>> if you could identify yourself. >> yes, alejandro diaz from washington. on the point that bob donner was raising, i would say my experience in his ya is you see it -- in asia is you see it happening enlightened leadership when opportunity are eyes because you have growth and, therefore, you can make changes because everybody's benefiting or at times of crisis where you need to have a response because the circumstances are such that you need to do something, so i think those are, perhaps -- and i don't know to what extent either of those circumstances would apply to india. two questions for you. one on the low labor skill. you seem to be somewhat pessimistic about the extent to which india can reap the demographic dividend, but at the same time the country is largely based on domestic demand, and domestic demand would include expansion of manufacturing and services. so there would seem to be scope for the lower level of skills to

be employed in satisfying domestic demand. and the question there, to what extent do you see that possible, and to what extent given the difference in demographics among states can internal migration help redistribute the excess labor supply, or is it such that structure that people really don't move that much and, therefore, that doesn't really happen? the second question is more on the international dimension. you mentioned reconfiguration and how regions can develop, for example, the integration of the electricity grid. at a abb we have been strongly supporting integration, and in some areas, say the mekong region in central asia, we have seen success beginning to develop. but south asia is one of the regions where we see slower progress and more difficulty in regional configuration, and i would appreciate your views on whether that is also your assessment. and if so, what makes the south asia region more difficult as in the area for regional

integration? >> just before i answer your two questions, i just want to say, you know, i would add a third set of circumstances when policy reforms happen. one is crisis, two is enlightened leadership, and third is the endogenous growth. for example, growth takes off, the demand for education increases. so there is that dynamic as well. on this low skill domestic migration, you know, one of the things i have been struck by in the comparison between india and china is i've always thought of india as a place because, you know, because, you know, in some of my, you know, i was presenting something in london last year where, you know, i was saying, you know, telling them that i think the fact that one of the underappreciated legacies

of the old economics was the fact that once you establish the idea of india, right? that india is a political identity, a national identity, the one economic benefit of that is that migration becomes a much more politically sustainable, you know, proposition. people don't realize that, you know, there's this politician who's -- [inaudible] who's kind of anti-muslim. he began his life anti-tamil. he walked into anti-muslim much later. i know because when the tamils used to migrate, it was a problem. but i think the idea of india has been established, i think that's less of a problem now. and, therefore, migration as basis for sustaining the growth model in the india, i think, is part of my, you know, thing. because as i said, one of the

ways in which good experiments travel or get replicated is when, you know, people move. and, you know, we saw that in agriculture moving to punjab, but now it's happening more and more. but what surprises me is how little migration we've had in india compared to china. i mean, china has just been, you know, a churning factory in terms of migration. and that's, i think, one of the underrecognized aspects about china. but i think a part of that by explanation is that in china because growth rates were so rapid that the prospects of such increases in standards of living overcame the cost of moving. in india that's only happened recently. when you grow at 4, 5%, the attraction of moving is not that great. but when you grow at 9%, the increase in standards of living that you expect to gain offsets the cost of moving. and that's why i think it's slow to happen in india, but it's

happening. on the, you know, south asia, i've seen study after study saying it's less regionally integrated, and i think there are two reasons. east asia grew rapidly, most of the trade is with each other, there's going to be endogenous economic integration. that much policy integration in east asia as well. so it's just the fact of rapid growth, trade-based growth and a lot of it is within the region that you get this endogenous regional integration, supported by some policy measures happening now slowly. so in south asia you've not had that rapid growth and, you know, external demand can. and the second thing is the india/pakistan thing. millions that gets resolved, south asia is not going to proceed, it's as simple 8 a as that. unless we find ways to crack the india/pakistan situation in some way or another, that's going to be a problem. >> thank you. we have two questions here.

>> ken dillon. what challenges does climate change pose to the indian economy, and how do you see india responding? >> so, i mean, i thought i allude today the fact that climate change is a serious, long-term challenge for india, because i think the whole water situation in india is -- water's going to be, a vital resource, it's going to become a scarce resource, especially with china controlling the, you know, the himalayan glacier. now, how is india responding? i think india's not responding very well, you know? a number of things, you know, subsidies, you know, wasteful water use, you know, all the fuel subsidies means that, you know, means that we use more

diesel to generate power as opposed to hydro and other things which means much more environmental pollution. the kerosene subsidy in india we've got this black carbon phenomenon which is, you know, it's not the co2, but an additional layer of complication that's causing warming. so india's not responding very well. and the standard explanation or excuse would be that, you know, we're still a poor country, we need energy, we can't do all these things at this stage of development. which is only partly true because there are also lots of things being done which don't mean to be done. my next book is on climate change, my colleague and i, a kind of new model of cooperation between developing industrial countries. i think what is a glimmer of hope in india is exactly this recognition that, you know, there's a china issue with water, and, you know, three years ago a river in bihar just

kind of changed course in such a dramatic fashion that it brought home at least to policymakers the fact that, you know, climate change can have this absolutely catastrophic consequenc, domestic consequences. and so the awareness that, you know, india needs to do more on climate change, for climate change and warming, i think that's gaining more traction in india. far from being translated into action, and i think that's going to be the next step. >> thank you. lady, and if you could keep it short, please,because we're about to run out of time. i want the make sure i get everyone. >> stacy manning, we're a public/private partnership. >> all power to you. [laughter] >> i'm speaking along the lines of skilled labor. we've seen a lack of liberalization or some would say stagnant liberalization in certain markets, i'm thinking specifically of the legal market, and i wonder can you give us your thoughts on the

potential it has for future growth in india? is that a drag? will that be a long-term drag? do we see any progress on that front? >> so it's the question that, you know, yes, it is a drag, but is the first part of your question more related to the fact that india has, india is close to foreign professionals -- closed to foreign professionals coming into india? >> yes. >> that's the question, right? there's recently a big supreme court case on that, you know about that better than i do. and i think that it is a problem, india is closed, but i feel that there is -- i'd be a little more optimistic on that because, you see, in all of these things when a country recognizes that, you know, it has an interest in exporting its own labor, the whole symmetry of that changes the dynamic, you know? so the more india realizes that it will also have to, you know,

ship people abroad, therefore, regimes internationally matter for india's export of skilled labor and fdi, the more the pressure will be on india to kind of open up. and i think, also, that, you know, a lot of this protection comes from the fact we have a bar council, we have an accounting thing, all these standard vested interests. but i think the demand for skills is going to outstrip india's supplies, so that's going to be another anticipateable change. >> thank you. first, let me congratulate you on your thoughtful and nuanced presentation of india's prospects. >> if you could identify yourself? >> oh, sorry. i'm -- [inaudible] i'm an india journalist. all the questions and also what you said, in fact, much of the debate in india is coming back to this whole governance issue. to get the price is right, to use an old term, do you need to

get the politics right? the question is how? i was wonder willing you might like to speculate on whether india's fiscal structure is outdated, that there is still, it's still too centralized? i mean, do we need something like the finance commission, for instance, or should we let states like in this country raise their own income taxes and make the central pool much smaller so that the central governance role becomes much more manageable? i wonder whether you would like to comment -- >> so that's a great question. see, it's a great question, and it's a great talk because let me, you know, i think it's a wonderful question because this is what i say about india. that the advantage of having established the idea of india is that then you can let states go,

right? because the basic framework is not threatened. so in my model of, you know, states-based growth, you know, the whole states doing reform experimentation, being rewarded, a corollary of that is exactly what you said, that you need much more federal economic and tax structure. so i see india eventually as a model for cooperative federalism, you know, where, you know, the basis for dynamism is actually decentralization. and it's a very interesting contrast with europe. in europe all the tendencies are centralizing as a way of overcoming this crisis, and in india it's exactly the opposite. and in some ways india is now today a bit like where the united states was, you know, maybe 70 to 100 years ago. basically, you have the energies being unleashed in a decentralized fashion, but there

was a threat, and, of course, in the u.s. you needed the civil war to establish the idea of the united states as a viable political entity that would not be threatened. in india we have that. that's the great legacy. the idea of india is not taken for granted. unleash decentralizing forces which also means that fiscal federalism has to be much more, you know, decentralized x that's -- and that that's a necessary corollary of my conception of where india has to go in terms of even economics and politics. >> so the bottom line, let's hear from you, is the option going to be to muddle through, to kind of let go the growth rate to about 5-6% a year? how does that effect the battle against the population, or is the option going to be to make those bold changes in policy in investments in infrastructure,

education, etc., so that you can then go back up and challenge china for economic dominance? >> shuja, i think nothing bold is going to happen in india. [laughter] no big bang reform, no bold reform. as in most countries, it's going to be trial and error, muddle through. but, you know, trial and muddle through where if, you know, we get towards this decentralized form of, you know, decision making and experimentation and success, i think on balance one can hope for, you know, there will always be problem, always be crises, always be, you know, difficulty, but i think india still, you know, the advantages -- people forget that if you're so far away from the frontier, there's a lot more scope for dynamism. and i think that basic dynamism that india will exploit for the next 20, 30 years. so always, you know, end up with wendy -- [inaudible] with apologies to my audience,

everything in india is opposite. >> good way to end this. [applause] i want to thank my colleagues that helped put this thing together. and to make it run so smoothly. and thank the audience for being an important part of this conversation. thank you. [inaudible conversations] >> later today nuclear regulatory chairman allison macfarlane talks about her goals while chairman. she succeeded greggy yacht coe who was criticized by some for his management style. coverage here on c-span2. all this week on c-span2, we'll look back at the u.s. military through our past q&a programs. later today we talk to documentary producer rachel libert and jerry insminger.

exposed to toxic drinking water in north carolina. join us all week at 7 eastern here on c-span2. >> next, a look at how schools and teachers are using technology in the classroom. the leaders of three different educational systems talked about how this change has affected educational standards. the panel is moderated by former west virginia governor bob wise. this was part of a forum hosted by the education commission of the states. it's about 50 minutes. >> i'm howard lee, president of the howard m. lee institute for equity opportunity and education, although i've been privileged to carry many titles in the past. as cabinet member, as chairman to have state board of education

for north carolina and as a state senator. i'm a longtime member of dcs and have had the privilege of working in this organization for a number of years representing the state of north carolina. in describing why you should be in attendance at this meeting, i think a statement from ecs was quite appropriate in that it says, we expect experts and participants to reach across divisions in search of powerful policy that will disrupt the status quo and drive positive change. like most great leaders, bob wise -- the former governor of west virginia -- has a reputation for being one of those people who have reached across divisions, who has driven change and who, like many of us, do not see the status quo as an end within itself, but rather as

a means to an end. he is living out that as president of the alliance for education excellence and has contributed greatly to the knowledge base on digital learning at both the state and local levels and continues to do that. bob will be leading this next discussion with three leaders who have creatively and deeply integrated technology and innovation into learning and school design. rick ogston comes out of a military background being associated both with the navy and the marine corps, and he also has a connection to marriage and family therapy among many other interests. he is the founder and eative director of carpe diem school in arizona. john danner is the ceo and co-founder of flagship education, a system of k-5 charter schools that is helping to eliminate the achievement gap

for low-performing and low-income students. and mark edwards is one of the bright leaders in north carolina as superintendent, as district superintendent of morseville school system, he is a pioneer of a concept called one to one computing. he is currently launching his second district laptop initiative equipping more than 5,400 students in the morseville, north carolina, school district with 21st century schools and via laptops and interactive boards. he is one of our rising, bright stars. ladies and gentlemen, i ask you to join with me in extending a warm welcome to governor bob wise and the next panel to present. [applause] >> i want to thank senator lee very much, and i also want to thank him for something else. the one title he did not mention was the one that many years ago i actually got my political

teeth, cut my political teeth handing out leaflets for the mayor of chapel hill's candidacy, howard lee to be mayor of chapel hill. so thank you, howard, for helping me get that start, and it was a successful campaign as well. today we're going to talk about technology in the classroom, how to do it right. these folks know how to do it right. they are, they represent to me what michael was talking about today which is not just the technology, it's the strategy that goes all around it in terms of what mark edwards, i think i've heard you call it digital immersion. it's not just, it's not just a laptop, it's about what you do to make -- how it is that the technology is incorporated into the environment. if i could, i have a brief powerpoint presentation. it's called constructive turbulence for those who are setting it up back there. because i think, howard, you used the reference of an airplane ride, and this is, this

