Teri Ehresman elected president of the National Federation of Press Women

Teri Ehresman

Congratulations to Teri Ehresman of Idaho Falls, who has been elected president of the National Federation of Press Women.

Ehresman was elected to a two-year term to lead the national organization at a recent meeting in Salt Lake City. She has served as first vice president, second vice president and secretary of the organization. She also has served in many leadership roles in the Idaho affiliate, Media Network Idaho.

Ehresman works at the Idaho National Laboratory in the Communications and Governmental Affairs office as the communications lead for nuclear science and technology programs.  She previously worked as a reporter and editor for the Idaho Falls Post Register.

On a personal note, I've known Teri since 1981, when she was regional editor and I was the paper's staff writer in Challis.

NFPW is an organization of professional women and men pursuing careers across the communications spectrum. The organization has more than 1,000 members throughout the United States. It is committed to the highest ethical standards in communications, protecting First Amendment rights, professional growth, promoting the next generation of professional communicators and networking with other professionals. Its headquarters is in Washington, D.C.  For more information, visit www.nfpw.org.

Brown Bag Lunch Economics 101

The classic brown bag lunch as perfected in the '70s by my mother, Edie Menser. Total cost in today's dollars: $1.86, including tax (yes, I pay Idaho a nickel for the privilege of eating a bologna and cheese sandwich.)

How much are you paying for lunch every day? I bought a meal at McDonald's a few weeks ago (I know, I know ...) and with tax it was more than $6. Do the math. If you eat out every day, you're probably paying $30 to $40 a week, or $120 to $160 a month. That's pretty expensive rent for something as small as your stomach.

I got a substitute teaching job (p.e. at Skyline) today, and in honor of my mom, Edie Menser, I decided to pack her classic sack lunch: bologna and cheese or peanut butter and jelly sandwich (I opted for bologna and cheese); Wheat Thins; an orange; and a Hershey bar.

These were the lunches Mom packed for day hikers when she and my dad ran the out-camping department at Camp Merrowvista in the1970s. She made them by the hundreds. On the trail in the Ossipee Mountains or the White Mountains, nothing ever tasted so good.

Getting back to the economics, on the basis of the receipt from WinCo I have calculated the costs as follows (I have rounded the figures):

Sandwich: 49 cents
Wheat Thins: 32 cents
Orange: 45 cents
Hershey bar: 49 cents

Total: $1.75, or $1.86 if you add tax. Assuming you work five days a week, your weekly cost,  counting tax, would come to $9.30 or $37.20 a month.

For the sake of variety you can substitute Triscuits for the Wheat Thins, an apple for the orange, and Nestle's Crunch for the Hershey bar. Use your imagination. Buy in bulk and save even more. What a wonderful world! Thanks for teaching me thrift, Mom.

Open house on Sunnyside Road access issues today

Sunnyside Road, looking east from I-15 to the Snake River.

The section of Sunnyside Road between the Snake River and I-15 is becoming the hottest commercial real estate in town.

On the north side of the road, Teton Toyota has been there since 2008 and is breaking ground on a new Volkswagen dealership any day (opening is planned for 2014). On the south side, the Smith Group is grading land for its Chevrolet and Honda dealerships, both with valuations of $2.5 million, according to the Bonneville County Planning and Zoning Office.

The Bonneville Metropolitan Planning Organization, is holding a public open house on "access issues" in this area today from 4 to 7 p.m. at Sunnyside Elementary School, 155 Cobblestone Lane. BMPO's mission is to provide transportation planning for the cities of Ammon, Idaho Falls, Iona and Ucon, as well as urbanized portions of Bonneville County. Its offices are at 1810 West Broadway, Suite 15. Its Web page is http://www.idahofallsidaho.gov/city/city-departments/bmpo.html.

Women's business clothes needed for aid effort

Click on the image above to see a larger version. This is a great thing for women who need to get a foot in the door of the professional world.

Chamber members learn about small modular reactors planned for eastern Idaho

The desert west of Idaho Falls was once home to 50 reactors. Those days are gone, but if an Oregon company has its way the Idaho National Laboratory will be the site for 12 modular reactors generating 545 megawatts of power by 2025.

The regulatory hurdles are formidable and the permitting process alone will cost $1 billion, said Michael McGough, chief commercial officer for NuScale. A subsidiary of Fluor, NuScale has had a prototype small modular reactor in operation since 2003. McGough was in Idaho Falls Tuesday to speak to the Partnership for Science and Technology and the Greater Idaho Falls Chamber of Commerce.

An artist's rendering of how NuScale's small modular reactor assembly would work. For a full story, visit this link: http://greenbuildingelements.com/2013/07/01/nuscale-powers-small-modular-reactor-chosen-as-preferred-technology-by-western-initiative-for-nuclear/

Compared to a typical pressurized water reactor of 1,000 megawatts, the  advantage to a small modular reactor of 45 megawatts is that it is a "plug and play" proposition, McGough said.

Fluor wants to market nuclear power plants to the world, which is why it bought NuScale in October 2011. "They want to build power plants around the world," he said.

It is possible that NuScale plants could be going online abroad sooner than they might in the United States. Right now, the company is waiting to hear whether it is going to receive $226 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to help in the design certification process with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. A decision could come as early as next week, and if it happens they anticipate having their design certification application submitted -- typically a 10,000-page document -- submitted to the NRC in 2015. The review of that application would take 39 months, after which they need to get NRC permission to build.

"There's lots of things you have to do, and you have to do them right," McGough said.

Unlike traditional reactors, which rely on electric pumps to keep water on the fuel rods to keep them from melting, NuScale's self-contained, self-circulating reactors shut themselves down during a station blackout.

As for the selection of Idaho Falls, it's a case of going where you are wanted. "If the community won't support it, you just shouldn't try," he said.

The Western Governor's Association has had nuclear energy on its mind for the past three years. New hydro-electric projects aren't in the cards, and new coal-fired plants are out to the question. Wind and solar are intermittent sources and heavily subsidized. That leaves natural gas and nuclear for big baseline loads.

In June this year, at its conference in Park City, the Association released its "State of Energy in the West" report. One of the stated goals was to find ways to accelerate introduction of small modular reactors into Western states.

Shortly after that, NuScale announced the launch of the Western Initiative for Nuclear, a demonstration project in Idaho to be built and owned by a consortium of regional utilities including Energy Northwest and Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS), the latter of which Idaho Falls Power is affiliated with.

Much will depend on who gets the $226 million from DOE, which would be disbursed over five years. Westinghouse Electric, Holtes International and General Atomics have also put in for the funding.