So where were we? Oh, yes it's ...
FINE TIME!!
President Mark levied the first fine of the day, noting that Bryan Plumley had submitted a company check for his dues. The problem is that the check was for $8.90, and it was made out to, er, Bryan Plumley. It seems that there were "two green checks in my wallet", and we initially got the reimbursement check.
Finemaster Jessica McKnight took over, and asked Terri Clark about her impending career change. She is leaving the Co-op after almost exactly ten years. When asked about the departure, she confessed, "I have a low tolerance for being referred to as a Nazi."
Scott Heller made a recent "pilgrimage to Las Vegas". Boy, that's a different type of Pilgrim than we usually hear about at Thanksgivingtime. It seems that he took his tricky truck to a trade show there - SEMA (stands for the Specialty Equipment Market Association) to represent the folks who put all the fancy doodads into it. Unlike the majority of the exhibitors, Scott's truck was one of the few that made it to the show under its own power.
THE STATUS OF THE HUMBOLDT BAY NUCLEAR POWER PLANT
Loren Sharp is an expert in getting rid of stuff. He has experience in destroying chemical weapons, and he is currently in charge of dealing with the used up fissionable material from PG&E's Humboldt Bay Nuclear Power Plant.
Loren gave us an update on the ISFSI plan for the plant. (ISFSI stands for independent spent fuel installation.) Earlier this year, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the fuel load strategy, then they reviewed the dry runs. Loading fuel rods into storage containers began in late July.
There are a total of 390 spent fuel assemblies to be stored. These will reside in five dry casks - 80-ton concrete cylinders with welded tops. Once these are sealed, they are vacuum-dried, decontaminated, and moved out of the reactor by a special piece of construction equipment called a "crawler". A sixth cask is being prepared to contain the reactor's internal equipment and any small pieces of fuel that remain. The first five casks have been placed in an underground vault designed to withstand a 9.0 magnitude earthquake. The casks will remain in place until a permanent storage facility is approved by the federal government.
