A Sane Perspective on The Nuclear Problem in Japan

From a friend of my brother-in-law, a nuclear engineer for a national defense contractor:

Several people have called asking for my perspective on the events in Japan; it seems appropriate that I share some written thoughts and perspectives. You can share this with others if you desire.

First of all, it is important to keep an overall perspective on this situation. This is one of the most devastating natural disasters in our lifetimes. At last count, there were approximately 9000 people dead and 12,000 still missing. The remaining people are cold, hungry, and without power. Unfortunately, natural disasters tend to be high drama when they happen; the recovery garners less public interest. A nuclear accident, on the other hand, stays high drama for a long time. I don’t blame anyone for this – it is just basic human psychology, but it is important that we as rational people don’t allow our fear and ignorance to contribute to misdirection of concern.

Let me provide some perspective on engineering for disasters (this is one of the classes I teach at University of Idaho as well as at work). Power plants are some of the largest and most complicated systems of machines ever made. This is true for hydro-electric, coal, natural gas, nuclear, and geothermal plants alike – but even more so for nuclear power stations. (I don’t include wind farms and solar plants because they are only capable of producing very small amounts of electricity for short periods of time and won’t ever be a significant factor in meeting the world’s energy demand.)

It’s important to recognize that each of us uses more electricity today that our parents did and our parents use more than their parents did. We do this by choice. Every time we plug in a cell phone, iPad, computer, TV, etc, we place a demand on the electrical distribution system. This demand either has to be met or the electrical grid shut off. Since people don’t like blackouts (and since they are dangerous), electrical utility companies continue to add more generating capacity by building more power plants. This increase in demand has also kept many nuclear power stations on line beyond their design life spans.

When we design power plants, we have to establish a basis for how much force the plants can withstand and how long they need to last – fundamentally for how safe to make them. The safer we make them, the more expensive they are and the more everyone pays for their electricity. Consequently we do not design power plants to be as safe as they can be. We (engineers, companies, governments and society at large) accept a certain amount of risk as a tradeoff between the cost and the benefit of the plant.

We can understand the concept of risk as the mathematical product of the probability that a particular event will happen and the consequence of that event. Risk = Probability X Consequence. So something that isn’t very likely to happen, but produces a very negative result would get the same attention in the design as something that is very likely to happen but produces a relatively benign event.

There is risk in all forms of power generation.

Let me provide a few examples and then we’ll get back to Japan. In the last few years there have been several power plant accidents around the world. Last summer there was a major disaster at a hydroelectric plant in Russia. It killed 69 people. There was a natural gas explosion in Pennsylvania in 2009 that killed 5 people and another in 2010 at a power plant in Connecticut that killed 6 people. Coal fired power plants release more radioactivity and toxins to the environment than nuclear; in 2008, a coal plant in Tennessee leaked a billion gallons of toxic sludge and contaminated over 300 acres. Fatalities and damage to the environment happen in power plant accidents routinely and the events barely make the news – unless it happens at a nuclear plant.

The reactor accidents in Japan are bad. The economic cost of the cleanup is going to be staggering – in fact it is possible that this event will start the end of the commercial nuclear industry. However, the risk of anyone actually dying is very low. What this accident really shows is that a 40 year old nuclear power plant, that was not built to withstand a magnitude 8.9 earthquake and a 30 foot tsunami at the same time, is still a safer form of energy than coal, hydro, or natural gas. But somehow, if not a single person dies from this accident – an accident caused by a natural disaster so catastrophic that 20,000 people die from the disaster itself, we’ll walk away thinking we learned that nuclear is unsafe. We’ll get the wrong message because almost no one understands what is happening, the people who are doing their best to report on the events lack even basic understanding of the words they are using, and the rare people who do understand what is happening don’t have the communication skills to explain it.

OK, so what is happening in Japan? There are six boiling water nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power station. Each of these plants is designed to pump distilled water into a reactor, boil the water, use the steam to turn a turbine (think of blowing on a pinwheel) to make electricity, cool the steam back into water and pump it back into the reactor where the process repeats over and over. When the fuel in the reactor becomes inefficient at producing heat it is moved to a storage pool and replaced with fresh fuel. The spent fuel will cool off over several years and become less radioactive until it can be removed from the pool and is either chemically reprocessed or stored in dry casks.