title comes, actually, from a commuter flight that superintendent deborah gift and i were on going to some conference as one of those small commuter flights. and the pilot came on and said i know it feels a bit rough, we have a bad tailwind. the good news is, when we get through this turbulence, we're going to get there earlier and in much more time. that's, in many ways, the flight we're on in terms of education. so i'm going to run through some of the turbulence, and then i'm going to run through why it is i think we're going to get there and how we can get there better than when we started. so, so he's -- here's the challenge, and this has been the challenge for us. we have ten ninth graders sitting in school. we know that as of today a quarter of them will not graduate in some areas, that will be as high as 50%. we also know that of that, students of color, four of ten will not graduate. and then we also know that those who do graduate, according to

act, only one is -- only 25% are truly ready for college in all four core summits. so at the end of the day, end of four years, only 25% or two-and-a-half of our ten students actually are ready for college. we also know this, i don't have to tell most of you that we're going to be operating under budget constraints for, in most of our states, for the next several years. tax revenues will be slower to come back, and when they do, education will not be receiving the same amount that it did before. and balanced against this is, of course, workplace needs are going up. i think this headline from "the wall street journal" defines it well, "industry puts heat on schools to teach skills employers need." so classic situation. revenues aren't the same, they're less, and yet we have demand for much greater quality. and you can see this, this is if you look to the left, 1973, all

the way to the right is 2018, these are the numbers, the percentage of jobs that could be performed in those periods by people with certain degrees. thooz are high school drop -- these are high school dropouts, so in 1973, 32 percent of all jobs could be performed by those with less than a high school diploma. this is with a high school diploma, so almost three-quarters of all jobs in 1973 could be performed by those with a high school diploma or less. now we go through some postsecondary, two-year degree, four-year degree, bachelor's, and so you see that in our present day as we sit here now 60% of all jobs require some postsecondary, and that number is only going up. how do we get the education to so many more students? there is this clear economic benefit thanks to state farm that has permitted us to put together an economic model at my organization, the alliance for

excellent education. we've been able to estimate if you raise that, remember that high school graduation rate is roughly 75% nationwide, if you raise it to 90% from one class alone, the class of 2012, what that would mean is almost 600,000 new graduates, $7 billion in increased annual income, $19 billion in increased home sales, 37,000 new jobs created and very important for all state and local officials, almost $2 billion in increased tax revenues from simply raising the graduation rate to 90%. all of which leads to the conclusion that the best economic stimulus package is truly a diploma. so let's look at now, so fasten your seat belts for what we're looking at over the next two years, because i think the next two years are going to be so critical for everyone who has to be, who's involved in making significant decisions such as those of you in this room. here are some of the factors.

we've heard a lot about waivers. 24, is it 26 states as of today havewares. the reason i -- waivers. the reason i have horses running is think of the states having been 50 horses in a stable, each one in a stall, pretty predictable barn. well, now they're starting to run a bit free, and there are some federal constraints, yes, but there's also a lot more flexibility as the previous panel talked about. by the end of the year, we'll probably have 30 to 35 states with waivers having to make significant decisions around those. we have the im34re789ation of the common core standards. 6 states and the district of -- 46 states and the district of columbia have adopted the common core, but chances are there's only one state that has not adopted a college and career-ready benchmark. so as we sit here today, 99% of all of our students are now going to be held to college and career-ready as the benchmark for graduation, not simply

proficiency. very significant change. and that, obviously, involves a number of issues around teaching. i'm going to talk about those in just a second. and with the common core or with the college and career-ready benchmark, are we -- remember that in 2014 and '15 every common core state will be delivering assessments from either smarter balanced or apart, whichever one you're a member of that consortia, but these assessments will be largely computer based and online. and then, of course, the issue of our teachers, are we supporting our teachers necessary to teach to this college and career-ready standard. so major, and so it's not just that the students will be taking assessments online in 2014 and '15 or computer based, but it's getting our students ready for the assessments they're going to take and the content they're going to be tested on. so keep that seat belt tight. because look at -- i want to talk about teaching which is so critical when you're talking

about technology. we know that while increasingly achieve just did an analysis that showed an overwhelming percentage of our teachers, well over two-thirds, believe in the common core and want to be able to teach to it, only 22% feel that they're currently prepared to teach to the common core. so we have a challenge of literally hundreds of thousands of teachers that are seeking support and teaching to the common core. we also have a teaching force that's less experienced because of demographic shifts, namely teachers that are in my generation retiring. we have the typical teacher tad has one to three years -- today has one to three years of experience, so, obviously o, that's the challenge as well. they have the commitment. are they going to get the support they need, the professional learning that was referred to up here in and do we have the right teachers where we need them most? we're not picking out -- this is true for every state, but we call the departments of

education in these two states, georgia and minnesota. give you an example, number of high schools in each one, you can see 40 in -- 440 in georgia, 971 in minnesota. so how many certified teachers in these states? 182 in minnesota, 88 in georgia. the point is this, we're not going to get a certified physics teacher in every one of these classrooms in the immediate future. is so what is it? what's the force multiplier that can help get us there? so let's now talk about digital learning, and what is digital learning? it's any instructional practice that effectively uses technology to strengthen the student learning experience. and i think it's safe to say that this panel here will be talking largely about blended learning, that is not where you simply have online learning where a student is sitting at home or a remote place and there's a teacher distanced someplace else, but blended learning is where 890 -- 90% of

our students in this country are going to receive the benefit of technology. that's in a traditional brick and mortar classroom. so where technology is being effectively applied in the traditional brick and mortar place called school. and so that then, when you're talking about digital learning, you're talking about a number of different aspects. data assessment, learning management platforms. how are you monitoring how well students are doing? you're talking, yes, about online learning, but you're talking about the blended learning, you're talking about software, adaptive software that can keep up with the eyes of that -- with the needs of that student, speed them up, slow them down and also be giving realtime data back to the teachers. you're talking about the teachers and educators and principals, professional learning and the collaboration. not episodic professional development, but the constant collaboration, and much of this can be delivered -- can be assisted digitally. so digital learning is critically important.

let me tell you what digital learning is not. digital learning is not simply flapping a netbook on top of a textbook. and mark edwards here is one of the true experts in this country as well as our other panelists on one to one, giving every child a laptop or a computer. i think, mark, you'll be the first one to say you don't bring the first laptop in until you've got a comprehensive strategy for doing that. which is where i want to get to. here is what i believe that every school district is going to have to be looking at in the next two years because of the conditions that i just outlined. first of all, what are your -- you're going to have to adopt a technology strategy. but you're first going to have to determine what are your goals, what is it you seek for your students? presumably, it's the college and career-ready benchmark of how you're going to get there. so you've got your educational goals. then you're going to have to look at what are your unique challenges. in mcdowell county, west

virginia, as the senator well knows from west virginia, it's connectivity. in another state or district it could be high population of english language learners, it could be high free and reduced lunch, access to the most modern technology or to broadband. .. and but it's also how you

advanced students. some of you are already working on not using time a student gets a credit for being in the credit for on hundred 80 days but you are looking at the advance. they moved based upon their pace. and how well they are able to handle. so the students that need less time can move forward faster than and students that need more time to actually have the teacher gives them more time. so competency based advancement and other changes in time. finally what is the third piece? of course it's the technology. now that you've worked through the teaching and the time, what is the appropriate technology for your situation? not just buying what comes along but what is it that meets the goals and the challenges and the teaching and time you are trying to instill? in order to advance this, former governor jeb bush and i created the virtual learning.

he called me to read a half years ago and said if you are involved in digital learning he's certainly been involved in it in florida and i wrote one republican, one democrat and guess which one. [laughter] and so, but let's work together and we've created 100 digital learning council that created then working together the ten elements of the highly successful digital learning system. i'm not going to go through all of these, all ten elements but it's designed to be a road map for states to use policy makers to use some of you in this room had already put them into place in your states through your admin as reduction or legislative action if you go to the website www.digitallearningnow.com, one word, www.digitallearningnow.com dickerman for categories. it's all student access to high level digital content. all teachers need to be prepared and get training for them

dealing obviously the infrastructure is critically important in the states have to look at how to implement that to install and then finally, the issue of advancement, the competency versus traditional seat time. we have february the first to show you how this is growing. we have my organization sponsored the first digital learning day. incidentally the next on esfandiari six. you have 183 shopping days left. but during the first digital learned a, 39 states participated. 2 million students were involved. 18,000 teachers. digital learning day was about celebrating teacher practice. what is it that teachers are doing in classrooms digitally that is truly making a difference? so we have teachers from all over the country participating. and so those teachers that warrant, this is designed for them to provide -- give an

opportunity to do something digitally. to put pencil stub for a day and do something digitally. and then for eight hours, 3,000 online chats, 5,000 tweets and what that meant? we even exceeded justin bieber for monday. [laughter] 18,000 goober national proclamations, the secretary of education, the fec chair, but most significantly we brought in other means four or five successful classrooms across the country. the governor commodores was one of them. across the country using digital learning talking to the students and teachers and so on. so, remember my analogy to flying? it is turbulent right now. budget constraints, demand for greater work place, the next two years of such images coming up it's pretty turbulent out there right now. we can even give it the way we've always done it, business

as usual. this is designed to be in interstate at first but we turned it into a runaway. business as usual could be a rough landing to end our teachers and students with the tools for success. those are the challenges and the opportunities and decisions i believe you face. now these three up here represent those who are every day bringing digital learning to the classroom, and doing it in that systematic way that honors the pentagon chief that honors and recognizes the changing nature of time that recognizes the changing nature of change and also the importance of technology. so, john, if i could start with you you are writing one of the most important charter systems, k through five, rocket ship education. where do we go from here for policy makers and leaders and education that we have here? >> sure. well, what i would say to build

on what the governor said was you really don't want to approach blended learning from a technology standpoint. the technology is a toll to deliver what you want to deliver, and my own story is that i was a classroom teacher lead in life. i had started a company and sold it and retired, got aboard, so went in the classroom to figure out what education was about. and the thing that struck me when i was doing that -- sorry -- was that every year when i would walk in the door of my classroom i had that set of kids that weren't just a little behind but for two or three years behind. so, teaching low-income schools, primarily english-language learners, and i would ask the of their teachers well, what do we

do about this? and they said use this term differentiate. you need to differentiate. what does that mean? it appeared to mean that while you are really working to teach the kids that are kind of somewhere around greater level, in real time, you're supposed to help these children that are two or three grade levels behind to scalpel them so they can learn the same material. and by man engineer by training, and so we were kind of trying to think about problems and difficulty problems and i thought to myself that ridiculously hard problem. i want to solve that one. and so, what i did is i started to think about kids as kids, as individuals. meet the basic assumption every child is different and every child has certain strengths and weaknesses and you should build for that child a plan that helps them get where they need to go. so, i wrote individualized learning plans for every student in my classroom that was below grade level, and then would give

them developmentally appropriate activities to do in order to catch up to the rest of the class by the end of the year and in the three years i taught about 90% of my kids caught up and might take away from this was isn't it strange that a teacher has to figure out how to do this? why doesn't the system just work that way? so the idea was just to invent a system of school that works that way. about us simple as that. so, i'm going to flip quickly. grade k through five, we have seven schools. as of the fall educating about 3500 students now. the result slide you can see we look at academic results in terms of where to our students who are primarily low-income english-language lerner's perform relative to the

upper-income distracts in california because you don't think it's good enough to do just a better than the school on the street he have to do well the maps of the kids in your neighborhood aren't just as well prepared as any student in the state. want to talk about how our model works. so the idea with rocket ship is you have six hours of classroom time for every student but you also have two hours of what we call learning allowed and that is the time in my classroom where everything is individualized. every student has an individualized learning plan and when they walk into the learning lab they are doing something that is appropriate for them either to terse sing you can see the technology is kind of way down. it's like what does that child need and who do they need to work with to get that? what you are seeing on that slide is the schedule, so

