an event within 12 hours and see the crowd Wayne County had. The promotions from the race teams and other tracks, it’s a new day in step up promotion. Hats off to social media and the people that use it.
“I think, without the cooperation of the race tracks, the cooperation of the race teams, I don’t think we could do this,” Walls continued. “A sanctioning body cannot just say we want a race, a lot of stuff has to happen. It takes a lot of people to make that happen. I think this is something like an event like speedweek it works. I certainly hope someone takes something out of this, it’s a lot of work, but it speaks volumes for tracks like Wayne County and Atomic. Attica, Mansfield, those places for instances, sometimes Mother Nature just whont let up. All these tracks have great staff and they want to race. Everybody in this industry is here for a reason, they want to race.
“We have a lot of full time racers, and also guys who work 40 hours a week and race as a hobby. I don’t like to call it a hobby, because racing is a full-time job in itself. Those guys have to maintain, do things themselves, they do not have paid crew members, those guys take vacations for this week to race as well. In the grand scheme of things we were looking at those guys as well. Rain outs does not pay the bills. To travel up and down the road in Ohio to watch it rain does not pay the bills, we want them to keep coming back. The idea was they only get paid if they race, and we are the same way, to get paid we have to race, so we had to figure out a way to get to race.”
all star circuit of champions
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The son of a racer, Todd Ridgeway has been visiting race tracks for most of his life. A resident of Marion, Ohio, Ridgeway has contributed as a writer and photographer to many motorsports publications, including SPEED SPORT Magazine.
FENWICK: The Look & Sound Of Race Cars
PHOTOS: 34th Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals Finale
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Chicago’s Diverse Wine Scene Includes Champagne Bars, Natural Bottle Shops and Destination Restaurants
“Being far removed from a major wine-growing region and being in a major industry-driven city creates a lot of diversity,” Bret Heiar, wine director at Chicago restaurant Nico Osteria, says of the wine culture in the city. Drinkers here embrace “classic wine programs, natural programs and hyper-specific concepts alike,” Heiar adds, and credits social media with opening palates and minds. “I think the digital world has made people much more adventurous, knowledgeable and curious.”
In Chicago, there’s plenty to explore. The city is home to more than 7,200 restaurants, 25 Michelin-starred spots and the James Beard Awards ceremony through 2027, Chicago is a food lover’s dream. Alongside this growth was the number and diversity of wine programs across the city.
Fernando Beteta, Master Sommelier and education director at Chicago-based importer and distributor Tenzing, has seen the city change dramatically since the Great Recession, and it’s more wine-inclined than ever.
“While the recession originally shifted the focus to less formal and emerging regions for wine, the spending has returned to high-end selections, and in big ways,” says Beteta, who also notes the increasing number of female-led programs throughout the city that include Maple & Ash, Proxi and Spiaggia. “The consumer is more willing to explore what the sommelier is offering.”
As the scene grows, there’s increasing opportunity for wine professionals to specialize their selections. Mom-and-pop producers and minimal intervention wines are more the norm. Restaurants, wine bars and shops dedicate sections and programs to these philosophies.
From a Champagne-centric standby to an Alsace-driven tasting menu destination, here are Chicago’s best places to sip and shop for wine now.
Spiaggia This fine-dining fixture has enjoyed a loyal following for its contemporary Italian cuisine, sweeping Magnificent Mile views and impressive wine selection. The list is an award-winning showcase of 700 labels that highlights Italy in its entirety. It’s concentrated on Piedmont, Veneto and Tuscany, but also includes Trentino sparkling wine, Sicilian sippers and an extensive assortment of grower Champagnes. The wine director, Rachael Lowe, can pair your wines with one of executive chef Eric Lees’s tasting menus, or house favorites like handmade gnocchi, bluefin tuna or dry-aged porterhouse.
Publication: Wine Enthusiast
Author: Nicole Schnitzler and Ines Bellina
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The Stiffs for 2001
For the 26th year running, we present our fondest farewells to the recently departed.
If they were on any lists — or if they mattered at all in the world — you'll find them here.
If you're looking for everybody, then you need to head on over to the Directory.
Choose any date combination: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 1990
Eileen Heckart · 82
March 29th, 1919 - December 31st, 2001
Butterflies are free ... and so is she.
Nigel Hawthorne · 72
April 5th, 1929 - December 26th, 2001
Don't bother making plans for Nigel.
Harvey Martin · 51
November 16th, 1950 - December 24th, 2001
Personal foul .... Roughing the pancreas .... Defense, number 79 ....
Lance Loud · 50
June 26th, 1951 - December 23rd, 2001
An American fatality.
Dick Schaap · 67
September 27th, 1934 - December 21st, 2001
This means that without Vitale, ESPN would be completely Dickless.
Foster Brooks · 89
May 11th, 1912 - December 20th, 2001
No need to embalm this one.
Stuart Adamson · 43
April 11th, 1958 - December 17th, 2001
He couldn't stay here with every single hope he had shattered.
Rufus Thomas · 84
March 27th, 1917 - December 15th, 2001
He continues his seemingly endless string of R&B dance classics with "The Extra-Funky Chicken."
John Knowles · 75
September 16th, 1926 - November 29th, 2001
A separated piece.
George Harrison · 58
February 25th, 1943 - November 29th, 2001
All things must pass.
Bo Belinsky · 64
December 7th, 1936 - November 23rd, 2001
While others like to point out that Bo threw the West Coast's first major league no-hitter in '62, we think the most impressive accomplishment of his rookie season was the four-bagger of Ann-Margret, Connie Stevens, Tina Louise and Mamie Van Doren. Talk about your role models ....
O.C. Smith · 69
June 21st, 1932 - November 23rd, 2001
Just for your information, O.C., God DID make the little green apples, it rains in Indianapolis all the fucking time, and you're dead.
Mary Ash · 83
May 12th, 1918 - November 22nd, 2001
Well, pretty much, yeah.
Ken Kesey · 66
One flew east, one flew west, and one succumbed to liver cancer.
Juan Bosch · 92
June 30th, 1909 - November 1st, 2001
Dominican Republic guy. I don't know if he was any good, but that place sure does make some good underwear.
Herbert Ross · 74
May 13th, 1927 - October 9th, 2001
He directed The Sunshine Boys in '75, and Footloose in '84.
What the hell happened in between there?
Herbert Block · 91
October 13th, 1909 - October 7th, 2001
Deaduck.
Mike Mansfield · 98
March 16th, 1903 - October 5th, 2001
And with the Eight Is Enough reunion no longer a possibility, Mike throws in the towel.
Emilie Schindler · 93
October 22nd, 1907 - October 5th, 2001
Cross her off the list.
Lani O'Grady · 46
October 2nd, 1954 - September 25th, 2001
Looks like seven's gonna have to be enough.
Nighty-night, fiddle boy.
Samuel Arkoff
Tonight's feature, "How To Stuff A Wood Bikini," or, "The Day The B-Movie Producer's Heart Stood Still."
Fred De Cordova
How dead is he?
Dorothy McGuire · 85
June 14th, 1916 - September 13th, 2001
A tree grows in Brooklyn, and an actress dies in L.A.
Justin Wilson · 87
April 24th, 1914 - September 6th, 2001
He daid, lahk a boiled squirrel, we gair-awn-tee!
Henry Nasiff · 39
He had the body of a dwarf, but the talent of a midget.
Pauline Kael · 82
June 19th, 1919 - September 3rd, 2001
Flopping around on her four-poster bed like a trout in a rowboat, she finally kicked the proverbial bucket, going tits-up with all the panache and sophistication of a can of yams.
Christiaan Barnard · 78
November 8th, 1922 - September 2nd, 2001
The internationally renowned heart specialist, famed for performing the first successful heart transplant, died of an asthma attack, thereby negating any opportunity for a worthwhile blurb, the thoughtless prick.
Troy Donahue · 65
January 27th, 1936 - September 2nd, 2001
His new exchange? Turfside 6.
Aaliyah · 22
January 16th, 1979 - August 25th, 2001
If at first you don't succeed, dust yourself off and try again, unless you happen to have been in a Cessna, in which case, never mind.
Out of the present.
Betty Everett · 61
November 23rd, 1939 - August 19th, 2001
Shoop, shoop, shoop, shoop, shoop, shoop, shoop, she's in the ground (that's where she is).
Earl Anthony · 63
April 27th, 1938 - August 14th, 2001
Square Earl has picked up his last split.
Lou Boudreau · 84
July 17th, 1917 - August 10th, 2001
He be dead.
Ol' Shit-for-brains is going to be the last one left, isn't he?
Lorenzo Music
Hello, this is Carlton your doornail.
Christopher Hewett · 80
April 5th, 1921 - August 3rd, 2001
That will be all, Belvedere.
Ron Townson · 68
January 20th, 1933 - August 2nd, 2001
One less man to pick up after.
Undeliverable. The authoress has permanent fatal errors.
Frances Horwich · 94
July 16th, 1907 - July 22nd, 2001
Ding dong, Horwich is dead.
Gunther Gebel-Williams
Lions and Tigers and Brain Tumors! Oh my!
Mimi Farina
Never mind the bread
Katharine Graham · 84
June 16th, 1917 - July 17th, 2001
Looks like she got her tit caught in that big, fat wringer.
Fred Neil
Everybody's talkin' at him, but he can't hear a word they're sayin'.
Ernie K-Doe
The self-proclaimed Emperor of the World joins his mother-in-law down below. Burn, K-Doe, burn.
As the author of the novel "The Apprenticeship Of Duddy Kravitz," he can bear only the smallest fraction of responsibility for the career of Richard Dreyfuss. Still, it's enough for us to say "Good riddance, you yutz."
Chet Atkins · 77
June 20th, 1924 - June 30th, 2001
Finger pickin' dead.
Eventually, he would be known as the world's highest-paid philosopher, but Mort got his start as the guy in the Bazooka Joe comics with the turtleneck over his face. No, really.
Jack Lemmon · 76
February 8th, 1925 - June 27th, 2001
Lemmon drops.
Tove Jansson · 86
August 9th, 1914 - June 27th, 2001
Moominsnoozer.
Carroll O'Connor · 76
August 2nd, 1924 - June 21st, 2001
Bunkered.
John Lee Hooker · 83
August 22nd, 1917 - June 21st, 2001
Boom, boom, boom, thud.
Until his execution, he was officially recognized as the Most Universally Despised Human (MUDH), a position previously held by O.J. Simpson and Saddam Hussein.
Hmmmm ... wonder who it is now ....
John Hartford · 63
December 30th, 1937 - June 4th, 2001
Anthony Quinn · 86
April 21st, 1915 - June 3rd, 2001
He was reported to have fathered at least 13 children, the last at age 81. Can I get some help from the congregation?
Come on without ... come on within ...
You'll not see nothin' like the mighty Quinn.
Imogene Coca
He based his world-famous comic strip on the antics of his real-life son, who remains a menace long after changing his surname to Rodman.
Arlene Francis · 93
October 20th, 1907 - May 31st, 2001
Is she buried in a breadbox?
Victor Kiam · 74
December 7th, 1926 - May 27th, 2001
This is the guy who liked Remington shavers so much, he bought the company. Of course, he also bought the Patriots.
Whitman Mayo · 70
November 15th, 1930 - May 22nd, 2001
Here's proof that appearances can be deceiving. On Sanford And Son, he looked like a complete idiot, and yet, there's that clinic ....
Top Jimmy · 47
May 1st, 1954 - May 13th, 2001
Cooked.
Jason Miller · 62
April 22nd, 1939 - May 13th, 2001
Exorcise this, punk!
How can they tell?
Simon Raven
Nevermore.
Douglas Adams · 51
March 11th, 1950 - May 11th, 2001
Best known for the '54 classic "Paper In My Shoe," and now working on the follow-up, "Dirt On My Head."
Cliff Hillegass
He was born. He created Cliffs Notes. He died.
Billy Higgins · 64
October 11th, 1936 - May 3rd, 2001
He's doing that real slow shuffle.
Happy Hairston · 58
May 31st, 1942 - May 1st, 2001
His given name was Harold, and he's now known as "Somewhat Less Than Thrilled" Hairston.
Chandra Levy · 24
April 14th, 1977 - May 1st, 2001
Do you really care? Really? Why?
Joey Ramone · 49
May 19th, 1951 - April 15th, 2001
Sedated enough for ya, Joey?
Harry Secombe · 79
September 8th, 1921 - April 11th, 2001
Goon, but not forgotten.
Willie Stargell · 61
March 6th, 1940 - April 9th, 2001
He's still cooler than Mark McGwire will ever be.
Legend has it that he bought his way out of Dachau and was brought to the U.S. with the help of Albert Einstein. Hey, even geniuses make mistakes.
Ed Roth · 69
Rat Fink Lives!
Ed, on the other hand, does not.
William Hanna · 90
July 14th, 1910 - March 22nd, 2001
Billy's got it better than a millionaire;
that's because he isn't even vaguely aware..
Norma Macmillan · 79
September 15th, 1921 - March 21st, 2001
The voice of Sweet Polly Purebread is toast.
John Phillips · 65
August 30th, 1935 - March 18th, 2001
Now he's in the ground, and his eyes are gray.
Ann Sothern · 92
January 22nd, 1909 - March 15th, 2001
My mother the corpse.
Morton Downey · 57
December 9th, 1943 - March 12th, 2001
Maybe those skinheads finally got him ....
Harold Stassen · 93
April 13th, 1907 - March 4th, 2001
Some may see it as desperation, but after nine unsuccessful Presidential campaigns, Harold's going for the sympathy vote.
Glenn Hughes · 50
July 18th, 1950 - March 4th, 2001
It's fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A,
until you come down with A-I-D-S.
Bill Rigney · 83
January 29th, 1918 - February 20th, 2001
He's with the angels now, which is very similar to being with the Angels, except the uniforms aren't as bad.
Stanley Kramer · 87
September 29th, 1913 - February 19th, 2001
He was an old, old, old, old man.
Eddie Mathews · 69
October 13th, 1931 - February 18th, 2001
From the hot corner to a cold, wooden box.
Dale Earnhardt · 49
April 29th, 1951 - February 18th, 2001
What?! No airbag!??!
Balthasar Klossowski de Rola · 92
February 29th, 1908 - February 18th, 2001
Left us.
William Masters · 85
December 27th, 1915 - February 16th, 2001
Good riddance, pervo.
Abraham Beame · 94
March 20th, 1906 - February 10th, 2001
GOD TO MAYOR: DROP DEAD.
R.J. Rushdoony · 84
April 25th, 1916 - February 8th, 2001
The call him "The Father of Christian Homeschooling". Wow. Bitchin.
Anne Lindbergh · 94
June 22nd, 1906 - February 7th, 2001
Now it can finally be revealed that Charles was nothing more than a bed-wetting coward, and "Kiss-My-Fanny" Annie did all the flying.
Dale Evans · 88
October 31st, 1912 - February 7th, 2001
Oh, look ... they meet again.
Al McGuire · 72
September 7th, 1928 - January 26th, 2001
Coach McGuire demonstrates his unshakable faith in the zone defense known as "the box and one."
Tommie Agee · 58
August 9th, 1942 - January 22nd, 2001
Tommie no agee no more.
Gregory Corso · 70
March 26th, 1930 - January 17th, 2001
There once was a poet named Corso
who had a bad gland in his torso.
But, before cancer nailed him,
beat critics once hailed him
as, like, Kerouac, only more so.
William Hewlett · 87
May 20th, 1913 - January 12th, 2001
He's cleared his cache for the last time.
Les Brown · 88
March 14th, 1912 - January 4th, 2001
More gray.
Ray Walston · 86
November 2nd, 1914 - January 1st, 2001
Our favorite Martian has left the planet.
Stiffs
He had 7 kids - all boys - and lived to be 93. If you figure out how he pulled that off, let us know.
(d) May 16th, 2018
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St. Mary's Jacobite Syriac Orthodox Church, San Francisco, Bay Area, CA
Our Leaders and Patron Saints
MGSOSA Youth
St. Mary’s Women’s League
MGSOYA Young Adults
St. Mary’s Choir
Syriac Orthodox Resources
MGSOSA Youth League
“Let no one despise your youth, but set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.” (1 Timothy 4:12)
Mor Gregorios Syriac Orthodox Students Association (MGSOSA, pronounced em-gee-sosa) is an organization of students of the Syriac Orthodox Church. It is named after Mor Gregorios of Malankara. MGSOSA’s mission is four-fold:
promote, learn and pass over to the next generation, the heritage and traditions of the oldest church of the world, the Syriac Orthodox Church
serve the society and spread the light of God in the world, by helping the poor and the needy
inculcate fellowship among the youth in the church
nurture the spiritual growth of youth, and thus helping them better face the 21st century world and be good role models to future generations.
Aligned with this mission, MGSOSA conducts a plethora of activities throughout the year, such as:
Monthly meetups, typically on the fourth Sunday of every month, where we discuss various spiritual and Biblical topics.
Monthly volunteering and service projects, to contribute back to the society. In the past, we have been to places such as Kids Against Hunger, Tri-Valley Haven Thrift Store etc.
Angel’s Hands, a church clean-up initiative which aims to keep the church pristine and clean, every Sunday.
Bay Area Lenten Retreat during Great Lent, where we bring in eminent speakers from across the country to talk on various spiritually enriching things. We also do service projects, praise and worship, and fellowship activities during the retreat
Back-to-school retreat before the school year starts, to prepare students professionally and spiritually for the new academic year
Fellowship events to promote bonding between youth: past such events include bowling at Granada Bowl, hiking sessions, games etc.
MGSOSA members join hands with Sunday School in organizing study sessions on feast days, and also help in organizing VBS and other retreats.
2018 Lenten Retreat:
545 North L Street,
Livermore, California 94551
SERVICE EVERY SUNDAY
Morning Prayers at 8:45 AM
Holy Qurbana at 9:30 AM
Sunday School at 11:30 AM
Malayalam Class at 1:00 PM
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Walk for Wildlife on Ilkley Moor
Posted on August 6, 2016 October 12, 2016 by stoptheshoot
Carrying picnics and home-made banners, 120 campaigners held a peaceful walk for wildlife on Ilkley Moor on Saturday, just days before the start of the grouse shooting season on 12 August. Their goal? To urge landowner Bradford Council to end the practice – which has decreased wildlife biodiversity, degraded rare habitat and polluted the public land with toxic lead shot. Instead they want the local authority to deliver a new vision for Ilkley Moor, which promotes wildlife biodiversity, teaches younger generations the importance of conservation and benefits the local economy.
“Since grouse shooting was introduced to Ilkley Moor in 2008 wildlife biodiversity has crashed, rare peatland bog has been degraded by burning and the land polluted with toxic lead shot. Our message is simple: Bradford Council can deliver better for Ilkley Moor and that starts with ending grouse shooting.” – Luke Steele, Spokesperson, Ban Bloodsports on Ilkley Moor.
The protest ramble comes as Bradford Council is expected to launch a public consultation on the future of grouse shooting on Ilkley Moor by the end of Summer. The Council is the last local authority in the UK to allow the ‘sport’ on its upland estate, with nearby Sheffield City Council and Peak District National Park Authority already prohibiting the damaging practice. Parish and District Councillors, including Cllrs Cath Bacon (Lab, Keighley), Henri Murison (Lab, Ilkley South) and Cllr Claire Darling (Green, Ilkley South), conservationists, including Bill Oddie OBE and Dr Mark Avery, and actors, including Emmerdale’s Nick Miles and Downton Abbey’s Peter Egan, have given their support to the campaign.
Coverage was received across the region, including on BBC Look North and ITV Calendar. Ban Bloodsports on Ilkley Moor sends its gratitude to all who attended and made the event a success.
Progress: Burning to be Replaced with Cutting on Ilkley Moor
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Why Stimulus Didn’t Stimulate Economy: Because It NEVER HAS
It was Albert Einstein who defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
By that standard, Democrats are raving whackjobs.
It doesn’t matter how often Keynesian economics or centrally planned societies fail, Democrats are always willing to fail, fail, and fail again.
