Tag Archives: Ft. Calhoun

Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Station: Offline Since April, 2011, Two Years Four Months, and Counting

Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station

Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station

Two Years Ago, April, 2011, the Fort Calhoun nuclear power station, on the banks of the Missouri River, north of Omaha, Nebraska, was shut down for refueling. It should have been a routine operation. According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, NEI.Org, here, “U.S. nuclear reactors shut down once every 18 to 24 months to refuel approximately one-third of the reactor. In the 1980s and early ’90s the average refueling outage lasted about three months. Over the past decade, refueling outage durations have improved substantially. Now a typical refueling outage lasts one month.” Clearly Fort Calhoun, shut down for refueling 28 months ago in April, 2011, is not typical. Continue reading →

GDP or GPI? – My metric is better than yours.

Simon Kuznets at Wharton

As any freshman economics student should know, the Gross Domestic Product, GDP, is a measure of spending, derived from the Gross National Product, GNP, defined by Simon Kuznets during the Depression (click here for econlib).  GDP is, at best, an indirect measure of wealth.  The Genuine Progress Indicator, GPI, defined by Think Progress in 1995, measures genuine progress.

Consider the case of Joeseph Q. Bloggs, MBA, J.D., Esq., an investment banker. Bloggs has a J.D. from Harvard or Yale, an undergrad degree from Princeton, Dartmouth, Cornell, or another ivy league school, and a high school diploma from the Citadel or an acclaimed private school. As with his colleagues on Wall Street, he is self-proclaimed “Master of the Universe.” He leaves work one night after negotiating a highly leveraged hostile takeover, buys a Lamborghini, and rents the time of an expensive “friend.”  He buys her an expensive outfit, and takes her to dinner at an the Four Seasons, or a similar expensive restaurant.  He has a few drinks before dinner, a bottle of wine with dinner, and a glass or two of port after dinner.  On the way to the Hamptons, he crashes his Lamborghini into a Ferrari driven by another lawyer / banker / actor / “Master of the Universe.”

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