Unfortunately, there is still nothing to report on the 2009 budget.  The small group of House and Senate Republicans continues to meet, but the results (if any) are not being shared with the rest of the caucus -- most frustrating!

We had a short week, as we took Thursday off so that the budget group could put in a full day's work.  Ordinarily, that would have been perfect for me so that I could have four days at home.  As always, there was a complication.  I had already planned on staying in Phoenix for the weekend for events on Friday and Saturday, so my "day off" turned into a day of work at the condo.

But bright and early Friday morning it was back to the Capitol for a bus ride to the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, about 50 miles west of Phoenix.  I have long been a proponent of adding to our nuclear capabilities and wanted to see first hand what this one was all about.  There are three reactors on the property, and the middle one was down for refueling and maintenance.  That's done every 18 months, and we learned how APS stores the spent fuel on site, first in deep cooling pools, then in concrete casks that are said to be quite safe.  The station became operational in the 1980s, and it was anticipated that long term storage would be done at the Yucca Mountain facility.  This many years later that project is stalled, so another storage plan had to be devised.  It seems unlikely that Yucca Mountain will ever be completed, but I learned, both at Palo Verde and at other seminars I've attended, that on site storage can be made safe and secure -- so that should not keep us from expanding our nuclear energy generation programs.

Some environmental benefits, courtesy of APS:

Palo Verde has saved the Earth more than 70 million tons of coal; 16 million barrels of oil; and 350 billion cubic feet of natural gas since operations began.

Palo Verde has displaced more than 2 million tons of sulfur oxide (acid rain), 342 million tons of carbon dioxide (global warming), 1 million tons of nitrogen oxides (ozone depletion).

Palo Verde uses 40,000 gallons per minute of recycled effluent water to generate steam and to cool the generator -- recycling more than 20 billion gallons of water each year.

Everything I learned on Friday only deepens my conviction that nuclear power can be a larger contributor to our energy needs.

Saturday I attended the Republican State convention, where we elected delegates to the National Convention this fall.  I was happy to see that Supervisor Buster Johnson, also our County Chairman, was selected to attend.  I'm told that this will be the first time since 1992 that someone from Mohave County has been chosen.  It's about time.

No progress on my amateur radio bill, but there may be some movement with the County Water Authority bill.  Too soon to say for sure, but a compromise may have been reached that I hope will satisfy those who were objecting.  Stay tuned.  

Until next week,

Nancy