Obama recently touted that his $85 billion bailout of the auto industry created 55,000 jobs. You’ve got to realize that that isn’t a success; it is a shocking and appalling failure that will haunt America and America’s children for decades and decades.
Surprise, surprise. Obama’s stimulus isn’t working. And we only should have figured that out more than seventy years ago.
Why Government Spending Does Not Stimulate Economic Growth: Answering the Critics
Published on January 5, 2010 by Brian RiedlAbstract: Despite decades of repeated failure, President Obama and Congress continue to promote the myth that government can spend its way out of recession. Heritage Foundation economic policy expert Brian Riedl dispels the stimulus myth, lays out the evidence that government spending does not end recessions–and presents the evidence for what does end recessions. Hint: It’s not another “stimulus package.”
Proponents of President Barack Obama’s $787 billion stimulus bill continue to insist that the massive government bailout played a decisive role in moving the economy out of the recession. Yet assuming no destructive government actions, the economy’s self-correction mechanism was widely expected to move the economy out of recession in 2009 anyway. With a parade of “stimulus” bills the past two years (going back to President George W. Bush’s tax rebate in early 2008), it was entirely predictable that some would link the expected end of the recession to whichever stimulus bill happened to come last.
Indeed, President Obama’s stimulus bill failed by its own standards. In a January 2009 report, White House economists predicted that the stimulus bill would create (not merely save) 3.3 million net jobs by 2010. Since then, 3.5 million more net jobs have been lost, pushing the unemployment rate above 10 percent.[1] The fact that government failed to spend its way to prosperity is not an isolated incident:
During the 1930s, New Deal lawmakers doubled federal spending–yet unemployment remained above 20 percent until World War II.
Japan responded to a 1990 recession by passing 10 stimulus spending bills over 8 years (building the largest national debt in the industrialized world)–yet its economy remained stagnant.
In 2001, President Bush responded to a recession by “injecting” tax rebates into the economy. The economy did not respond until two years later, when tax rate reductions were implemented.
In 2008, President Bush tried to head off the current recession with another round of tax rebates. The recession continued to worsen.
Now, the most recent $787 billion stimulus bill was intended to keep the unemployment rate from exceeding 8 percent. In November, it topped 10 percent.[2]
Undeterred by these repeated stimulus failures, President Obama is calling for yet another stimulus bill.[3] There is every reason to expect another round to fail as miserably as the past ones, and it would bury the nation deeper in debt.
The Stimulus Myth
The economic theory behind the stimulus builds on the work of John Maynard Keynes eight decades ago. It begins with the idea that an economic shock has left demand persistently and significantly below potential supply. As people stop spending money, businesses pull back production, and the ensuing vicious circle of falling demand and production shrinks the economy.
Keynesians believe that government spending can make up this shortfall in private demand. Their models assume that–in an underperforming economy–government spending adds money to the economy, taxes remove money from the economy, and so the increase in the budget deficit represents net new dollars injected. Therefore, it scarcely matters how the dollars are spent. Keynes is said to have famously asserted that a government program that pays people to dig and refill ditches would provide new income for those workers to spend and circulate through the economy, creating even more jobs and income.
The Keynesian argument also assumes that consumption spending adds to immediate economic growth while savings do not. By this reasoning, unemployment benefits, food stamps, and low-income tax rebates are among the most effective stimulus policies because of their likelihood to be consumed rather than saved.
Taking this analysis to its logical extreme, Mark Zandi of Economy.com has boiled down the government’s influence on America’s broad and diverse $14 trillion economy into a simple menu of stimulus policy options, whereby Congress can decide how much economic growth it wants and then pull the appropriate levers. Zandi asserts that for each dollar of new government spending: temporary food stamps adds $1.73 to the economy, extended unemployment benefits adds $1.63, increased infrastructure spending adds $1.59, and aid to state and local governments adds $1.38.[4] Jointly, these figures imply that, in a recession, a typical dollar in new deficit spending expands the economy by roughly $1.50. Over the past 40 years, this idea of government spending as stimulus has fallen out of favor among many economists. As this paper shows, it is contradicted both by empirical data and economic logic.
The Evidence is In
Economic data contradict Keynesian stimulus theory. If deficits represented “new dollars” in the economy, the record $1.2 trillion in FY 2009 deficit spending that began in October 2008–well before the stimulus added $200 billion more[5]–would have already overheated the economy. Yet despite the historic 7 percent increase in GDP deficit spending over the previous year, the economy shrank by 2.3 percent in FY 2009.[6] To argue that deficits represent new money injected into the economy is to argue that the economy would have contracted by 9.3 percent without this “infusion” of added deficit spending (or even more, given the Keynesian multiplier effect that was supposed to further boost the impact). That is simply not plausible, and few if any economists have claimed otherwise.
And if the original $1.2 trillion in deficit spending failed to slow the economy’s slide, there was no reason to believe that adding $200 billion more in 2009 deficit spending from the stimulus bill would suddenly do the trick. Proponents of yet another stimulus should answer the following questions: (1) If nearly $1.4 trillion budget deficits are not enough stimulus, how much is enough? (2) If Keynesian stimulus repeatedly fails, why still rely on the theory?
This is no longer a theoretical exercise. The idea that increased deficit spending can cure recessions has been tested repeatedly, and it has failed repeatedly. The economic models that assert that every $1 of deficit spending grows the economy by $1.50 cannot explain why $1.4 trillion in deficit spending did not create a $2.1 trillion explosion of new economic activity.
Why Government Spending Does Not End Recessions
Moving forward, the important question is why government spending fails to end recessions. Spending-stimulus advocates claim that Congress can “inject” new money into the economy, increasing demand and therefore production. This raises the obvious question: From where does the government acquire the money it pumps into the economy? Congress does not have a vault of money waiting to be distributed. Every dollar Congress injects into the economy must first be taxed or borrowed out of the economy. No new spending power is created. It is merely redistributed from one group of people to another.[7]
Congress cannot create new purchasing power out of thin air. If it funds new spending with taxes, it is simply redistributing existing purchasing power (while decreasing incentives to produce income and output). If Congress instead borrows the money from domestic investors, those investors will have that much less to invest or to spend in the private economy. If they borrow the money from foreigners, the balance of payments will adjust by equally raising net imports, leaving total demand and output unchanged. Every dollar Congress spends must first come from somewhere else.
For example, many lawmakers claim that every $1 billion in highway stimulus can create 47,576 new construction jobs. But Congress must first borrow that $1 billion from the private economy, which will then lose at least as many jobs.[8] Highway spending simply transfers jobs and income from one part of the economy to another. As Heritage Foundation economist Ronald Utt has explained, “The only way that $1 billion of new highway spending can create 47,576 new jobs is if the $1 billion appears out of nowhere as if it were manna from heaven.”[9] This statement has been confirmed by the Department of Transportation[10] and the General Accounting Office (since renamed the Government Accountability Office),[11] yet lawmakers continue to base policy on this economic fallacy.
Removing water from one end of a swimming pool and pouring it in the other end will not raise the overall water level. Similarly, taking dollars from one part of the economy and distributing it to another part of the economy will not expand the economy.
University of Chicago economist John Cochrane adds that:
First, if money is not going to be printed, it has to come from somewhere. If the government borrows a dollar from you, that is a dollar that you do not spend, or that you do not lend to a company to spend on new investment. Every dollar of increased government spending must correspond to one less dollar of private spending. Jobs created by stimulus spending are offset by jobs lost from the decline in private spending. We can build roads instead of factories, but fiscal stimulus can’t help us to build more of both. This form of “crowding out” is just accounting, and doesn’t rest on any perceptions or behavioral assumptions.
Second, investment is “spending” every bit as much as is consumption. Keynesian fiscal stimulus advocates want money spent on consumption, not saved. They evaluate past stimulus programs by whether people who got stimulus money spent it on consumption goods rather than save it. But the economy overall does not care if you buy a car, or if you lend money to a company that buys a forklift.[12]
Government spending can affect long-term economic growth, both up and down. Economic growth is based on the growth of labor productivity and labor supply, which can be affected by how governments directly and indirectly influence the use of an economy’s resources. However, increasing the economy’s productivity rate–which often requires the application of new technology and resources– can take many years or even decades to materialize. It is not short-term stimulus.[13]
In fact, large stimulus bills often reduce long-term productivity by transferring resources from the more productive private sector to the less productive government. The government rarely receives good value for the dollars it spends. However, stimulus bills provide politicians with the political justification to grant tax dollars to favored constituencies. By increasing the budget deficit, large stimulus bills eventually contribute to higher interest rates while dropping even more debt on future generations.
Answering the Critics
Despite the foregoing evidence, some analysts maintain that governments can spend their way out of recession. Their common objections are addressed below:
Critics’ Objection No. 1: People Are Saving Instead of Spending, and banks Are Not Lending.By Borrowing and Spending these “Idle Savings,” Government Can Circulate More Money Through the Economy.
This is the most common defense of government stimulus cited by policymakers. Indeed, among proponents of government spending there is a strong focus on whether people are spending or saving, with the implication that spending circulates through the economy while savings effectively drop out.
But savings do not drop out of the economy. Nearly all people put their savings in: (1) banks, which quickly lend the money to others to spend; (2) investments in stocks and bonds; or (3) personal debt reduction. In each of these situations, the financial system transfers one person’s savings to someone else who can spend it. So all money is quickly spent regardless of whether it was initially consumed or saved. The only savings that drop out of the economy are those hoarded in mattresses and safes.
Some contend that recession-weary banks are hoarding savings well beyond the legal minimum reserves. Yet even when banks hesitate to lend their deposits, they invest them in Treasury bills to keep them circulating through the economy and earning interest.[14] In fact, the federal funds market–where banks lend each other any excess cash at the end of the day–exists because banks refuse to sit on unused cash even overnight. Thus, even in recessions, one person’s savings quickly finances another person’s spending.[15]
Advocates of the “idle savings” theory fail to specify the location of all these newly hoarded piles of dollar bills they believe have been shielded from spending in the financial system. Even more telling, they also fail to explain–even if there were massive amounts of idle savings–how the federal government is supposed to acquire them for injection as new spending. After all, even if individuals, businesses, and banks were hoarding dollar bills in mattresses and safes, why would they suddenly lend them to the government to finance a stimulus bill? The very idea of hoarding dollars suggests these people and businesses would not trust the financial system, and would be quite unlikely to attend the next Treasury bill auction.[16]
Stimulus spending advocates must be able to show that nearly all money lent to Washington would have otherwise sat idle in mattresses and bank safes. Otherwise, Washington is merely a middleman transferring purchasing power from one part of the economy to another–and the justification for government spending as stimulus collapses.
Critics’ Objection No. 2: Borrowing from Foreign Nations Can Provide “New” Money for the Economy.
Accepting that domestic borrowing is no free lunch, some analysts have asserted that foreign borrowing can inject new dollars into the economy. However, these nations must acquire American dollars before they can lend them back to Washington. Foreign countries can acquire American dollars by either:
Attracting American investments in their country. In that instance, the dollars leaving America match the dollars lent back to America. The net flow of saving circulating through the U.S. economy does not increase.
Selling goods and services to Americans and receiving American dollars in return. For the United States, these imports raise the trade deficit and thus reduce domestic demand. The government’s subsequent borrowing back and spending of these dollars merely offsets the increased trade deficit.
In either situation, American dollars must first leave the country before they can be lent back into the U.S. economy. The balance of payments between America and other nations must net zero. Consequently, government spending funded from foreign borrowing does not provide stimulus.
Critics’ Objection No. 3: Government Spending Has a Multiplier Effect That Allows the Money to Re-circulate Through the Economy Multiple Times.
This point is correct but irrelevant to the question of stimulus. Yes, $100 in unemployment benefits can be spent at a grocery store, which, in turn, can use that $100 to pay salaries and support other jobs. The total amount of additional economic activity will be well above $100; but because government borrows the $100, that same money is now unavailable to the private sector–which would have spent the same $100 with the same multiplier effect.
Consider a more comprehensive example. A family might normally put its $10,000 savings in a CD at the local bank. The bank would then lend that $10,000 to the local hardware store, which would then recycle that spending around the town, supporting local jobs. Suppose that the family instead buys a $10,000 government bond that funds the stimulus bill. Washington spends that $10,000 in a different town, supporting jobs there instead. The stimulus has not created new spending, jobs, or a multiplier effect. It has merely moved them to a new town.
The mistaken view of fiscal stimulus persists because people can easily observe the factories and people put to work with government funds. By contrast, people cannot easily observe the jobs that would have been created or factories used elsewhere in the economy with those same dollars had they not been lent to Washington.
In his 1848 essay, “What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen,” French economist Frederic Bastiat termed this the “broken-window fallacy,” a reference to a local myth that breaking windows would stimulate the economy by creating window-repair jobs. In reality, the window-repair spending comes out of funds that otherwise would have been spent (and created jobs) elsewhere in town. Today, the broken-windows fallacy explains why thousands of new stimulus jobs are not improving the total employment picture.
Critics’ Objection No. 4: During a Recession, Government Spending Can Put Unused Resources to Work.
This restates the overall spending fallacy. Yes, government spending can put under-utilized factories and individuals to work–but only by idling other resources in whatever part of the economy supplied the funds. If adding $1 billion would create 40,000 jobs in one depressed part of the economy, then losing $1 billion will cost roughly the same number of jobs in whatever part of the economy supplied Washington with the funds. It is a zero-sum transfer regardless of whether the unemployment rate is 5 percent or 50 percent.
Critics’ Objection No. 5: Government Reports Show That the Stimulus Has Already Created or Saved 640,000 New Jobs.
According to a White House survey, businesses have used much of the $200 billion in stimulus dollars distributed thus far to hire or retain 640,000 workers. These figures have been ridiculed for their absurdity, such as reporting $6.4 billion spent in congressional districts that do not exist, and the survey’s assertion that a single lawnmower purchase in Arkansas saved or created 50 jobs.[17]
Setting aside these inaccuracies, this jobs figure is not surprising. Businesses that receive large government grants would be expected to expand and hire more workers. However, this ignores half of the equation. If injecting $200 billion into the economy supports 640,000 jobs, how many jobs were first lost by borrowing that $200 billion from the economy?
The White House says zero. The White House job numbers assume that all $200 billion is new and supports jobs that would not otherwise exist. But that could be true only if the private sector would have otherwise hoarded the entire $200 billion in safes and mattresses, where it could not be consumed, invested, or deposited in banks for investment spending–but instead turned the entire $200 billion over to the government.
When dollars are transferred from one part of the economy to another, jobs will transfer accordingly. The White House’s single-entry bookkeeping ignores the part of the economy that financed all these jobs. Not surprisingly, the nation’s overall unemployment rate has continued to rise.
Critics’ Objection No. 6: Government Should Subsidize Consumption, Which Represents 60 Percent of the Economy.
This confuses the creation of income with its application. All income is applied somewhere in the economy: most on private consumption, some on private investment (converted from savings via the financial system), and some by government (taxed or borrowed out of consumption and investment). In the short run, the distribution of spending does not affect the total amount spent.[18] The only way to increase consumption spending immediately is to take it from investment or government spending.
Declining consumption means that either: (A) more income is diverted into investment or government spending (which is zero-sum in the short run); or (B) less income is created overall, which typically leads to less spending across all categories. For the latter situation, the solution is to create incentives for productivity that create more wealth and income for people to spend across all categories.
What Government Policies Do Affect Growth?
While government spending merely displaces private spending dollar-for-dollar in the short run, it can have a long-term impact on productivity. Similarly, tax policy can also affect productivity and growth.
Government Spending Can Have a Long-Term Impact.
Although it cannot immediately increase economic growth, government spending can have a long-term impact. Economic growth results from producing more goods and services (not from redistributing existing income), and that requires productivity growth and growth in the labor supply. Productivity growth requires some combination of: (1) a more educated and efficient workforce; (2) more private physical capital, such as factories and tools; (3) increased use of new technology; (4) more public infrastructure like roads and other utilities; and (5) markets to set prices and rule of law to enforce contracts. Government’s effect on economic growth is determined by its effect on productivity and labor supply.
Only in the rare instances where the private sector fails to provide those inputs in adequate amounts is government spending necessary. Government spending on education, physical infrastructure, and research and development, for instance, could increase long-term productivity rates–but only if government invests more competently than businesses, nonprofit organizations, and private citizens would have if those investment dollars had stayed in the private sector. Historically, governments have rarely outperformed the private sector in generating productivity growth. Thus, mountains of academic studies show that government spending typically reduces long-term economic growth.[19]
Even most programs that could increase productivity would take too long to be considered stimulus. Education spending will not affect productivity until the student has graduated and entered the workforce (and it is not clear that additional spending improves productivity anyway). New roads, highways, and bridges can take more than a decade to complete before they can transport people and goods. These policies should not be considered short-term stimulus spending.
Tax Policy’s Strong Effect on Economic Growth.
Taxes can affect growth, although not for the reason many people believe. Many tax cutters commit the same fallacy as do government spenders when asserting that tax cuts spur economic growth by “putting spending money in people’s pockets.” Similar to government spending, the tax-cut cash does not fall from the sky. It comes from reduced investment and a higher trade deficit (if financed by budget deficits) or from government spending (if offset by spending cuts).
However, certain tax cuts can add substantially to productivity. As stated above, economic growth requires that businesses produce increasing amounts of goods and services, and that requires consistent business investment and a growing, productive workforce. Yet high marginal tax rates– defined as the tax on the next dollar earned–create a disincentive to engage in those activities. Reducing marginal tax rates on businesses and workers will increase incentives to work, save, and invest. These incentives encourage more business investment, a more productive workforce by raising the after-tax returns to education, and more work effort, all of which add to the economy’s long-term capacity for growth.
Thus, not all tax cuts are created equal. The economic impact of a tax cut depends on how much it alters behavior to encourage labor supply or productivity. This productivity standard is the same as the one applied to government spending in the previous section.
Tax rebates fail to increase economic growth because they are not associated with productivity or work effort. No new income is created because no one is required to work, save, or invest more in order to receive a rebate. In that sense, rebates that write each American a check are economically indistinguishable from government spending programs. In fact, the federal government treats rebate checks as a “social benefit payment to persons.”[20] They represent another feeble attempt at creating new purchasing power out of thin air rather than focusing on productivity.
Tax rebates in 1975, 2001, and 2008 all failed to create economic growth. By contrast, large reductions in marginal tax rates in the 1920s, 1960s, and 1980s were each followed by large surges in economic growth.[21] More recently, the 2003 tax-rate reductions immediately reversed the job losses, sinking stock market, declining business investment, and sluggish economic growth rates that had followed the 2000 recession.[22] These gains continued until unrelated economic developments brought the most recent recession in December 2007.[23]
All recessions eventually end. The U.S. economy has proved resilient enough to eventually overcome even the most misguided economic policies of the past. Yet it would be fallacious to credit the stimulus bill for any economic recovery that inevitably occurs in the future. According to Keynesian theory, a $1.4 trillion budget deficit should have immediately overheated the economy. According to the White House, the stimulus should have created 3.3 million net jobs. Instead, the economy remained in recession and 3.5 million more net jobs were lost. By every reasonable standard, the stimulus failed.
H. L. Mencken once wrote that “complex problems have simple, easy to understand, wrong answers.” He may as well have been referring to the idea that Congress can foster economic growth simply by “injecting” money into the economy. Government stimulus spending is not a magic wand that creates jobs and income. Repeated failed attempts in America and abroad have shown that governments cannot spend their way out of recessions. Focusing on productivity growth builds a stronger economy over the long term–and leaves America better prepared to handle future economic downturns.
Brian M. Riedl is Grover M. Hermann Fellow in Federal Budgetary Affairs in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
[1]While the Obama Administration rhetorically emphasizes that it will “save or create” 3.5 million jobs, a January 2009 report by its economic team assumed creation of 3.3 million new jobs. The report projected that, through fall 2010, the baseline economy would lose 0.4 million net jobs (from 134.3 million to 133.9 million), while the economy with the stimulus would instead add 3.3 million net jobs (from 134.3 million to 137.6). See Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, “The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan,” January 9, 2009, p. 4, at http://otrans.3cdn.net/ 45593e8ecbd339d074_l3m6bt1te.pdf (December 7, 2009). Despite enactment of the stimulus, the number of jobs had fallen to 130.8 million through October 2009.