probably the one of the things people focus on the most on the model is we've taken kind of a traditional intervention program where the full response to intervention school, but we interweave that intervention throughout the school day. and if you look at that schedule, what it means is if you are a first grader, there is always one first grade class that is an learning lab at any one time coming and in first grade we have three teachers instead of four. and people say how do you do all these things that you do with professional development and things like that? it's all based on the fact we need fewer educators than you would need in a traditional school. the math is pretty simple. we have 21,000 kids, 16 teachers, and we save about half a million dollars a year. because of that -- and really, i say that educators if somebody wrote you a check every year come every school for half a million dollars and said improve the quality of your school, you could probably figure out some

pretty good things to do with that money a improve the quality of your school. so the things we do, we pay our teachers more. we currently pay them 20% of the surrounding districts, and we are moving that up this year and in future years. it might get to twice the district salaries around us. we think that we are big believers in teacher quality and kind of the dominant factor and the quality of a childhood education. we have a dedicated academic dean at every school who is working full-time with teachers to mentor them and developed the practice. and we have a three-year leadership development program that when somebody is becoming principal of one of our schools they get from three years. and that kind of goes through all the slides. but i do want to go to the last slide, because i think it's important. we have been asked for several years now, five years, and when we started, we use that extra money and improve our classroom

site, and from our perino engagement, teacher development and the individualization. three years ago we started to focus on the learning lab and how to make that better because the goal was to shift the time when our students were learning basic skills away from the classroom and into the learning lab. so, those of you that work with low-income schools know the best low-income schools in the country are actually the best at teaching basic skills by and large, because the test often tests for basic skills and this free frustrating project based learning school you start your project, and what you find very quickly is that students in the classic lack the skills they need to be able to complete the project. you go back and read mediating a classroom all the things you wish they had known instead of giving the project. so we did that for a couple years and realized the answer to this was not differentiation or the teacher having small groups

they are working with all the time to read a was to move more and more of that individualist time in the learning lab said the classroom could be returned to the teacher. the classroom got kind of taken away from the teachers who moved to more and more standardized basic skills and curriculum when in fact you really know i have children in the paula weld home-schooled district, my own kids and then i watch rocketship, one of the highest performing in california, and one of the things i want us to do more and more of is teach our kids how to be successful relative to time seeing in the paula guelzo school district which is how to problems of, how to think, how valued a part of your education, all of the things that frankly every teacher wishes they had the time to teach but was taken away. we want to move time into the learning lab that frees up the time in the classroom to really teach children how to be competitive in their career.

the last part i want to point out as we think that all of this actually depends on having a backbone for your school that allows a teacher to tell the system here's where all the kids are in my class when they go into the learning to become learning lab how to work on this, this, and this because that's what i need for them to be successful when they are doing the project with me. and then to get feedback at the end of the day well, how did that go? so when they're looking their lesson for the next day do i really need to teach that lesson were infected the kids get it, etc., etc.. so tight loop between what the teacher knows their students need and what is delivered online and in the individualized is the key to this whole thing and really what rocketship is focus on right now. >> mark, you run a school district in mooresville, north carolina. the district used to finish fairly far down in student performance, and is as i recall 115 school districts 99 and per

pupil expenditure, it's still 99 expenditure but you move the fighting are you number three now in student performance of all the school districts. what did you do to make this happen? >> well, thanks, and i have to give the secret to something that every great teacher here knows is the commitment every day to every student. our motto is every child every day. and i was really excited to know michael was here and sharing his work and believed about the importance of engaging children in a personal level. we've had hundreds of vision nurse come to mooresville. in fact we host a visit once a month we are out next march all of the visits are booked up. estimate educational tourism. stat we generate a couple million dollars to the local economy. by the mechem mooresville is 30 minutes north of charlotte. nobody goes there by accident.

you have to want to go to mooresville. i'm also motivated. my wife and i have three children, we are excited she's working. 22-year-old that just graduated, decided her last semester she wants to be a teacher. we are glad she's back in school. then we have a 12-year-old, got so we can clear that up for you. just got lucky wheat. [laughter] but the bottom line is i don't know what our son will do, but i think if we don't prepare him differently, he will not be employed. he's a great kid and we love him but i want him to be employed at some point. so one of the things we have done, we provide every student through 12th grade with a personal laptop computer and they have it 24/7. we have structured our training program so that every teacher has an opportunity for training throughout the year. our school board provided training, system of training and we have early release days of times a year and our parents

thought into this and said we want our teachers to improve. our graduation rates five years ago for 64%. today it is 91%. we did drop 99 to 100 lending of of 115 districts and we have used our funding, we don't have any external funding. our funding to provide the resources to all the students. now i would share that there are three critical ingredients to our success. and by the way, at every level we are seeing improvement in achievement. our suspension because dropped by 55%. a few years ago, five years ago when i started in mooresville, there was a serious lawsuit with the school district about suspension for minority students and one of the things that we took a look at is how our culture -- and that's why and what michael was here -- we

really made the decision as it seemed we need to change our culture. and move to the teacher center and firemen to the student center environment. and to focus every day and every class would be about focusing on students to read a lot of training went into that and i had a lot of soul-searching in terms of we have to build the capacity of teachers, principals to build this culture and then ultimately provide this resource to the students and then to use that resource effectively and one of the things that when the visitors come through, say to the county seat restructure. we have a set with a lesson but then we quickly move to be differentiated approach. so there is personalized learning, a project based learning, a group learning. as a result of this and this type of effort into this type of work our teachers are more successful. governor, we have moved up.

last year we referred in the state and our composite 115 districts but we have moved up and we don't know or the other systems ranked. we went up in every single level. one point that i am particularly proud of is we focus on the early intervention with students and our rates for all students at their grade is 96%. to put that into some type of context it was 44% for the american students five years ago. for poverty students is 96% to 852% five years ago. and when visitors come, they come in typically wanting to see a lot of sand technology in the digital resources. they leave talking about the culture. they leave talking about pervasive care and focus on individual children. and something i think we have moved away from but i think we should embrace vigorously a loving environment, and we talk

about that. one of the things i think our students success rate has moved up so dramatically in a lot of it has to do with the sense of caring, loving environment coupled with high expectations and academic rigor. one of the offensive and as bill capacity by providing training for the use of information. not just data that the use of information about students, about how they are doing. and one of the things that i love, our students are very, very in tune with their own learning. they mind their progress. we had a visit recently who asked a young man what he was doing working on this reading list and i read this and answered some questions. i can look at it and he said you want to know how long do me? sure. let me show you. i was here. i moved here and you see this blueline? this is where i'm going. this is where i will be paid you know what a trajectory is? the visitor said yeah.

well that is my trajectory. that is wearing going. and i think that this factor of students being very personally engaged with their learning, monitoring it, watching it, and then creating a sense of energy. we have had budget cuts in north carolina dr. lee knows we lost about 10% of our work force three years ago. our class size was over 32 per class. my son's class was 32 students. in fact that teacher that you see was a fourth grade teacher. but ultimately, the bottom line is that our teachers are more successful. and we haven't had a great for years i don't want any of our teachers to hear about rocketship. [laughter] any teacher here we have openings, we are hiring. our teachers have not had a raise so i continue to work with such enthusiastic vigorous

energy and all the students sense that. what they're doing with students is making a difference. they are more successful. i can't say that without the digital resources they used to provide a precision in terms of intervention with students and then the driving component of relevance. i really believe when students are using this kind of resources in the class is, they see what they are doing in schools connected to their future. and in so many places they are going through a process that they don't see or internalize that connection. there's a lot of factors that have created that force. more than anything it is the outstanding work of the teachers. one of the things we do in mooresville as we recognize all staff members in terms of their contributions whether it's the custodians, a bus driver saying we want to recognize every student and we go in in the morning.

they've increased by 25% during this time, yet i can say that there is this sense of optimism. and the sense that we are just on the cusp of where we can be. and i think that as leaders in this room today, we need to embrace the optimism, and that can do attitude and that believe and i really believe we can make a difference for every child, every day. >> as well the students began a difference every day is rick ogston. you run a successful charter school in arizona. as i recall ten years ago this was not a high performing school. you also engaged in a total redo and re-engineering. and the important thing about what you've done in such a short period of time is that your school which is as i recall has almost 50% free and reduced lunch your school exceeds both

of the average school performance as well as the state of arizona. so can you talk about how you do it? >> yes. carpe diem was created out of my own frustration. i had what i call a corrine moment in looking through my school i was looking through the windows and then walking into classrooms and noticed a lot of disengagement. not just of students but also teachers. i was challenged by that, and i was thinking we've got to do something about the engagement. why are they not engaged? what is really going on? it is at that point i went back to my desk and i did something very therapeutic. i banged my head on the desk. literally. that's what i do. and i noticed as i looked at my head at some point the cell phone on my head that is a smartphone much larger than the one i have now and this was ten years ago -- then the technology

in my office and everything is not really in the classroom to get its not being leveraged in the classroom. it wasn't being utilize that in a great capacity. imagine, if you what we imagine education if you were able to leverage technology. what might that look like? we do it in every other area. why not school? in fact i think in the educational environment we have been immune to technology and innovation. unfortunate. and i think that's why the students were disengaged is they would go home and they would power of and use all kind of technology but they came to school and powered down. so it became an issue of going okay, not about technology without learning. how do vv engage the lerner and get them to learn again? i started thinking in terms of what their interests are and of course that goes to technology, but we're the interest and in technology? it isn't because it is a gadget,

it's because they can personalize. they could make that box, that i had, that ipod, what ever they were doing, they could make it what they wanted it to be a pity it was an extension of themselves. i began to think how can we do that in schools? we've talked about for many, many decades, ecology in learning. equality, equal become equal access. and we spent billions of dollars trying to provide equal access. what we haven't done as provided equity. what is the difference between equal, equity and equal, and if i can i would love that little exercise here with you and that is asking each of you to take off your right shoe. take off your right shoe and pass it to the person next to you. just do that and the personally and comer down and give it to this person. ecology is everybody still has a left and a right shoe. but do they have the issue that

is right for them? having what is right for them. so it's technology in my mind was able to personalize learning so everybody had the right shoes and the right size then they felt comfortable going ahead exploring and learning. you cannot personalize learning without technology i don't think to scale. i mean personalize learning has happened in the classrooms and eventually when education was founded on the scale it has not. so what i wanted to do is to personalize the learning, leverage technology to do that at scale, and then hopefully we engage the students and that is what we have done. when you begin to leverage technology and what is different -- >> we are leaving this program at this point. you can see it in its entirety on the website, c-span.org. guinn live now to the national press club here in washington where the new nuclear regulatory commission will be discussing

some of the short and long term objectives at nrc to the estimate the first extended meeting with the press since taking office. just a few notes about chairwoman macfarland she was sworn in on july 9th and the term runs through june, 2013. she previously served on the blue ribbon commission on the future which is an expert panel created by the obama administration to look to alternatives to the yucca mountain. in 2006 she published a book about yucca mountain regarding technical issues about the site, suitability for disposing of nuclear waste, and previous to that, she was associate professor of environmental science and policy at george mason university and held a post at georgia tech as well.

we are going to have a few remarks from chairwoman macfarlane and then take questions. please identify yourself before asking your question. thanks. chairman? >> thank you. so, thank you, george, very much. it's nice to be here. it's nice to come down to the press club and had a chance to chat with you all. i think george mentioned my background is as a geologist from mit eons ago. mojo contended. [laughter] i've always been interested in and involved in policy development especially around nuclear issues, and as george mentioned, i was on the blue ribbon commission on america's nuclear future where we developed a strategy for dealing with nuclear waste and disposing of its. >> [inaudible] >> i am sorry. is that better?

