Marketplace - American Public Media

I described one of my friends as being exactly like her avatar.

Her little 48 x 48-pixel photo features her wry smile and the kind of glasses you wish you wore. It conveys her mien of earnest, disappointed cheerfulness that brightens the lives of everyone she knows. Her avatar captures her perfectly.

How rare is that? Not only do few of us look like our avatars on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, few of us even know what our avatars are supposed to do. Generate interest? Radiate professionalism? Spark a smile?

The avatar is our post-post-everything combination of a logo, a business card, a wallet-size photo, and a refrigerator magnet. It's a distillation, your essence in an image that flashes for a second and takes up a tiny fraction of a screen that is itself smaller than a candy bar. "This is me," it says. "It's the size of the nail on your pinkie, but it represents my soul."

My friend chose what you might fall the winsome approach, and it suits her. But the web abounds with other choices not nearly so successful. "Mugshot Modern" seems always to show an expression not nearly as fetching as people think it is, though it outperforms "Ironic Me," which is usually ironic for much different reasons than its users think it is. For my own avatar I've chosen "Someone Drew Me Once," which works for those of us who just don't look good in photos, but it doesn't convey much. Actual logos can work, if you can figure out what they mean, though I rarely can. More intimate avatars -- "Look at My Children," say, or "Here Is My Kitty" -- barely merit discussion.

In fact, if there's any theme among avatars it's that they betray more of our fears than our hopes, which makes my friend's successful avatar even more of a treat. I'll have to tell her about it.

If I ever see her in person.

Italian voters go to the polls this weekend. Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is in the running to replace the technocratic government that was meant to bring stability to the financially troubled country. But as the election nears, Italy faces an even tougher euro zone economy than it thought.

Today, the European Commission said the euro zone will shrink another 0.3 percent in 2013, which is deeper and longer lasting than originally expected. Growth is not forecasted to return until the end of the year.

"It does confirm that I think that austerity is perhaps having a negative effect on the major economies of the euro zone and indeed the small economies of the euro zone," says Jonathan Loynes of Capital Economics.

Growth in France has flatlined. Italy will contract by a full one percent this year -- twice the estimate just three months ago.

Nicholas Spiro of Spiro Sovereign Strategy says the euro zone needs a change in policy away from cutting government spending and cutting taxes.

"Europe is condemning itself to years of sub par growth after an extremely brutal and savage downturn," Spiro says.

But not all of the euro zone countries are in the doldrums. Germany should grow by a half a percent this year. And optimism among German businesses is on the rise.

It’s a story that sounds straight out of Hollywood: professional thieves disguised as police officers, big guns, an airplane about to take off, and $50 million in diamonds -- stolen. But the thieves are unlikely to walk away with all that money. By some estimates, they’ll get about 20 percent of the value when they resell the stones.

That number got us thinking about our own diamonds sparkling on our fingers. Just how much are they actually worth if we wanted to sell them?

Probably not as much as you might think.

 Jeweler Sam Chamsi has been selling diamonds in Los Angeles' jewelry district for nearly 25 years. In all that time, he says, he’s only had a couple of gents (and their diamond engagement rings) get rejected by their chosen ladies. And when they do, he tries to return as much of their money as he can. The first time it happened, he said, he gave it all back. The suitor was just too sad.

But love, and diamond ring resales, can go wrong in other ways.

Take Josh Opperman. He had a broken engagement. He tried to sell his ring back, and, he says, “the place I brought it from would only give me store credit.” (Rarely valuable for a man out of love.) So he took it around to a few other places, and, says Josh, “the highest I was offered was 35 percent of what I paid for it.”

So Josh turned his heartbreak into a business. He started a website called I Do…Now I Don’t. It’s a place to resell second-hand engagement rings and jewelry. He says he was able to sell his $10,000 ring for about $7,000.

Jewelry appraiser Neil Beaty says when it comes to the resale value of diamond rings, people need to keep their expectations in check.

“Diamonds as an investment almost always fail,” Neil says. The cost -- and appraisal value -- of a piece of jewelry isn’t just the value of the diamond plus the value of the gold or platinum. You’re also paying for the cost of making the piece, and selling it to you, the rent, the middlemen, the intimidatingly clean jewelry cases. Just like a new car or a couch, the resale value often falls once you get your hands on it. “People don’t think of diamonds as a consumer purchase,” Neil says. “They are.”