[2]For more on the New Deal, see William W. Beach and Ken McIntyre, “Get Over It: New Deal Didn’t Do the Job,” Heritage Foundation Commentary, January 21, 2009, at http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed012109f.cfm. For more on Japan’s failed stimulus experiment, see Derek Scissors and J. D. Foster, “Two Lost Decades? Why Japan’s Economy Is Still Stumbling and How the U.S. Can Stay Upright,” Heritage Foundation WebMemo No. 2307, February 23, 2009, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/AsiaandthePacific/wm2307.cfm, and Ronald D. Utt, “Learning from Japan: Infrastructure Spending Won’t Boost the Economy,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2222, December 16, 2008, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy /bg2222.cfm.
[3]Press release, “Remarks by the President on Job Creation and Economic Growth,” The White House, December 8, 2009, at http://www.whitehouse.gov/ the-press-office/remarks-president-job-creation-and-economic-growth (December 18, 2009).
[4]Mark Zandi, “The Economic Outlook and Stimulus Options,” Moody’s Economy.com, testimony before the U.S. Senate Budget Committee, November 19, 2008, Table 1, p. 10, at http://www.economy.com/mark -zandi/documents/Senate_Budget_Committee_11_19_08.pdf (December 7, 2009).
[5]The $200 billion figure is the amount of the $787 billion stimulus bill scheduled to be spent in 2009.
[6]For quarterly economic growth rates, see Press release, “Gross Domestic Product: Third Quarter 2009 (Advance Estimate),” Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis, October 29, 2009, Table 1, at http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/2009/pdf/gdp3q09_adv.pdf (December 7, 2009).
[7]The Federal Reserve could fund new spending by printing new money. Printing money could create temporary economic growth if the Federal Reserve convinced market participants that it would respond appropriately to any increase in inflation. Financial markets and businesses would then respond to the dollars pouring into businesses as though this represented new demand for their products (rather than inflation), and induce them to increase production. Note, however, that in this case it is the monetary policy, not the deficit spending, that is stimulating the economy, and that at some point the Federal Reserve would have to withdraw the excess printed money to make good on its pledge to prevent resurgent inflation.
[8]The total job loss is likely to be greater because highway construction is relatively capital-intensive and its jobs pay higher wages, leading to fewer numbers of workers being hired.
[9]Ronald D. Utt, “More Transportation Spending: False Promises of Prosperity and Job Creation,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2121, April 2, 2008, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/budget/bg2121.cfm.
[10]“Employment Impacts of Highway Infrastructure Investment,” Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, April 7, 2008. Report no longer appears on DOT Web site. Contact author for the original PDF file.
[11]U.S. General Accounting Office, Emergency Jobs Act of 1983: Funds Spent Slowly, Few Jobs Created, GAO/HRD-87-1, December 1986, at http://archive.gao.gov/f0102/132063.pdf (December 9, 2009).
[12]John H. Cochrane, “Fiscal Stimulus, Fiscal Inflation, or Fiscal Fallacies?” University of Chicago Booth School of Business, February 27 2009, at http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/john.cochrane/research/Papers/fiscal2.htm (December 21, 2009). Also seeJ. D. Foster, “Keynesian Fiscal Stimulus Policies Stimulate Debt–Not the Economy,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2302, July 27, 2009, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy /bg2302.cfm.
[13]This paper has much in common with what has been called the “Treasury View” of the economy, which asserts that government spending displaces private-sector spending dollar-for-dollar. However, because this paper argues that government spending can eventually affect productivity rates and, therefore, long-term economic growth, it may be better described as offering a “soft” Treasury View.
[14]Banks can buy existing Treasury bills in the secondary market. They do not need government to issue new debt through a stimulus bill. Furthermore, if there was no government debt to buy, banks would surely find other safe bonds.
[15]Thus, credit markets clear quickly. Interest rates may fluctuate, but financial markets will not hoard dollars. Even the last resort of Treasury bills keeps the dollars circulating.
[16]Cash set aside for required bank reserves and basic business/household transactions may not circulate through the economy as quickly. However, this comprises a small and relatively fixed percentage of dollars.
[17]Bill McMorris, “$6.4 Billion Stimulus Goes to Phantom Districts,” Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, November 17, 2009, at http://www.franklincenterhq.org/2009/11/17/6-4-billion-stimulus-goes-to -phantom-districts/ (December 9, 2009), and Michael Cooper and Ron Nixon, “Reports Show Conflicting Number of Jobs Attributed to Stimulus Money,” The New York Times, November 5, 2009, at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11 /05/us/05stimulus.html (December 9, 2009).
[18]In the short run, $1 spent on consumption, investment, or government will each raise GDP by the same $1. In the long run, however, a dollar spent on investment is likely to increase labor productivity and help the economy create more income and wealth in the future. By altering the composition of an economy’s spending either toward or away from investment (and affecting the quality of those investments), governments can affect long-term productivity rates and economic growth.
[19]Dozens of these studies are summarized in Daniel J. Mitchell, “The Impact of Government Spending on Economic Growth,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 1831, March 15, 2005, at http://www.heritage.org/Research /Budget/bg1831.cfm.
[20]“Frequently Asked Questions,” Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Department of Commerce, at http://faq.bea.gov/cgi-bin/bea.cfg/ php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=490 (December 9 2009).
[21]Daniel J. Mitchell, “Lowering Marginal Tax Rates: The Key to Pro-Growth Tax Relief,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 1443, May 22, 2001, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/bg1443.cfm.
[22]For more on the Bush tax cuts, see Brian M. Riedl, “Ten Myths About the Bush Tax Cuts,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2001, January 29, 2007, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/bg2001.cfm.
[23]For causes of the current recession, see J. D. Foster, “Understanding the Great Global Contagion and Recession,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2331, October 22, 2009, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/ Economy/bg2331.cfm.
President Obama and many of his propagandists have repeatedly stated that “economists from across the political spectrum agree” on the need for massive government spending to stimulate the economy. In fact, many economists disagree. Hundreds of them, in fact, including Nobel laureates and other prominent scholars, who signed a statement that the Cato Institute placed in major newspapers across the United States. And since that ad came out, many more economists have come on board to oppose the Obama stimulus. Here’s the statement and the list of signers:
“There is no disagreement that we need action by our government, a recovery plan that will help to jumpstart the economy.” — PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA, JANUARY 9, 2009
With all due respect Mr. President, that is not true.
Notwithstanding reports that all economists are now Keynesians and that we all support a big increase in the burden of government, we do not believe that more government spending is a way to improve economic performance. More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s. More government spending did not solve Japan’s “lost decade” in the 1990s. As such, it is a triumph of hope over experience to believe that more government spending will help the U.S. today. To improve the economy, policy makers should focus on reforms that remove impediments to work, saving, investment and production. Lower tax rates and a reduction in the burden of government are the best ways of using fiscal policy to boost growth.
Burton Abrams, Univ. of Delaware
Douglas Adie, Ohio University
Ryan Amacher, Univ. of Texas at Arlington
J.J. Arias, Georgia College & State University
Howard Baetjer, Jr., Towson University
Stacie Beck, Univ. of Delaware
Don Bellante, Univ. of South Florida
James Bennett, George Mason University
Bruce Benson, Florida State University
Sanjai Bhagat, Univ. of Colorado at Boulder
Mark Bils, Univ. of Rochester
Alberto Bisin, New York University
Walter Block, Loyola University New Orleans
Cecil Bohanon, Ball State University
Michele Boldrin, Washington University in St. Louis
Donald Booth, Chapman University
Michael Bordo, Rutgers University
Samuel Bostaph, Univ. of Dallas
Scott Bradford, Brigham Young University
Genevieve Briand, Eastern Washington University
George Brower, Moravian College
James Buchanan, Nobel laureate
Richard Burdekin, Claremont McKenna College
Henry Butler, Northwestern University
William Butos, Trinity College
Peter Calcagno, College of Charleston
Bryan Caplan, George Mason University
Art Carden, Rhodes College
James Cardon, Brigham Young University
Dustin Chambers, Salisbury University
Emily Chamlee-Wright, Beloit College
V.V. Chari, Univ. of Minnesota
Barry Chiswick, Univ. of Illinois at Chicago
Lawrence Cima, John Carroll University
J.R. Clark, Univ. of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Gian Luca Clementi, New York University
R. Morris Coats, Nicholls State University
John Cochran, Metropolitan State College
John Cochrane, Univ. of Chicago
John Cogan, Hoover Institution, Stanford University
John Coleman, Duke University
Boyd Collier, Tarleton State University
Robert Collinge, Univ. of Texas at San Antonio
Lee Coppock, Univ. of Virginia
Mario Crucini, Vanderbilt University
Christopher Culp, Univ. of Chicago
Kirby Cundiff, Northeastern State University
Antony Davies, Duquesne University
John Dawson, Appalachian State University
Clarence Deitsch, Ball State University
Arthur Diamond, Jr., Univ. of Nebraska at Omaha
John Dobra, Univ. of Nevada, Reno
James Dorn, Towson University
Christopher Douglas, Univ. of Michigan, Flint
Floyd Duncan, Virginia Military Institute
Francis Egan, Trinity College
John Egger, Towson University
Kenneth Elzinga, Univ. of Virginia
Paul Evans, Ohio State University
Eugene Fama, Univ. of Chicago
W. Ken Farr, Georgia College & State University
Hartmut Fischer, Univ. of San Francisco
Fred Foldvary, Santa Clara University
Murray Frank, Univ. of Minnesota
Peter Frank, Wingate University
Timothy Fuerst, Bowling Green State University
B. Delworth Gardner, Brigham Young University
John Garen, Univ. of Kentucky
Rick Geddes, Cornell University
Aaron Gellman, Northwestern University
William Gerdes, Clarke College
Michael Gibbs, Univ. of Chicago
Stephan Gohmann, Univ. of Louisville
Rodolfo Gonzalez, San Jose State University
Richard Gordon, Penn State University
Peter Gordon, Univ. of Southern California
Ernie Goss, Creighton University
Paul Gregory, Univ. of Houston
Earl Grinols, Baylor University
Daniel Gropper, Auburn University
R.W. Hafer, Southern Illinois
University, Edwardsville
Arthur Hall, Univ. of Kansas
Steve Hanke, Johns Hopkins
Stephen Happel, Arizona State University
Frank Hefner, College of Charleston
Ronald Heiner, George Mason University
David Henderson, Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Robert Herren, North Dakota State University
Gailen Hite, Columbia University
Steven Horwitz, St. Lawrence University
John Howe, Univ. of Missouri, Columbia
Jeffrey Hummel, San Jose State University
Bruce Hutchinson, Univ. of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Brian Jacobsen, Wisconsin Lutheran College
Jason Johnston, Univ. of Pennsylvania
Boyan Jovanovic, New York University
Jonathan Karpoff, Univ. of Washington
Barry Keating, Univ. of Notre Dame
Naveen Khanna, Michigan State University
Nicholas Kiefer, Cornell University
Daniel Klein, George Mason University
Paul Koch, Univ. of Kansas
Narayana Kocherlakota, Univ. of Minnesota
Marek Kolar, Delta College
Roger Koppl, Fairleigh Dickinson University
Kishore Kulkarni, Metropolitan State College of Denver
Deepak Lal, UCLA
George Langelett, South Dakota State University
James Larriviere, Spring Hill College
Robert Lawson, Auburn University
John Levendis, Loyola University New Orleans
David Levine, Washington University in St. Louis
Peter Lewin, Univ. of Texas at Dallas
Dean Lillard, Cornell University
Zheng Liu, Emory University
Alan Lockard, Binghampton University
Edward Lopez, San Jose State University
John Lunn, Hope College
Glenn MacDonald, Washington
University in St. Louis
Michael Marlow, California
Polytechnic State University
Deryl Martin, Tennessee Tech University
Dale Matcheck, Northwood University
Deirdre McCloskey, Univ. of Illinois, Chicago
John McDermott, Univ. of South Carolina
Joseph McGarrity, Univ. of Central Arkansas
Roger Meiners, Univ. of Texas at Arlington
Allan Meltzer, Carnegie Mellon University
John Merrifield, Univ. of Texas at San Antonio
James Miller III, George Mason University
Jeffrey Miron, Harvard University
Thomas Moeller, Texas Christian University
John Moorhouse, Wake Forest University
Andrea Moro, Vanderbilt University
Andrew Morriss, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Michael Munger, Duke University
Kevin Murphy, Univ. of Southern California
Richard Muth, Emory University
Charles Nelson, Univ. of Washington
Seth Norton, Wheaton College
Lee Ohanian, Univ. of California, Los Angeles
Lydia Ortega, San Jose State University
Evan Osborne, Wright State University
Randall Parker, East Carolina University
Donald Parsons, George Washington University
Sam Peltzman, Univ. of Chicago
Mark Perry, Univ. of Michigan, Flint
Christopher Phelan, Univ. of Minnesota
Gordon Phillips, Univ. of Maryland
Michael Pippenger, Univ. of Alaska, Fairbanks
Tomasz Piskorski, Columbia University
Brennan Platt, Brigham Young University
Joseph Pomykala, Towson University
William Poole, Univ. of Delaware
Barry Poulson, Univ. of Colorado at Boulder
Benjamin Powell, Suffolk University
Edward Prescott, Nobel laureate
Gary Quinlivan, Saint Vincent College
Reza Ramazani, Saint Michael’s College
Adriano Rampini, Duke University
Eric Rasmusen, Indiana University
Mario Rizzo, New York University
Richard Roll, Univ. of California, Los Angeles
Robert Rossana, Wayne State University
James Roumasset, Univ. of Hawaii at Manoa
John Rowe, Univ. of South Florida
Charles Rowley, George Mason University
Juan Rubio-Ramirez, Duke University
Roy Ruffin, Univ. of Houston
Kevin Salyer, Univ. of California, Davis
Pavel Savor, Univ. of Pennsylvania
Ronald Schmidt, Univ. of Rochester
Carlos Seiglie, Rutgers University
William Shughart II, Univ. of Mississippi
Charles Skipton, Univ. of Tampa
James Smith, Western Carolina University
Vernon Smith, Nobel laureate
Lawrence Southwick, Jr., Univ. at Buffalo
Dean Stansel, Florida Gulf Coast University
Houston Stokes, Univ. of Illinois at Chicago
Brian Strow, Western Kentucky University
Shirley Svorny, California State
University, Northridge
John Tatom, Indiana State University
Wade Thomas, State University of New York at Oneonta
Henry Thompson, Auburn University
Alex Tokarev, The King’s College
Edward Tower, Duke University
Leo Troy, Rutgers University
David Tuerck, Suffolk University
Charlotte Twight, Boise State University
Kamal Upadhyaya, Univ. of New Haven
Charles Upton, Kent State University
T. Norman Van Cott, Ball State University
Richard Vedder, Ohio University
Richard Wagner, George Mason University
Douglas M. Walker, College of Charleston
Douglas O. Walker, Regent University
Christopher Westley, Jacksonville State University
Lawrence White, Univ. of Missouri at St. Louis
Walter Williams, George Mason University
Doug Wills, Univ. of Washington Tacoma
Dennis Wilson, Western Kentucky University
Gary Wolfram, Hillsdale College
Huizhong Zhou, Western Michigan University
Additional economists who have signed the statement
Lee Adkins, Oklahoma State University
William Albrecht, Univ. of Iowa
Donald Alexander, Western Michigan University
Geoffrey Andron, Austin Community College
Nathan Ashby, Univ. of Texas at El Paso
George Averitt, Purdue North Central University
Charles Baird, California State University, East Bay
Timothy Bastian, Creighton University
Joe Bell, Missouri State University, Springfield
John Bethune, Barton College
Robert Bise, Orange Coast College
Karl Borden, University of Nebraska
Donald Boudreaux, George Mason University
Ivan Brick, Rutgers University
Phil Bryson, Brigham Young University
Richard Burkhauser, Cornell University
Edwin Burton, Univ. of Virginia
Jim Butkiewicz, Univ. of Delaware
Richard Cebula, Armstrong Atlantic State University
Don Chance, Louisiana State University
Robert Chatfield, Univ. of Nevada, Las Vegas
Lloyd Cohen, George Mason University
Peter Colwell, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Michael Connolly, Univ. of Miami
Jim Couch, Univ. of North Alabama
Eleanor Craig, Univ. of Delaware
Michael Daniels, Columbus State University
A. Edward Day, Univ. of Texas at Dallas
Stephen Dempsey, Univ. of Vermont
Veronique de Rugy, George Mason University
Allan DeSerpa, Arizona State University
William Dewald, Ohio State University
Jeff Dorfman, Univ. of Georgia
Lanny Ebenstein, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara
Michael Erickson, The College of Idaho
Jack Estill, San Jose State University
Dorla Evans, Univ. of Alabama in Huntsville
Frank Falero, California State University, Bakersfield
Daniel Feenberg, National Bureau of Economic Research
Eric Fisher, California Polytechnic State University
Arthur Fleisher, Metropolitan State College of Denver
William Ford, Middle Tennessee State University
Ralph Frasca, Univ. of Dayton
Joseph Giacalone, St. John’s University
Adam Gifford, California State Unviersity, Northridge
Otis Gilley, Louisiana Tech University
J. Edward Graham, University of North Carolina at Wilmington
Richard Grant, Lipscomb University
William Green, Sam Houston State University
Kenneth Greene, Binghamton University
Gauri-Shankar Guha, Arkansas State University
Darren Gulla, Univ. of Kentucky
Dennis Halcoussis, California State University, Northridge
Richard Hart, Miami University
James Hartley, Mount Holyoke College
Thomas Hazlett, George Mason University
Scott Hein, Texas Tech University
Bradley Hobbs, Florida Gulf Coast University
John Hoehn, Michigan State University
Matt Holian, San Jose State University
Daniel Houser, George Mason University
Thomas Howard, University of Denver
Chris Hughen, Univ. of Denver
Marcus Ingram, Univ. of Tampa
Joseph Jadlow, Oklahoma State University
Sherry Jarrell, Wake Forest University
Scott Kelly, Albany State University
Carrie Kerekes, Florida Gulf Coast University
Robert Krol, California State University, Northridge
James Kurre, Penn State Erie
Peter Leeson, George Mason University
Tom Lehman, Indiana Wesleyan University
W. Cris Lewis, Utah State University
Stan Liebowitz, Univ. of Texas at Dallas
Anthony Losasso, Univ. of Illinois at Chicago
John Lott, Jr., Univ. of Maryland
Keith Malone, Univ. of North Alabama
Henry Manne, George Mason University
Richard Marcus, Univ. of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
James Barney Marsh, University of Hawaii at Manoa
Timothy Mathews, Kennesaw State University
John Matsusaka, Univ. of Southern California
Thomas Mayor, Univ. of Houston
John McConnell, Purdue University
W. Douglas McMillin, Louisiana State University
Mario Miranda, The Ohio State University
Ed Miseta, Penn State Erie
James Moncur, Univ. of Hawaii at Manoa
Charles Moss, Univ. of Florida
Tim Muris, George Mason University
John Murray, Univ. of Toledo
David Mustard, Univ. of Georgia
Steven Myers, Univ. of Akron
Dhananjay Nanda, University of Miami
Stephen Parente, Univ. of Minnesota
Allen Parkman, Univ. of New Mexico
Douglas Patterson, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and University
Timothy Perri, Appalachian State University
Mark Pingle, Univ. of Nevada, Reno
Ivan Pongracic, Hillsdale College
Robert Prati, East Carolina University
Richard Rawlins, Missouri Southern State University
Thomas Rhee, California State University, Long Beach
Christine Ries, Georgia Institute of Technology
Nancy Roberts, Arizona State University
Larry Ross, Univ. of Alaska Anchorage
Timothy Roth, Univ. of Texas at El Paso
Atulya Sarin, Santa Clara University
Thomas Saving, Texas A&M University
Eric Schansberg, Indiana University Southeast
John Seater, North Carolina University
Alan Shapiro, Univ. of Southern California
Thomas Simmons, Greenfield Community College
W. James Smith, University of Colorado Denver
Frank Spreng, McKendree University
Judith Staley Brenneke, John Carroll University
John E. Stapleford, Eastern University
Courtenay Stone, Ball State University
Avanidhar Subrahmanyam, UCLA
Scott Sumner, Bentley University
Clifford Thies, Shenandoah University
William Trumbull, West Virginia University
A. Sinan Unur, Cornell University
Randall Valentine, Georgia Southwestern State University
Gustavo Ventura, Univ. of Iowa
Marc Weidenmier, Claremont McKenna College
Robert Whaples, Wake Forest University
Gene Wunder, Washburn University
John Zdanowicz, Florida International University
Jerry Zimmerman, Univ. of Rochester
Joseph Zoric, Franciscan University of Steubenville
All of those economists – hundreds of them – were right.
