Earthquake rattles nuclear reactor

North Anna Power Station

Among the scariest elements of yesterday's East Coast earthquake, which was felt from Durham, NC to Boston, Mass., was how closely it occurred to the North Anna Power Station, a nuclear reactor complex, located about 10 miles from the quake's epicenter. As yet, the facility's reactors show no signs of cracks in their concrete containment centers. The nuclear facility is located 92 miles southwest of downtown Washington, D.C. An estimated 1.9 million people live within 50 miles of the plant's nuclear reactors.

The quake knocked out the plant's off-site power source. One of the four back-up diesel generators powering the auxiliary safety systems died within hours of the quake. Sound like Japan anyone?

The North Anna Power Station is designed to withstand quakes of a maximum of 5.9 to 6.1 on the infamous Richter Scale. Yesterday's quake was a 5.9. The North Anna power plant is notorious already. It has accumulated one of the largest concentrations of radioactivity in the United States. The L.A. Times reports that Robert Alvarez, a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and a former assistant Energy secretary during the Clinton administration noted, the plant’s spent fuel pools contain four to five times more radioactive material than their original designs intended. The plant's reactors are thirty-one and thirty-three years old respectively.

Ahhh, nuclear power. What a country!

One more Shuttle snafu

It was just the other day that the Clarion Content was lamenting the money pit that is NASA Space Shuttle program in all $200 billion has been poured down the drain. As if we needed one final demonstration, one more reminder of what it means to throw good money after bad, as gas creeps over $4 a gallon and more and more American children have to go hungry, NASA scrubbed the shuttle Endeavour's launch this weekend. Cost to scrub and reschedule $500,000 minimum for fuel alone!

They should have just cancelled. (the program twenty years ago...)

Not what you want to hear

Storms raged across the American South last night leaving death and destruction in their wake. (Notice how no one jokes about 2012 and Mayans any more? We have been through a lot of late.) Reports indicate 170 souls lost their lives last night across several states.

And in a phrase that may sound all too eerily familiar from Japan, the storms knocked out power to three nuclear reactors, all located in Alabama and operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority. Fortunately, unlike Japan, there was no damage to back-up systems. Diesel generators kicked in, cooling systems were maintained and core temperatures never moved. But don't let any of these nuclear power apologists tell you, "It could never happen here."

Bullsh*t. We are one unforeseen natural disaster away from sharing Japan's circumstances. America must move away from, not toward, nuclear energy.

Asleep at the controls

The FAA has reported six incidents this year where FAA air traffic controllers have fallen asleep on the job. Nice. The latest was this week, when a Nevada air traffic controller fell asleep while landing a plane with a medical emergency on board. The near catastrophe has prompted the government to put an extra staffer on midnight shifts at more than two dozen control towers across the country, according to CNN.

The pilot of the Nevada flight attempted to contact their air traffic control tower seven times with no response. After repeatedly circling the field, the pilot elected proceed and landed safely anyway. The Feds says that in the twenty-seven major control towers staffed with only one controller during the midnight shift, it will be mandatory to add a second controller.

Hope so.

Mall vacancies

The Clarion Content warned more than a year ago of an impending secondary real estate bubble that could smack the American economy around, commercial real estate. We had read lots of analysis that said there were a ton of short term commercial real estate loans that were going to have to be refinanced, only with the new lower property valuations figured in. The slowing economy was also supposed to continue to hurt commercial occupancy rates.

This week we read that the less disastrous of these two dire predictions is indeed happening, this year malls and strip malls are supposed to see their highest vacancy rates in more than twenty years according to the Wall Street Journal. The paper reports, "Mall vacancies hit their highest level in at least 11 years in the first quarter." The expectation is that the worst is yet to come.

There is, as our sources suggested their would be, a glut of commercial real estate space. Reportedly, more than one billion square feet of retail space was built in the fifty-four largest American markets since the start of 2000. Many retailers that had been key mall and stripmall tenants, Borders, Blockbuster, Circuit City and Comp USA have nose-dived or gone out of business.

