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| Saturday, July 04, 2009 |
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$25 million so you can put a sign on a big building … wow. |
danithew, The estimated $25 million doesn’t just get them a sign. It means that every time a game is played there and is mentioned on the news the name of the company will be uttered in a semi-positive light. How many times a day will ESPN broadcast the words “Energy Solutions Arena”? This is going to raise the profile and positive perception of the company while doing exactly the opposite for the state of Utah. |
The fact that the word “solutions” is in the name of a sports arena is hilarious. I mean sad. It reminds me of the name of the Tobias’ band on Arrested Development, “Dr. Fünke’s 100% Natural Good-Time Family-Band Solution” |
Rusty, If the name were a joke in a sitcom it would indeed be funny. I’m not sure how much of that humor carries over into real life. It certainly is a conspicuously ugly name, possibly the worst in sports, but even if it rolled off the tongue that wouldn’t make me happy about it. |
I live next door to the savannah river sight where the vitrification process is taking care of all the plutonium and dirty solvents used in the bomb making of the 50’s - 70’s. I think the process of evaporating solvent and then encasing the residual sludge in glass is a great idea. I hope this stuff goes to Yacca Mountain. This sludge is not what EnviroCare is after. Low-level waste includes items such as gloves and other personal protective clothing, glass and plastic laboratory supplies, machine parts and tools, filters, wiping rags, and medical syringes that have come in contact with radioactive materials. Low-level waste from nuclear power plants typically includes water purification filters and resins, tools, protective clothing, plant hardware, and wastes from reactor cooling water cleanup systems. What EnviroCare wants is the tools the Savannah River Site uses to process this high-level waste. The spent fuel rods and radioactive sludge is considered High-level waste and will stay here at SRS or go to Yucca Mountain. |
BRoz, and this stuff will get to Yucca Mountain how? Unless Captain Spacecamp shows up with a wormhole, it will be trucked/trained through Utah. It makes little difference whether Utah is the dumping ground or the sewer line TO the dumping ground, we want no part of it. This sludge will be around how many lifetimes after Creamer pockets his millions and does an Enron on us? People seem angrier about Miller’s selling out to this company than they have ever seemed about this company’s previous questionable acts. I hope we can stay angry enough long enough to prove arJ to be a false prophet! |
Ardis, I think some of the issue here is that people expect Energy Solutions to be looking out for #1. For now at least. My prediction is that this will change. People think of Larry Miller as the friendly Stake President that sells cars and owns the Jazz and won’t attend Sunday games. He has had a history of doing good for the community. Thus the outrage. I hope that you are wrong and that the public maintains a healthy level of outrage. I am guessing that in a few weeks the protests and letters to the editor will stop and then only form of protest will be references to “Radium Stadium” on ESPN. |
I agree that this is awful for the state of Utah. It’s too bad that the right-wing-nut-jobs are too weak to resist such temptations from awful companies like Energy Solutions. |
All that matters is that Kobe just threw down 52 on the Jazz. I think that they should rename it “The Kobe Center.” Go Lakers. |
maWeesa, I assume that Energy Solutions was the only company that met the requirements which were to be headquartered in Utah and to put up a bunch of money. I’ve tried to think of other companies that would qualify. My letter to the Tribune was an indication that I think that the state could give some tax breaks to Miller in return for naming it the Ski Utah Center. But what are other options? ATK Thiokol? Auto Liv? NuSkin? Novell? SCO? Really, I think the ski resorts are the best bet. Maybe in addition to tax breaks the resorts could each put up some cash. It would be great to hear “Ski Utah Center” on ESPN almost every day. |
Wayne L, In a 1000 years when the piles of vitrified waste are sill dangerous will anyone remember Kobe? |
I would take $25 million to put that sign on my house. There are things I wouldn’t do for $25 million, like eat a butterfly, but a sign? No big deal. It’s a stupid name for the Delta Center, but I don’t care one way or the other. |
annegb, I would guess that many of us would do the same. But if you already had several hundred million dollars then the calculation would change. The question for you and me is would you take roughly $5,000 to put a giant sign from a toxic waste company on your home for the next 10 years? What if a company that is perceived in a more positive light offered a bid of $4,000? |