And Barack Obama lied to you. He lied about everything.
More and more Americans are realizing this. Here are the facts:
Just 6% of Americans believe the $787 “stimulus” boondoggle created any jobs according to a recent New York Times/CBS poll.
Just 6%.
Don’t keep being a fool. Reject this president. Reject his insane and immoral policies. While you still have a country.
This entry was posted on August 6, 2010 at 8:15 am and is filed under Barack Obama, Conservative Issues, Economy, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
4 Responses to “Why Stimulus Didn’t Stimulate Economy: Because It NEVER HAS”
Leigh Patrick Sullivan Says:
Excellent article! It is insanity to believe that, to get out of a deep hole, all one needs to do is keep digging.
Michael Eden Says:
Earlier Marxists would “create jobs” by having the pitiful people out digging giant holes (which likely ended up being turned into mass graves with shovels). Obama is an even more frightening Marxist: he uses all the technology at hand to dig a hole from which America will never escape: Obama uses giant mechanical shovels to dig us toward hell.
Intex easy set Says:
WE dont own this country, our creditors due. We’re just responsible to pay it back.
And the check’s in the mail.
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NEA 2018
Internet »
online furniture
Last mile delivery
Federation of Gujarat Industries
Ashish Shah
Online furniture market place Pepperfry extends Last Mile Delivery to 400 cities
Online furniture market place Pepperfry has extended its Last Mile Delivery (LMD) service to 400 cities across the country.PTI | Updated: September 29, 2015, 10:14 IST
Online furniture market place Pepperfry has extended its Last Mile Delivery (LMD) service to 400 cities across the country.
"The e-commerce industry for the last few years witnessed a number of online players in the furniture and home decor space and as a part of core strategy we have extended LMD services to 400 cities across the country," Pepperfry co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Ashish Shah told reporters at Sevasi village near here. He was the chief guest at the AGM of Federation of Gujarat Industries (FGI).
"We have more than 75,000 home and furniture products on our site and we will keep on increasing products," he said, adding the company has been partnering with national and regional brands like Godrej, Interio and Styleps.
"Online purchase of furniture is growing exponentially in India and is expected to leapfrog the offline market in the years to come," he added.
It is estimated that Indian consumers buy purchase around $500 million worth of furniture and home improvement products online, in an overall $30 billion market, which is largely unorganised in nature.
Tags : Internet, Pepperfry, online furniture, logistics, Last mile delivery, Godrej, Federation of Gujarat Industries, e-commerce, Ashish Shah
Trending in Internet
Jeff Bezos bullish on India, will invest $1 billion to digitize small businesses
Oyo may cut more jobs to shore up bottom line
India orders antitrust probe against Amazon, Walmart's Flipkart
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›Scottish International Development Fund
Scottish International Development Fund
Grants for community-based projects in agriculture and natural resources in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia
Principal Office: UK (Scotland)
The Scottish government’s international framework outlines Scotland’s strategy for international engagement and activity.
Within that framework, Scotland established an International Development Fund to implement cooperation with the developing world. The Fund’s interests relevant to the Terra Viva Grants Directory include sustainable agriculture; community water supply; renewable energy; climate change mitigation; prevention and mitigation of natural disasters; and livelihoods based on natural resources.
Grants to Organizations in Scotland. The International Development Fund helps finance Scottish organizations for programs and projects in countries that Scotland defines as priorities for development cooperation. Traditionally, a large share of Scotland’s assistance is directed to Malawi.
Most calls for proposals define several thematic areas eligible for funding, generally including at least one area related to agriculture and/or natural resources.
Grants are to organizations that have a presence in Scotland. Grant recipients to date are principally Scottish development NGOs, educational institutions, church institutions, and health institutions. The grant-funded Scottish organizations work in collaboration with local partners.
APPLICATION: Applicants respond to competitive calls for proposals through funding rounds for each program area. The calls include eligibility criteria; application guidelines and forms; calendar deadlines; and supporting information.
Link to Development Assistance Programs
Link to Climate Justice Fund
The revised (2016) geographical priorities for Scotland’s development assistance are the following four countries.
South Asia: Pakistan
Sub-Saharan Africa: Malawi, Rwanda, Zambia
Note: Scotland’s grants for humanitarian assistance and health projects include actions in countries and regions in addition to those above.
The Scottish Government aims to make Scotland one of the world’s first Fair Trade Nations. It provides funding to the Scottish Fair Trade Forum.
The Network of International Development Organizations in Scotland (NIDOS) comprises Scottish member organizations active in the world’s developing regions. NIDOS posts news, events, funding opportunities, vacancies, and a directory of its members.
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Home Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection Girl practicing the violin
Girl practicing the violin
Title Girl practicing the violin
Collection ID Shades of L.A. Collection
Shades of L.A.: Ukrainian American Community
Shades of L.A.: Polish American Community
Shades of L.A.: Jewish Community
Location/Accession S-010-034 120
Date [ca. 1960]
Description A girls practices the violin while her brother, with a small horn up to his lips, looks on.
Subject Girls--California--Los Angeles.
Boys--California--Los Angeles.
Brothers and sisters--California--Los Angeles.
Practicing (Music)--California--Los Angeles.
Violins.
Bedrooms--California--Los Angeles.
Dwellings--California--Los Angeles.
Interiors--California--Los Angeles.
Shades of L.A. Collection photographs.
Shades of L.A. Jewish photographs.
Shades of L.A. Polish American photographs.
Shades of L.A. Ukrainian American photographs.
Credits Shades of L.A. is an archive of photographs representing the contemporary and historic diversity of families in Los Angeles. Images were chosen from family albums and include daily life, social organizations, work, personal and holiday celebrations, and migration and immigration activities. Made possible and accessible through the generous support of the Security Pacific National Bank, Sunlaw Cogeneration Partners, Photo Friends, California Council for the Humanities, the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, and the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation.
Rights The contents of this collection are restricted to personal, research, and non-commercial use. The Library cannot share the personal and/or contact information of the donors, their descendants, or associates who contributed photographs and oral histories to the collection.
Reproduction Information Images available for reproduction and educational use. Please see the Ordering & Use page at http://tessa.lapl.org/orderinguse.html for additional information.
Sub-Collection Name Shades of L.A. Photo Collection
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Metropolitan Division (Page 3)
Tampa Bay Lightning Vs Washington Capitals: Eastern Conference Final Preview
By: Mike Laybourne
In: Atlantic Division, Metropolitan Division, Playoffs
With the Tampa Bay Lightning’s game five win over the Boston Bruins, the Bolts stamped their ticket to the Eastern Conference final, where they will meet the Washington Capitals, avoiding a repeat of the 2015/16 Conference finals. The Bolts were knocked out of that tilt by Pittsburgh, so the team will definitely aiming to do better against Ovi & Friends. How did we get here? The Tampa Bay/Boston match-up in the second round was a bizarre affair, with the news being unfairly dominated by Brad Marchand‘s unsporting actions. Despite a 6-2 thumping in the opening game of the series, the Lightning were able pick apartRead More →
Washington Capitals Vs Pittsburgh Penguins: Preview
In: Metropolitan Division, Playoffs
Round two of the NHL’s Stanley Cup playoffs will soon be here, we’ve already previewed both match-ups in the Western Conference, now it’s time we turned our attention to the east! The first series to be decided in the east will be played between the perennially disappointing Washington Capitals, and the current Cup holders, Pittsburgh. How did we get here? Always the bridesmaid, never the bride, the Washington Capitals won the Metropolitan division, but only managed the same points as the Toronto Maple Leafs (105). History tells us that the Caps aren’t good in the playoffs, and the Columbus Blue Jackets took advantage of thatRead More →
Hart Trophy Contender Round Table
By: Chace McCallum
In: Atlantic Division, Central Division, Metropolitan Division
Taylor Hall. Nikita Kucherov. Nathan MacKinnon. These three are currently the front runners to win the Hart Trophy this season as the league MVP. But who will win it? Chace, Joe and Carl make their case for each. Taylor Hall (by Chace McCallum) The NHL’s Hart Trophy goes to the”player judged most valuable to his team“. This is an important caveat in Taylor Hall’s MVP case. He has fewer points per game than Nathan Mackinnon and Nikita Kucherov, his biggest opponents. This likely knocks Hall out of the most outstanding player debate, however in terms of value to their team, it’s Hall and it’s not close.Read More →
Should New York Rangers Trade Henrik Lundqvist?
In: Metropolitan Division
This weekend has a been one to forget for the New York Rangers. Two heavy losses to both the Senators and Flyers have alarm bells ringing at MSG. Henrik Lundqvist, in particular, has been put under the microscope. The 35-year-old Swede has looked out of sorts and almost lost. Due to the Rangers rebuild, key names will be traded. Rick Nash and Ryan McDonagh have apparently given trade lists. Should Broadway Blue management look to Lundqvist to secure future talent? Embed from Getty Images First of all, I highly respect Lundqvist and over his 13 seasons in the Big Apple, he has carried this team.Read More →
Pittsburgh Penguins: Primed to Three-Peat
On: February 1, 2018
Coming out of the NHL All-Star break we can see the teams with a realistic shot at winning the Stanley Cup. Any list of Cup contenders starts with the consensus Cup favorite Tampa Bay Lightning. Then there are trendy picks like the scorching-hot Boston Bruins and Vegas Golden Knights. After that, the field appears to be more wide open than ever before. Sadly for the rest of the league, I dug a little deeper and realized something inevitable. The Pittsburgh Penguins are going to win their 3rd straight Stanley Cup. They currently sit 5th in the east, with a 51.7% Corsi and +1 goal differential.Read More →
Deadline Deals: Metro Edition
By: Alex Metzger
Welcome to a series where I will be looking at what each team should be doing this trade deadline. We will be looking at their future, players to buy or sell, and overall possibility of a Cup. Stay tuned for all four divisions, but today we will be breaking down the Metro! If you missed it, you can see the Atlantic Division here. #1 Carolina Hurricanes: This division is so much tougher than the Atlantic, that had 5 sellers in it. Usually I would err on the side of caution here, like I did with Toronto. However, the Canes desperately need a playoff appearance. TheirRead More →
Artemi Panarin: Hart Trophy Sleeper
Just past halfway through the 2017-18 season, it’s that time of year again where we begin to see midseason awards voting. The award that generally generates the most conversation is the Hart Trophy, given to the NHL’s most valuable player. It’s easy to make a case for plenty of players. Nathan MacKinnon is probably the frontrunner, with John Tavares, Nikita Kucherov, and some of the league’s other top scorers trailing just behind. However, I think there is one sleeper pick for the Hart Trophy: Artemi Panarin. There are 3 main reasons for this, so let’s dive into Panarin’s results and you will see what I mean.Read More →
Trade Deadline: So You’re Saying There’s a Chance?
By: Joseph St-Amour
In: Central Division, Metropolitan Division, NHL
At this point of the season, the playoff picture is all but clear. Some teams aren’t going anywhere but some teams. have all but cemented their spots and other teams won’t go down without a fight. The teams that are in a position to lose their seat and the teams still clawing away to make the playoffs, all need a little tweaking if they want to get/stay there. New York Rangers 6th in the Metropolitan division, one point behind the Islanders who hold the second wild card spot, but the Rangers still have one game at hand . Second last in the NHL for SA/GPRead More →
Steals of the 2010 NHL Draft
In: Atlantic Division, Central Division, Metropolitan Division, NHL, Pacific Division
Welcome to the newest series on the 4th Line! This is a series where I will be looking at the top 5 draft steals. Now these won’t always just be the 6th and 7th rounders of a draft. My aim here is to find some of the best players of the draft that weren’t taken where they should have been. This means there may be late first rounders, or second rounders included. With this in mind let’s start our first draft, 2010! Honourable Mention – Petr Mrazek, Round 5, 141st Overall: I am giving Petr Mrazek an honourable mention here because finding a possible starterRead More →
Ranking the Top 10 NHL Centers
If I was to build an NHL team from scratch, I would start by looking at centers. It’s a tough position play and maybe the hardest to acquire. So today let’s dive into my top 10 centers in the NHL which I ranked using 3 main variables. The first is power-play prowess, which is how well players produce weighted points and shots on the power-play. The second is their offence which considers their ability to drive play offensively, produce points, and draw penalties. The final is their defense, which is a mix of their shot and expected goal suppression, ability to not take penalties, winRead More →
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Superhype
Marketing, entertainment, and technology
← We See Dead People: Why Dead Celebrities Are Coming Back to Life through Digital
Why We Buy Vinyl →
Apple TV+ Needs Cultural Relevance — and “Dickinson” Delivers It
Posted on November 27, 2019 by ddeal
Disney+ has The Mandalorian. Netflix has Stranger Things. What does Apple TV+ have to capture our imaginations and light the internet on fire?
Well, nothing approaching Stranger Things or The Mandalorian-level of widespread excitement. But the Apple TV+ show Dickinson is quickly building momentum and delivering what Apple TV+ needs: cultural relevance.
Why Cultural Relevance Matters
Cultural relevance is essential for any entertainment company to succeed in the long run. Brands become culturally relevant when they connect with an audience through their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. Sometimes cultural relevance means shaping attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, too. When brands achieve cultural relevance, they become so inextricably linked with our lives that we become lifelong members of their tribes.
Disney Masters Cultural Relevance
Disney is the master of cultural relevance. Mickey Mouse is more than a popular animated character. Mickey Mouse is an international symbol of childhood. Frozen is a pop culture phenomenon. The Lion King introduced the words “Hakuna Matata” to millions of people. The Little Mermaid inspired cosplayers for generations to come. And now, Disney+ is having a culturally relevant moment with The Mandalorian.
Almost immediately, The Mandalorian sparked passionate conversations on social media about Baby Yoda, Boba Fett, and Star Wars lore. I’ve not seen social media explode with such ferocity over a pop culture phenomenon since Pokémon GO hit. The Mandalorian did something else: it became the most in-demand original streaming TV show in the United States, unseating Netflix’s Stranger Things. Is it any surprise that Disney+ achieved more than 10 million subscribers on launch day? And all this excitement hit in time to unleash related merchandise for the holiday shopping season.
Netflix Defines Cultural Relevance
Netflix, meanwhile, released Season 3 of The Crown on November 4. Here is a wildly popular show that connects with American audiences by tapping into Americans’ longstanding fascination with the Royal Family. The Crown inspired a wide range of commentary, some connecting the show to contemporary American politics, others offering insight into the importance of Welsh language. And the Royal Family itself commented on the opening episode.
This is what culturally relevant shows do. They inspire conversation that transcends the show itself. Among the streaming companies, Netflix has created the gold standard for cultural relevance (although Disney may catch up and then some). Stranger Things has become a pop culture sensation by tapping into 1980s nostalgia (and arguably engineering that nostalgia). Tidying up with Marie Kondo connects with an American materialism (and its consequences) so profoundly that the show actually created a spike in donations to thrift stores. This is the entertainment company that changed how we watched TV and is responsible for vernacular such as “Netflix and chill.”
Along Comes Apple TV+
Now, what about Apple TV+, which launched on November 4? Well, the results are mixed, and Apple TV+ has been outflanked by The Mandalorian. The much hyped The Morning Show has failed to catch fire. Apple has delayed the release of theatrical film The Banker amid allegations of misconduct against one of the movie’s producers. But on the other hand, a lesser known series, Dickinson, has been steadily building a fan base.
On the surface, Dickinson focuses on the life of poet Emily Dickinson. But what makes Dickinson culturally relevant is that it’s more than the story of a poet. It’s a perfectly timed statement about female and LGBTQ+ empowerment. In addition, the casting is smart. For instance, Hailee Steinfeld, who portrays Emily Dickinson, connects effectively with Gen Z and the LGBTQ+ community. Wiz Khalifa, who portrays a personification of death, is highly relevant to music, fashion, and weed culture. And the show’s soundtrack, featuring artists ranging from A$AP Rocky to Billie Eilish, is a Millennial’s dream. As such, Dickinson is rapidly creating a fan base who call themselves “Dickheads,” and the show has inspired the term “Sexy Dickinson.” Now this is what cultural relevance looks like:
Dickinson has already been renewed for another season.
Keep an Eye on Apple TV+
Creating cultural relevance requires an insight into consumer behavior, the agility to rapidly create content that taps into this behavior, and a platform to share that content at scale. Apple has the platform for Apple TV+ through Apple TV (and a new Apple TV app). As a media brand, Apple is getting better at tapping into consumer behavior and creating the right content. We all remember how Apple stumbled badly with its ill-fated forced download of U2’s Songs of Innocence album in 2014 – a miscalculation of consumer behavior (streaming was overtaking downloading, and people resented being forced to download music they did not ask for) and taste (U2 was out of fashion). But since then, Apple has adapted by launching a streaming service that now dominates the industry along with Spotify.
Apple played catch-up and then became a leader in music streaming by becoming more culturally relevant with content that connects to millennial tastes, such as the Up Next program for developing artists and first-look album drops by artists such as Chance the Rapper and Drake. Original content alone was not the answer to the rise of Apple Music – culturally relevant content that connects emotionally was.
Apple TV+ has a long way to go before it attains cultural relevance. But Dickinson is a clear win. In addition, Apple has plenty of cash – and a lot of patience. You can be sure Apple is figuring out how to create its next Dickinson.
This entry was posted in Apple, Entertainment and tagged Apple, Apple TV, David Deal, Dickinson, Disney, Netflix, Stranger Things, Superhype, The Crown, The Mandalorian, Wiz Khalifa. Bookmark the permalink.
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Demons, Deceased, Season 3 characters,
Magic Practitioners
Revision as of 09:11, May 12, 2019 by OrionBot (Talk | contribs)
Ruby (formerly)
“ Remember all those dark demonic forces you prayed to, when you swore your servitude? Just who did you think you were praying to? (...) It was me. You sold yourself to me, you pig. ”
— Astaroth
in Malleus Maleficarum
Astaroth was a powerful demon who worked to condemn human souls to Hell by turning them into witches. She turned Renee Van Allen, Elizabeth Higgins, and Amanda Burns into witches, which resulted in several deaths, including the entire coven in question. The Winchesters' investigation led them to Astaroth and they ended up killing her.
Early History Edit
Astaroth was hundreds of years old. In the fourteenth century, she came into contact with a human whom she taught witchcraft to in exchange for the human's soul, which went to Hell and became another demon, named Ruby.
Astaroth herself later ended up in Hell. She managed to escape when a Devil's Gate was opened in "All Hell Breaks Loose - Part 2"; when talking about the escape later with Ruby, Astaroth described escaping Hell as "a bitch of a fight" and was impressed that her student had made it.
Astaroth was a devout follower of Lilith. In an attempt to please Lilith, Astaroth and her "friends" sought to hunt down and kill Sam Winchester in order to eliminate Lilith's "competition" for leadership of Hell.
Season 3 Edit
Astaroth secretly possessed Tammi Fenton in order to "break the ice" with Tammi's friends Amanda Burns, Elizabeth Higgins, and Renee Van Allen. She then brought the Book of Shadows into the women's book club, and tricked them into unwittingly selling her their souls in exchange for her improving their lives.