American cities already staggering under repeated economic body blows are losing lots of sales tax revenue as shoppers continue to migrate on-line. Big Box corporations are crushing mid-size competitors and specialty stores. The impact on the overall economy is very real. The base of pyramid that supports our massively indulgent and expensive lifestyles as Americans is having foundation issues. We must look at ourselves in the mirror carefully.

Bell Labs, an untold story

Tim Wu, the developer of Net Neutrality theory, has written a fascinatingly little article for io9.com. He documents the interplay between Bell Labs, the government and the profit motive of a corporation. Bell Labs, for some fifty plus years, was one of the preeminent research institutions and facilities in the world. Its scientists garnered seven Noble Prizes. They invented the transistor and Unix. But it was not a public facility, nor a wholly state-owned entity, it was a private actor with its own particular motives.

Wu shows what that wrought, in this brilliant nugget- here.

High speed rail & Politico speak

SSDD

The reality and the political spin are a little bit different when it comes to North Carolina and high speed rail. We know, you are thinking, "News Flash: What? The spin and the political reality don't match!?! Say it isn't so..."

But seriously, dear readers, once again the claims of Washington do not exactly measure up to the reality on the ground. Our local Congressman, here in Durham, David Price, sent an email around to constituents, including some of the Clarion Content's staff, reading in part, "Recovery investments that will have a lasting impact are creating or sustaining thousands of jobs in the Fourth District...A $500 million recovery investment will make the twenty year-old dream of high-speed rail from Charlotte to Raleigh a reality."

On the website of the North Carolina Office of Economic Recovery & Investment the story reads a little differently, "Today [July 12^th, 2010], Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced that the U.S. Department of Transportation and the State of North Carolina have finalized a grant agreement for $20.3 million, the first installment of the $545 million awarded to the state."

Read that again.

Less than 4% of that $545 million authorized by the Feds is actually on the way to the state. This is not exactly what one would have garnered for ol' Congressman Price's email.

Moreover this money will not actually be used on installing high speed rail system, tracks, trains or corridors! Nope the North Carolina Office of Economic Recovery & Investment website continues, "The North Carolina Department of Transportation will use the $20.3 million to refurbish passenger coaches and locomotives to expand rail service across North Carolina. The Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration is actively working with the North Carolina Department of Transportation on additional grant agreements for the remaining $525 million to further develop the state’s high-speed rail corridor."

Read that again.

They are not spending a penny of this $20 million on high speed rail. They are using it to fix up and clean-up existing locomotives and passenger cars. A semi-worthy cause we are quite sure, but not forward looking or forward thinking, and certainly not high speed rail. These cars and locomotives likely won't even be compatible or usable on a high speed rail system. But that is where the bureaucratic inertia is sending our dough.

Unfortunately, this lack of vision, this inertia is endemic. The use of the stimulus funds and recovery money follows a strict routine: lofty promises, loftier pronouncements, limited distribution of funds in a backward looking manner that kowtows to status quo interests.

Change? Yeah, right!

Cell phone networks

Did anyone else hear anecdotal evidence of cell phone networks being strained on New Year's Eve? The Clarion Content had heard a little bit about it at the time, but over the last several months as we have asked around, more and more folks reported that their text messages lagged many, many hours behind, as everyone sent mass texts to everyone else in their phone, "Happy New Year!"

What does that tell us about the vulnerability of cell phone networks in crisis? How easily can those networks be overwhelmed? Does one need a landline or a CB?

Pay attention America!

The Charles River, lovely, but not safe to drink.

This is an issue the Clarion Content has been banging on for some time. Infrastructure!!! Heads up America, we haven't done diddly since the Eisenhower administration to improve and maintain our infrastructure. The time to pay the piper is coming. (Which, of course, makes the warmongering of King George the II even more despicable.)

Among the most vulnerable parts of American infrastructure, even frailer and more vulnerable than our bridges and roads, is our water system. We saw a stark reminder of that last weekend as more than 2 million Boston area residents spent three days without drinkable tap water (or coffee). A break in 10 foot in diameter (3 meter) pipe triggered the emergency. The pipe in Weston, Massachusetts, a suburb about 15 miles west of Boston, burst last Saturday. The rupture, near the intersection of the Massachusetts Turnpike and Route 128, spilled more than 250 million gallons of water and pushed tons of soil into the Charles River. Most urban American water systems are built with infrastructure that is approaching 100 years old. Inevitably it ages and needs to be replaced.