Now depending on the diamond, there are some exceptions to this. Diamond values fluctuate based on supply and demand (And no, the diamond heist was too small in the scheme of things to change those prices).

But, Neil says there is still value in these purchases. When your wife looks at her ring and is reminded that she is loved, that matters.

The investment is just in the relationship, not the stone.

For the past several weeks we've been checking in on the real estate scene in different markets around the country. We're trying to get a fix on whether the market is truly starting to recover. The answer isn't simple. Even during the housing crisis, real estate is still all about location. So at first glance, buying a house in Florida right now may not sound like a solid investment, considering the state has the highest foreclosure rate in the country, according to RealtyTrac. That's not what you'll hear from Yoselyn Hollow, though. She's an owner and broker for RE/MAX Realty Team in Cape Coral, Fla., where she says, business is booming.

"We are experiencing a lot of appreciation in terms of prices in our market. Our inventory is a little low. We have about a three to four month supply, which is fantastic for sellers because obviously they have a little more equity. They can turn around and sell. Buyers? Maybe not so good as it was several years ago, when we were urging them to buy, because now they are paying a little bit more than they would have a couple of years ago," says Hollow.

Hollow says Cape Coral is experiencing a lot of investors coming into the market, including international buyers. She says Cape Coral is also seeing a lot of people who want to retire in the area. But compared to other cities in Florida, Cape Coral is a bit of an anomaly. According to the latest housing report from RealtyTrac, Florida has the highest foreclosure rate in the country -- it's two times the rate of anywhere else.

"Miami, Tallahassee, Jacksonville -- those are some of the ones that RealtyTrac had mentioned in terms of foreclosure. But Cape Coral, not so much any more. A few years ago, I would have said to you that probably 80 percent of our market was distressed. Now 80 percent of our market, if not a little bit more, is actually traditional sellers. To me it's an indication that market is a little bit behind us. Will we see short sales and will we see bank-owned properties coming in the market? Absolutely. But I think it's going to start trickling in. It's not going to come in the waves that it did a few years ago," say Hollow.

Hollow says she is very optimistic about the future of housing where she is. "Real estate always has healthy economy rebound and I don't think it's going to change. We're going to continue to see the prices increase. We're still going to continue to see people coming and retiring and moving to Florida, and that creates markets in and of itself. I'm highly optimistic," says Hollow.

For the past several weeks we've been checking in on the real estate scene in different markets around the country. We're trying to get a fix on whether the market is truly starting to recover. The answer isn't simple. Even during the housing crisis, real estate is still all about location. So at first glance, buying a house in Florida right now may not sound like a solid investment, considering the state has the highest foreclosure rate in the country, according to RealtyTrac. That's not what you'll hear from Yoselyn Hollow, though. She's an owner and broker for RE/MAX Realty Team in Cape Coral, Fla., where she says, business is booming.

"We are experiencing a lot of appreciation in terms of prices in our market. Our inventory is a little low. We have about a three to four month supply, which is fantastic for sellers because obviously they have a little more equity. They can turn around and sell. Buyers? Maybe not so good as it was several years ago, when we were urging them to buy, because now they are paying a little bit more than they would have a couple of years ago," says Hollow.

Hollow says Cape Coral is experiencing a lot of investors coming into the market, including international buyers. She says Cape Coral is also seeing a lot of people who want to retire in the area. But compared to other cities in Florida, Cape Coral is a bit of an anomaly. According to the latest housing report from RealtyTrac, Florida has the highest foreclosure rate in the country -- it's two times the rate of anywhere else.

"Miami, Tallahassee, Jacksonville -- those are some of the ones that RealtyTrac had mentioned in terms of foreclosure. But Cape Coral, not so much any more. A few years ago, I would have said to you that probably 80 percent of our market was distressed. Now 80 percent of our market, if not a little bit more, is actually traditional sellers. To me it's an indication that market is a little bit behind us. Will we see short sales and will we see bank-owned properties coming in the market? Absolutely. But I think it's going to start trickling in. It's not going to come in the waves that it did a few years ago," say Hollow.

Hollow says she is very optimistic about the future of housing where she is. "Real estate always has healthy economy rebound and I don't think it's going to change. We're going to continue to see the prices increase. We're still going to continue to see people coming and retiring and moving to Florida, and that creates markets in and of itself. I'm highly optimistic," says Hollow.