When the earthquake hit, the power station did what it was designed to do. It shut down. When the tsunami hit, the sea water flooded the area and shorted out the electrical distribution systems. With the reactor off and no ability to get power from another plant a nuclear reactor normally uses back up diesel generators to power the pumps that circulate the cooling water through the reactor and spent fuel pools. Unfortunately, the diesels were also damaged by the tsunami.

This left the reactors in a position to not be able to circulate cooling water, allowed a buildup of heat and hydrogen gas. (When water is in the presence of some forms of radiation it will separate into its constituent parts: hydrogen and oxygen. If the water cannot be circulated and the concentrations of hydrogen and oxygen gas built up, and some form of ignition occurs – say a spark or other heat source – the hydrogen and oxygen will recombine to form water again. This process releases energy – it is exothermic. ) This happened several times in the Fukushima plants and there were several hydrogen explosions that further damaged the buildings.

These events can be easily misunderstood when you hear about them in the news.
“An explosion occurred at an uncontrolled and overheating nuclear power station that is now leaking radiation” communicates a very different message than “A power station had a power outage and made some water” but they mean exactly the same thing. For the people who get to repair and clean up these plants, these are significant events; to the general public they are not. Let’s address the radiation part of the story and see why.

Radiation comes in several types. Generally what is being discussed during this event is a type called gamma radiation so I’ll provide a little background on this one type. Gamma radiation is like sunlight. It is an energy wave. It can’t be blown by the wind or leak like water. Just like sunlight, too much is not good for us and increases the chance of getting cancer. Like sunlight, in the right quantities it is actually helpful. Gamma rays and x-rays are only distinguishable by where they originate. In other words, getting a dental x-ray is the same thing to your body as being exposed to radiation from a nuclear reactor. Every human on earth is exposed to gamma rays every day from birth to death. In fact, each of us is naturally radioactive – we are ourselves sources of radiation. This is because radioactivity (the characteristic of something that gives off radiation) is quite natural. Of all the elements in our bodies, one of them is potassium (K-40) which we get from potatoes, bananas, etc.

So how much is too much? Let me try to help with a perspective again. The biological effect of radiation exposure is measured (in our country) in units called ‘rem’. A typical person receives 0.3 rem a year from natural sources and about another 0.1 rem from consumer products and medical procedures. By law, a person in the nuclear industry can receive about ten times more than that - up to 5 rem a year . This is safe, but the nuclear industry also works to keep radiation exposure as low as they reasonably can. For instance, in my entire career I’ve received a cumulative dose of 0.25 rem. If you fly on an airplane, you are closer to the sun so you receive more radiation – about 0.1 rem per 1000 miles of flight. A lethal dose of radiation of radiation is approximately 500 rem in a single dose or about 100 times the legal limit.

So when you hear about “abnormal radiation levels” or “radiation leaking” etc you have to keep it in perspective. People who get on planes to fly away from Japan will likely receive more radiation from flying than if they had stayed in Japan in the first place. I know radiation is scary to people, because it can’t be perceived by our senses and become of all the myths we’ve been exposed to. A radiation level that is “100 times greater than normal” doesn’t necessarily mean anything scary at all – if “normal” is a low number – which it usually is. For instance, if a typical radiation exposure rate outside a nuclear reactor is 0.001 rem per hour and it’s a now “a hundred times” above normal it would now be 0.1 rem per hour. You could sit there for two or three hours and get the same dose you’d get flying across country without even being concerned.

I know there are people getting worried about radiation exposure on the west coast of the US, so let me try another perspective. I work for the navy. When we got word of the events in Japan, we sent one of our nuclear powered aircraft carriers, the USS Ronald Reagan, straight through the radioactive plume to Japan to provide humanitarian support. We voluntarily sucked up the radioactivity into the ventilation system, cleaned it up and are still there trying to help the people of Japan. Some of the people who know the most about this stuff are voluntarily going right into it to help. The radiation levels in the Fukushima plant are dangerous to people inside the plant, but they know this and are trained to deal with the risks (the highest cumulative dose I’ve read about to any of the workers is 10 rem or about 50 times lower than a lethal dose).