To highlight how vulnerable we are to sudden disruption of our water supply, notice that, 136 miles away in North Conway, New Hampshire, the Hannaford Supermarket ran out of bottled water in the days following the disaster. Beware America, unless something is done this disaster is coming to a city near you. It is estimated that $8.5 billion is needed to update Massachusetts water infrastructure alone. Good thing America, didn't just waste more than a trillion dollars on rebuilding the infrastructure of Iraq, only to see it get blown up.

Whooops...

Train follow-up

The Clarion Content was just railing the Obama administration recently about its lack of relative expenditure on building and repairing train infrastructure in America. We were reminded here in North Carolina, that this lack of spending has real costs in terms of safety, and consequently lives. At a local railroad crossing long renowned for malfunctioning signals and crossing arms, a mother and her five year-old son were killed by an Amtrak passenger train Christmas week. A three month-old daughter survived. Nearby office workers in the small town of Efland where the accident happened said the crossing's signals and arms malfunctioned so frequently that one kept the railroad company's number on her desk.

Another local citizen was quoted in the Durham Herald-Sun "They've [the crossing arms] been going just wacko, up and down up and down, and there's no train coming. We've made calls before [to the Orange County Sheriff's Office] to report the problem." The grieving father told the press in the days after the accident that his wife and kids were on the way to a dentist appointment for his son and running early for it. He believed there is no way his twenty-six year-old wife tried to beat the train or the crossing arms. In his view the signal or crossing arms must have malfunctioned again.

According to InjuryBoard.com, "In the last 10 years, there have been more than 30,000 railroad crossing accidents and more than 3,600 train accident deaths." Which in all honesty, the Clarion Content has to concede is not that many considering the amount of trains on the rails and cars on the roads. However, the need to modernize the American rail system offers an opportunity to attack any of these deaths, like those in Efland, NC that come from old, dilapidated, inadequate equipment.

In another tragic accident from faulty crossing arms, this one in Minnesota, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp was fined an additional $4 million dollars by the state for attempting to cover-up the equipment's failure. Much like their initial reaction to the Efland accident, the railroad immediately attempted to blame the deceased victim. This is exactly the kind of situation where the government has a role to step in and protect the American taxpayer from a corporation with far deeper pockets for lawyers in the land of liability.

We urge our readers to please exercise caution at railroad crossings.

Its the infrastructure, stupid

The glide path for Reagan National is right down the Potomac

One would think that with all the signs of America deteriorating underneath us that Americans would react more strongly to so many of our precious dollars being spent on foreign wars of choice. Maybe the time is coming, in another context the Los Angeles Times was just talking about the movement of Ron Paul's ideas toward the political mainstream.

The infrastructure failure that caught the Clarion Content's attention today was the hour long power outage at Reagan National Airport from 12.30pm to 1.30pm. The Associated Press reported that, "the problem originated at an airport substation." You will recall, dear readers, just last week a power substation failure was blamed for massive holiday train delays.

Today outbound flights were grounded for an hour and the FAA stopped flights leaving for Reagan National from taking off during the power failure because electric jetways weren't working and there was no way to offload passengers at the terminal.

The signs are everywhere, just look around.

The Clarion Content encourages readers to send their stories and/or images of aging and failing infrastructure in their local areas. We will attempt to collate and post as much of it as possible.

Of course, Americans, ourselves included, must bear in mind that our infrastructure complaints are relative as this post from a Beijing blogger in the aftermath of the city's heaviest snowfall since 1951 reminds us.

The train

Taking the train? Unless one is heading to Kabul or Baghdad, President Obama is hardly more concerned about how one gets there than King George the II was. High speed trains were one of the Clarion Content's great hopes for things we might see come from the Obama administration. The country was and is mired in a deep recession. Train infrastructure is a works project that could be used in the fight against massive unemployment. Train infrastructure is a virtuous circle insofar as investing in more efficient transportation has knock-on benefits for all manner of American industries.