good. and i've also published fairly extensively on nuclear waste and nuclear energy issues. let me first tell you that at the nuclear regulatory commission, we are very much focused right now on fukushima and the lessons we learned from fukushima. last tuesday we had a commission meeting where we learned about the progress of our staff on dealing with these issues and we've also heard from intervenors both from the industry and concerned public. it was a very good session. we have an excellent q&a session with the other commissioners. i thought it went very well for those of you who were able to see it. in general, we are working to words developing actions out of fukushima lessons learned that

will enhance the safety of the existing nuclear facilities. and right now, the nrc is in the process of working on for current actions that you may be aware of. first of all, to require reactors with issues reorders coming and the first of those orders require him that reactors have equipment to ensure they can continue to operate in the event of a loss of of site power and that additional equipment should be both on site and off site sophos requirements, are there. the second quarter that was issued had to do with getting additional instrumentation to the polls that housed the spent nuclear fuel to ensure that we know at all times the water level in the polls and

additional things what is going on in the polls. the third order has to do with the baliles lanham water -- the boiling water and that is asking the reactors to improve or rissole to help control sheet in the containment in the event of an accident. in addition to those orders, we also sent a letter asking and requiring the plant to do seismic and flooding walk-downs' so that we understand better the seismic and flooding rest at the plant and start working on addressing that. in fact, i understand even prior to the fukushima accident, the reactors were required to update their seismic analysis because the u.s. geological survey updated its analysis for the central and eastern u.s.. in general, we also have more

activities. amir term task force at the nrc that looked at the fukushima accident developed a number of recommendations coming and we are working through them. so, i just discussed the ones that are actively happening right now. but we are also in the process at the nrc of looking at a number of what you might have heard of tier one and tier three potentially activities, and we will be working hard on those over the next years as well. the bottom line is that we have to get this right. we need to ensure the plants are safe in a variety of situations, and we have learned a lot from what happened at fukushima and so we want to continue to work on that. in terms of my goals for the agency i want to see a few of those with you. and of course i've got four in particular that i would like to

share with you. and of course my number one goal is to continue the nrc's mission especially in light of what happened at fukushima of ensuring that the existing fleet of nuclear reactors and nuclear material facilities continue to operate safely. the nrc mission is to ensure public health and safety and protect the environment, and that will be my number one goal. my number two goal again is something related to fukushima but also related to my background as a geologist. and that is looking at the intersection of geology and nuclear energy, and i think there are a number of issues. this is highlighted by the event of fukushima. and was also highlighted to me personally by the north anna experience last year. you may all remember where you

were on august 23rd because you experience an earthquake. if you experience that you were lucky because that's interesting to go through that experience. i didn't experience the earthquake but i was here. i was out with my son fishing at seneca creek lake and we didn't do anything happened. no water sloshing, no movement of the ground. by the way, i've been out in mccaul in my previous existence and i felt earthquakes outside. so we didn't have to do with that so much as it had to do with of the geology and it reinforced a listen to me that geology matters. in matters where you are during an earthquake where you experience any ground shaking. in matters what's beneath you and what is in the kafta you and that matters for nuclear

facilities and we have to make sure we get this right. we have to make sure we understand all the issues and we have to make sure we understand all of the uncertainty involved in this. the size of the earthquake at mineral virginia wasn't predicted. the size of the earthquake at fukushima wasn't predicted and so, we need to sit down and rethink these issues and this will be one of my goals. we need to ensure given a variety of situations the nuclear plants will be safe. so, and that helps me to segue into my third area of focus for the agency and that will be the back end of the cycle. as geology matters with existing operating plans, but geology matters also with repository citing for instance, that kind of thing. but the back end of the cycle is

broader than that and probably many of you are aware that we are dealing with the least confidence decision judgment and rolling out of the circuit court now at the nrc and i am not able to say a lot about this because it is an active adjudicatory matter but let me just say that we know that this is a pressing issue. it's a priority for us at the commission. we are now at the commission level looking at the stuff document which is laying out options for going forward. we will deal with that promptly coming and we will have a plan to move forward quickly. so, that is sort of where we are going with a lot and there will be other issues that will come up as well. i think especially out of fukushima we are paying more attention to the spent nuclear fuel and issues associated with that. my fourth and final goal for the

agency is to improve communication. an agency like ours, an independent regulator doesn't do well with the public and ensure and instill public confidence unless we communicate well. my initial impression is of reading nrc documents is that some of them are rather opaque and they are full of acronyms that are difficult to figure out. there is no lao list of acronyms associated with them. it's funny when i lao the people at the nrc nobody knows what i'm talking about. well, it's an acronym. i don't have a clue. so anyway, i've been -- every time i get an opportunity to talk to the staff, i've been emphasizing this to them. i think it's important both internally and externally to be much more transparent with our

communications. i read these documents and i sit there and imagine a grandmother that lives near a nuclear power plant trying to slog through some of the documents to understand what some of the issues are and it's like to think about grandmothers trying to open bottle tops sometimes when i can't open them how do they get the bottle top open? so, anyway, we need to make sure that we communicate effectively with the public so that the public can have confidence in our work. that's another important area of focus. there are a number of issues that will come up and that have come up. we will continue to maintain our focus on that. i've been very impressed with the staff. if you're a strong he group of people happy to debate the issues, and i am convinced that

their goal is also ensuring public health and safety. so i happy to entertain your questions. >> if you could just please identify yourself. >> laughter cut i just want to thank the chairman for coming today. you're media predecessor had a very broad view of the power and prerogatives of the chairman particularly in the area of developing the agency budget. and you've told a couple of the congressional committees that you will strive to improve collegiality and such things on the commission but i'm hoping to get more specifics on what degree you hope to involve your fellow commissioners in the

development of the agency budget specifically to read and more generally, will you take a broad view of matters that are administrative in other words under exclusive control of the german forces the issues that are considered policy and therefore need to be taken to the of the members of the commission as well? >> thanks for your question, stephen. and it's great to see you. i see you everywhere. you shall of all the time -- show of all the time. i do feel very strongly that the commission only operates -- it operates as a collegial body. now, my background is from academia, and i sort of see the commission as a very similar to academic department. it's a group of equals, one of whom has been elected the chair. now the chair obviously has similar powers than the rest of

the faculty. but in the end of the r equals and that is why few my colleagues on the commission. let me tell you that before i was even sworn in on july 9th, i sat down with all of my fellow commissioners for an hour and had a discussion with them about what their concerns were, the issues they thought were important for the commission, and we are continuing that. we meet on a regular basis and discuss these issues. it's an issue i think is important i am happy to run out to their offices. and that is why seat is working well. and my staff has similar direction to work closely with the staff of the other commissioners, and we are. and i think in terms of other -- that's where we need to go so what we leave that there.

>> [inaudible] >> we are actively working on the budget. i can't say much about it right now but we are working on it together, and we are working on it in a collegial way so we are sharing information. >> over here. >> good morning. thank you, doctor. going back to your .1 of your goals of improving communication i was wondering, to parts. if you personally have a communication with your counterparts over in japan, and second, can you tell us about what the level of information sharing is from the commission meeting that the near term tosk for some findings and recommendations that your agency has had if you share that information then with the japanese nuclear regulatory commission for the japanese government, that kind of thing to a >> right now i haven't yet had

any direct communications with any of my colleagues anywhere in the world because i'm just a few weeks into the job, but i know i will be having more communication with my colleagues with other nuclear regulators will the world. so, it's -- that will come. the commission meeting last week was webcast and is available, is that correct? it's available for anybody to look at and we do have a very active office of international programs to work for a closely with our colleagues all around the world as well. >> the gentleman right here. >> hearst newspapers. doctor, you indicated a preference for the storage on site as opposed to yucca mountain like the solution for

the second of the fuel cycle i believe would be accurate to say. what role do you think the nrc can play emerging operators to move more quickly from the pool storage to the dry cask storage? >> thanks for the question, david. let me me clarify something there, okay? i have always felt and i think many people in the nuclear industry understand this very well we need a repository for high-level nuclear waste. let me be clear about that. no matter what. every country needs a repository for the nuclear waste. in the interim you have some options on how to store your spend a nuclear fuel. you -- every reactor requires a spent fuel pool. you can't have a reactor without

a spent fuel pool. many reactors find they also use dry casks. i've been impressed with the performance of the earth earthquakes both at fukushima and that more north anna. at the nrc we are one of the tier three activities to look more closely at the issues associated with moving more quickly from the spent fuel pool into the dry casks, so we will be looking at this issue. >> the gentleman right here. >> rye and cheesy with dow jones news wire. your predecessor has on fukushima and the task force recommendations expressed some concern that the seismic piece of that might go beyond his goal

of five years to sort of a implement and get all the recommendations going forward. what is your view on how quickly the seismic revaluations are slated to happen and you think that is happening quickly enough? >> as far as understand i think the seismic evaluation are happening quickly. we have to walk down for seismic and flooding evaluations as they are happening now we're beginning to happen so we should have some information fairly soon about this at the nrc to evaluate. there are other issues. that's a little more complicated because you have to wait for a shutdown to first evaluate what you can do and then you need another shot down cycle when you actually make the change so that is where the five-year period comes from.

>> not the lockdown that the longer term re-evaluation. >> as i said, that was actually under way before any of the fukushima activities came about. so, this is absolutely in progress we should be seeing some of the results of these soon and the agency. as far as i can tell what the seven men quickly enough and if i think it is not, then i will certainly start pushing people to move faster. >> right here. >> jeff with energy daily. i want to go back to david's question for the second on this fuel transfer at the japan fukushima update meeting last week you had a lot of questions on what the term expedited meant. you asked what they were thinking and i don't want to put words in your mouth is on the pledge your interested in moving more quickly and they felt exploited meant anything quicker than with the industry planned

to return wonder if that meant your understanding or desire for that expedited if something needs to happen. >> that's a good question, jeff. i think the staff is looking at this -- i will be working with them closely to express my concerns about how quickly i think things should move. we have to wait a little bit until we get through some of the tier one activities which are the ongoing activities that i explained in my opening remarks. and then moved to these tier two and tier three activities and that is sort of a current question about the schedule for that right now. so, that is something i'm working with the staff on. right here. >> bloomberg. i want to come back to the

target you mentioned, the spent fuel and the intersection of geology and the nuclear. do you think that the agency spends enough time on this? to you plan to spend additional resources? >> which two target's? >> the spent fuel issue and the infrastructure of geology. >> i certainly want to focus more on the intersection of geology and nuclear issues coming in this is something where i'm directing my personal stuff to spend some time on it and we will be bringing it up with the agency staff as well. >> [inaudible] >> you know, i'm not completely aware. you mean the nrc before i got there? that's what you mean by the previous agency? okay.

the nrc as restricted. we don't make policy. we regulate based on existing policy. so we can't set policy on nuclear waste disposal for instance. that is the congress's job and the administration's job. we deal with issues that come to the table. >> tama with a green meijer. i was hoping to get your reaction to the millstone shut down and what your perspective is on the effects of climate change on reactors, kind of interested in what you think if you have concerns on that are interested focus on that. >> thanks, hannah, nice to see you. it's not the first time this has occurred as far as i and understand. the water out what gets warm enough to cause a plant to have to shut down for a little while.

but, i have actually asked the staff to look into the issue of what are some of the climate change in practice, potential impacts coming down the road, and one of them is the issue of water sources so hopefully we will have more to tell you the climate change impact. >> i'm just curious in terms of the least confidence suspension of new permits how long is that likely to last? it seems like it could be a rather significant if you are looking at all options and so forth, but can you give us an

idea how long you think this might take? >> this is one thing that we are actively working on at the commission. as i said, the staff sent a paper up to the commission giving us a number of options on how to go forward and timing, and in general the commission feels like we should work on this as efficiently as possible. but we haven't settled on an actual number yet. >> you have a lot of choices he would make. >> we probably don't have a lot of trees is but we have a few. >> i will take it up myself here >> i'm george, no.