Amanda used witchcraft to kill her lover Paul's wife, and then tried to kill Paul himself, bringing Sam and Dean Winchester to investigate. Astaroth planted a hex-bag that killed Amanda in a way that appeared to be a suicide, and later cast a spell to kill Dean, although Ruby intervened to break the spell and save Dean.
When Sam deduced that Tammi was possessed, Astaroth briefly kept up her charade before dropping it and taunting him by claiming that his brother was already dead. Sam tried to shoot her with the Colt, but she telekinetically slowed and then stopped the bullet completely, making it fall to the floor without hitting her. She incapacitated him, killed an angry Renee out of annoyance, and taunted a horrified Elizabeth about having sold her soul without realizing it.
Astaroth started trying to kill Sam by crushing him to death. When Dean and Ruby arrived, Astaroth incapacitated Dean as well, but allowed Ruby to explain why she was there; Ruby claimed to have lured the Winchesters to Astaroth as a gift and that she wanted to serve Astaroth again. Astaroth appeared to consider Ruby's words for a moment, but then Ruby tried to kill her, leading Astaroth to brutally beat Ruby. She began to exorcise the younger demon, only to be caught off-guard by Elizabeth's spell, causing her to release Sam and Dean and kill Elizabeth. Her brief distraction allowed Dean to retrieve the demon-killing knife, grab her from behind and stab her several times, killing her.[1]
Powers and Abilities Edit
“ It knows you're in town, and it's gonna come after you, and it's way more than you can handle. ”
Astaroth was an extremely old and powerful black-eyed demon. Ruby believed her to be beyond the Winchesters' ability to defeat even with the Colt. She overpowered Sam, Dean, and Ruby simultaneously with ease when they attacked her; however, when she was distracted by a spell Elizabeth Higgins performed, Dean managed to kill Astaroth when catching her by surprise.
Biokinesis - Astaroth was able to kill Elizabeth Higgins by stopping her heart with a hand gesture.
Spell Casting - Astaroth had extraordinary knowledge of witchcraft, which she taught to her pupils in exchange for their souls. She knew an exorcism which would send other demons back to Hell without affecting her, which she started to use on Ruby.
Demonic Possession - As a demon, Astaroth required a vessel to walk the Earth.
Super Strength - Astaroth was much stronger than humans as well as fellow black-eyed demons, as shown when she easily overpowered Ruby during their fight.
Invulnerability - Astaroth could not be killed or harmed by conventional means. When Elizabeth used a spell that inserted pins in Astaroth's throat/stomach, it did not even seriously wound Astaroth. However, it did distract and anger her.
Immortality - As a demon, Astaroth could potentially live forever. Although her exact age was not stated, she was older than Ruby, who was over seven hundred years old.
Reality Warping (By Deals) - Astaroth granted the wishes of the coven once they sold her their souls; this included getting Elizabeth's husband a promotion as well as having her win a trip to Hawaii, and improving Renee's pottery business.
Telekinesis - Astaroth broke Renee's neck with a wave of her hand. She also pinned Sam and Dean to walls and held them incapacitated without effort while she concentrated on fighting Ruby, even beginning to psychically crush Sam to death at one point; however, she lost control of them when attacked by a spell that made her cough up pins. She also stopped a bullet from the Colt in mid-air, a feat no other supernatural being has been shown capable of.
Immunity - Astaroth was immune to iron as she was able to pick up an iron fireplace poker without having her flesh burn to beat Ruby with it.
As a powerful demon, Astaroth had few weaknesses.
The Colt - As the Colt could kill demons, it could kill her. However, Astaroth managed to avoid being shot with it.
Demon-Killing Knife - Despite being a very powerful demon, the knife was able to kill her.
Death Edit
Killed By Edit
As Astaroth was distracted by a hex cast upon her by Elizabeth Higgins, her telekinetic hold over the Winchesters was broken. As an enraged Astaroth killed Elizabeth, Dean retrieved Ruby's demon-killing knife, grabbed Astraoth from behind and stabbed her in the side several times, killing Astaroth.
Although she was not named in the episode, Astaroth's name was revealed in the Supernatural Companion for Season 3.
Astaroth was the second demon of lore to appear in the show; the first was Azazel.
In lore, Astaroth is the demon of laziness, vanity and rationalization. It is also said that he grants power to magicians who summon and kneel before him.
Astaroth was the first demon Dean killed with the demon-killing knife.
↑ Malleus Maleficarum
Retrieved from "https://supernatural.fandom.com/wiki/Astaroth?oldid=362977"
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The latest in the spheres of socially responsible investing, impact investing, and other ways investors and shareholders are asserting their desire for ethical investment options.
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SB'20 Long Beach
Nominate a Speaker
Bridging the Gap Between Data and Brand Using Data-driven Storytelling
7am EST / 4am PST / 12pm GMT / 1pm CET
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There has been a chasm between brands and the ethical actions that should support them. While there has been some increase in conventional TV advertising emphasizing ethics, the traditional "non-financial report" is primarily a tool for investors, and has very little impact on the brand. The data that are collected for these reports get trapped in infinite webs of Excel and layers of paper and its electronic cousin, the PDF, but rarely reach the consumer in a meaningful way.
We’ll discuss why brands are about to come under enormous pressure and why real-time visibility of a brand's social and environmental performance is going to make the "non-financial report" an increasingly small part of communicating the sustainable brand. FigBytes Inc. is pioneering the connection between sustainability/CSR data collection, processing and "beyond reporting" communications, that allows companies to bring their brand alive by showing the good behind their brand in real-time.
Colin Grant, Chief Revenue Officer and resident strategy expert at FigBytes Inc. will team up with Kate Cacciatore, Global Head of Sustainability at Groupe Edmond de Rothschild, to share how important the transition from “reporting to”, to “engaging with” is so that your stakeholders can clearly see the good you are doing when it comes to corporate brand and all of the touchpoints that affect it.
Uncover the latest trends in utilizing data for more than compliance and seldom-read sustainability/non-financial reporting
Gain insights into how data-driven storytelling differs from reporting and why the latter minimally impacts a company’s brand
Learn how FigBytes Inc. has helped their client, Groupe Edmond de Rothschild, move beyond stranded data and conventional reporting and is taking them into data-driven storytelling and a living brand.
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Chief Revenue Officer and Strategy Expert
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Alan Spencer on
Distributor MGM
The Circus of Dr. Lao, written by Charles G. Finney in 1935, was a cynical, trenchant satire of the small minds of small town people. George Pal, whose perennially sunny demeanor was in sharp contrast to Finney’s curdled comedy, kept his rose-colored glasses firmly in place when he directed his own version in 1964 from a screenplay by Charles Beaumont. Though the pungent atmosphere is missing from Pal’s adaptation, several memorable things remain including a bittersweet score from Leigh Harline (Pinocchio), an assortment of mythical monsters courtesy of William Tuttle and Wah Chang and, most importantly, a brilliant tour-de-force by Tony Randall as the mysterious ringmaster Lao. Randall possessed one of the most beautiful speaking voices in Hollywood and he uses it to full effect in 7 Faces, inhabiting everything from a wistful Merlin the Magician to a spooky drag version of the snake-headed Medusa.
Buy from Warner Archive
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About Alan Spencer
Alan Spencer is best known for creating the classic satirical eighties sitcom Sledge Hammer! and the recent controversial "ultra violent" comedy Bullet in the Face for IFC. For years he's been regarded as one of Hollywood's top script doctors and has never lost a patient.
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Sound of Vinyl
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Automatic For The People (25th Anniversary Edition)
UMC / Concord
Widely considered to be one of the best albums of the 90s, 1992’s Automatic For the People followed R.E.M.’s breakthrough album, Out of Time, and did not disappoint. Beloved by critics, the band’s eighth studio album topped charts worldwide, and was certified 4x platinum in the US. Features the iconic hit singles “Nightswimming,” “Man on the Moon” and 90s anthem, “Everybody Hurts.”
Commemorating the album’s 25th Anniversary, this 180 gram vinyl edition features the full original album, remastered from the original analog tapes. Includes digital download card.
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Life 2 years ago
OSU Football sent a care package to a six-year-old with cancer and it’s the sweetest thing we’ve ever seen
Allison Haskins
Darran Dunlap motivates others to stay positive and ‘press on’
This weekend, the Ohio State University football team sent a care package to a six-year-old girl who has been battling cancer for over a year.
Her father, Colin Dunlap of CBS Pittsburgh, is a graduate of West Virginia University and was sports writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. While there, he covered the Pirates, area college football and basketball, and the prep sports scene.
The package contained letters signed by Assistant LB Coach Ryan Crow, an OSU football t-shirt, two name badges, a Block-O sticker and more.
People continue to amaze us. We have no allegiance or connection to Ohio State football — and this package came for Darran today. What class. They just gained some fans. pic.twitter.com/1L2Dn155r8
— Colin Dunlap (@colin_dunlap) November 18, 2017
Colin Dunlap tweeted a series of photos to share the contents of the package with his followers.
"People continue to amaze us," he wrote. "We have no allegiance or connection to Ohio State football – and this package came for Darran today. What class. They just gained some fans."
Colin joined 93.7 The Fan when it launched in February 2010 as a weekend show host. He also serves as a featured sports columnist for CBSPittsburgh.com. Neither he, nor his family, have any allegiance or connection to The Ohio State University.
Today is World Prematurity Day. I think of how much our little preemies have endured from Day 1; how strong both are and how they will continue to persevere into the future. pic.twitter.com/Nn2cyDouXM
In Novemeber 2016, his 5-year-old daughter, Darran, was diagnosed with cancer. "She went to Children's Hopsital complaining of hip pain; they told us she had leukemia," Dunlap wrote.
On December 11, 2016, Dunlap tweeted: "My daughter's body is crushed by chemo but she won't let me carry her up [the] steps to bed. "I'll make it," she says each night – and does. So tough."
my daughter's body is crushed by chemo but she won't let me carry her up steps to bed. "I'll make it,"she says each night-and does. so tough pic.twitter.com/4xe9VecqI0
— Colin Dunlap (@colin_dunlap) December 12, 2016
The video of Darran making her way up the stairs in her fuzzy, leopard-print slippers has now been retweeted more than 98,000 times and has been "loved" nearly 283,000 times.
Recently, Darran's story has reached the hearts of the Buckeye linebackers. A note from the linebackers came with the package reads, "Darran, you are a rockstar! Never stop fighting!"
I’m certainly not an OSU football fan, but I hate them a little less after this. Keep up the fight Darran!! Class move by OSU
— Brian Shallenberger (@Brian_6153) November 18, 2017
From all of us at The Ohio State University, keep fighting Darran!
@AM_Haskins
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Paris 'still a danger to herself'
Sunday, 14 July 2013 2:40PM
Camera IconParis Jackson is now staying at an undisclosed residential treatment centre. Credit: Getty Images
Paris Jackson has moved into a new treatment facility.
The 15-year-old aspiring actress, who attempted suicide last month, left UCLA Medical Centre on Tuesday and is now staying at an undisclosed residential treatment centre, where she will continue to be supervised and undergo treatment for depression.
A source told People.com that the facility was chosen by Paris' grandmother and legal guardian Katherine Jackson, as well as her biological mother Debbie Rowe, who she recently reconnected with, because they did think she was ready to return home.
The insider added: "The feeling is that Paris is still a danger to herself. Both Katherine and Debbie want her to get the help that she needs."
It was recently revealed that Demi Lovato reached out to Paris, who is the daughter of the late Michael Jackson,
The X Factor USA judge, who has a history of self-harm and whose estranged father recently died, reached out to the troubled teenager to let her know she is not alone.
A source previously said: "With Demi having just lost her dad, she feels a special bond with Paris. She told Paris about how she'd endured horrible bullying about her weight and her looks and even nasty comments about her estranged father. That struck a chord with Paris because of her own controversial father and like Demi, she's been dieting for years.
"There are so few people in Hollywood who show up during the tough times but Demi is the real deal."
Who is Australia’s greatest ever band?Premium
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Seth Rogen: Beyoncé Got A Standing Ovation For Existing
People really do all hail Queen Bey.
Seth Rogen, who voices Pumbaa in the upcoming “Lion King” remake, told Jimmy Kimmel on Thursday that the cast recently convened on stage at the movie’s premiere. And the audience did not hide its excitement when Beyoncé was simply introduced before the screening.
“Beyoncé was called out, and the audience stood up and went crazy. I was like, ‘She’s getting a standing ovation for just existing.’ Like, her mere presence was a reason to stand and go crazy, and I totally got it. I was like, ‘Yeah, we should be celebrating. We made it. We’re all in a room with Beyoncé. That’s what you want.’”
Rogen said that, though he knew the audience wasn’t clapping for him, he briefly “felt like what it must feel like to have that adulation.”
“And all I was thinking was, ‘People do not like me that much.’”
Does anyone actually get more love than Beyoncé, though?
Rogen himself is having a big year and garnered quite a few fans. The actor, who also starred in rom-com “Long Shot” with Charlize Theron earlier this year, was featured on the cover of GQ. The issue spawned a flurry of thirsty tweets, and it was clear that many on the interwebs just wanted a whole lot more of Rogen.
Jul 12, 2019 cyclico
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Tag Archives: Lara Adrian
Don’t Miss It! Upcoming Books, New Releases and Great Deals You Might Have Missed, March 30, 2014
Upcoming Books and New Releases
Veronica Scott who wrote the fascinating paranormal/historical romance The Gods of Egypt series, released her next book, Magic of the Nile, featuring a high priestess whose life is dedicated to the Crocodile God who physically healed her from the abuse she suffered as a child. When Pharaoh sends his handsome captain to ask for her help, she could not imagine how turned upside down her life will be, as she is forced to find a dark sorcerer deep in Pharaoh’s court and the man she loves may or may not help her.
Stacy Gail has a hit series on her hands with her Earth Angels, so fans will be happy to note that the latest addition, Dangerous Angel, comes out tomorrow on March 31st. Based on the premise of the forbidden descendants of angels and humans walk among us, hiding their powers while fighting evil on behalf of unknowing humans, this fourth book in the series shows us a bounty hunter who is more than a little distracted by his rival, a sexy woman who impersonates a stripper to get close to man she needs to bring in before our hero. When the situation is complicated by something not quite human, nothing will stop this angel from having the woman who is his perfect match while also stopping a possible apocalypse.
There are just not enough Rugby heroes in the world, but thankfully we have Kat Latham to fill the gap for us with her London Legends series. I can’t say enough about her first book, Knowing the Score, and as a result I’m eager to devour the next book, Playing It Close, when it debuts on April 14th. When a famous rugby player and an unemployed office worker meet in a remote Venezuela locale, both use assumed names to avoid complications. Naturally it’s a surprise to be back in London and have our heroine end up with a job with the rugby team’s official sponsor, but that’s not going to dissuade the hero from pursuing the woman from the hottest night of his life. Thank heavens!
No cover image or ebook version as of yet, but Lauren Dane fans do have a link to the first in her The Hurley Boys series (a spin off of her Delicious series books), The Best Kind of Trouble. This series was picked up by Harlequin and I can tell you why (beyond Lauren Dane being an amazing writer). The Hurley Boys, who we met in the last Delicious book, Lush, are a highly successful rock band who retreat to their lovely family farm to record and be normal when they aren’t surrounded by adoring fans. Since this book has not only the sexy Paddy Hurley but also the naughty librarian with whom he once shared a couple blazing weeks, I am so on board. That I have to wait until August 26th seems cruel, but knowing Lauren Dane it will be totally worth it!
Avon Publishing (which has a terrific reader community for fans, BTW) is offering a wonderful contest for fans of historical romance. Their Historical Romance Spring Giveaway includes four of their recently released paperback books (out as of March 25, 2014): Eloisa James’ Three Weeks with Lady X Julie Anne Long’s Between the Devil and Ian Eversea, Jennifer McQuiston’s Moonlight on My Mind, and Maya Rodale’s Wallflower Gone Wild, as well as a pair of handmade Regency-inspired earrings. A $70 value and all you have to do is fill out the entry form before April 25th for a chance to win!
The Literary Gift Company is a breath of fresh air in terms of the funny (and often delicious) gifts they offer. While I wish I lived in Great Britain (for many reasons) they do ship internationally, so you may want to consider ordering one of their quotable chocolate bars as an award-winning gift (or hell, just for yourself). Whether it’s Mr. Darcy’s famous quote to your main squeeze (“You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”) or Louisa May Alcott’s friendship quote given to your BFF (“Good books, like good friends, are few and chosen; the more select, the more enjoyable.”), there are plenty of delicious options to choose from.
When readers, especially those who love used bookstores or wandering vast stacks in the library, get together, invariably one of them will mention an addiction to the smell of old books. While you can’t deliver the Bodleian Library in a jar, you can give them the next best thing. Frostbeard Studios has a soy candle entitled Old Books – Book Lovers’ Scented Soy Candle which claims to have captured an earthy, papery smell with a hint of must and newsprint. For a mere $15 for a long lasting candle, this affordable option could be what everyone needs to transport themselves for quiet reading via a little olfactory incentive. Shhhhhhhh. (BTW, they also sell Bookstore and Trashy Romance Novel candles as well – I’ll be getting a bundle!)
Just this week, Nora Roberts’ Mackade Brothers series (four books in all) are each on sale in ebook form for only $1.99 each. This Maryland town doesn’t seem big enough to hold four sexy brothers, all of whom are due to succumb to the one woman who can tame their wild ways, but at around 250 pages each, this is a terrific bargain and one to add to your Nora Roberts collection!
I cannot remember a time I was more excited about a $.99 bundle, but the Alphas After Dark: 9 Book Bundle of Sexy Alpha Biker Bad Boys has sent me into the stratosphere! Not only does this have the next book in Kit Rocha‘s dystopian erotic Beyond series, Beyond Solitude (*whimper*) but it also a Roxie Rivera spinoff from Her Russian Protector series (they are like crack cocaine, be warned), Rumpel’s Prize, the eighth book in Marie Hall‘s fairy tale based Kingdom Series, which I love, plus Vivian Arend‘s first book in her wildly successful Takhini Shifters series, Copper King. And that’s just four of them! While not familiar with the other five authors, any one of the above books would be worth $.99, so to get all four of them for that price – with the chance I’ll also find a new author with the other five – is a dazzling bargain.
An impressive boxed set we will have to wait a lot longer for is the Masters of Seduction: Paranormal Boxed Set, which features an actual series written by four outstanding writers – Lara Adrian (of Midnight Breed fame), Donna Grant (Highlanders, anyone?), Laura Wright (love her Bayou Heat novels) and Alexandra Ivy (co-author of those great Bayou Heat novels!). Conceived by the authors together, each book builds upon the other and features the same world populated by Incubi. None of the books have been published prior to this release, so immediate gratification junkies will get the first four books of the series in one shot. At only $.99, that seems a good gamble considering the best-selling chops of these four ladies. The only drawback? It’s not out until July 14th, but I’ve pre-ordered to lock in this amazing price.
That’s it for this week. Happy reading everyone!
Tags: Alexandra Ivy, Alphas After Dark, Bayou Heat, Beyond series, Beyond Solitude, Boxed Set, chocolate bars, Copper King, delicious series, Donna Grant, Highlanders, incubi, Kat Latham, Kingdom series, Kit Rocha, Knowing the Score, Lara Adrian, laura wright, Lauren Dane, Literary Gift Company, London Legends, mackade brothers, Magic of the Nile, Marie Hall, Masters of Seduction, Midnight Breed, Nora Roberts, Playing It Close, Roxie Rivera, Rumpel's Prize, Russian Protector, Takhini Shifters, The Best Kind of Trouble, The Gods of Egypt series, The Hurley Boys, Veronica Scott, Vivian Arend
Categories News and Information
Sunday Reflections: Upcoming Books, Fun Stuff and Great Deals You Might Have Missed, Week of November 24, 2013
Lots of good books both coming out this week as well as long awaited books with release dates announced.