If you wanted to limit your exposure to sunlight, you’d restrict your time in the sun, move to a place where there is less sunlight and wear clothing that covers your body when you do have to be in the sun. In radiation protection language we call this time, distance, and shielding. The same principles of time, distance, and shielding apply to this situation. For instance, since California is about 5000 miles away from Japan even a lethal dose in Japan would likely be unmeasureable in the United States. (If you want the math it goes like this: Let’s say the radiation level a mile away from Fukushima was outrageously high – say 500 rem/hr. What is the radiation level in California – 5000 miles away? It would be 500(1²/5000²) or 0.00002 rem/hr –which is too low to measure.)

I understand people’s concerns but I’d advise you to stay away from the news, if you can. The poor reporters are just not equipped to be able to explain this event. They consistently say things that aren’t true because they don’t understand the words they are using. They are also scared themselves. If you do feel the need to follow the events, the IAEA website isn’t bad: http://iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html

Let me summarize a few things. The reactor accident in Japan is the result of a natural disaster that was worse than what the plant was designed to withstand. It’s a bad accident and is going to be wildly expensive to clean up (cost has always been the problem with nuclear). I don’t expect anyone to die from the events going on in the power plant; I don’t believe there is any significant risk to people anywhere, but especially not outside the plant itself; I believe our focus, concern, and attention as a society should be placed on supporting the victims of the natural disaster; Since I have the skills and knowledge to actually help with the nuclear end of the crisis, I am volunteering to go and help. I don’t suspect the Navy will take me up on my offer, (we have a team there already) but if I can go I will.

Pence puts it to the dems...

As of late, I necessarily I don't have my hand pulse on the latest happenings in the political world as they occur, but man, this put a smile on my face--and then some:

Congressman Mike Pence from Indiana:



h/t Let Freedom Ring

Also, I have it on good word that 6th CD's own Michele Bachmann will be on Larry King alive tonight, where she will rightfully continue to rub the salt in the democrats' self-inflicted wounds.


Schadenfreude at its best...

Michele Bachmann Energy Conference Call notes..

Rough and ready notes taken during energy policy conference call with Michele Bachmann, today from 12:00pm til 12:45pm... I'll be fixing the spelling errors/typos as I see them. I was typing as I went along, so there may be some errors in the transcription. The gist, however, I believe is accurate.

Viewed solar-power plant

Wants to extend credits for alternative energy.

National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Ethanol may very well be a transitional fuel; so are looking at switch grass as opposed to corn-based ethanol. Algae research is also being conducted. Algae contains oil, which could be a tremendous form of energy if we can make it commercially viable.

-Would like to conduct an energy tour of Minnesota, since nuclear energy wasn't discussed, and she's very proud of our Monticello nuclear power plant (incidentally, Steve Gottwalt, if re-elected, plans to introduce a bill that would lift Minnesota's moratorium on building any new nuclear power plants)*. There are also labs in the 6th district that are doing research on developing algae as power.

-Many advances in solar panel technology.

-Then took a tour to Alaska, and toured a "permafrost tunnel," the only one of its kind. This is important since there is much permafrost on the North Slope of Alaska.

-Toured Prudhoe Bay, where the oil production occurs. No permanent residents. Workers make on average 6 figure incomes. Very high paying jobs. Over 750,000 jobs could be created if we open up more exploration on the North slope, not to mention in Colorado.

-Area is under snow/ice for 9 mos, and is in complete darkness 3 mos. per year; perfect site for drilling.

-ANWR is over 19,000,000 acres; including the Brooks range; the area of interest of drilling is only 2000 acres; relative to the size of a postage stamp on a football field. Also located close to the Alaska pipeline. North Slope is still our largest oil producing field. But this is not good news. When it first opened, was over 2 million bbl of oil per day; now only 700,000 bbl per day.

In ANWR, oil is highly concentrated in small area.

ANWR would actually be the fastest, easiest, and least environmentally invasive area to drill.

***Q&A***

Larry Schumacher: $2 per gallon gas; how do you know?

A: We have the energy resources here in the U.S. to add to the supply. When she took office, gas was $2 and change. What has changed since is the message that America has absolutely had no intention of increasing its own supply of energy. India and China and developing countries are putting an increased strain. As of right now we are 70% import. We don't need to be there. We have in reserves over 2 TRILLION bbl of reserve; Saudi Arabia has only 1.3 trillion.