when you uncover the nrc you study the litany from the group's the nrc isn't tough enough that they have had numerous lapses because the nrc hasn't been vigilant enough. you've had the opportunity to evaluate the operations. i've seen your time on a blue ribbon commission. and the chairman jaczko had suggested some of the turmoil was caused by the fact that other members of the commission were not sufficiently tough on safety. he was supported by some members of congress who supported your nomination as well. wondered if you'd agree with chairmen jaczko that there's a problem in the agency in terms of either among your fellow commissioners or staff that it's been accommodating to the

industry or if you feel that criticism is not on target. >> thanks for your question, george. i've just been on the job for a few weeks, but i have some strong initial impressions of the agency. and one is that i have been very impressed with the staff and their dedication to safety. and their willingness to stand up to an industry when they believed a situation isn't safe. so, i'm actually quite assured that the agency is completing its mission of protecting public health and safety. they take safety issues very seriously. they take their role as regulators very seriously. and, you know, the public should be assured that they have the public's best interest in mind. sponsor chairman jaczko was

mistaken? >> you know, i think the agency is carrying out its job. from what i can tell -- i wasn't here before july 9th. but from what i can tell so far, i am reassured that the agency is continuing its mission of protecting public health and safety and protecting the environment. and i intend to encourage them in that direction as much as i can. >> the gentleman here. >> you talk a lot about the importance of communications and communicating what you're doing. as a part of that year to words reversing at least the perception that the agency has been a victim of the capture. >> if that ends up being part of the message, that would be fine. if that is the public perception

that the agency has been captured. like i said, my impression so far is farepak is not the case at all. and i want to ensure that we as an agency take the public concerns very seriously. there will certainly come out when we have public meetings, public hearings. i want to hear from the public and what their concerns are real sometimes they have very worthwhile concerns. recently you spoke about agency efforts to address going back to the staff supporting safety to make sure the agency and to limit support staff that want to come forward and say they have

safety concerns. as a, kind of a agency environment issue and i want to know whether some of the things that might be done to make sure the staff always feel they can come forward and bring up issues. >> you know, still learning what some of the recent history of the nrc and byman crest some of the agencies values are openness, transparency, collaborative work environment. they are really emphasizing that. they are conscience to the cautious of their own culture and the are working hard to ensure they maintain their own safety culture. i think it's interesting when any kind of incident happens at a particular facility especially if it becomes a long drawn-out

incident they take the time to go through and gather lessons learned and how can we do things differently and do we need to change rules? so it's a very self reflected agency is my impression.

in this position and it -- is quite a statement. request you defend why this is a good time to have a agreology in the position of leadership in the nrc? >> sure, absolutely. i think right now it takes me back to my main message geologies clearly matters. it wasn't the main message of

fukushima, i don't know what was. there was a massive earthquake, an quick that was not predicted. why was it not predicted? because geologies is an area of dynamic knowledge changes with time. before the 2004 earthquake which created the huge tsunami in the indian indian ocean they had -- 8.8 on most zones. and now we, you know, we have that understanding. and certainly reemphasized by the earthquake that produced the tragedy at fukushima. so geology certainly matters. it is always changing.

and, you know, if we're dealing with issues of the back end of the fuel cycle and thinking about repository geology matters again. now let me just say that the nrc is a regulatory body. we are independ regulatory body, we protect the public health and safety, we do not make policy. so that's congress' job. we don't promote the industry. we regulate the industry. we don't look for solutions to the nuclear waste problem, that's congress' job. david, again. chair will the new focuses on geology mean that reliancing examination of facilities like india point, san 0 know fray where some of these issues have post conruction been

recognized will it be different now? are you planning to be more rigorous in that regard? >> you know, i'm not planning any new rules right now. and, you know, frankly, because all of these plants are required to update their size size mick hazard age sis. we have no ensure it continues in the future. and that nuclear engineers check in with geologist and see how it has changed. stive with the las vegas review journal. i know you don't make policy. you were asked a number of questions on the hill about yucca mountain you said you would keep an open mind on it. i was worlding for you could

have talked more about what you meant what may have changed over the years since you did your studies that may cause you to fake another look. >> thanks for the question. you know, as you note, i did most of my research and my technical ability sis analysis in conduct yucca mountain in the early 2000 east. i haven't read the nrc technical analysis, and so i don't know what has changed. okay. that's, you know, still to come. i need to spend some time with the documents updating myself. also, we don't have any issue about yucca mountain before at the agency, so, you know, there's nothing -- there are no decisions to make at this point in time. >> are you going to say that perhaps conditions may have changed at the site or basically that the research may have advanced in there may be things in the new analysis that maybe

you didn't see when you were doing your work. >> i don't know. i don't know whether there's been new research. i know, they were going to look at the number of issues that i had been interested in. and i just don't know what's changed. you know, i'll have to see. >> thank you. [inaudible] new york times. thank you. president, what's the pocket that rig analysis based on the gsus reanalysis of the earthquake readiness of reactors will result in some of the older ones closing? this is a rough time to be in the business, national gas is cheap, these plants are old. do you think we're going lose some along the way? >> you know, i can't venture to guess. i think you can make a lot of adjustments to plants to upgrade

size seism -- the important thing is you need to understand what that those risks are and you need to understand the uncertainty attached to your predictses of those risks. so that you can add enough of a safety margin. you know, i should know that the north anna plant road out the earthquake very well even though it exceeded the design basis ground motions in one of the dimensions. and it did that because it had additional safety margins. so i think we just need to ensure that we understand more broadly what some of the risks are. and make sure that we're prepared to handled them.

i was wondering a logistic question you have on the to do list to look at the yucca mountain a little bit further and just wondering what other things have you been doing and on your to do list in order to kind of acquaint yourself with the workings of the agency and just a question. i'm curious. >> sure. you know, the areas that i outline to you are areas that i'm particularly interested in seeing the agency dig into more. but in addition, i'm getting -- as i was saying earlier it's like drinking from a fire hose. i'm getting constant briefings and updates about a variety of issues. i'm also interested in having my staff dig in deeper in some of these areas just to see what options are out there.

>> sara -- [inaudible] you were on the commission those recommendation have been out. congress any day now will hopefully receive the doe report on that. i'm secure use what you think might be in the doe report and what you think can the nrc can do to move forward with the recommendations? >> well, atz i keep saying, the nrc is a regulator, we don't make policy. the nrc can't do anything to move forward on, you know, move those recommendations forward. i think the, you know, putting on my blue ribbon commission hat for a moment. i think we produced an excellent set of recommendations strategy for moving forward. i do hope that the administration and congress take these forward, take these seriously, and help us solve this problem because as a regulator, we need guidance and

we need direction. that's what we at the nuclear regulatory commission will solve once we get it. >> i just wanted to follow on that a little bit particularly on one issue, the transfer of spent fuel from wet pools to dry storage, i'm sure an it's issue looked at closely on the blue ribbon commission, and you probably had some views you came to as a result of that. and also we see at the fukushima accident at the spend fondle were focus of a intense concern. we have key policy makers on the hill senator feinstein was interested in accelerating this movement to try dry storage. and, you know, putting on your regulator hat in being in charge and seasing the safety risk and the background, do you agree that this move to dry storage

needs to be speeded up or as is this maybe put another away, do you see significant risks in the way the spent fuel pools are being packed and what we saw at fiewksha -- fiewk fukushima it needs to be a addressed? >> thanks, george. you're right the fukushima lessons learned did highlight the spent fuel pools most of the member had -- prior to the fukushima lessons learned and we're everybody has stuck in there their minds the image of the helicopter trying to draw water into the pool is spectacular. so clearly this is another one of my areas of emphasis, the back end of the fuel cycle matters. we should be thinking about it all the time. it shouldn't be an afterthought. from my point of view, it has been an offthought. i want to bring a focus to

that. and one of the fiewk fukushima activities is nrc is doing another look at should there been an accelerated transfer of spent fuel from the pool to the drink casks. and i'm interested in taking a very deep dive into that issue and understanding the risks from all points of view the industry that is said, well, if you push this there will be more exposures. we have to understand that. more radiation exposetures to workers. we have to understand the full range of issues before we can develop a policy and go forward. >> steve dolly. last week at the commission briefing on fiewk fukushima --

pursuing the tier two and tier three recommendation, in other words the one beyond the order and request for information could trade-off industry resources with@s needed to improve and maintain safety at current plants and i believe one of the represents of the reactor operator's association expressed concern they're getting piled on in these emergency improves. you need to learn procedure x yz there's only so much time. what can nrc do to are a address the tier two and three recommendation to avoid the trayoffs the industry is worried about with other safety activities? >>, you know, that's a good point, steve. that we have to make sure that we don't make so many rules they turn attention away from maintaining the safe operation of plabtds. that has to be the primary focus that the existing reactors and

facilities, frankly, continue to operate safely, we continue our regular work there. at the same time, i think we have learned some lessons from fukushima and we continue to learn lessons from fiewk fukushima we'll have substitute some of them. so we have to strike a careful balance and in that sense, we have to work closely with the licensees to make sure that we aren't overburdening them in one direction or another. at the same time, while helping them work towards ?uting some of these changes so they operate as safely as possible. >> right here. >> jeff with daily. do you have any thoughts about the role of voluntary industry initiatives adds one part of the suite of japanese fixes or nrc

regulation overall that was a real point of contention among the previous chairman and other commissioners. i think it's fair to say that the agency was little too dependent on them and the other commissioners were too quick to rely on them. >> thanks, jeff. you know, i haven't deal with any specific voluntary initiatives or voluntary actions yet in my tenure. and so i would certainly carefully consider a specific issue that came across my desk. but right now i haven't and so i don't have much of a comment on that. are you combies exhausted? [laughter] >> i'll take the opportunity again. attack dog of the press gone

silent. >> go get some coffee. [laughter] >> again, i want to go back to your experience on the blue ribbon commission, because you're an unusual chairman you come in having had the benefit of two-year review that looked closely at everything the nrc is doing on particularly on the waste and the back end as you have emphasized. i think one of the chicago thing that was clear that you mentioned a the end of this, we're going need a repository. everybody is in agreement there's not going to be repository any time soon. as you look at dry storage, that is a completely safe, i mean, can that be fuel rods be put in there for hundreds of years or sixty years? i'm trying go back to what you learned on the blue ribbon commission.

is this a -- should people feel reassured about dry storage if there's not surprises in terms of keeping things in there for many, many decades? >> you know, i think dry storage is safe, and the -- i'm just trying to think of the numbers here. i think the first dry storage cask was licensed in 1984, '85 it already received a reliance in additional twenty years, forty years. and they seem to be operating very well. they seem to, you know, they're passively cooled systems. that makes them simple. and that's good. let me go back to the larger issue here. okay. and that is ensuring that there's a gee logic repository. let me point out there this is a policy decision that the congress and the administration

take on. let me make one point, and that is that there is an operating gee geologic repository in the u.s. we're the only country with the operating deep geologic repository for waste, not for high level waste it's. we're the only ones in the whole world doing it. we were able to do it. we were able to get it going. within a state and work through all the issues that came up. and that's this is the whip, the waste isolation pilot project that's near carlsbad, new mexico. they have received over 10,000 shipments of waste materials and it's very popular, supported strongly in the area. so i just want to provide people assurance that this can happen

in the united states because it has. >> matt -- new york thymeses. it's not going stay in the dry casks forever. event think has to go where. i'd -- that you can still put it on a truck and haul if to whatever we're going keep the stuff long-term. in your role of leading the effort to ensure public health and safety with nuclear materials, do you have any advice on congress how promptly they need to deal with the problem? >> you know, i think you're right. there are actually ten reactors at nine facilities that are -- that are shut down and pacifically the dc basically the

only thing that is there. not always dry cask, sometimes it's still in the pools. and the blue ribbon commission suggest it be consolidated. neither here nor there. in the end, you need a repository because as you sketched out the alternative of just leaving it there indefinitely aboveground is not a suitable alternative. but again, congress needs to set a policy working with the administration so that they can, you know, provide guidance to the nrc nuclear regulatory commission how to deal with the material. >> what is the -- urgency to that setting policy? >> the blue ribbon commission did the work. it's out there. i don't think it should be, you know, relegated to the dust bin. i have a personal view on that.