I think Tessa Bailey is one of contemporary romance’s hottest new writers, so I’m excited to stay up until midnight tonight to watch the next book in her awesome Line of Duty series delivered to my Kindle (and write a review for you to be posted on Monday). We’ve already met the hero and heroine in the third book in the series, Officer Off Limits. Since Brent and Hayden’s two best friends are head over heels in love they can’t help seeing a lot of each other, even though each rubs the other the wrong way. Hayden’s got a host of trouble coming from her Park Avenue family who are looking to have her get married to a rich and influential man and the rough and tumble cop who pushes her buttons is also um…pushing her buttons. After a taste of each other, Brent is determined to not let go, but Hayden wonders how on earth this hot affair could have a happy ending?
Don’t you remember my telling you what a phenomenal author Laura Kaye is? Her latest, Hard As It Gets (OMG, the cover!), begins her Hard Ink series as of Tuesday, November 26th, so I’ll be staying up late for this delivery as well. This story, featuring a former military man turned tattoo parlor owner and the daughter of his military commander who has always been off limits, is bound to have her usual blend of heat, great characters, and an emotional story that wins your heart.
Fans of historical romance know that Sarah Maclean is one of the most talented writers of her genre, and they can finally sit back and enjoy her latest book, No Good Duke Goes Unpunished, which will also be published on Tuesday, November 26th. Don’t forget to read (or re-read) the first two books in the Rules of Scoundrels series as this story, featuring the enigmatic club owner Temple, accused of murdering his young beautiful stepmother on the eve of her wedding to his father. The supposedly dead Mara has returned and what sets out to be Temple’s redemption and revenge becomes much more as he realizes that this woman and her situation is far from what he has imagined.
Bella Andre announced the latest in her Sullivan series, It Must Be Your Love, Mia Sullivan’s story. The Sullivan series is (I think) one of the best family contemporary romance series on the market, and the Northwest cousins are proving just as compelling as the original California Sullivans we all initially fell for. Successful realtor Mia Sullivan has been a huge support in her cousin and siblings’ romances, but it’s time for her to face the music – namely the man who she spent a few short days and nights with in his bed, and who she’s never been able to forget. Bumping into rock star Ford Vincent isn’t a shock at her cousin’s wedding, but there is an element of surprise when he seems interested in renewing their sexual relationship. Ford has never been able to forget Mia and despite the fact that he imagines she’s the one thing his fame can’t give him, he feels like he has to try.
It’s the holiday book season and that means there are some great deals on anthologies by terrific authors. A Christmas to Remember, due out on December 3rd, features stories by such contemporary best-sellers as Jill Shalvis, Kristen Ashley, Hope Ramsay, Molly Cannon, and Marilyn Pappano. If that’s not tempting enough, Forever Yours publishing has priced this puppy at only $1.99, so pick it up while you can at this price!
For fans of the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich, Takedown Twenty, was published just a few days ago on November 19th, so get a hilarious dose of Lula and Bob (the golden retriever) right now. Get ready to imagine the next demise of a vehicle driven by Stephanie as she attempts to track down Morelli’s mobster godfather so he doesn’t have to, while also helping the oh-so-sexy Ranger determine who killed an important client’s mother. If you need to do some catching up (or want to fill in your collection of ebooks), you may want to note that several of the earlier books in the series are available for only $2.99 for the ebook editions.
Sophie Barnes‘ next book The Scandal in Kissing an Heir, her second installment in At the Kingsborough Ball series is coming out on December 31st. The next Marquess of Wolvington, Daniel Neville needs to find not only a bride but a woman who will accept his past and Lady Rebecca is tired of the men her greedy aunt and uncle send her way, men who only are interested in her beauty. Scandal threatens to tear these two apart, just when it seems they have the potential for something more.
Sara Humphreys‘ Amoveo Legends series is made up of a string of best-sellers, so I imagine fans are waiting with bated breath for the fifth book in the series, Unclaimed, to come out on December 3rd. When a spirited veternarian from the Timber Wolf clan reluctantly agrees to help doctor the Amoveo prince’s horses, she doesn’t expect the overwhelming attraction to a warrior from the Tiger Clan, but soon finds herself thrown together with him as they have to face danger together. Enter before November 30th to see if you can win a copy.
Talented debut author Kat Latham, of Knowing the Score fame, is having a Rafflecopter giveaway for not just her new Christmas story, contained in the All I’m Asking For Christmas anthology (pre-ordered!!), but also the other Carina Press contemporary holiday anthology, For My Own. Since I’ve yet to read a Carina anthology I haven’t enjoyed, these are both on my December reading (and reviewing) list, but winning them would make great gifts to the romance fiction lovers in my life. Enter before December 1st to see if you can’t win a copy and enjoy great writing with your holiday cheer.
The first in Lara Adrian‘s Midnight Breeds series, A Touch of Midnight, is currently a giveaway on Goodreads, so enter before November 30th for a chance to win. This 184 page novella jumpstarts the other thirteen books to date in the series by focusing on Savannah, a young college woman who can see the past of objects when she touches them. For a three-hundred year old vampire who must revisit painful memories of the past, Gideon finds himself needing Savannah to help him rid the world of a threat he didn’t even realize existed, even if it means shattering the world she knows. If you were smart enough to purchase The Midnight Breeds Series Companion this summer, then this novella is included within it, but otherwise, try to win or buy it on Amazon for only $2.99.
The Smutketeers & Friends (Jayne Rylon, Mari Carr, Carrie Ann Ryan, R. G. Alexander, Eden Bradley, Sidney Bristol, P. G. Forte, and Robin Rotham) have FINALLY released their long-awaited Midnight Ink box set, filled with erotic tales all centered around a New Orleans tattoo shop, and they are having a great $100 Amazon gift card giveaway to celebrate. Enter in the next week to see if you can win this wonderful prize and don’t forget to run to your nearest bookseller to buy the boxed set, which is currently only $.99 at Amazon for over 550 pages of hot romance.
Historical fiction fans light candles to Diana Gabaldon‘s image, as this author of the Outlander series has had thousands of readers fall for Claire and Jamie Fraser. In honor of the upcoming STARZ network release of Outlander as a series, two promotional copies are destined for a lucky winner of the Goodreads giveaway, so considering entering prior to November 30th if you are awaiting heartache, time-travel and kilts with baited breath.
I don’t know what it is about publishing during the holidays, but there always seems to be a few books which focus on the season and feature some adorable dogs and cats on the covers of these anthologies and stand-alones. Since my fur-covered family members are some of things in my life I’m most grateful for, these novels always hit home with me. Two such authors are Sharon Kleve and Jennifer Conner, who are currently hosting a blog tour contest where readers can enter to win copies of their books – Halo’s Wish, Brenda’s Christmas Desire, Central Bark at Christmas, and Christmas Gift that Keeps Wagging – as well as a $25 gift card, so take a look and see if someone small and furry is underneath your tree this Christmas. Head to any and all of the blogs on the tour before 11/30 for your chance to enter!
Elizabeth Hoyt’s tale of a fevered heir to an Earldom, returned from the dead, is the fourth in her Legend of the Four Soldiers series. To Desire a Devil pitches the savage man, demented from his captivity and the well-bred niece of the present (and highly suspicious Earl) as an unlikely couple, but historical romance readers can attempt to win a copy of this highly rated final book via the Goodreads giveaway closing on December 1st.
It’s always great to see historical romance that tackles a less-frequented period of time, so Bitter Spirits by paranormal/urban fantasy writer Jenn Bennett is worth a look for those readers who love the 1920s. Featuring a hexed bootlegger and a beautiful medium, this first installment in Bennett’s Roaring Twenties series is currently being offered in a Goodreads giveaway for people who enter before Saturday, November 30th. Considering this novel is not due to be published until early January 2014, this could be a great opportunity to get a preview, and the second novel, focusing on an archaeologist and museum curator looks to equally bring the period to life. Since the series is published by the Berkley Sensation line, I predict strong writing and hot love scenes to be contained within these covers. Bring it on!
I know you can tell I’ve got holiday books on the brain (I’m gearing up for my stretch where I try to review a holiday themed book for every day of December!) but I for one appreciated Harlequin’s adorable little video featuring some of their featured Christmas books for this year. You’ll definitely be seeing a few of these on this blog over the next few weeks (and who knew Gingerbread men as the various hero’s occupations would be so adorable?).
If you have a spare $1000 or so and love to show your book love via your shoes, I suggest you head straight to the Charlotte Olympia website and check out the Matilda shoes, part of the Fall 2013 collection. With stunning leather tooling covering the leather upper and a six inch heel (and one inch platform), the heels are designed to look like book spines, complete with the words “Once Upon a Time” and “Happily Ever After”. I think there are plenty of romance authors who would look great wearing these on the dais while answering panel questions!
Now that the weather is getting colder, women are interpreting “no shave November” with the advent of opaque tights, but you don’t have to settle for solid colors. Romantics and fashionistas (or fictionistas) alike can indulge their love of the written word by wearing Love Text Print Tights from TrendyLegs. For under $40, you can sport the wikipedia text for the definitions of “Love” and “Passion” around your thighs and calves (and think about who you might like to get closer and read it out loud to you)!
Historical fans might want to download Harlequin Historical’s An Inconvenient Duchess by Christine Merrill as it’s available for free right now. Featuring a young woman compromised and married to an enigmatic duke who then promptly abandons her, this heroine determines that she is going to make this marriage work, no matter what. The first in Merrill’s The Radwell’s series, this is a good way to sample this series.
His Wicked Games by Ember Casey (the first book in His Wicked Games series) is also available for free right now, and readers who enjoy fairy tale retellings will want to tackle this Beauty and the Beast inspired story. When a woman determined to save her arts center breaks into a cold billionaire’s estate, she gets way more than she bargained for, particularly regarding his wager on how she can save what she wants more than anything. The only problem? When what she wants begins to change…
Also currently free is Mari Carr and Lexxie Couper‘s Misplaced Princess, the first in their Foreign Affairs series about men or women who leave their country and find the love of their life. Annie Prince impetuously flew halfway around the world to Australia to meet in person a sexy cowboy she met online…only to find out he did the same thing and is now in NYC. Fortunately for her, his twin brother Hunter stayed behind, and while he thought his brother was crazy, one look at Annie and he’s finding it hard to keep his hands (and other body parts) off her.
That’s it for this week. Have a terrific Thanksgiving and happy reading!!
Tags: A Christmas to Remember, A Touch of Midnight, All I'm Asking For, Amoveo Legends, An Inconvenient Duchess, Anthology, Asking for Trouble, at the kingsborough ball, bella andre, Bitter Spirits, books, Brenda's Christmas Desire, Carrie Ann Ryan, Central Bark at Christmas, Charlotte Olympia, Christine Merrill, Christmas Gift Keeps Wagging, Diana Gabaldon, Eden Bradley, Elizabeth Hoyt, Ember Casey, For My Own, Foreign Affairs, Halo's Wish, Hard As It Gets, Hard Ink, Harlequin, His Wicked Games, holiday books, Hope Ramsay, It Must Be Your Love, Janet Evanovich, Jayne Rylon, Jenn Bennett, Jennifer Conner, Jill Shalvis, Kat Latham, Kristen Ashley, Lara Adrian, Laura Kaye, Legend of the Four Soldiers, Lexxie Couper, Line of Duty, Love Text Print Tights, Mari Carr, Midnight Breeds, Midnight Ink, Misplaced Princess, No Good Duke Goes Unpunished, Outlander, P. G. Forte, R. G. Alexander, Roaring Twenties series, Robin Rotham, Sara Humphreys, Sarah MacLean, Sharon Kleve, shoes, Sidney Briston, sophie barnes, Stephanie Plum, Sullivan series, Takedown Twenty, Tessa Bailey, The Scandal in Kissing an Heir, To Desire a Devil, TrendyLegs, Unclaimed, video
Pamela Clare‘s latest edition to her romantic suspense/military romance I-Team series, Striking Distance, came out on November 5th and early sales show readers are snatching it up. Fans of Maya Banks and M. L. Buchman might find themselves enjoying this series which combines major romantic angst with sensual characters and adrenaline-inducing suspense. The Kindle edition is also only $4.79 right now, so this could be a good time to try Clare if you haven’t already.
Fans of Carrie Ann Ryan‘s erotic paranormal Dante’s Circle Series get more for their money with her latest installment in the anthology Ever After, published on November 9th. With the novella “His Choice” listed as #3.5 in the Dante’s Circle collection, Ryan leads off this grouping of paranormal novellas, all of which tie into other successful series by authors Marie Harte, Rebecca Royce, Lia Davis and Leia Shaw. As always, quality anthologies are a great way to see if there are other authors and series that might interest you, particularly when the book sticks within the same genre.
Historical readers who enjoy Elizabeth Boyle‘s Rhymes With Love series, need to pre-order the next book in that series, If Wishes Were Earls, since it’s not only ready to order for a December 31st delivery, but the paperback version is currently discounted to $3.77. Harriet Hathaway has always wanted the Earl of Roxley and is convinced he will propose to her after they share a passionate interlude. But all signs point to him as ready to propose to another which might break Harriet’s heart if she didn’t see the emotion in his eyes every time he looks at her.
I’m always a little leery of romances involving Native American elements as you know, but I’d be willing to give Genevieve Graham‘s Somewhere to Dream (the third in her McDonnells series) a try, particularly since all her books are so well rated. Luckily for me, I might actually win a copy, since this novel about a young woman adopted as a child by the Cherokee and a captured man who hates Indians looks very interesting. Enter on the book’s Goodreads giveaway page before November 20th to see if you can win a copy.
The wonderful blog Hesperia Loves Books (you’ll remember her outstanding Breast Cancer fundraiser I featured in October) is promoting several authors with yummy boxed sets with a “Hoppin’ the Boxes” terrific giveaway. Enter the contest before November 19th and you could win not just eight boxed sets but also a gift card to your favorite ebook retailer!
Paranormal romance readers love Lara Adrian‘s Midnight Breed series (and who can blame them) but do you think they know that Adrian has a terrific companion guide to the series out? The Midnight Breed Series Companion came out this summer to good reviews, but it’s now also available via a Goodreads giveaway, so head over there before November 20th to enter and see if you can win a copy. Don’t want to wait? The book’s Kindle version is only $3.99.
I loved Zoe Archer‘s first book in her Nemesis, Unlimited series, and am therefore waiting with baited breath for the next book, Dangerous Seduction, about this group of undercover agents determined to right society’s wrongs. Luckily for me, this book featuring an aristocratic agent and the working class woman fighting for the rights of copper miners is going to be out in a mere eight days. Interested readers might want to head over and also enter the Goodreads giveaway before the deadline (and publication date) of November 26th.
I’m not really sure why, but the U.S. Postal Service is issuing awesome Harry Potter stamps featuring stills from the original movie. You can order them now (and I will) because who wouldn’t love a frenetic Hermione raising her hand on their holiday card? Seriously, who?
The 21st Annual Award for Bad Sex in Literature (billed as “Britain’s Most Dreaded Prize”) will take place on December 3rd and you have got to read some of these entries! Sponsored by Literary Review magazine, these tireless men and women comb otherwise good books for really awful descriptions of sex. While I’m sure plenty of literary authors and editors disparage romance, the fact remains that writing good sex isn’t easy, even for otherwise great writers – it’s a skill that not everyone has. Please note a commonality is always that the writers who make the final cut are usually 1) men and 2) don’t seem to understand that 20 minutes of clitoral stimulation is the average for a woman to achieve orgasm. Just sayin’.
Prologue Tea Company is a line of teas based on classic literature, just perfect for your favorite book lover, English teacher or librarian. Delicious combinations along with a retro package design make this an easy and popular gift for the holidays. With the opening lines of the novel featured on the back of the canister, this could make waiting for your water to boil go a lot faster. Designed by graphic artist Flora Chan there is still no word on where to buy this beautiful product, so I’m hoping this isn’t just an intellectual exercise but an actual potential present.
Jennifer McQuiston (love that name) is known for her historical romances with more than a little romantic comedy in them, so fans or curious readers will be pleased to know that her book, What Happens in Scotland, is on sale for $.99 right now on Amazon. Billed by many reviewers as an 1842 version of The Hangover, the book is praised for its lighthearted banter between a beautiful widow and the second son of an Earl who wake up in small Scottish village in the same bed – and the heroine is wearing a wedding ring.
Lara Adrian’s Heart of the Hunter, previously published under her other pseudonum of Tina St. John, is now out in ebook and available for only $.99. Considering that this book is the first in her Dragon Chalice trilogy, it’s a nice way to ease into this series filled with knights and dark magic. Paranormal and/or historical romance readers may want to consider trying this collection by sampling this first book.
Paranormal suspense writer Maggie Shayne‘s short Dream of Danger is currently free on Amazon, which gives readers an opportunity to see in person the tensions between blind self-help writer Rachel De Luca and Detective Mason Brown, both brought together in Shayne’s first suspense novel, Sleep with the Lights On, when Rachel undergoes a cornea transplant and begins to see visions. When Rachel distrusts her assistant’s new boyfriend, her instincts go on high alert when the woman doesn’t show up to Thanksgiving dinner, and Rachel is forced to turn to the man who harbors secrets keeping them apart, Mason Brown. With the first book only $.99, this short free, and the second full-length novel, Wake to Darkness, due out on November 26th (and available as a giveaway on a Goodreads contest), you could be enjoying these books for a pittance while your turkey roasts in the oven.
Regency fans ready to take out their Christmas decorations will enjoy the deal they can get on the anthology, A Grosvenor Square Christmas, featuring short stories from historical romance powerhouses like Shana Galen, Anna Campbell, Vanessa Kelly and Kate Nobel. And the best part? It’s available for free right now. Happy Christmas, indeed!
We just celebrated Veteran’s Day this past week, so what better way to consider the sacrifice and work of our nation’s heroes than reading military romance? Considering that there is a fantastic new box collection, Uniform Desires, with 625 pages of stories from authors like Sharon Hamilton, Melissa Schroeder, Elle James, Delilah Devlin, J. M. Madden, and Cat Johnson for only $.99 it’s practically unpatriotic not to buy it.
Happy Reading this week!
Tags: Bad Sex in Literature Award, Carrie Ann Ryan, Dangerous Seduction, Dante's Circle, Dragon Chalice series, Dream of Danger, Elizabeth Boyle, Ever After, Flora Chan, Genevieve Graham, giveaway, Goodreads, Harry Potter, Heart of the Hunter, Hesperia Loves Books, His Choice, I-Team, If Wishes Were Earls, Jennifer McQuiston, Lara Adrian, Literary Review magazine, M. L. Buchman, Maggie Shayne, Maya Banks, McDonnells series, Nemesis Unlimited series, Novella, Pamela Clare, Rhymes with Love, Somewhere to Dream, stamps, Striking Distance, tea, The Midnight Breed Series Companion, USPS, What Happens in Scotland, Zoe Archer
Sunday Reflections: Upcoming Books, Fun Stuff and Deals You Might Have Missed, Week Ending September 8th
Upcoming Books (and some Great Deals)
Fans of Lynsay Sands‘ Argeaneau Vampires series should take special note that Amazon has the paper version of the next book – One Lucky Vampire – deeply discounted at only $4.79 for this pre-order which will debut on September 24th. With the Kindle price above $6 it would be well worth getting the print copy for this latest addition to the long-running paranormal series.
Also part of this discounted group of upcoming novels is Julia Quinn‘s The Sum of All Kisses, the third book in her Smythe-Smith Quartet. This tale of an estranged couple reunited through circumstances only to find that the fire between them still burns hot is already a best-seller in the historical romance category on Amazon, even though it won’t be published until October 29th. Maybe it’s not just Quinn fans but bargain hunters snapping it up since this book is also priced at $4.79 right now.
Another great writer in the paranormal romance category is Gena Showalter and her Otherworld Assassins series (which I haven’t tackled) is now added to my to-read list with the soon-to-be-published book in the series, Black and Blue. The second novel in a series focusing on a paranormal black ops group and the romantic interests who bring them into the light, this book also bears the fantastic price of $4.79 for the print version, but you won’t get it until it’s release date of October 22nd.