Random John: Hey, sports is all about the moment–Lakers fans don’t care about a 1,000 from now. We just care about the now. We will only let the waste collectors of Utah worry about that:) |
Wayne L., My concern is that NOBODY (Lakers fan or not) worries about 1,000 and 10,000 years from now. They’ve tried to take times scales like that into account with Yucca Mountain and have found it to be a big problem. I’m of the impression that over 10,000 years most of what Energy Solutions processes will leech back into the environment. I’ll go into why our children may care about this (and maybe us) in another post. |
ARJ, since you put it that way. . .no. Larry Miller has several hundred million dollars? |
arJ: If you push that “Radium Stadium” name, you might create enough bad PR to get your way. It’s catchy and conjures up fear (particularly in seniors, who vote; my experience is that younger people typically haven’t heard about radium). |
annegb, He owns the Jazz and the building they play in and car dealerships in several states. The Jazz alone are worth about $257 million. So I would guess that he has several hundred million. Or about $480 million. He has admitted that Energy Solutions paid more than $21 million, so lets call it a cool half a billion dollars. |
Click here for a Salt Lake Tribune article on the name change. In it Larry says that the amount that Energy Solutions paid is more than his recent donation of $21 million to the state police academy. It also contains this gem:
If only that was his only ambition. I want to know if Larry Miller supports bringing hotter waste to Utah. |
Brian J, I am guessing that by the time most people figure out what is going on here the initiative or legislation allowing hotter waste will be well on its way to passing, “Radium Stadium” or not. I would hope that Larry would think hard about what Energy Solutions is really getting out of this deal and about whether he supports those goals. |
So which is a bigger threat: nuclear waste (whether in 1000 or 10,000 years), or global climate change due to carbon emissions (in the next 100 years?) |
ed, That is a great question. I agree that global climate change is the bigger threat and that nuclear power can be part of the mix of energy sources that can help mitigate that problem. However nuclear is not a panacea. The waste is an obvious issue that we are looking at here. Is vitrification the proper long term solution for much of it? Is Skull Valley (now seemingly dead) or Yucca Mountain a better idea? Should we reverse Carter’s decision to not recycle nuclear materials? Aside from the waste we can see looking at the world today that nuclear technology isn’t the best solution for all parts of the world. Obviously Iran and North Korea have less than honorable intentions with the technology and the world would probably be safer if India and Pakistan didn’t have bombs either. One could argue that the world would be safer if nobody had a bomb, but I don’t see that happening. But my best response to your question is that you’ve falsely framed it as an either/or situation, which it is not, though I’ll readily admit that nuclear power looks like part of the solution in the short term. In the mid to long term I would hope that we could migrate to something that doesn’t saddle our progeny with a problem that we are incapable of solving. Now that I’ve addressed your question, will you answer some of mine? Do you thing Energy Solutions is aiming to bring hotter waste to Utah? Do you support such efforts? Why or why not? |
ARJ, it sounds like you agree with my main point, that “nuclear power can be part of the mix of energy sources that can help mitigate” carbon emissions. I’m no expert in nuclear technology, I don’t know anything about Energy Solutions in particular, and I don’t even live in Utah. But it appears to me that most of the opposition to nuclear power is even more uninformed than I am. Environmentalists should probably be supporting moves towards developing nuclear power technology, but instead they often help to foment ignorant NIMBYism. At least that’s my impression Like I said, I’m not defending Energy Solutions in particular. |
ed, There are prominent environmentalists that now favor the use of nuclear power. My main point isn’t an anti-nuclear one. It is simply predicting the outcome of this naming deal and claiming that it will do much more than simply label Utah as a dumping ground for radioactive waste in the minds of sports fans. Even if that were all it did it is a bad idea, but I’m concerned that nobody in the media seems to be discussing the obvious motive for the deal. |