If we open up the oil shale fields, ANWR, Outer Contintental shelf, Atlantic & Pacific, et., al, plus Natural gas from the Gulf Coast, we have so much energy. We have 27 percent of all the coal in the world that could be used for coal to liquid production, plus nuclear power and tremendous advances in solar and wind. If all is opened up there is no question that we can get back to gasoline prices prevalent two years ago. But Congress has made it virtually impossible to access any energy available.

Like there are hungry children with a locked-up pantry of food.

In Stillwater, man pumped gas; truck is 20 years old, puts gas in the tank when it gets to the 3/4 mark cause he can't afford to fill the whole tank.

There is no reason to make the American people suffer. Congress must once again make it legal for Americans to access their own energy.

MPR. ANWR minimal environmental impact.. what is proof?

-People in Alaska, overwhelmingly want drilling, especially the native population that live in ANWR. They see how responsible drilling is in Prudhoe Bay and the National Petroleum reserve.

-We saw the most wildlife at mile marker 0 in Prudhoe bay; the most caribou were huddled around the pipeline. It is a tundra. The area of interest for drilling is also a tundra. There will be no additional roads. The drill site could be scaled down from what used to be 20 acres to 6 acres now.

-Truckers need to put "diapers" under their truck to keep oil from crankcases, etc., from making contact with the tundra. The level of regulations and responsibility is the highest in the world.

-KARE-11. We should drop the speed limit. What do you think?

A: Conservation is important and is one leg of the school. We need to conserve, AND we need to utilize the energy that is there.

No truth to statement of "leased land." Those lands are in stages of exploration and production. Lease only lasts 10 years. If a group files a lawsuit, that halts exploration by as long as two years. Michele introduced a bill that would expedite the permit process. Looking at creating a specialty court that deals with oil & gas in the arctic region, and expedite the timelines for decision-making. Not that it would eliminate lawsuits, but would expedite the timelines required for responses to lawsuits.

Q: Speedlimits are off the table then?

A; Not off the table. Conservation is just one part. It's not because Americans are driving too much. Congress is the problem. Congress controls the answer in its refusal to open up access to energy.

Q: Is there short term relief in sight?

A: Congress can do something. Any legislation that has to do with increasing supply has been shelved. One democrat says we should drive small cars and wait for wind.

We can get it done much more quickly than the timelines that you've heard. Congress has created artificial barriers and delays that are prolonging the time. Once we have proven to the world that we are serious about increasing supply, speculators will bring the price down. President Bush's announcement alone brought down the price of oil 10 dollars.

Q: Larry Schumacher cited EIA study that production would only allow for a 2% decrease in prices, which would be offset by an OPEC decrease in production.

A: EIA has been flawed... they estimated a number of years ago that gas would be $22 per barrel. EIA has a terrible track record in their predictions and estimations. I would take what they say with a grain of salt. Even by Pelosi's numbers we would be looking at a 70 cent decrease in cost. Also, wrt opening the strategic oil reserve, that would be an extremely temporary fix. 14X more oil in ANWR than in Strategic Oil Reserve.



Trans Alaskan pipeline is a great advantage. If we get down to the point of moving only 300 k of oil, it would cease to be functional, and would need to be rebuilt. If we don't increase production, in 10 years we would be to that point, and the pipeline would cease being functional. We are in a precarious window of time right now.

Q: Smarmy Pioneer Press frothing Idiot Jim Ragsdale: Congresswoman Bachmann-- interesting analogy about the hungry children and the locked pantry. What if the children are fat and lazy and still want more? Shouldn't we make them eat less, and then unlock the pantry? What are we doing to make Americans use less energy? Huh? (apparently this bozo pines for the return to the malaise of yesteryear that everyone so enjoyed during the Carter administration).

A: Again, conservation is part of the 3-legged stool. The three legs are conservation, renewable energy, and increasing domestic production of oil, nuclear, and natural gas. You are asking government to solve a problem that it created. If we open up access to our own resources, the free market will solve the problem. (SMACKDOWN).

This liveblog is over.

Gary Gross has more here.

Oil prices plummet... usual suspects suspected?

Oil prices plummeted today to under $130 USD/barrel. The drive-by media hacks are attributing the drop to a "sudden" decrease in demand, due to high gas prices and a sluggish economy. Curiously, nowhere in any article can I find the notion that the drop nearly immediately commenced after an announcement by George W. Bush that he would lift the executive-order moratorium on offshore drilling.