If you are like me, you love Nora Roberts, particularly when she crosses over to the dark side. As of October 29th and just in time for Halloween, Roberts debuts the first book in her Cousins O’Dwyer series, Dark Witch, featuring an American who finds relatives and possibly the love of her life in Ireland only to have to face sinister forces determined to undermine her chance at happiness. Sadly this book isn’t part of the discounted pre-orders, and with the Kindle version at $7.99 versus the paperback price of $9.99, e-reader owners will save a little money.
I’m always wistful that there aren’t more historical romances set in the early twentieth century since it’s such an interesting time period, so I was excited to see the Goodreads giveaway of Kate Furnivall‘s Shadows on the Nile combining family secrets, impoverished aristocrats and sinister Egyptian artifacts in these early decades. Enter by September 15th to see if you can win a copy before its official release date of October 1st.
Lara Adrian‘s Midnight Breed series definitely has a big following, so fans might enjoy trying to win a copy of the prequel novella, A Touch of Midnight, featuring Gideon and Savannah’s story, as well as also winning some featured swag from the author! Enter the Goodreads giveaway by September 13th. The series now also has a companion book detailing the characters and world of the series, The Midnight Breed Companion, which you can also win if you enter before September 10th.
Mary Balogh‘s The Survivors Club series partners historical romance with damaged heroes and the women who finally pull them into the world, and the second full-length book, The Arrangement, is no exception. Published on August 27th, this book features a war hero battling his demons who is moved to a marriage of convenience when a woman standing up for him has her safety and reputation threatened. Enter the Goodreads giveaway before September 10th to see if you can win this novel.
It seems to be a fact of the romance world that – like Dukes in historical romances – there can never be too many billionaires. J. S. Scott is hosting a giveaway of a collection of four novels in her self-published The Billionaire’s Obsession series. Enter by September 11th to win. This collection could easily go in the “Great Deals” section as well, since all four books can be had for a mere $.99 for the ebook collection, so if you don’t win, it’s hardly a splurge to enjoy them!
A lot of romance readers also love mystery novels, particularly those with a strong romantic element, and Tasha Alexander‘s Lady Emily series is one of my top picks in this category. With the eighth book debuting on October 1st, Behind the Shattered Glass, we have the chance to see Lady Emily and her oh-so-sexy spy husband Colin, use their sleuthing partnership to see who murdered a Marquess on the cusp of his engagement. If you can’t wait for publication (or simply want to see if you can get it earlier), do yourself a favor and enter the giveaway before September 12th. (By the way, did you ever wonder about Emily and Colin’s wedding? Enjoy the free short story online which serves as a prequel to Tears of the Pearl.)
You know how I think the Good Men Project is a gold mine of great writing, and the post I read this week – Dads and Bras by William Lucas Walker – not only had tears running down my face from laughing at how difficult it is for a wonderful dad to support his blooming daughter in selecting foundation undergarments, but it simultaneously renewed my faith in smart parents who realize that the community of adults surrounding their children will enrich that child’s life in all ways. And yes, Mr. Walker, Spanx is a bizarre name for underwear, when you really think about it!
I think the first couple who I adored seeing live happily ever after (with all the highs and lows that this involves) was Anne and Gilbert Blythe, who were clearly meant for each other the minute Gilbert teased Anne to breaking a slate over his head in the one-room schoolhouse on Prince Edward Island. Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables series is legendary children’s literature, and I consider her an author who taught me that good literature has plenty of detail to show that ordinary life (and love is extraordinary). Enjoy this trip down memory lane as The Hairpin blog celebrates 105 years of book covers for this iconic novel.
Author Damon Suede has a fantastic post about the history of tropes in literature which for romance readers is fascinating – how many of us skim the publisher blurb to determine if this a “secret baby” or “friends to lovers” novel before buying it? In his post at Romance University, Suede explains to us that the use of tropes to communicate with readers or listeners goes all the way back to the ancient Greeks who knew way ahead of time how things were going to end (and in their stories, it was usually badly!).
That’s it for this week (the Good Deals were laced throughout), so I hope you have a terrific week of reading! Enjoy!
Tags: A Touch of Midnight, Amazon Kindle, Anne of Green Gables, Argeneau vampires, Behind the Shattered Glass, Black and Blue, bra shopping, Cousin's O'Dwyer, Damon Suede, Dark Witch, Gena Showalter, Good Men Project, Goodreads, Greek Myths, J. S. Scott, Julia Quinn, Kate Furnivall, Lady Emily, Lara Adrian, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Lynsay Sands, Mary Balogh, Midnight Breed, Nora Roberts, One Lucky Vampire, Otherworld Assassins, romance fiction, Romance University, Shadows on the Nile, Smythe-Smith Quartet, Tasha Alexander, Tears of the Pearl prequel, The Arrangement, The Billionaire's Obsession, The Midnight Breed Companion, The Sum of All Kisses, The Survivor's Club, tropes, William Lucas Walker
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Home > Things to Do > Hunting > Hunting in Canada
Important information about hunting in Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan has an automated hunting, angling and trapping licence (HAL) system in place. Licences are available online any time, through private issuers, Ministry of Environment and select provincial park offices, or by phone at 1-855-848-4773. For information on hunting licence fees, firearm regulations and season dates, visit saskatchewan.ca/hunting.
Purchasing A Licence:
Anglers will need to create a Hunting, Angling and Trapping (HAL) identification to purchase a licence. This a one-time requirement. You can purchase your licence through any one of the following methods:
1. The online hunting, angling and trapping (HAL) licencing system
2. Through private issuers, Ministry of Environment and select Provincial Park offices;
3. By phone at 1-855-848-4773 (8 a.m. – 9 p.m. Saskatchewan time)
All hunters (U.S., Canadian non-resident, Saskatchewan resident)
What are the season dates for hunting big game and birds in Saskatchewan?
The season dates shown below are an approximate guideline only and vary within certain areas of the province. For exact dates, as well as licence and certificate fees, please view the latest Hunters' and Trappers' Guide.
White-tailed deer – September to December
Moose – October to December
Black bear – April to June/ September to October
What are Saskatchewan’s big game records?
Saskatchewan has produced more huge bucks than anywhere else in North America and is considered a premiere destination for white-tailed deer. Populations of black bear in northern Saskatchewan and moose also make the province an attractive place for big game hunters.
White-tailed deer (typical) – 214 4/8
White-tailed deer (non-typical) – 265 3/8
Black bear – 22 11/16
Moose – 233 6/8
A full list of official big game records can be found at the Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation.
Non-resident hunters (U.S. and international)
What big game species can I hunt?
Non-residents may hunt moose, white-tailed deer and black bear with the services of an outfitter. Saskatchewan has hundreds of licenced outfitters, ranging from guided hunts for game birds or white-tailed deer to luxury fly-in lodges in the remote northern wilderness.
How do I choose the best outfitters to hunt with?
Saskatchewan’s licenced outfitters offer expertly guided hunts and are here to make your hunting adventure a successful and memorable experience. Tourism Saskatchewan’s Hunting Outfitters page gives you quick access to our database of licenced outfitters.
Entering Canada from another country
What type of documentation do I need to enter Canada?
Visitors to Canada must present valid identification upon entering the country. For U.S. residents, Canada Border Services Agency recommends a passport, because it is the only reliable and universally accepted travel and identification document for the purpose of international travel. U.S. hunters are required to produce their passport or other approved secure document (NEXUS card, FAST card or Secure Certificate of Indian Status) when re-entering the United States.
NEXUS program members can present their membership card when entering by land, air or marine modes. Members of the FAST program may present FAST cards when entering by land or marine modes only.
Without proper identification, visitors may be denied entry at the border. For more information, visit the Customs Information section of our website.
Importing Firearms
All weapons – including firearms, mace, tear gas and pepper spray – must be declared to customs upon arrival. Visitors who are at least 18 years old may import ordinary rifles and shotguns for hunting, sporting use, competition, movement in transit, or for protection against wildlife in remote areas (excluding National Parks). The importation is allowed, provided the customs is satisfied with the circumstances of the importation. Under Canadian law, visitors are not allowed to import firearms and defensive sprays for personal protection.
If you were born after January 1, 1971, you are required to provide proof that you have successfully completed the Saskatchewan firearm safety/hunter education training or a similar recognized course from another jurisdiction before you can buy, hold, or apply for a hunting or trapping licence. If requested to do so by the licence vendor, you must produce a valid certificate or you will be denied a licence.
In addition, all hunters under the age of 18 must have a minor’s firearm licence. Applications can be obtained by calling the Canadian Firearms Centre at 1-800-731-4000.
For a list of prohibited and restricted firearms, visit the Rules and Regulations page.
Can I bring my hunting dog into Canada?
Your hunting dog can enter Canada with you, provided that you have a valid rabies vaccination certificate. The certificate must include the following information:
Information that clearly identifies the animal (breed, colour, weight, etc.)
The name of the licenced rabies vaccine used (trade name), serial number and duration of validity (up to 3 years). If a validity date does not appear on the certificate, then it will be considered a one-year vaccine
There is no wait time after the date of vaccination to bring your hunting dog into the country. Rabies vaccination or certification is not required for dogs less than three (3) months of age.
Weather in Saskatchewan
Weather information and alerts
Up-to-date weather information and weather alerts are available from Environment Canada’s weather page.
Seasonal Averages
Saskatchewan summers are usually warm and dry. High temperatures range from 15 C (60 F) in May to the mid-30s C (90-95 F) in July and August. Nights tend to be cool. Winter weather (snow, freezing temperatures) usually starts in November and temperatures generally remain below the freezing point. Milder spring weather usually begins by April.
Where can I purchase maps and aerial photos?
Topographic maps, aerial photographs and bathometric maps can be purchased from Information Services Corporation. Visit ISC’s Maps and Photos page for information on ordering.
Important websites for further reference
Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment
Canadian Wildlife Service / Environment Canada
Saskatchewan Outfitters Association
Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation
Canadian Firearms Program
Information Services Corporation (maps)
Hunting Rules and Regulations
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5 styles,
Gauge Head Standard
Alexander Tarbeev
Gauge Pro has larger character set and different priceGauge Pro has larger character set and different price
The Pro versions include about 600 ligatures, alternative numerals, fractions, swashes, and ornamentsThe Pro versions include about 600 ligatures, alternative numerals, fractions, swashes, and ornaments
Alexander Tarbeev is Russian type designer, graphic artist and tutor. He graduated from Moscow Electrotechnical Institute of Communication and Moscow Polygraphic Institute, and had been employed by type department of NII Polygrafmash. 1989–1997 Tarbeev worked as type designer at ParaGraph. Alexander Tarbeev is professor and head of type design department at Moscow State University for Printing Arts. He also taught at British Higher School of Art and Design, and Moscow State University, Faculty of Journalism.Alexander Tarbeev is Russian type designer, graphic artist and tutor. He graduated from Moscow Electrotechnical Institute of Communication and Moscow Polygraphic Institute, and had been employed by type department of NII Polygrafmash. 1989–1997 Tarbeev worked as type designer at ParaGraph. Alexander Tarbeev is professor and head of type design department at Moscow State University for Printing Arts. He also taught at British Higher School of Art and Design, and Moscow State University, Faculty of Journalism.
The typeface, originally named Afisha Serif, was commissioned by eponymous publishing house in 2005, and has been used in Afisha, Afisha Mir, Afisha Eda magazines, as well as books and tour guides. Later versions of Afisha Serif included extended Latin set, Caption and Display styles. The release of Gauge Type Family includes significantly more styles and glyphs. The Pro versions of Gauge Caption, Text, Head, Display include about 600 ligatures, alternative numerals, fractions, swashes, and ornaments, as well as expanded set of glyphs for most Latin and Cyrillic-based writing systems, e.g. Abkhaz, Bamana, Fula, Kildin Sámi, Vietnamese. The typeface, originally named Afisha Serif, was commissioned by eponymous publishing house in 2005, and has been used in Afisha, Afisha Mir, Afisha Eda magazines, as well as books and tour guides. Later versions of Afisha Serif included extended Latin set, Caption and Display styles. The release of Gauge Type Family includes significantly more styles and glyphs. The Pro versions of Gauge Caption, Text, Head, Display include about 600 ligatures, alternative numerals, fractions, swashes, and ornaments, as well as expanded set of glyphs for most Latin and Cyrillic-based writing systems, e.g. Abkhaz, Bamana, Fula, Kildin Sámi, Vietnamese.
The typeface, originally named Afisha Serif, was commissioned by eponymous publishing house in 2005, and has been used in Afisha, Afisha Mir, Afisha Eda magazines, as well as books and travel guides. Later versions of Afisha Serif included extended Latin set, Caption and Display styles.
The release of Gauge Type Family includes significantly more styles and glyphs.
The Pro versions of Gauge Caption, Text, Head, Display include about 600 ligatures, alternative numerals, fractions, swashes, and ornaments, as well as expanded set of glyphs for most Latin and Cyrillic-based writing systems, e.g. Abkhaz, Bamana, Fula, Kildin Sámi, Vietnamese.
Specimen (PDF, 4 MB)
Small capitals, case sensitive forms, standard ligatures, proportional oldstyle figures, numerator, slashed zero, proportional lining figures
Afrikaans, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, Gaelic (Irish), Galician, German, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Kurdish (lat), Latvian, Lithuanian, Mongolian (lat), Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovene, Spain, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Uzbek (lat)
Alexander Tarbeev is Russian type designer, graphic artist and tutor. He graduated from Moscow Electrotechnical Institute of Communication (1979) and Moscow Polygraphic Institute (1988), and had been employed by type department of NII Polygrafmash (Institute for Scientific Research of Printing Machinery, Moscow). 1989–1997 Tarbeev worked as type designer at ParaGraph.
Alexander Tarbeev is professor and head of type design department at Moscow State University for Printing Arts (currently branch of Moscow Polytechnic University). He also taught at British Higher School of Art and Design (Moscow), and Moscow State University, Faculty of Journalism.
Typefaces by Alexander Tarbeev: BetinaScript, BigCity, Dagger, DenHaag, Diderot, Gauge, Jakob, Lissitzky, Montblanc, Matterhorn, Pankov, Pollock, Smarty, Tauern. He also designed typefaces for Russian magazines Afisha, Bolshoi Gorod, Kak, Smart Money, Ezhenedelny Zhurnal, Russian L’Officiel, newspapers Vedomosti, Noviye Izvestiya.
Cyrillic versions of ITC Garamond, Friz Quadrata, ITC Benguiat Gothic, FF Beowolf, Brioni, Irma.
Codepage
Full codepage
Font in use
The typeface, originally named Afisha Serif, was commissioned by eponymous publishing house in 2005, and has been used in Afisha, Afisha Mir, Afisha Eda magazines, as well as books and tour guides. The release of Gauge Type Family includes significantly more styles and glyphs.
Gauge, the release of which we have been preparing for the last two years, first appeared in Afisha magazine in 2006, under the name Afisha Serif. Ilya Ruderman, Yury Ostromentsky, Daria Yarzhambek, and Mikhail Smetana, who all worked in Afisha company, talked to the designer of Gauge, Alexander Tarbeev about the typeface and its history.
We start a new section of our Journal — the Manual. We want to explain the main terms, tools, and elements of typography — specifically, typography in Russian. Our goal is to give the most comprehensive and up-to-date information, for the designer to make an informed decision on any type issue. Chapter One is Punctuation, our first topic is The Dash.
Why might one font by the same designer be priced 2 or 3 times higher than another? How is a price for a font style calculated? Why are some fonts so expensive?
Free Flight, a catalogue for the eponymous exhibition at Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow, Russia) has been awarded by The Society of Typographic Arts. The book, designed by Konstantin Eremenko, employs several styles of the Gauge Type Family. We asked Konstantin about his criteria for choosing a typeface, how his impression of Gauge has changed over the years, and the importance of Alexander Tarbeev’s workshop.
Angle brackets and <> are not the same thing; brackets happen to be caps — though they are never italic (but don’t quote us on that!). Please welcome the second part of our Manual.
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Children amongst dead in Manchester terror attack
Nairobi mall: 'All Muslims leave' order... then gang target ... - dailymail.co.uk
Bomber also dead at Ariana Grande concert - government was apparently aware of bombers identity and terrorist links
by Nick Bishop
23 May 2017 13:40 Updated on 23 May 2017 14:50
Video of the Day: Blasting News
Worst attack since 2005 7/7 bombing
As concert goers were enjoying an Ariana Grande concert last night at Manchester Arena there came a loud bang that at first many people including the media thought were large balloons popping. Sadly they were wrong as one punter described being blown off his feet as he stood talking to an employee of the Manchester Arena.
As he got to his feet, he released he was ok but all around him were bodies, some dead and some obviously in need of medical attention. The gentleman in question stayed behind to help the victims of the attack which had the hallmarks of a terrorist attack and as time went on that has now been confirmed, with ISIS claiming the attack.
Why was security so lacking?
Why was the security at the Manchester Arena last night so poor? The fact that no one was searched either by hand or electronically before the concert goers were allowed into the concert hall is something that will be discussed for a while one would imagine. Why are our public areas like shopping centres, concert halls, sports stadiums etc so lacking in the means of detecting would-be suicide bombers?
If you think back to the attacks on Paris when Germany played France, the security that night was of a far better standard than we apparently have here.
Why are we not having the same security put in place like we do at airports when we know Islamic State or Al Qaeda operatives are lurking to do us harm? Israel is a good example of a nation hit time and again by terrorist attacks and they have in place the most rigid human and electronic security to stop such attacks. It is about time we did the same in this country because whether we agree with the term War on terror or not, we are at war and we have been since 9/11 so its about time our security was beefed up.
Children among dead
Children are amongst the dead and many people are still missing in the aftermath of the attack with many politicians voicing their shock and anger. Jeremy Corbyn said he was horrified and his thoughts were with the dead and injured. Theresa May, who called a meeting of COBRA, said they knew who the bomber was that was killed in the attack and were investigating if the bomber was part of a wider attack.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer and his boss Donald Trump hobnobbing with leaders in the Middle East said their support and thoughts were with the victims of the attack.
Islamic State on the run but not defeated
Islamic State faces defeat on the battlefield in Syria and Iraq; in the conventional sense of a military battle, that does not mean they cannot launch or plan or inspire attacks against their enemies.
Whether the attacks are pre-planned or by inspiration, the result is the same for the victims of this evil.
In actual fact, Islamic State becoming a more shadowy organisation like their counterparts Al Qaeda, which actually makes them more dangerous as they are operating in the shadows.
Islamic State or Al Qaeda, unlike the IRA who in many places gave advanced warning of attacks, do not operate like that.
The modus operandi of these groups is to cause as much carnage as possible and they achieved that last night in Manchester.
We are fighting a vicious enemy and whoever takes over in 10 Downing Street after June 8th had better be aware of this for all our sakes.
Nick Bishop
Have been a freelance writer for a long while and also write sci - fi and poetry. My first publshed book 'Politically Defectness' under my author name Nick Lee is out now.
Read more on the same topic from Nick Bishop:
Jeremy Corbyn is awarded an honour from the Beard Liberation Front Gareth Bale: Possibly on his way out of Real Madrid Is the legacy of Princess Diana going to be made alive again by Meghan Markle
Michael Basger
Follow michael on Facebook Follow michael on Twitter Follow michael on Linkedin
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NBA Free Agency: Lakers possible FA targets including Rival Player, Marcus Morris
JJ Redick says Suns pursued him in free agency following the ... - chatsports.com
After the blockbuster trade between LA Lakers and New Orleans Hornets, Lakers still have space to add pivotal players on their roster.
by Topher Pimienta (article) and Parasshuram Shalgar (video)
18 June 2019 15:56 Updated on 19 June 2019 17:40
Lakers targeting Kemba Walker, Kyrie Irving after Anthony Davis trade - Video
What was shocking to many was not a surprise to NBA experts. Shannon Sharpe, who is “confidant” of LeBron James sent out hints and signals weeks before the trade. Anthony Davis, who is considered a once in a lifetime player got his wish which is to be traded somewhere else. Luckily, it’s with the storied franchise, Los Angeles Lakers.