[laughter] [inaudible] >> hi, ron tracy. going back to some of the fukushima recommendations, fairly run fairly a lot of the conversation about sort of assessing how those are doing has centered on how long it was going to take to implement them. five years it was thrown out there, also whether or not they'd be considered adequate protection issues. whether or not there would be a cost-benefit analysis done. what are your views on those two points? whether or not there should be -- there should be a five-year time line for doing them and whether or not they should be done with a cost-benefit analysis? >> well, for the orders that we have put out right now in the

request for the seismic there is a five-year timeline. that's all i have to say about that. it seems reasonable to me. and then in terms of other potential fukushima activities that the nrc can take up, i think we have look at them one by one, and that's what we're waiting on and that's what we have to decide how we're going progress on. we need to move forward on these, and we need to give them due consideration before we get into deciding whether cost cost-benefit analysis or whatever needs to be done. >> commission -- face criticism because they wanted her to

recuse with the yucca. i want to clarify do you see any of the work you have done you coed edited a book do you think you need to recuse yourself? >> as i said to the house, there is yucca mountain before us. when there is and if there is, i will consider, you know, whether or not i should recuse myself. i will do it in consultation with legal counsel. at the moment --. >> thank. , chairman you said a couple of times the priority of maintaining the safety at the existing fleet is one, and we have discussed a lot of the importance of seismic issues.

what are some of the other big ushers outside of the seismic outside of fukushima. they emphasize the new fire approach protection about the plans and feet they're ongoing issues with core cooling beyond the fukushima recommendations, what are -- if you had to pick two or three that are not necessarily you haven't chosen priorities yet maybe. what are most interest to you and you'll be taking a look at? >> at plant's? >> the existing fleet. operating reactor issues nrc that come within the purview the nrr things like containment pumps things like that? >> right. right. there are a variety of issues that are coming forward this that are of interest to me. i'm interested in some of the current reactors that having

some trouble like the san onfrey and trying to understand better the issues associated with the steam generators there and these are really complex issues. and no obvious solutions immediately so i think, you know, working with the plants and trying to understand some of these issues that are on the table now are of interest to me. >> david from herself again. you talk about geology as dynamic field of knowledge. in terms of environmental oncologist, that also seems like there's a scenario where research can evolve. nrc asked the science --

national academy of science to do a study of safety of living around nuclear plants. that study, i believe, is still in draft form. is that something that a priority to continue lookinged at. do you feel it's settled science at this point and they should be moving on? >> that's interesting. i don't think that's necessarily an area of settled science. to be honest with you, there are few areas of settled science. peek speaks of the scientist. it's all dynamic. it's all changing, you know. and so i think we constantly have to update that. especially the environmental and earth sciences and health signs sciences we're learning new stuff all the time. as a regulator, we have to make sure we are keeping up with them and understanding the implications for what we do. >> i was going to ask one more

quick question here. chairman suggested that new reactors that are in for construction ought to be subject to the fiewk fukushima fixes or at lease reviewedviewed in term of their compliance with them. we are seeing a lot of utility delay with the new reactors because of economic issues mainly. have you looked at this question about whether new reactor should be reviewed through the fukushima lens? >> new reactors will be review there had u fukushima lens. it's a settled issue, i think. >> okay. well, i think if we don't have anymore questions, i want to thank you for coming. i want to thank chairman mcfar lane for coming. next one will be early september. thanks again.

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] in a moment we'll continue the discussion on nuclear power with the event from the commonwealth club of california. it's on new regulations for power plants. it will be in a couple of moments on c-span2. looking at afternoon schedule each dayed at 6:00 p.m. eastern we look back at the lynchen speeches from the the national press club. this afternoon alec baldwin talks about the importance of art to the american economy. it's ceo airways ceo doug parker

and meteorologist jim talks about the 25 years covering the weather and film maker ken burns on friday on the documentary on probix. that's all this week starting at 6:00 p.m. eastern. each day at 7 p.m. it's past q & a interviews focused on the u.s. military tonight rachael libert talk about their documentary that explores water containment in north carolina. >> now the soviet may be gone. there are still wolves in the woods woods. we saw that saddam hussein invade the kuwait, the mideast might have become a nuclear powder keg, our energy supplies held hostage, so we did what was right and what was necessary we destroyed -- freed people and locked aty rant in the prison of

his own country. [applause] tonight 10 billion of our fellow americans are out of work. they work harder for lower pay. the incumbent president says unemployment always guys up a little before the recovery begins. unemployment only has to go up by 1 more person before a real recovery can begin. [applause] >> c-span there every minute of every major party convention. this year watch the democratic and republican national conventions live on monday starting august 27th. on the campaign trail, the ap is reporting that republicans are giving new jersey governor the choice speaking assignn't at the party convention in florida later this month. the keynote address in the meantime the romney campaign says the former governor will be >> deuced athe convention by florida senator marco rubio. also checking on the political

campaigns are traveling today. president obama is in iowa the second day of the bus tour of the state. mitt romney is wrapping up his bus tour making three stops in ohio today. vice president biden campaigning in southern virginia. we have live coverage on c-span. paul ryan will be in colorado and nevada. in response to the nuclear meltdown at the music fukushima the nuclear regulatory commission introduced power generations in american power plants. the in june they held a discussion looking at the safety of 9/11. during the event we hear from the head of the nuclear energy substitute wells a investigative journalist who covers energy issues.

♪ ♪ great to see you here. i'm delighted to be here with the gust to talk about nuclear power in california and beyond. welcome to the commonwealth club. today we're talking about the future of nuclear power in america. for the first time in thirty powers, new nuclear plants are under construction two reactors in georgia and two more in south carolina. those breast breast plants ared billion in loan guarantees president obama offered in for what he called a, quote -- the disaster in japan energy market in the united states are making new nuclear a tough sell. for the next hour we'll discuss america's commercial reactors plans to extend the operating life as well as build new ones. the conversation will include

question from the live audience here in the commonwealth club and three experts. on the my right is jim boyd former commissioner of the california commission. in on his right is ceo of the nuclear energy substitute which is a policy trade association from the nuclear industry. and joe ruinen is reporter for investigative journalism covered the nuclear industry. please welcome them. [applause] let's begin with you. why should the united states build new nuclear plants. >> first reason, greg, to make sure we have a adequate relight energy supply. that's nuclear plants produce. as we as a society move to a clearn and less particularly lower environment nuclear is right now the only base load sauce of electric 24/7 and

produces no greenhouse gases. while we're doing it. if we want reliable electric we want to move to a clean environment where we produce it. nuclear is an important of the mix. >> jim boyd new nuclear is extending life of the existing nuclear power plants. we'll get into that. what are the issues about extending the licensing time frame for the country's existing nuclear power plants? >> well, i think primarily the safety of the public, and the fact that plants were license for 40 years. the expected lifetime of all the components of the plants, and to extend them as is happening for a another twenty years one had best dig deeply into the condition of the plant. its ability to survive another twenty years to not endanger anymore and, you know, with nuclear it's very, you know,

high reward incredibly high-risk association with anything that goes wrong. if you're going do that, we've had a lot of experience in the country with the degradation of materials, the almost whole and the head of the davis bessee plant. the problem with rust and corrosion and leakage. it doesn't apply to old materials that are having leakage in california. so, i mean, that we in california is the question. it goes beyond materials. it goes into dealing with other threats fukushima certainly reminds us what threats are california being a highly active seismic area as japan we in california and i as commission those are the types of things you think about and worry about and want to investigate it before policy makers make a decision to move forward.

that's all we ask for in california. it's not a bad idea for other people as well. >> we'll devil into other things later. joe ruin bin what's at stake? what are the key issues we ought to talk about? >> well, i think that we're really a nation divided when it comes to nuclear energy. if you look at what's been going on within the nrc itself following fukushima, the fukushima task force came up with recommendations to make nuclear plants safer across the country, and basically the key is behind a go-fast approach. and the other commissioners on a slower approach more with industry more in the camp of nei and that completely blew up this year. the other commissioners accused

of him of bullying. it was an ugly debate within the congress and he said basically that they are what the other commissioners were doing was putting the safety of the public fundamentally at risk. that we prices should not cost should not be a factor. so, i mean, i think the real issue right now is the old plants we in the country, the 104 reactors. all of which were started began construction before 1974. many of them are aging. many have had problems such as david in illinois, and so i think it's a pretty troubled industry. and i think that there's so many advancements going on in the area of renewables that, i mean,

there's a lot question marks around new nuclear power. >> marve is it troubled industry? >> i don't think so. i agree with jim. clearly safety is number one. the plants aren't old in the way they have been described. everything in a nuclear plant is moving. every valve, every pump, motor is changed out to a corrective maintenance program. they're not old. some are newer than what you have in the car or the airplanes that we fly. also issues like both jim and joe referenced the davis besse corp. rueings they were not implementing the program that the rest of the industry was implementing to control the acid. that's why they had the problem. the thing of the nuclear plant, you go got to do it you have to do right what you're supposed to be doing. when you're doing that, the plant is safe operating plant. i totally agree with what jim

said on license renewable. you have to make sure it's safe. you have to make sure it's economic. because to make it safe it may cost me so much. i may decide it doesn't pay to do that in some of the older plants. you may see that at some point. what you're doing is implementing programs to make sure the plants are safe. >> but does 104 plants in the country. -- so far everybody who owns a nuclear plant says we want to rub it for another twenty years. it's cheaper than building a new one. but is really -- does the nrc dig into it and proactively look for problems is the renewable process technically a thorough enough? >> it took the nrc about ten years to define a renewal process. it takes them about three years to put you through the i renewal process. what they look at are the systems what they call aged dead

gracious programs. they look at things that aren't looked at every day. you have to keep in mind, you get a twenty year renewal. it does not say you can now operate twenty years and do whatever you want. they still looking at you every day to make sure that you're operating safely. they can shut you down whenever they want to. and they can require you, as you see in the post fukushima to impose new requirements. joe refer to the difference of opinion between the chairman and the other commissioners. i would say that chairman called me right after their task force report came out, he said i think we should get the high priority things done in five years. i agree completely. everybody is working to a five-year program. what the chairman wanted to do is colleagues didn't want to don he wanted to jump in and say we know what we need to do. do it not get staff input. they had a report done by seven people. there's 4,000 people at the

nuclear regulatory commission. he wanted it to be fleshed out a little bit more with input with not only n aig but union nists and others. they issued orders and other things subsequent to the report. >> you were the california liaison. in enthews yaysic innovative regulatory agency and it changed. tell us where the nrc is today. are they as more proactive? >> the different point of view. i certainly agree with your introduction. i think i said it before that, you know, what's wrong the nrc. they're not the young aggressive agency they were once maybe bureaucratic creeps in. i don't know. my concern is that they don't seem to respond to issues rapidly enough or thoroughly enough, and the point i want to

make is seismic issues here in california. when we raised the question about, well, reliancing finally came up and one utility said for sure the other said we're talking about it. we began to rise the issue of additional seismic studies that probably should be done utilizing the most current seismic technicals afterall, the upper canyon went from an cost of $500 million to a cost of $9 billion because they design and rebuild when they discovered a malfunction. when we argued about the study another fault was discovered offshore. we oughted nrc we you have to look at the seismic activity before you reliance. they said we don't consider seismic, issues in reliancing. >> is there before or after fiewk fukushima? >> before. we consider seismic issues every

day so to speak because of thegoing license provisions we look at everything going on somebody brings something to our attention we look into it. my only comeback before the u.s. committee with the chairman sitting there also was we have been telling you for years, we have published a ton of documents, former commissioner geezman who is sitting in the audience commissioned the first study in thirty years in nuclear in california. and a will lot of questions were raised. what more do you need to know you need to look at something. yet they didn't. to me, you know, california was on the own to look at california's issues and to see that something is done. i don't think they're catchtives of industry or anyone else. i think they're caught in a bureaucratic maze of rules and regulations that eliminated their you'dful vigor when they

were a young agency you would think have to pursue more rigorous. >> was fukushima a wake up call? that we have to pay attention? >> they dove in with regard with fukushima what it rented. they did their studies and seismic is certainly part of that recommendation process, and i can't speak for them at the present time. marv may know more with regard what they're doing do with the seismic studies california says needs to be done. what fukushima did for california is brought utilities into moving forward with the seismic studies we argue need to be done. whether nrc takes that account in reliancing, that remains to be seen. >> scwha is joe, which is the u.s. doing to prevent fukushima from happening here? >> well, i think it's a big nrc. i mean, there's about 4500

employees of the nrc, and, i mean, i think, you know, we interviewed commission for our documentary that we did for the center of investigative reporting, and, you know, i think he's proud of those employees. i think he is a believer in nuclear power. but i think what's worth pointing out. >> he's also gone. >> yes. are but young i think his concern is he feels -- being a real regulator will save nuclear power and make it probust and make it a part of the energy future. i think he worry we -- in a bureaucracy way. if you're editing him for a documentary, there's not a lot of flashy comments. i think he's concerned we can be heading toward calamity here. i think what's worth pointing out in terms of after fukushima an amazing story what's happened in the entire world.