Marketplace Tech etiquette guru Janell Burley Hofmann is a Cape Cod Mother of five with strong opinions about how to behave with technology. Today's topic: Family tech policy.

How do you set aside electronics in order to better spend time with family? And, maybe even thornier: How do you set rules for setting aside electronics that everyone can still live with?

Hofmann has two recommendations to tackle this issue with tact:

1. Agree on guidelines ahead of time. Before that big family get together, Hoffman suggests sending out a group email asking for "screen-free" day.

2. Suggest a "screen-free" activity such as playing a board game, hiking, or another outdoor activity.

How do you manage your family's tech use? Tell us in a comment below.

At what point can you cut the tie between your cellphone and your phone company? An online petition has just raised enough signatures to get the White House to take a second look at whether unlocking a cellphone, that is, switching the phone from one carrier to another, should be against the law.

Officials say unlocking violates the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, the same way people are not supposed to break into copy protection systems for movies or music.

Slate Tech blogger Will Oremus joins Marketplace Tech host David Brancaccio to explain the pros and cons of cellphone unlocking.

The United States Olympic Committee recently sent out letters to 35 mayors around the U.S. It's looking for bids to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. Among those 35 cities were some you would expect -- New York, Chicago, and L.A. But there were also some surpises like Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Columbus, Ohio which have city budgets far below the cost of hosting the summer games.

Chicago spent $10 million just to put in a bid to host the 2016 Olympics. When it got rejected, the International Olympic Committee did not reimburse the city. So why would a city make this costly bid?

Mark Spiegel is the co-author of a paper titled "The Olympic Effect," which looked at the economic benefits of hosting mega-events like the Olympics. He says that for some cities in the developing world, the Olympics can put them on the world stage in a way that does lead to economic benefits.

But those benefits don't have the same appeal for the U.S. The cost of the 2024 Olympics are expected exceed $3 billion. So why would the USOC ask a city like Tulsa, which has a total city budget of under $1 billion, to put in a bid?

"It's pretty cheap for them to send out letters of intention to a bunch of different cities," says Victor Matheson, a sports economist.

Even if the USOC has no intention of picking a city like Tulsa, Matheson says, the more bids the better because it increases competition -- cities try to one up each other ensuring the lavish spectacle we've come to expect from the Olympic games.

The official news agency in China is reporting that the government will tax carbon emissions. The BBC's John Sudworth in Shanghai joins Marketplace Morning Report host Jeremy Hobson to explain the details of the plan and how it might trickle out to the global economy.

Boeing is meeting with the Federal Aviation Administration to hash out when it might get its grounded fleet of 787’s back in the air after some Dreamliner batteries caught fire last month. The company says it’s trying to get the issues resolved and the planes back in the air as soon as possible -- and every day counts.

You know how when somebody hits your car, their insurance has to pay for your rental while your car gets fixed? That’s kind of what Boeing has to do right now. It’s delivered 50 Dreamliner 787s to airlines who can’t use them.

“The airlines themselves are losing significant amounts of money,” says Bob Herbst with AirlineFinancials.com. “They’ve got pilots that are rather well paid and they’re sitting on the ground not earning any revenue.”

Boeing’s going to be on the hook for that -- “well into the hundreds of millions of dollars when all is said and done,” Herbst says.

Boeing’s already agreed to pay out $300 million to Qantas for delays not even relating to the battery fire issue. With this latest delay, Herbst says entire routes like Tokyo to San Jose aren’t going into service because they depended on the fuel efficient planes.

New flights like that were kind of the point of the aircraft, says Richard Aboulafia, an aviation analyst at Teal Group.

“The idea behind the 787 was point to point service so passengers could bypass major hubs” says Aboulafia. “There are really valuable markets that haven’t opened up because they’re simply not big enough. By flying directly, you’re basically able to charge these business travelers a premium fee for the privilege of traveling directly.”

Everyone who already bought tickets, is going to want their money back. The final bill, the analysts conclude, all depends on how long the planes stay on the ground. Still, we’re not talking anything that could break Boeing, according to Aboulafia.

“If you look at all their different revenue streams, they’re pretty insulated against technological risk,” says Aboulafia. “This is not a threat to their existence, but it could get painful.”

Extra painful, he says, is that some of the money Boeing pays to airlines, might get used to lease planes from its competitor Airbus.