But alas. The candidate of change has spent $66 billion in Iraq and Afghanistan in the first half of 2009 alone. This does not account for the troop surge in Afghanistan. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the expenditures in Iraq and Afghanistan for next eight years (again pre-surge) at $416 billion at the low end and $817 billion on the high end.

Over the next five years the Obama administration hopes to spend $8-13 billion on rail infrastructure, including high speed trains.

20 to 40 times as much spending per year on Afghanistan and Iraq than for rail infrastructure?

This is the change we could believe in?

Ralph Nader was right along. Pete Townsend was wrong.

Worse yet, America's rail infrastructure is in abysmal condition and is plagued by delays. The highways are no better, as you can ask anyone who traveled the I-95 corridor this Thanksgiving or Xmas.

The Associated Press reported many of the massive holiday week train delays were caused by problems at power stations and substations built in the 1920s near Philadelphia. 1920's!?! And Obama is pissing America's revenues into the soil of Afghanistan!?!

Bay Bridge nightmare

We were warning you, dear readers, just a few days ago about the massive backlog of infrastructure work America must do. Everything from bridges, to highways, to water mains are falling apart in this country and need a massive capital re-investment. Tragically, the repair work that could and should be done is trading off with America's wars and efforts at nation-building in Afghanistan and Iraq. America is pouring the Cold War dividend into the sands of the Near and Middle East where it will disappear without a trace. The central example of failing and old infrastructure we used in this most recent article was the Bay Bridge from Oakland to San Francisco.

Unfortunately, the on-going infrastructure story of the Bay Bridge, the construction and repair issues, caught our attention again this morning in a most horrifying manner. The driver of a Safeway Grocery eighteen-wheeler perished driving the Bay Bridge late last night. He and his eighteen wheel truck plunged to their demise at one of the new S-curves caused by the on-going construction and repair work. According the California Highway Patrol, there have been more than 42 crashes in the curved area since it opened barely two months ago. This was the first fatality. About 3.30am last night, the driver attempted to negotiate the S-curve at too high a speed. He lost control of the truck, plunged through the safety railing, and crashed 200 feet below into Yerba Buena Island, spilling gasoline and produce over a wide area. The driver was pronounced dead at the scene.

Read the whole chilling story here in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Failing bridges

The Bay Bridge that carries upwards of 260,000 vehicles a day failed again last week. Metal parts in a brace that was installed Labor Day weekend to relieve stress on a cracked structural beam called an eyebar cracked and the bridge had to be closed. It sent 5,000 pounds of metal into rush-hour traffic. (Miraculously no one was killed, one person suffered minor injuries and three cars were damaged.) The first repair cost an estimated $1.5 million. The second repair had the bridge closed for six days, the longest closure for the bridge since part of the span collapsed during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Caltrans doesn't yet have figures available on cost of the second round of bridge repairs. The Bay Bridge was built in the 1930's and is in need of constant repair. According to the Associated Press, "The parts that failed had been installed over the Labor Day weekend...[and] were expected to last until a new bridge opened in 2013."

Why would the American taxpayer possibly be in favor of spending billions to build infrastructure in Iraq and Afghanistan when America's own infrastructure is falling apart? Deteriorating bridges have been in the news of late, but in the next few years expect to see a deluge of stories about disintegrating and failing urban water systems. Most water mains in major United States cities, especially east of the Mississippi River, are approaching their useful age limits. Far too little has been spent on their maintenance in recent decades. Yet America is pouring billions into providing potable water to Iraqi and Afghani citizens.

Attack on the grid

Tens of thousands of Northern Californians were without Internet access, landline or wireless phone services after sabotage apparently severed fiber optic cables. Word is someone(s) opened manhole covers in San Jose and San Carlos, south of San Francisco, in the pre-dawn hours Friday morning and cut several fiber optic cables belonging to AT&T and Sprint. The New York Times reports approximately 52,000 Verizon landline and wireless customers were also affected. Because AT&T provides the fiber connections that link cell phone towers to their respective networks, wireless subscribers from almost every carrier were also affected by the attack. Some Verizon Communications DSL customers also lost service, because their system uses AT&T fiber-optic cables to send its data traffic to its own nationwide network.