germany, for example, which has the same proportion of nuclear power in their fort portfolio about 20% of the united states. they are eliminated all nuclear power. they immediately took offplant plants that are older than thirty years. so they're heading in a direction. germany is important to talk about too. they are most akin to california. germany has ab aggressive program. nowhere else is like it in the world in terms of their commitment toward renewable. i think it's worth mentioning a couple of weeks ago, they had for the first time 50% on the sunny day in germany the entire nation was powered by solar power. of course, there's reliability issues with solar power. but it's still shows, i think, how far they have come and how serious they are about replacing the power. they're planning to put $12 billion into the electric grid

to improve their ability to have more realliable, solar wind mass. it's not a simple world where we're going to be -- if we were to replace some of the plants we're going to be living in a world where we're dependent on gas and coal. i don't think that the evidence actually bears that out. >> march, germany is a technology logically advanced country. they build great products. should the u.s. do what germany is doing on nuclear power. >> no. i think joe characterized what germany is doing partially correctly. before germany decided to stop the nuclear program. they decided to continue to operate the plants for about another decade. it was prefukushima. they imposed a tremendous tax on the utilities to do that. they were going to generate billions of euros on taxes. it was politically not very reaccepttive within the

country. the after fukushima her kl lost a big state election. almost immediately they made maybe a good decision for germany but certainly a political decision. they're buying a lot of nuclear electric from the french. germany is not known for sun. for solar to do it there. germany is not the best place. if they don't spend the $12 billion. they can't do it. renewables ought to be part of the mix. we need electric all the time. that's one of the things that gets lost in the debate. there's never way you should operate a plant unsafe. keep in mind how unsafe it is for society if you don't have a electrician. there's 2 billion with no electricity in the world. okay, they are not living the lifestyle we live in california, new york, or even south

carolina. we need to keep in mind why you have nuclear plants renewables and everything else. it's to provide electricity. marv is ceo of the nuclear substitute. we're talking about nuclear energy in america. joe rue bin, jim boyd and i'm greg dahl ton. let's come back to what the united states industry and government are doing to prevent a fukushima. three big things goes first to what jim talked about. get the design basis right. make sure your design for the appropriate hazard make sure your plant layouts reflects that. if you have a flam or flood condition don't butt your -- put your diesels in not water tight

rooms. get it right. make sure you do the layout right. the second one is even if you get all of it right you have to be prepared for something that can happen that can take away all of your power. that's what you use to get water into the core and water into where they use fuel. make sure you get that. third thing is make sure you have considered how many units at the site. the industry and the nrc, the nrc imposed two demands for information from everything from walk downs to seismic and flood football are for the lost of ac power. the smartest thing we can can do is actually have a flexible concept where what we have is portable commitment lots of it on sight. alternative ways of hooking it up into get water into the vessel and pool. we have offsite capabilities to come and enhance it overtime for the long time.

>> we're talking diesel generators on trucks to bring power in. >> we have loads diesels on sight. we are looking at mobile commitment on side. diesel-driven prumps and hookups we can come in another way. we learn this after 9/11. okay. after 9/11 one of the concerns of the plant that the nrc had and the industry had what a plane hits a plant. what we learned was different from the way you normally think about nuclear. you make everything rigid. i'm going to hook it up here. get the water from there. you didn't know where the plane would hit the plant. you didn't know where the jet fuel would go. you had to be flexible. we basically did that from the standpoint of dealing with aircraft. we didn't do it robustly or looking at moment. units. retaking a lesson learned from 9/11, and expanding it dramatically and to us that

gives us the greatest benefit. >> how much -- is is already happened today it versus we're going do it sometime when we get around to it? >> this is happening today. there's about 500 or 600 pieces already ordered. the industry committed by the end of march to have ordered all the economy they think they need for what we're calling flex approach. our goal is to have it installed by the end of the year. and we're looking at regional certainlies to bring more equipment into the site. again, i don't want to down play the other stuff that the nrc has us doing as far as walk-downs things may come out of that. also to jim's point. the nrc is asking everybody to do a reevaluation of their seismic and flooding design basis right now as part of this. i would actually, jim, not propose it be part of license renewable personally. what we needed is a process the

nrc doesn't have. when question get new information on a flooding hazard -- [inaudible] stuff like that. that's a process we actually think is the right process. you don't wait ten years or license renewable. you need to do it in real time when the information becomes available. >> tim boyd, california has a plant there's seismic questions about new faults were discovered. has not been up for renewable yet. the utility that operates that wants to kind of push that forward. where should nuclear seismic issues be considered in reliancing? >> well, i certainly agree with marv in regard to seismic should be considered all the time. since nothing was rapping there,

our recourse was to say you can't go another tent ten or twenty years without longing at that. right now ya vow canyon more and more faults foundoff shore is getting a permission to do the seismic studies. the operator key ab low canyon filed more than 4 years ahead of the expiration date of their license which we thought was a rush to judgment. and frankly crown -- you know, we're not antinuclear. we're concerned about the imhaifer of some people. you have to remember, i'm -- i use analogies of three-legged stools. you have technology, human beings, and mother nature. and it's all a system. and technology gets old, we have been waiting for news for new technology, things wear down on weather you have human beings who decide, build, operate these

facilities, we make mistakes, awe owe know. and mother nature has been totally unpredictable throughout my lifetime in terms of potential. you put the three things together in a system. you better be darn sure you have covered every single basis. i think this discussion shows we have not been too good worldwide in recognizing the risk. i said before, the payoffs incredible risk. if you're going to use nuclear, you better make it so foul proof, you make the decision to proceed with it. two other things, the nation has not solved the waste problem. to this day, when the nation embarked on nuclear power. we come with up with a facility or facilities to house the nuclear waste. that doesn't exist to this day. we're keeping it on site at plants. some of us are uncomfortable with that. the other thing is cost. i mean, the cost of these plants

is horrendous. you have to do cost amization does it keep you cheap power, provide the environmental protection you need. it has to be analyzed all at one. we need a better system. >> march, john retired of exlon which is a chicago-based company and the largest operator of nuclear power plants in the country. i'd like to read you a quote, let me state that i have never met a nuclear plant i didn't like. having said that, let me also state that new ones don't make any sense now. i'm a nuclear guy, you won't get better results with nuclear. it's not economic and not economic within a foreseeable time frame. is john roe wrong? >> right for a emerging plant in emerging market. he's not right for the fact

we're building tower plants in the southeast two in south carolina, two in georgia, it's a regulated market. the public you -- you tillty commission they decided natural gas is cheap. that's what john is referring to. they don't want to be locked into natural if georgias gas for the next sixty years. they want to diverse by port foal low. they are not a merchant market deference between a merchant market and about the half the country has merchant market. i'd bidding my electricity into the market. competing with other sources. if i'm in a regulated market i have a public service commission. they set a rate for what you residential customer, commercial price would pay. it has little to do with the price of electricity from the plant. they can take a long-term view. it is a sixty year asset nape

can look at it and say i have price stability over sixty years. i want to have diverse fied portfolio. i might have a carbon standard. >> it was originally suppose to be a forty year. the closer we are in the united states. >> lest talk about that. forty years in the atomic energy act. i have been trying to find out where the forty years came from. that's what they used to am noter disiez and the second best answer is the federal communication use for licenses. nothing at the nuclear plant is designed to stop working in forty years. okay. as i said earlier. all the moving parts are in a painted innocence -- maintenance program. the nonmoving parts reactor safety system, you analyze based upon a forty-year life because

that's how long your license is the nrc says you have so much margin. nothing is designed to fail. i'm going to leave here in a little while and get on a 40--year-old plane. i hope it has the same maintenance i know we have. we all do that. ..

edison about the safety culture in that point we found people and try logging data, we found stupid things happening. and the complacency sets in. you've got -- i agree you've got to do it right. you've got to do it right constantly in have regulatory checks and balances do it right constantly and right now the system doesn't provide for that and everybody guesses what mother nature might provide, and probably undersized everything and now we have worries about earthquakes, offshore tsunami is and what have you. so it has to be done right. some of the old plants are on the coast into need to worry about sizing concerns that were not even considered a winner originally built. >> i think things go wrong. concerned scientists can out what the report, 15 and near

misses just this year. -- >> of what? >> the accidents -- incidents went wrong at nuclear plants that they feel could have, you know, been worse under different circumstances or if there were a number of factors that happened at the same time. i just want to point out a couple things. one is i just want to get across because i don't think it is coming across on the stage of with a dramatic story is going on in this country in terms of real battle over a challenging the notion of the federal preemption and comes to nuclear plants. if you look at new york state, the indian point there and first originally robert kennedy, jr. who i know has been on the stage and a longtime critic of the environmental movement against it. the governor of new york andrew cuomo is finding a pitch battle

that his attorney general eric snyderman is filing successful lawsuits about fire safety and also forcing as part of the renewal process the plant has to undertake millions of dollars of improvement. the governor, state legislature very upset about the plant which was recently renewed because of the collapsing cooling tower. massachusetts, the governor deval patrick completely against the program which was also renewed against the objections of the minister a couple weeks ago. so i think that this is worth pointing out because i think this is where we are headed in california. these are states they're facing a 20 year renewal. now or just recently tasted and i think this is going to become a major issue in the state. the other thing i do want to --

can i talk a little bit about my experience in our experience looking at seismic safety? >> list what about california what they mean for the rest of the country. one with problems right now it isn't clear whether he will come back on line or come back on line at a lower capacity. the city of irvine said they want that to be not renewed and to be wound down is that possibly going to happen here near san diego, jim boyd? >> it may be economics that makes the decision. nobody knows what's wrong and the cost of repairing much from me be read a significant. or if it is repairable, you will never operate probably get a little what was predicted to operate. will it operate at enough of a level to generate revenue to pay off the cost clacks and then last but not least but most important is we better take a harder look at the safety issues

associated with old plans and everything associated with them. that's supposed to last 40 years and had to be replaced and they said they could replace it and pay it off even within the current licensing. it wasn't a foot in the door to get free licensing else some people allege. that remains to be seen. we concentrate on the seismic activity because more and more faults are found but we also must for the same study to be done offshore. it was the industry during the exploration using technology that discovered the offshore canyon. it was multiple agencies including the second for a few years ago with the federal agency are giving over whether it is a significant find or not that federal scientists feel like it is connected look at fukushima. there for everybody should be assured that we are what if we

save before a decision is made to continue operation of facilities and that they can be operated safely so we don't have a fukushima, or we don't have a major disaster because as i said before, the rest is incredible. you can blow up a gas plant or coal plant and you can have some disasters. if you mess up a new plant, well, just look at chernobyl and fukushima. server securely words. >> former county commissioner of california. >> could it be taken offline? to take that point? >> i can't answer that without a lot more information but what i can say is jim pointed to the safety culture problems which were visible with into nrc. they were all over them. the thing i can't tell you is ted cree fer's statement recently as the ceo coming and he basically was very clear that he is going to make sure it's safe before he starts up or it

won't start up. sweating from the safety culture standpoint that is what the people of california should feel about is if there is a change in safety culture across the site led by the ceo. >> i guess it would be hard it's not safe but we will start it up to the estimate he would never say that but it wouldn't start up she would say it may not. it would be a tough decision. so, you know, take the man at his word for doing everything. the second thing is an fukushima i will not at all downplay the significance of fukushima as an accident. but let me just put something in perspective. there's almost 20,000 people dead in japan. from the earthquake and the tsunami there was no one did. there was no one injured. and there is no one having health effects from the studies that they have done so far and that doesn't mean there won't be down the road from fukushima. now, some of that is fortunate. but the wind is blowing off shore most of the time. but, what we saw here on tv all time is we saw the terrible

accident at that nuclear plant. we saw trailers talking about 15,000 missing, 12,000 dead. that was the tsunami and the earthquake. the stuff washing up in oregon, the stuff washing up in alaska is not fukushima. it's from the millions of tons of material, houses, boats, bodies probably that were washed ashore, washed out to shore from that terrible tsunami that they have. also the actual fukushima plant had no problem with the earthquake. it shut down safely from the earthquake. what killed fukushima is the tsunami. okay? we had an earthquake in virginia last year. it was bigger than the design basis than the north and a plant. a was 11 miles from the plant. there was nothing from the safety standpoint that was even dented, heard or whatever, and that plan was reviewed by the