Ahead of the 2013 Academy Awards this weekend, the Wall Street Journal’s Jason Bellini set out to calculate how long it would take someone to actually watch every film nominee before the ceremony. Plus, how much would it cost?

Time to see every Oscar nominated film: 99 hours -- just a little over four days.

Cost to see all nine Best Picture nominees this weekend: $60 at AMC.

See Bellini's calculations in the video below and check out his recommendations for where to watch this year's films.

How to Cram for the Oscars (via WSJ)

The New York Times Company owns the Boston Globe. It has for 20 years. Now, it wants to sell The Globe. And that got Marketplace thinking: What would it take to expand our media empire, starting with the Boston Globe? Now, we're not going to do a public radio pledge drive to raise money to buy the paper. But if we could? I asked media analyst Ken Doctor, who writes the blog Newsonomics, if we should try.

"This is a great buy," Doctor says, without hesitation. He points out that the Globe's newsroom hasn't been gutted, like other papers. It's 365 staff members strong. Plus, adding The Globe would let Marketplace try for the golden fleece of media: convergence. We could be pioneers who bring words, audio, video and digital everything together in one company. In addition, the paper still makes money -- about $20 million a year. So, what should we pay?

"A hundred million would be about four to five times that annual profit, and that is what these newspapers are going for these days," Doctor says.

So I had Kai Ryssdal call our company's chief operating officer in Minnesota, Dave Kansas.

He said no.

"A hundred million is a steal? For dead trees?" he said.

No way.

Maybe just as well, since journalism professor Jeff Jarvis at City University of New York says the Globe, while a great brand, also has major downsides. Debt, pension, big, old facilities, unions and "other difficulties of life" being just a few on his list. Jarvis says we'd have to be prepared to be the bad guys.

"Could you go through the painful process of reducing the Boston Globe to boston.com?"

Massive layoffs and axing the printed paper edition are inevitable, he says, as the Globe undergoes the same digital march so many other papers have taken. Besides, we don't have that $100 million to invest anyway. Let's just ensure our own survival first.

When it died last month at the hands of a sluggish economy and a Federal Reserve intent on maintaining interest rates at zero, inflation was thought to be several thousand years old -- although a specific age has not been released by the family.

The immediate cause of death was this morning's report on the consumer price index: 0.0 percent.

Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the Fed who had a troubled relationship with inflation while it was alive, had this to say about its passing: "There was a perception that inflation and growing inflation was a big problem, and I couldn't have gotten by with the policies we followed unless there was a feeling in the country that somebody ought to do something."

Volcker famously broke inflation's back in the early 1980s, an injury from which it never recovered.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman had harsh words for the departed: "It's very hard to get inflation in a depressed economy."

Inflation is survived by cousins, most of whom live overseas. Family in Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Argentina and Iran tell us they are not doing interviews.

Participant Media says it only makes a certain type of film. Only ones that “invoke social change,” as Participant Media CEO Jim Berk says.

Participant Media made its name creating thought-provoking films like "An Inconvenient Truth," "Fast Food Nation" and "Waiting for Superman." This weekend, Participant Media is part of the production team nominated for an Oscar for "Lincoln," the film starring high-profile actors like Daniel Day-Lewis. Which makes one think: Has the company changed its vision over the years? Jim Berk says no.

“It’s an evolving of the vision. It’s always been about a story well told,” says Berk.

With all this talk about invoking social change and making films with a purpose, it would be hard to deny the fact that winning an Oscar would be nice. Still, Berk says changing the world is much more important than standing on stage at the Academy Awards.

“It’s all about social impact. The wins for us with 'Lincoln' were when you have the Senate and Congress screening it. When you have the president screening. When you have thousands of teachers asking us can we use the film as part of the curriculum. We do like the recognition, but at the end of the day, the company’s existence isn’t for anything but social impact,” says Berk.

But Berk says he’s still excited about "Lincoln" potentially winning an Oscar this weekend, even though he won’t get to stand on stage.

UPDATE: Nevada has approved interstate online gaming. The governor signed a bill yesterday afternoon that allows the Silver State to negoitate online gambling agreements directly with other states. 

Delaware has also declared itself the first state with a "broad spectrum" of legalized online gambling and USA Today reports that "online wagers would generate at least $3.75 million in revenue for fiscal 2013." And this week, New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie confirmed that he would sign a bill legalizing online gambling in his state.

