Political Football

This is a story about my last two + weeks, but really started much earlier. I just wasn’t feeling well. What was actually happening was internal bleeding and blood pressure slowly sinking to nothing. My eye doctor told me he wanted to take me to the emergency room, I said no, I’d call PK and she could take me.

I had no idea I was so sick and had never been admitted to a hospital before.

If you stay in a hospital for an extended period, you take on and become part of a specific odor. To me, for all the care and cleaning, that odor which I helped create, becomes and obstacle to final health goals. I was still not keeping food down but I convinced them to let me go home.

After two weeks – with gratitude toward the staff in the Muscatine and UI Hospitals for essentially bringing me back to life – I move on to the next step.

Keeping hospitals going… All levels of Nurses, Aides, and Janitorial staffs are truly angels.

In the 2 weeks I was in the hospital, I didn’t care to turn on the TV once. This was partially out of deference to a roommate, but more – I wanted nothing blocking or masking my communication with myself.

Is it just me?

I’ve always had warm hands and feet. From the date of surgery to almost exactly a week later, when I’m writing this… My extremities were cold. This afternoon when I lay still for an hour, I felt a warmth radiate through me as though I was coming in from the cold.

Maybe it is just warmer in my condo than the hospital; is it just me?

And then there is eating. I made a decision early on not to encourage visitors. Sitting in a hospital bed is tiring. From peeing in a hat to getting required walking, etc in – people pulling blood and taking blood pressure all times of the day and night – a hospital is no place to rest – and to me no real place for most visitors.

With my particular situation, I also have to learn to eat differently. No more snarfing food – a 3 minute banana needs to take 30 minutes. It takes me a good part of the day to figure out how to take my (currently all OTC) meds, and food. I’ve never done this before. A half cup of chicken noodle soup today took 20 minutes.

My life has changed, but I haven’t felt this good all year. Stay tuned: later notes on friends and praying for farts.

Many claims have been made by groups that are against SF 390 and HF 561, the nuclear legislation bill. Here is a list of some of them and an explanation of what is actually in the bill.

“Voting for the bill is a vote to raise rates.”

The bill does not change the fact that rates are set by the Iowa Utilities Board (IUB). Any request to permit, license, construct or operate a nuclear facility would have to be approved by the IUB after a fully contested rate case. But there is more. If the utility is moving forward on a nuclear project it must also gain approval of an annual budget in a contested case proceeding. After a year, the utility comes back to the IUB for retrospective review of the last year’s spending and prospective approval of the next year’s budget. This repeats year after year until completion of the project. If the utility imprudently overspends the customers will not have to pay those costs and the utility will be required to pay. This is both a cost containment feature and a consumer protection strategy.

“It is unfair to ask customers to pay up from for a nuclear power plant.”

If the groups were looking out for customers, they would understand that allowing customers to pay as you go for the cost of a nuclear plant will avoid many of the financing costs involved in developing the project and allow for small gradual increases. It is estimated that the provisions in the bill would reduce the amount of rate increase needed to fund the project by 25%. Paying in real time for a project that takes a long time to develop is a consumer protection.

“There is nothing in the bill that would prevent people from paying for a plant that never gets built.”

It is the policy in Iowa to allow a utility that has been granted an order to build electric generating plant to recover their prudent costs if the plant is cancelled. That being said, the proposal includes language requested by the consumer advocate’s office that would stretch the collection of those costs over the 40-50 year development period and life of the plant had it been built. Any company will move very cautiously on a project if there is the potential that their capital could be tied up for half a century with nothing to show for it. The interests of the company and the consumer are aligned by the inclusion of this language.

“What’s the hurry? What’s wrong with waiting a year?”

It is in the best interests of consumers to act now. The U.S. Department of Energy is moving forward in 2011 to competitively award $400-500 million for the development of the type of small modular reactor that MidAmerican is considering. The Iowa project could be potentially eligible for $200 million. The bill specified that any amount received will be directly credited to the customers’ costs of the generating plant. Iowa must also react to new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules that could require older coal-fired plants to add expensive environmental components, repurpose the plants to burn natural gas, or significantly reduce output as soon as 2015. If we know nuclear plants are coming on line, informed decisions can be made that better serve customers and their pocketbooks.

It is important to remember that the EPA this month handed down rules for the handling of mercury and fine particulate that the agency itself predicts will shut down 17% of all coal-fired generation plants nationally and add four to five dollars a month to residential customers’ energy bills. Please note that this is just the first of many regulations that are planned for coal plants and there are a number of other rules pending which could require even more controls, such as National Ambient Air Quality Standards, coal combustion residue requirements, carbon legislation, and water intake structure rules. This is just the beginning of the costs that will be borne by customers to comply with the rules.

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