nrc and by the agency there was no damage to any part of the plant from the safety standpoint >> jim boyd? >> i just want to make the pie there's another and a cleaner plant in japan, the world's largest nuclear plant, but suffered significant damage from an earthquake several years ago. and japan is, they know their earthquake zone. they've designed the basis to allegedly handled the situations and get this plant suffered significant damage. some of the units are not restarted from the man's inability to get it right. >> just on that, jim is right there are seven units there. it suffered some damage. there was water sloshed out of the pool, tremendous damage. all the safety systems worked fine. the plant shut down safely and maintained safe shutdown. there was a lot of damage to the plant. >> i don't think this is the

point. i think the point is that there was how often we have the core melt downs and we have two of them and they are all different and they are all different scenarios. they are happening much quicker than the science or the nrc are people in the field say should be happening. i just want to talk about what we found in our research in terms of seismic. here in california because i feel like it speaks to the whole culture issue and this is something that kind of haunted me. basically the story with diablo canyon there are two fault lines primarily in play. there is the fault we've known about for some time and that is about 4 miles offshore, then there's the shore blindfold which is basically half a kilometer from the reactor

itself. so this was discovered by scientists in 2008. what i find troubling about that is -- and jim, i would like to know if you agree with, i do not think and as a matter of fact i'm pretty certain about this if fukushima didn't have and we wouldn't have any studies whatsoever from that plant because i was there. i could feel in the state house and capitol in sacramento that changing and i was there in the days after falling fukushima, and i heard in the testimony nrc testimony saying the plant is safe coming and we also -- the nrc saying we trust the pg seismic safety stuff is telling us. i'm holding here in my hand this is what kind of haunts me. i am holding in my hand a graph,

and this is basically in the period before fukushima win pg&e was dealing with the aftermath of the significance of the fault line. this is what we discovered in the course of our investigation. as one presentation norm abram some who is an employee of pg&e and a professor he appointed basically okay, we don't think that this fall's line is what connects with the fault. we don't believe that. but what if it did connect come in and basically in his transition to try to downplay the significance of that but he showed the slide, and this slide -- >> the company is acknowledging -- >> the point is it was the level of shaking was above the level which could potentially cause cord damage at the plant. you can clearly see it.

i hate to downplay that, but that much of it was at a frequency which wasn't that important. >> so it could be significant at that plan for seismic risk to respect the point is also the nrc when we spoke to them. i went to texas and we talked to the head of the region for and he told us basically, you know, yes, we fundamentally rely on what utilities are telling us when it comes to seismic safety. so now since then there's been some political pushback, and we are seeing the studies go forward but culturally we find it troubling that there's the potential at this moment that it could be a seismic risk. >> jim boyd? >> i can't answer the question if we would have the studies had there not been fukushima. but commissioner byron and former commissioners are in the audience, and he invited one of

the interpol policy reports a couple of them the energy commission does, and repeatedly this agency has pointed out these issues. they don't get a lot of traction with a religious nature unfortunately. a lot of traffic because there hasn't been a calamity. there wasn't a calamity accept legislative blakeslee senator ph.d. seismologist etc., etc. growth issues like crazy in the california legislature, and against or other energy agencies. i don't know if there would have done the studies. thank goodness there are the studies that california would have been pushing it and it's hard to see if it would have been done. >> i think that's all -- i am not anti-nuclear. volume for what is good for my state being a generation california in 50 years just retired public service california. and in fact a technological law to the waiting for the technology promising all of my adult life. and i am waiting to see that we as humans do it right.

and only when you can do that dubai feel comfortable with the situation. so, hopefully my agency will continue. the agencies that make decisions to our regulators will get in there and do what they have to do. >> but as as a nuclear power in america with the former commissioner of the california energy commission mark fertel of the nuclear energy has to do and joe rubin for the reporter investigative journalism. i went to pick up on something that mark fertel said, which is a sort of casualties from fukushima. and ask joe rubin and joe boyd more people die from coal and nuclear. to consider the particular, the pollution, the disease, is much more dangerous. people buy in coal mines and a nuclear power plant. isn't that much more dangerous environmentally than nuclear? jim? >> that's a very interesting question. and you're going to get into a debate about whether chernobyl,

whether the data has ever been totally proven about how many people were affected by and will ultimately die because of their exposure. we won't know for years what happened in fukushima and how people will be affected. we certainly know how the economy is going to affect it and whether they will make a piece of real estate. i don't agree that there is danger in every type of activity engaged in we'd save coal mining and so on and so forth and i certainly not pro coal unless it can be made as safe and clean as natural gas or something else that we have said was -- that's what we want in california something that burns as a natural gas and a power plant then we will think about or remember efficiency is job one in california. that's the best thing to do. a renewable is a job, too and then only clean generation as

the third tier. so it's not for the safety and health aspects versus natural gas versus nuclear. and we don't know enough about nuclear. and what about the people that mine uranium and how they've been affected and processed uranium and look at what we did to all of those soldiers during the years that we tested above ground and exposed them and look at the years and years and knowledge of crude after the atomic explosions in japan about what happens to the human species when it is subjected to this type of radiation. do you want to take that gamble, to you want to take that risk until you are assured pretty much 100% that it isn't going to happen? >> quickly we are going to move to the audience question. coal is more dangerous than nuclear. >> nuclear is an impressive technology. 16% of the energy comes from it and putting in the size of nuclear waste issues it doesn't create an air pollution, there's

a lot to be admired about nuclear power, and i'm not anti-nuclear either. what i'm about and what good journalism is about is making sure the public is informed so they can make good decisions. but one thing i've been looking into is we have this incredible example here in california because we are going to have a debate over the next decade and that is should these plans be renewed or should we go another course and we have an incredible example which is rancho saaco because it is a public utility shut down in 1989. and i think that the utility there, the sacramento utility district is pretty much everyone would like to be a customer because the rates are 20% lower than pg&e and there are other impressive things about smud. i spoke to people there and if they feel this is because they were able to get off this really

troubled plant. they have -- they have ceded their level of renewable 23% in 2010 and they feel they are on track to have renewable by 2020. the - incredibly impressive array of biomass and solar and wind power. so, in terms of your question i think the issue is and how many people die for call or -- it's what smart, what makes economic sense? what are the safety issues that are involved, not is coal more dangerous than a clear. >> on the final point for the audience questions on the economics mark fertel, dan is one of those respective energy experts in the world and he told "fortune magazine" recently that natural gas will be the diesel fuel for new electrical generation going forward. the fact is it used to be greenpeace was against and not

some greenbacks, the cost of natural gas is so cheap that it's making nuclear a hard sell to estimate its making anything but gas. you have friends of the earth and the sierra club so we will see what happens. there is no question we are going to build a lot in our country. there is also no question for the natural gas. >> the price will go up let's go to the audience questions. >> - pronuclear all my life. i like the technology. but since fukushima, i've been paying attention to what happened to arnall gunderson, and he's been the only person in my awareness that has tried to explain what happened and he's been critical of those reactors and basically maintains they should be shut down. but i would like to bring into the form a venture of county

back in the late 50's. i remember an early memory on tv watching the newscasters flip a switch, turn on the lights to the city in ventura county the first reactor about five or six reactors going there between seven valley. no one talks about it. it's one of those things that was ignored in 1951 because nobody took good care but if we are talking about the energy and california, it needs to be brought to the floor because that's where we've had significant nuclear damage threatened all of us to that of los angeles nobody knew one local hospital dedicated to cancer to the santa susanna employees. >> let's go back. no comment on who remembers that

>> i have no knowledge. i appreciate the gentleman bringing it up. it's not something that's been in the dialogue on a regular basis. they were small there was a dilemma and you could extrapolate that. it was a long time ago. hopefully we are better at doing these things which some people pay in ultimate price and they are still cleaning it up and it's off limits to an awful lot people and the plant was closed down many years ago because they got old and closed down in the nick of time when earthquake projections began to show the would be a tough sell. the gen 1 and gen 2 stuff, gen 1 is really old and should be closed down. gen 2 we are dealing with in the dialogue in california and promises of what gen 3 might bring us. humans learn a lot and maybe you can do things. >> my name is smith.

i would like to point out that it's not technically correct that nuclear reactors produce electricity. they produce heat and it's used to produce the electricity generator. >> expensive way to boil water reactors produce the dimension of the nuclear waste. it's the major project in the plants produce and that poses a major problem. also it's not the case that nuclear reactors are always on 24/78 nuclear reactors after a couple of years have to be shut down to replace a third of their core fuel and the shutdowns can last for at least a month if you are lucky and if there is an unplanned shutdown, those plants can be off line for as we've seen in japan and elsewhere for months if not years.

>> we didn't get justice. it hasn't been sold. the federal government isn't fulfilling its obligation to build a centralized repository. is the problem when to get in the way of nuclear? >> first of like to mention on the waste problem to complement your senior senator feinstein for the leadership in the senate right now. she's gotten legislation and appropriations that will definitely be in the appropriations process at the end of the year to begin the process to move a waste of humboldt certainly from all shut down sites quickly and to create a consolidated storage site. to your bottom line question we generate about 2,000 metric tons of waste from the 100,000 megawatts or so that we have. it's very toxics that you have to handle really well. it's not a lot of material to take care of. if it wasn't for the opposition of the senior senator from nevada we might be moving

forward on licensing or seeing if we could license a repository in nevada which i think most people believe could get licensed. we will see. i have confidence led by senator feinstein right now will take action to get a program in place based upon the blue ribbon commission president commissioned and can now and january of this year. >> i'm not a political scientist and a political want to the cuff wonk maybe it was more a political decision than scientific decision. put in a remote place where there's a nuclear test facility anywhere without paying attention to call the answers to all the questions and then grew up and got powerful and they are going to start all over again in terms. it's been a quartet or next audience question. >> my name is bob gould, the

president of the san francisco area chapter of physicians for social responsibility. i would like to raise a few questions. a number of plans for people to address. one thing nellis said that is minimizing with the greenhouse contributions of the nuclear plants are because although when operating they are not producing the carbon monoxide there's a great deal of fossil fuel used in the construction plans and we have to take a lifecycle approach towards health including uranium etc.. we also have to consider for the future with the impact of climate change are going to be. and we are already seeing in terms of the flooding that took place in the missouri river the vulnerabilities of the calhoun reactor to backup systems and the like. i also think we need to be able to talk out the fact we don't have a public health infrastructure in our country to deal with disasters of the sort that we have seen in fukushima.

hundreds of thousands of people live within the 50 miles of a nuclear power plant that our own country suggested would be the appropriate evacuation zone for our soldiers and citizens in japan. there's been reports dealing with since 9/11 about the deficiencies of laboratories to be able to diagnose that the basic facilities and personnel began to address this issue so we have to be very clear what the public health implications are. we also have to think about the proliferation issues. astana we've got three. we are not ready for nuclear disaster, mark fertel. >> i think first of all we are doing everything to make sure commercially we don't have a nuclear disaster. i think post-9/11 there was a lot of dirty bomb discussions as well as worrying about nuclear plants. i would say yes we are ready and we are going to be even more bitter because we are taking

lessons learned. this is a place for the nuclear military commission is ahead of the fukushima accident. of a revised 30 emergency planning role for a required a bunch of new things so i think we will be ready but those are issues that you have to address any meaningful way. >> and lifecycles analysis, people talk about the generation of the inputs into the nuclear power plants. is that significant in the perspective? >> it is significant, and from stanford he's raised some of these analyses of the cradle to grave in analysis that should be done. we are in this life cycle the analysis and we should do it to everything so you can make a fair comparison. i think nuclear comes out stow the cleanest in terms of the climate change and the risk but nonetheless, you've got to do all of that and there are consequences and there may be public health consequences as said before that we don't even know the final outcome of curious to meet whatever next

audience question. >> i think we need to bear in mind that so many of the earthquakes reported from all over the world by the u.s. geological survey are previously on an known faults. >> it seems the new faults appear, and fertel, the one in maryland, that was -- >> i grew up in the central valley. it's just a big soft spongy pile of dirt. now i think we've discovered the hole mantle under the earth is made up of cracks and the crust and this, that and the other and it's something to be concerned about. but the devotee of scientists to understand it better is also improved dramatically. so you are going to go through this process of weighing the knowledge. the key thing is to use all of the technology of caught at the moment you have it we don't drag it down over t