Planet Self Storage In Connecticut

Fixing America's Nuclear Waste Storage Problem

In March 1992 George Galatis, a nuclear engineer at the Millstone nuclear power station in Waterford, Connecticut, became alarmed during a refueling. The reactor had to be shut down and the full radioactive core of the Unit 1 reactor, which held thousands of rods, was removed and then dumped into the spent fuel pool—a blatant violation of Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) safety requirements.

In mid-October of 1805, after being saved from starvation by Indians, the exhausted Corps of Discovery led by Captains Lewis and Clark finally reached the Columbia River Basin -- gateway to the Pacific. Leslie Groves, the military leader of the Manhattan Project, chose Hanford, in eastern Washington near the Lewis and Clark campsite, for the World's first large nuclear reactor. The Indians were promptly banned from their homes and from religious, fishing and medicine-gathering sites, and farmers were uprooted. Within about two and a half years the Hanford "B" reactor had made enough plutonium to destroy Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945. In the late 1980s, the U.S. government finally acknowledged its responsibility for Hanford and other similar sites around the country and began the largest, most expensive and most challenging environmental cleanup program in US history. In August 2002, the Columbia River Basin Fish Contaminant Survey, a study conducted by Indian tribes and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), reported that nonradioactive contamination, such as PCBs in fish -- which are eaten in far greater numbers by tribal people than by non-Indians -- are found at the highest levels in the section of the river that runs through the site known as the Hanford Reach. About 80 percent of Chinook salmon, an economic, environmental and cultural icon of the Pacific Northwest, spawn in the Hanford Reach, and they represent a significant portion of wild salmon harvest in British Columbia and Alaska.

The pool was already quite full. It wasn’t designed to suddenly hold those very radioactive and thermally hot fuel rods, which give off so much radiation that an unshielded person nearby would receive a lethal dose in seconds. In a previous incident around that time, a worker’s boots melted during this procedure. Because the pool could overheat, and possibly cause the pumps and cooling equipment to fail, the NRC had required reactor operators to wait for sixty-five hours before performing this task—with good reason. NRC studies over the past thirty years have consistently shown that even partial drainage of a spent fuel pool that exposed highly radioactive rods could release an enormous amount of radioactivity into the environment. Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear engineer with many years of experience at US nuclear reactors, describes this kind of accident as “Chernobyl on steroids.

New Jersey Self Storage Companies Continue to Lead the Way Toward ...

At first it seemed as though only a few New Jersey self storage companies would make the conversion to solar power. When Premier Self Storage, of Egg Harbor, converted to solar power last fall, its owner, Tim Schaeffer, speculated that Premier might be the only self storage company in New Jersey to be powered by solar energy. Schaeffer may or may not have been correct at the time, but since then the number of storage facilities converting to solar energy in New Jersey has snowballed.

Many owners of New Jersey self storage facilities are discovering that spending the money to convert to solar electricity makes good business sense. Most solar installations pay for themselves within a few years. As energy prices rise, solar panels may start to pay for themselves even faster.

- This month, Lackland Self Storage hopes to complete the installation of solar panels on its 23 facilities in New Jersey. Lackland’s CEO, Mike Lackland, estimates that the project, which is costing the company million to install, will save Lackland about 0,000 every year.

- Last month, Access Self Storage announced that it was adding solar electric panels to six of its facilities. The facilities, located in Bernardsville, Clark, Franklin Lakes, Kenilworth, Oakland, and Woodbridge, will be connected to the overall electric grid. Together, they will generate more than one million kilowatt hours of electricity every year. Because of New Jersey’s solar incentive programs and the 30 percent rebate that Access can apply for from federal stimulus money, Access’ owners project that the project will pay for itself within three years.

- In April, English Creek Self Storage of Egg Harbor added a solar electric system to its facility. The system was designed to offset the cost of lighting the facility 24 hours per day.

- English Creek was following the example of Premier Self Storage of Egg Harbor, which converted to solar power last September. Premier’s electric system generates enough electricity to power about 120 homes.

- Last November, Bernardsville Self Storage sought approval from the Bernardsville Planning Board to install solar panels on its facility.

- Guardian Self Storage of Tuckahoe, New Jersey, and Stowaway Self Storage, of Lebanon, Mine Hill, Phillipsburg, Whitehouse and Flemington also installed solar systems last year.

New Jersey is not the only state where self storage companies are leading the way by converting to solar power. Planet Self Storage of Newington, Connecticut, and Storage Plus of Waltham, Massachusetts, for example, have both converted to solar electric systems in the last two years. But New Jersey’s business community seems to have taken the mandate to generate more power from solar panels entirely to heart. According to New Jersey’s Energy Master Plan, the state will need to generate enough power from solar electricity to power half a million homes by the year 2020. If self storage facilities keep jumping on the bandwagon, the state may just make it to its goal.

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