For those who aren’t updated, Los Angeles sent out their young core which consists of Lonzo Ball, Josh Hart and versatile forward Brandon Ingram in exchange of Anthony Davis and future draft picks.
With that said, the Lakers have a little to no chance in signing up another max player. The only way for them to be a contender is to test their luck in free agency. There are plenty of gems in the free agency market that can help their championship goal. One of them is a familiar face who knows exactly what it takes to be a champion and what it means to be a Laker, Trevor Ariza.
Trevor Ariza and JJ Redick
Prior to being traded to the Washington Wizards, the 14 year grizzled veteran was targeted by the Lakers.
Ariza is the perfect fit to a LeBron James led the team. A dependable 3 point shooter and lock down defender. The former Duke standout and one of the greatest shooters ever in the game JJ Redick is also a possibility. Currently, he is with the surging Philadelphia 76ers. JJ might not be a two-way player like Ariza, but his efficiency and scoring is what the Lakers need beyond their one-two punch.
Two Way Players
Another name which will be definitely a surprise to Laker fans is their rival from the Boston Celtics, Marcus Morris. Mooks already in his last year with the C’s and there are no confirmation yet if he’s going to resign. The versatile scoring-machine is as tough as they come and a prolific scorer off the bench. The pesky but ultra reliable Patrick Beverly is another vet that they can depend on.
Although he is known as a defensive specialist, Beverly worked his way to become a decent long range shooter.
Stretch Forwards
Bojan Bogdanovic showed last season what he’s capable of. Considered as a versatile forward, Bojan is a nightmare to defend. For all the championship team that LeBron is in, there’s always an uncanny forward to back up the King. A spot up shooter and a lethal stretch four by the name of Nikola Mirotic is also feasible.
Floor spacing is what the Lakers need and that’s what Nikola Mirotic will give. The Spanish-Montenegrin is as efficient as they come and it doesn’t take long for him to catch on fire.
The Lakers are all about banners and championships and the front office knows that they have a small window to do it. Considering LeBron at his age, eventually, father time will catch him. With Anthony Davis already in LaLa land, they need to at least land another player who can help them chase another ring.
Topher Pimienta
Iḿ just a regular guy from the mountains who loves playing basketball and listening to old school rock. To this day, I still believe that Michael Jordan is the greatest of all time in the game!.
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Read more on the same topic from Topher Pimienta:
Eminem’s New Album ‘Music To Be Murdered By’, A Masterpiece NBA Trade Rumors : Lakers Looking To Add Veterans Morris, Bertans Los Angeles Lakers: Championship or bust
Parasshuram Shalgar
Follow emilio on Linkedin
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What do I need to know?
Regardless of where you are in the world, understanding copyright law can be exhausting. For example, the first chapter of the U.S. Copyright Law—which simply defines basic legal language—totals more than 45,000 words. That’s one chapter!
And if the government and copyright lawyers are the only ones who truly understand the minutiae within, it’s easy to understand why disputes occur. The law is extensive. It’s confusing. And for churches, schools or organisations, a seemingly honest error or omission can be both embarrassing and time-consuming. At the same time, the law seeks fairness and protection for all parties.
How does my church or organisation protect itself?
First off, by honouring the copyright laws that apply in your country. CCLI can help. With the proper copyright licences, churches, organisations and schools are legally covered to show films, play or perform music, download songs or lyrics, and copy, reproduce, and distribute the words and images contained within. All the while saving administrative time, expense and effort.
We should underscore that CCLI doesn’t write or enforce copyright law. Yet as our customers further embrace technology to share the power of music, film, words and images, CCLI ensures they are covered under the law.
Ensure you're properly covered.
Learn how to protect your work.
How can CCLI ensure you're covered?
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Federer eyeing another miracle in Melbourne
Martyn Herman
(Reuters) - Roger Federer continues to defy the ageing process but even the great Swiss will know the window of opportunity to add to his Grand Slam haul is growing narrower every passing month.
FILE PHOTO: Tennis - ATP Finals - The O2, London, Britain - November 14, 2019 Switzerland's Roger Federer in action during his group stage match against Serbia's Novak Djokovic Action Images via Reuters/Tony O'Brien/File Photo
Yet when the 38-year-old begins his 21st Australian Open campaign next week only the foolhardy would write off his chances of another Melbourne miracle.
Federer is bidding for a seventh Australian Open title and a record-extending 21st Grand Slam trophy but will require a near-perfect fortnight and a slice of fortune to achieve it.
His path is littered with obstacles, some more familiar than others. Champion Novak Djokovic, fresh from leading Serbia to the ATP Cup title, will loom over the draw while world number one Rafael Nadal arrives fighting fit.
Then there are the likes of Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas and Russian Daniil Medvedev, the leaders of a fearless next generation, both desperate and destined to land a first Grand Slam title.
Unlike all of his rivals Federer, who last tasted Grand Slam glory at the 2018 tournament Down Under, opted against playing for Switzerland at the ATP Cup, preferring to pack in some more family time before launching his 22nd season.
His last match was a defeat by Tsitsipas in the ATP Finals in November. Then again Federer usually hits the ground running in Melbourne, memorably three years ago when, after a six-month injury lay-off, he beat Nadal in an epic final to win the title.
In 2018 his first official tournament was the Australian Open and he won that too.
“I had two incredible years in 2017 and 2018 when I won there,” Federer said in the buildup. “It’s not that long ago so it gives me the belief I can do it again.
“I’ve trained long and hard in the off-season and I didn’t have any setbacks, which is crucial.”
REALISTIC OPPORTUNITY
Since beating Marin Cilic in the 2018 final it has been a tale of ‘what might have been’ for Federer.
He squandered two match points against Djokovic in last year’s Wimbledon final and knows Nadal, with 19 Grand Slams, is now breathing down his neck in the race to end their respective careers with the most major silverware. Djokovic has 16.
He will arrive refreshed though and with the fast Melbourne courts suiting his game down to a tee, Federer will view the next fortnight as a realistic opportunity to put a little daylight between himself and Nadal.
Tsitsipas toppled him in the fourth round last year, after which he reached the semi-finals at the French, the final at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open last eight.
Former Australian Open champion Mats Wilander does not regard Federer as a favourite, but says he will be dangerous.
“I think the Tsitsipas loss will be a sour memory,” Wilander told Reuters. “But the surface, being a bit quicker, makes his serve a weapon. The biggest problem is that Novak and Rafa are so prepared this year and that’s the biggest problem for Fed.
“But he won his most surprising Grand Slam in 17 and miracles still happen in Melbourne for Roger.”
Whatever happens the world number three will almost certainly chalk up a few more milestones in Melbourne.
His 21st consecutive main draw appearance will put him ahead of Lleyton Hewitt and if he wins three rounds he would reach the 100 mark for matches won at the tournament.
The one record he will really care about though is to become the oldest Grand Slam champion in the professional era — edging out Ken Rosewall who won the 1972 Australian Open aged 37.
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Preparation and study of mixed ligand complexes of caffeine and cyanate with some metal ions
Shayma A. Shaker, Yang Farina Abdul Aziz, Sadia Mahmmod, Mohean Eskender
This work presents preparation and study of a new mixed ligand complexes of caffeine and cyanate ion with Co(II), Ni(II),Cu(II), Zn(II) and Cd(II). The prepared complexes were characterized on the bases of their elemental analysis(C, H, N), metal percentage determination, IR and UV-Vis spectroscopy. Conductivity measurements as well as their magnetic moments were carried out. From the obtained information the general formula has been given for the prepared complexes [M(CA)4Y2] where CA=caffeine, Y=cyanate ion and M=Co(II), Ni(II),Cu(II), Zn(II) and Cd(II).
Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences
Cyanates
Ultraviolet spectroscopy
Caffeine complexes
Cyanate complexes
Mixed ligand complexes
Shaker, S. A., Abdul Aziz, Y. F., Mahmmod, S., & Eskender, M. (2009). Preparation and study of mixed ligand complexes of caffeine and cyanate with some metal ions. Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, 3(4), 3337-3340.
Preparation and study of mixed ligand complexes of caffeine and cyanate with some metal ions. / Shaker, Shayma A.; Abdul Aziz, Yang Farina; Mahmmod, Sadia; Eskender, Mohean.
In: Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, Vol. 3, No. 4, 10.2009, p. 3337-3340.
Shaker, SA, Abdul Aziz, YF, Mahmmod, S & Eskender, M 2009, 'Preparation and study of mixed ligand complexes of caffeine and cyanate with some metal ions', Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 3337-3340.
Shaker SA, Abdul Aziz YF, Mahmmod S, Eskender M. Preparation and study of mixed ligand complexes of caffeine and cyanate with some metal ions. Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences. 2009 Oct;3(4):3337-3340.
Shaker, Shayma A. ; Abdul Aziz, Yang Farina ; Mahmmod, Sadia ; Eskender, Mohean. / Preparation and study of mixed ligand complexes of caffeine and cyanate with some metal ions. In: Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences. 2009 ; Vol. 3, No. 4. pp. 3337-3340.
@article{8069f8b650ed4476b338dcfd45d2818a,
title = "Preparation and study of mixed ligand complexes of caffeine and cyanate with some metal ions",
abstract = "This work presents preparation and study of a new mixed ligand complexes of caffeine and cyanate ion with Co(II), Ni(II),Cu(II), Zn(II) and Cd(II). The prepared complexes were characterized on the bases of their elemental analysis(C, H, N), metal percentage determination, IR and UV-Vis spectroscopy. Conductivity measurements as well as their magnetic moments were carried out. From the obtained information the general formula has been given for the prepared complexes [M(CA)4Y2] where CA=caffeine, Y=cyanate ion and M=Co(II), Ni(II),Cu(II), Zn(II) and Cd(II).",
keywords = "Caffeine complexes, Cyanate complexes, Mixed ligand complexes",
author = "Shaker, {Shayma A.} and {Abdul Aziz}, {Yang Farina} and Sadia Mahmmod and Mohean Eskender",
journal = "Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences",
publisher = "INSInet Publications",
T1 - Preparation and study of mixed ligand complexes of caffeine and cyanate with some metal ions
AU - Shaker, Shayma A.
AU - Abdul Aziz, Yang Farina
AU - Mahmmod, Sadia
AU - Eskender, Mohean
N2 - This work presents preparation and study of a new mixed ligand complexes of caffeine and cyanate ion with Co(II), Ni(II),Cu(II), Zn(II) and Cd(II). The prepared complexes were characterized on the bases of their elemental analysis(C, H, N), metal percentage determination, IR and UV-Vis spectroscopy. Conductivity measurements as well as their magnetic moments were carried out. From the obtained information the general formula has been given for the prepared complexes [M(CA)4Y2] where CA=caffeine, Y=cyanate ion and M=Co(II), Ni(II),Cu(II), Zn(II) and Cd(II).
AB - This work presents preparation and study of a new mixed ligand complexes of caffeine and cyanate ion with Co(II), Ni(II),Cu(II), Zn(II) and Cd(II). The prepared complexes were characterized on the bases of their elemental analysis(C, H, N), metal percentage determination, IR and UV-Vis spectroscopy. Conductivity measurements as well as their magnetic moments were carried out. From the obtained information the general formula has been given for the prepared complexes [M(CA)4Y2] where CA=caffeine, Y=cyanate ion and M=Co(II), Ni(II),Cu(II), Zn(II) and Cd(II).
KW - Caffeine complexes
KW - Cyanate complexes
KW - Mixed ligand complexes
JO - Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences
JF - Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences
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The Best Colorado Ski Resorts for Families
Top Skiing Cities in Colorado
Low-Altitude Skiing in Colorado
Lisa Mercer, Leaf Group Updated February 09, 2018
Ski Resorts in Durango, Colorado
Hotels In Breckenridge, Colorado
Colorado boasts a long ski season, superb snow conditions, and a long list of amenities, but these perks come at a price. Most Colorado ski resorts sit a base elevation of at least 7,000 feet, with the majority at 8,000 to 10,000 feet. Sea-level visitors may suffer from altitude sickness. Choosing a lower-altitude Colorado resort may prevent problems.
Base and Summit Elevation
Most people can ascend to altitudes of 8,000 feet without incurring health problems, says Wales pharmacist Peter Rees, co-creator of The Travel Doctor website. This implies that you might feel fine in the ski resort's base area, but problems occur as you gain altitude. The summit elevation is therefore as important as the base elevation. Colorado resorts such as Copper Mountain, Crested Butte, Telluride and Breckenridge have summits as high as 13,000 feet. If you stay at the lower part of the mountain you might not feel the effects, but that usually limits you to beginner and intermediate terrain.
Lodging Considerations
About 40 percent of people coming from sea level suffer some altitude sickness symptoms at the highest Colorado resorts, Dr. Peter Hackett, director of emergency medicine at Telluride Medical Center, told the "Wall Street Journal," but the resort's lodging locations also affect your susceptibility. Aspen and Vail, for example, have high base elevations, but most of the lodging venues are at slightly lower elevations. Visitors to the Beaver Creek Resort can find lodging in the town of Avon, which is at 7,400 feet. The Riverfront Express Gondola, located in town, takes you directly to the Beaver Creek Resort. In contrast, people at Telluride ski high and sleep high, increasing their susceptibility to altitude sickness.
Steamboat Resort
The Steamboat Resort, often called Ski Town USA, produced more Olympic competitors per capita than other winter resort in the world, reports the Walk of the Olympians website. The resort sits at a relatively comfortable base elevation of 6,900 feet and rises to a summit of 10,568 feet. Many of the trails at the Steamboat resort wind around the mountain, instead of going straight down. This lengthens the ski runs, without increasing their altitude. The Steamboat Resort gondola provides welcome relief from the winter cold.
Buttermilk Park
Buttermilk, a member of the Aspen/Snowmass family, is a beginner's and family-oriented mountain, with a base elevation of 7,870 feet, which rises to a summit of 9,900 feet. While most of its terrain is groomed, bump-free and beginner-friendly, Buttermilk is also home to two highly-rated terrain parks, one of which plays host to the annual ESPN X Games. Buttermilk Park boasts a 22-foot superpipe. Beginners can learn park and half-pipe skills at the Panda Pipe and Ski & Snowboard Schools Park.
Walk of Olympians: Steamboat Walk of Olympians
The Travel Doctor: Altitude or Mountain Sickness
Colorado Ski Country USA: Steamboat
Vail Resorts: Beaver Creek
In 1999, Lisa Mercer’s fitness, travel and skiing expertise inspired a writing career. Her books include "Open Your Heart with Winter Fitness" and "101 Women's Fitness Tips." Her articles have appeared in "Aspen Magazine," "HerSports," "32 Degrees," "Pregnancy Magazine" and "Wired." Mercer has a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from the City College of New York.
How Do Ski Resorts Affect the Environment?
Colorado Ski Resorts by Vertical Drop
Colorado Ski Resorts Nearest Denver
The Best Time of Year for Skiing in Vail, Colorado
Cheap Ski Resorts in Colorado
Outdoor Vacation Activities»
Ski & Snow Vacations»
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Offspring Take to the Stage in World of Tanks
By Harkonnen 18th September 2019
The Offspring have announced a new collaboration with World of Tanks: an in-game concert. Fresh off their performance in Minsk where there were over 250.000 visitors, they will take to the stage in the World of Tanks garage from September 18 to October 7. This means that every tanker will be able to rock out with the Cali punk rockers’ virtual counterparts between these dates! Plus, the event can be replayed indefinitely.
The punk rock outfit will be playing a setlist featuring some of their greatest hits including ‘Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)’, ‘The Kids Aren’t Alright’ and ‘You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid’. And the band have been mocapped to give the highest level of authenticity to their performance on the virtual stage.
The Offspring performance is just one part of World of Tanks’ biggest event ever, Tank Festival. Since early August, tankers have had a litany of subevents to take part in and there’s still more to come with Tank Festival running until October 7, including the much-hyped return of a fan favourite, tank races in The Great Race.
Finally, World of Tanks and The Offspring have only hinted at any further collaboration. But if it happens, it would be “Pretty Fly”.
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Published by Harkonnen
Tank Nut and Gamer Wannabe! Huge fan of tanks and World War II history. Playing since I was six years old, from Streets of Rage on my Sega Mega Drive to World of Tanks, I've never stopped since and will always love games. Huge World of Tanks fan and by far, the game I've played for the longest time. If you like my content, please consider donating. View all posts by Harkonnen
SATURTANKS | STRONK TONKS IS LIFE SOFILEIN World of Tanks
World of Tanks Blitz: European Tech Tree & Giancarlo Fisichella Partnership
Next Entry World of Warships: Update 0.8.8 – The Fourth Anniversary!
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Pop Cap’s Plants Vs Zombies At DragonCon
by Kyle Updated September 2, 2011
One thing we knew when we heard that Pop Cap’s Plants vs Zombies was coming to Android, was that it was already hugely popular on iOS devices. Of course when it came over to Android it became equally as popular. With Android beating iOS by nearly double, we’re sure Pop Cap (now owned by Electronic Arts) is quite happy with the results.
If you’re not familiar with “Plants Vs Zombies”, you need to go download it. It’s a premium game and the Amazon app store usually has a better price on it than the official Google Android Market. Plants Vs Zombies is a very addictive game. What you have to do is plant seeds for plants that will kill the zombies. If a zombie makes it from his side of the yard to your house the game is over. Don’t worry though everyone has a lawnmower on each line to kill off the zombies. But you only get one lawnmower per line.
More after the jump
Confused yet? Don’t be, it seems confusing at first but after you figure it out it’s fun, addictive and time consuming. Sometimes when I’m looking for a game it’s to kill time and Plants Vs Zombies will do that for you.
Plants Vs Zombies (or PvZ for short) is taking off like wild fire. One way you know that your game is a smash hit is when you start seeing merchandise, t-shirts and costumes everywhere. Sure we’ve seen the Angry Birds pop up here and there and even Fruit Ninjas, but this weekend at DragonCon in Atlanta we found a whole Plants Vs Zombies group that had both plants and zombies.
Dragon Con is in it’s 25th year and has a lot of interesting panels this year on hacking, mobile gaming, phone security, hacking, jailbreaking and rooting phones. Two of Android’s biggest celebrity fans Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day are paneling all weekend long. And yes we checked Felicia Day uses both iOS and Android.
There’s also a panel on the new video game law in California, and one on WKRP which thedroidguy has already called 4 times to make sure we’re covering. We’ll be back later with more coverage of Dragoncon 2011. Check out our Lightbox LiveShare and Twitter for pics.
Android, Games, Tech News Tagged with
apps dragoncon Dragoncon 2011 Plants vs Zombies popcap The Droid Guy
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INTRODUCING: Vernon Jane
Vernon Jane will be no strangers to anyone who have been keeping a close eye on the Dublin music scene and Ireland’s festival circuit. The band burst on to the scene 2 years ago and have been steadily building a live following through sheer hard graft, while also expanding their lineup to include full brass and backing vocal sections. We’re talking Arcade Fire levels of people on stage.
As they haven’t released any material yet, their considerable standing is built on word of mouth from the lucky ones who’ve caught them ripping it up on stage. That’s all about to change, with recorded material set to be released next year. As a sneaky peek, they’ve also released a live video of an original track called ‘Hunt Me’ filmed at a recent performance at BIMM Dublin’s Live and Lyrical Showcase.
Vernon Jane are truly a force to be reckoned with, a cataclysmic cacophony. Every piece plays it’s part in the big picture of each song, masterfully knitting together to form a whole which is greater than the sum of it’s parts. You’ll no doubt see them on a stage near you very soon.
Keep up to date with Vernon Jane on:
Facebook//Twitter
December 1, 2015 tmftml arcade fire, bimm, brass, live and lyrical, vernon jane, vocals
One thought on “INTRODUCING: Vernon Jane”
Pingback: Studio Diary: Emily from Vernon Jane | The minor Fall, The Major Lift
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