If the drop in market oil prices, as the media is touting, is due to decreased demand, as well as a "sluggish economy," why has it been a sudden drop, as demand has been decreasing steadily since before the July 4th holiday (accompanied by a concurrently downspiraling stock market and economy), with no corresponding drop in prices?

Hmmm... the drive-by agenda media, giving credit where it isn't due.

Feature that.

And the people said....

AMEN!!!

U.S. President George Bush is stepping up pressure on Congress to open up off shore oil exploration. VOA White House Correspondent Paula Wolfson reports Mr. Bush has lifted an executive order banning offshore drilling and is urging lawmakers to complete the process by dropping a legislative prohibition.

Energy Policy Confrerence Call

I, along with Gary Gross, Ed Morrisey, Noel Sheppard, and other bloggers. were asked to participate in a conference call (broadcasted live on the Ed Morrisey Show) with U.S. Republican Representatives Michele Bachmann, Dr. Phil Gingry, Tom Price, Eric Cantor, Marsha Blackburn, and Adam Putnam.

Unlike the democrat majority, who are uttering the unbelievable Sierra Club meme that "We can't drill our way into energy independence," the Republican contingent in the U.S. House has a comprehensive plan that is designed to drill and otherwise make our way back into $2.00 per gallon gas.

According to our Republican representatives, we have the ability to extract 1.3 trillion barrels of oil from shale reserves; not to mention the millions of barrels of oil that we can extract from ANWR and the Continental Shelf.

They responded to criticisms leveled from the democrat side that if Nancy Pelosi was to bring a bill by July 4th, it still wouldn't be a fix , since it would take ten years to retrieve the supply.

But they explained there is a significant upward pressure in the prices due to the current market and conditions, with the knowledge that the U.S. won't pursue its own supplies. An opening of those resources will send a signal that we are going to join oil producing nations, and will send a message to speculators that will result in an immediate decrease on the upward pressure on prices.

(As an aside, by using that same logic, we would have today been enjoying the fruits of ANWR oil, had Bill Clinton not vetoed that legislation back in the mid 1990s.)

We've got the technology and the ability to explore in the deep waters off the coast and to do it in an environmentally safe way.

When the point was brought out to the Representatives of the fact that the majority party in congress is beholden to the interests of the extreme environmental lobby, they were nontheless optimistic that the democrats would eventually see the light and serve their larger constituencies.

Gary Gross has more on the call here.

During the conference call, the contingent of U.S. Representatives stated that they were honored to be communicating their policy to bloggers, and stated that bloggers were a driving force in the energy conversation; and that emails and letters come to their office from constituents who had read about the issues on blogs. Michele Bachmann stated that she is grateful to the blogosphere for the continual end-around that they perform around the agenda media in getting the facts out. Congressman Bachmann stated that she hoped to have similar events slated in the near future.

Truth be told, the democrats and the extreme environmentalist lobby are the only things standing in the way of our ability to move past economic stagflation and on toward the promise of true prosperity. The current condition of our economy and our current energy woes are inextricably linked, and blame for our sorry state of affairs can be placed directly at their feet.

We are in the midst of an increasing clamor in our nation over the undue pain caused by high fuel prices, and the extreme environmental lobby and their willing democrat (and RINO) accomplices will need to answer to an increasingly frustrated constituency; either now, or at the ballot box in November.

X-Ran Explains High Oil Prices...

Our benevolent other-worldly guardians at Mox Argon have a great primer on the cause of high oil prices, that, given the proper amount of time to digest the information, even a liberal can understand.

Read the whole thing.

Better late than never. Sort of.

President Bush, thanks for speaking out for sanity.

(CNSNews.com) - "The United States has an opportunity to help increase the supply of oil on the market," thereby easing gasoline prices for hard-working Americans," President Bush said on Monday.

He reminded Congress that he has proposed opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Continental Shelf to domestic oil drilling -- something that would "help us through this difficult period."

