Chic Alors!

Dear God,

I am so darn mad. I've been hoodwinked! I got a phone call this afternoon from someone who identified himself as President Sarkozy of France. And in the phone call I agreed to think about energy in a whole knew way. "Monsieur Le President" had listened to a story on NPR this morning as he drove to his day job as an instructor of ridiculous French accents, and that story is what he wanted to talk to me about.

The story was about Duke Energy, a major power utility based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Duke has been hoping to build more coal-fired and nuclear plants in order to meet the ever-growing needs of its power customers. The news is that Duke may have identified a way to meet those needs in a way that is safe, clean, and reliable..

Which is to say that Duke now sees rooftops as future power plants. In a test, Duke is installing solar panels on hundreds of customers' roofs. Duke owns and operates the solar panels, and they pay the customers for the use of their roofs. The solar panels feed into the grid, and the customers derive electrical energy from the grid just as they always have. In other words, Duke pays them rent on their roof-top real estate, and they pay Duke for the power! In the end, energy might not be cheaper for the customers than it has been. But the energy produced this way is entirely green and non-polluting.

Well, Vermont Yankee is not really a power utility in the way that Duke Energy is. VY is just a nuclear power plant. But I'm intrigued (or "ahntreegay" as Monsieur Le President taught me to say this morning) by the idea of exploiting real estate on roofs. And so I've written up--and already sent out--a memo suggesting a roof idea. I'm suggesting that we store high-level radioactive waste on rooftops throughout Windham County. Because, hey, the customers could use the rent money we'd pay. And (also, hey) we've had a few big concerns regarding the dry casks holding our waste on site. Putting the casks on roofs will address all of those concerns.

• One concern has been that the cannisters contribute to the rise in the amount of radiation at the fence line.
  
  
• A second is that their air vents could get clogged by river mud in a flood, and they could overheat and then who knows what would happen.
  
  
• A third is that they're an incredible terrorist target.
  
  

Well, terrorists can hardly fly a single plane into many houses sprinkled throughout Windham County, can they? See, we'd be spreading the danger (and that idea would meet instant, widespread approval, given Barack Obama's success at the idea of "spreading the wealth." It's a coattail effect I'm talking about here, PR-wise.) Furthermore, putting dry cask storage on roof tops of homes would remove the casks entirely from the muddy flood plain. And finally, putting the dry cask containers on roofs would diminish fenceline radiation at Vermont Yankee. Why everyone is so darned concerned about the health of that fence, I'll never understand.

Anyway, Lord, I think I made an idiot out of myself falling for the prank phone call, but I also think that the ideas that resulted from the phone call are good. The universe is still looking out for me, n'est-ce pas?

Just kidding. :) I know it's been you looking out for me all along.

Amen,

Fake-Rob