You almost had, it, Mr. President. If you had pushed harder on what you proposed earlier in your presidency, we would be nearing the end of this mess in which we find ourselves, or at the very least we'd be seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. But after the usual suspects of enviro-whackos, along with their willing shills in Congress did their normal routine of wailing and gnashing of teeth, instead of holding your ground on the matter, you backed off. Rather than rallying the American people to the need for harvesting our own domestic energy reserves, you instead took a page from the Eisenhower playbook and played golf with regard to the issue. You even went so far as to play right into the envirowhackos hands, simultaneously increasing the credibility of their argument while weakening yours.

And you almost had it today, Mr. President. You almost had it on the nuts.

But then you went and said this:

"We remind our friends and allies overseas that we're all too dependent on hydrocarbons, and we must work to advance tech that help us become less dependent on hydrocarbons," Bush said on Monday as he headed out to Europe.

One step forward, three steps back.

Mr. President, now's not the time to humor the delusional fancies of the crazy uncles in the attic making life a living hell for the rest of the family. You're damned right we're
"addicted" to oil; in much the same manner as we're "addicted" to air and to food. So what? We've got plenty of it if our legislators would finally quit kowtowing to the crazy uncles in the enviro-whacko movement and act in the interests of the American people for a change.

Screw the enviro-whackos. When the hell were they ever right? About anything?

We have the technology to harvest our own resources in a way that minimally disrupts the surrounding environment; in many cases augmenting it.

Mr. President, you have a nation that's bleeding from the ears economically, and you have it within the scope of your office to issue executive orders to stop that bleeding. May I add that, given that we're in the midst of an economic emergency, and given that our nation's economic security is at risk, it would not be a misuse of your power under executive authority to do so.

And what greater a presidential legacy to leave your fellow Americans, than to decrease their dependence on foreign oil?

"Joe American" for President!!!

A couple of sticking points (i.e., buying into the global warming meme, universal health care), but in toto a lot of ideas that are head and shoulders above the three stooges that are running for POTUS.

I'd vote for him, or his ideas, in a heartbeat.

This is a message worth screaming...

Click on the pic to sign the petition.

A car that runs on air?

I thought it too good to be true, but Popular Mechanics has an article that says an inexpensive car that runs on compressed air will be available in the U.S. market sometime in 2009 or 2010; and unlike many electric-powered tinkertoys that will run over $100,000, this car, with a purported 1,000 mile range at 96mph, will cost only $18,000!

The CityCAT, already being developed in India (bottom left), will be available for U.S. production in three different four-door styles. But it's the radical dual-energy engine, with a possible 1000-mile range at 96 mph, that could move the Air Car beyond Auto X Prize dreams and into American garages.

Zero Pollution Motors (ZPM) confirmed to PopularMechanics.com on Thursday that it expects to produce the world’s first air-powered car for the United States by late 2009 or early 2010. As the U.S. licensee for Luxembourg-based MDI, which developed the Air Car as a compression-based alternative to the internal combustion engine, ZPM has attained rights to build the first of several modular plants, which are likely to begin manufacturing in the Northeast and grow for regional production around the country, at a clip of up to 10,000 Air Cars per year.

And while ZPM is also licensed to build MDI’s two-seater OneCAT economy model (the one headed for India) and three-seat MiniCAT (like a SmartForTwo without the gas), the New Paltz, N.Y., startup is aiming bigger: Company officials want to make the first air-powered car to hit U.S. roads a $17,800, 75-hp equivalent, six-seat modified version of MDI’s CityCAT (pictured above) that, thanks to an even more radical engine, is said to travel as far as 1000 miles at up to 96 mph with each tiny fill-up.

We’ll believe that when we drive it, but MDI’s new dual-energy engine—currently being installed in models at MDI facilities overseas—is still pretty damn cool in concept. After using compressed air fed from the same Airbus-built tanks in earlier models to run its pistons, the next-gen Air Car has a supplemental energy source to kick in north of 35 mph, ZPM says. A custom heating chamber heats the air in a process officials refused to elaborate upon, though they insisted it would increase volume and thus the car’s range and speed.

“I want to stress that these are estimates, and that we’ll know soon more precisely from our engineers,” ZPM spokesman Kevin Haydon told PM, “but a vehicle with one tank of air and, say, 8 gal. of either conventional petrol, ethanol or biofuel could hit between 800 and 1000 miles.”

I wasn't too hep on electric cars, since the batteries have a limited lifetime and cost a fortune to replace. But this, this, if it holds up to its promises, is something that I can get behind!