Other states -- including Mississippi, Iowa and California -- could follow suit.

So if it is going to become that much easier to gamble, now may be the time to brush up on your awareness of what games provide the best return-on-investment. And stay tuned to this weekend's Marketplace Money, where we talk with a gambling expert about how to win online and what to watch out for when playing in an Internet casino.

Let us know if you score well in our quiz below and we'll invite you to come with us the next time we head to Las Vegas.

The New Y0rk Times Company owns the Boston Globe. It has for 20 years. Now, it wants to sell The Globe. And that got Marketplace thinking: What would it take to expand our media empire, starting with the Boston Globe? Now, we're not going to do a public radio pledge drive to raise money to buy the paper. But if we could? I asked media analyst Ken Doctor, who writes the blog Newsonomics, if we should try.

"This is a great buy," Doctor says, without hesitation. He points out that the Globe's newsroom hasn't been gutted, like other papers. It's 365 staff members strong. Plus, adding The Globe would let Marketplace try for the golden fleece of media: convergence. We could be pioneers who bring words, audio, video and digital everything together in one company. In addition, the paper still makes money -- about $20 million a year. So, what should we pay?

"A hundred million would be about four to five times that annual profit, and that is what these newspapers are going for these days," Doctor says.

So I had Kai Ryssdal call our company's chief operating officer in Minnesota, Dave Kansas.

He said no.

"A hundred million is a steal? For dead trees?" he said.

No way.

Maybe just as well, since journalism professor Jeff Jarvis at City University of New York says the Globe, while a great brand, also has major downsides. Debt, pension, big, old facilities, unions and "other difficulties of life" being just a few on his list. Jarvis says we'd have to be prepared to be the bad guys.

"Could you go through the painful process of reducing the Boston Globe to boston.com?"

Massive layoffs and axing the printed paper edition are inevitable, he says, as the Globe undergoes the same digital march so many other papers have taken. Besides, we don't have that $100 million to invest anyway. Let's just ensure our own survival first.

Florida’s Gov. Rick Scott is now urging his state to expand Medicaid under President Obama's health care overhaul, a significant policy shift after it was Scott who helped lead the charge against the new health care law.

But the question states like Florida aren't facing isn't just a political one -- it's economic as well.

Think about it: Washington picks up the tab on expanding Medicaid for the first three years, what’s not to love about that?

Starting next year, individuals and families who earn up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level -- about $25,000 for a family of three -- will become eligible for Medicaid. And the government will pick up 100 percent of the tab.

Again: What’s not to love?

“Well, first of all they don’t pick up 100 percent of the tab,” says Ed Haislmaier, a senior researcher fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

OK?

“The first three years the federal government pays 100 percent of the benefits costs, not the administrative costs,” he says.

But Haislmaier admits that’s small change. The big hit comes when the three years are up and the federal match starts to taper off to 90 percent.

“In Florida, by 2020, this is going to cost $832 million a year,” says Haislmaier.

Plus, the recession pushed more people into poverty and onto Medicaid and state budgets shrank. Expanding Medicaid now is just too expensive. Haislmaier says it doesn’t matter how sweet the offer from Washington.

“That’s like saying I’m going to give you a car and pay 90 percent. If you don’t have the other 10 percent, that’s not a great deal,” he says.

It’s true, states would have to cough up some dough: $5.5 billion over the next decade in the case of Florida.

Urban Institute economist John Holahan says it’s worth it. For every dollar Florida spends, it gets $12 back from the feds.

“There just aren’t that many ways to get that kind of a return, if you are a state official,” he says.

It all comes down to where the state officials want to spend taxpayer dollars, says Joan Alker of the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute. No matter what, she say, you can’t wish away the problem of the uninsured.

“This allows states to use taxpayer dollars in a smarter way by giving them primary and preventive care up front rather than waiting until they get sicker and wind up in the emergency room,” she says.

Alker says the reality in some states is elected leaders will have to spend political capital if they want to make financial sense.

When I was a kid growing up in the last century and there was a new song I liked, I’d wait by the radio to catch it. But that equation has changed, says Camy Jun, a 20-year-old sophomore at Chapman College.

“At home listening to music, I’ll either listen to YouTube or iTunes and I listen to the radio when I’m in the car, but never outside of that,” says Jun.

And when Jun hears a song on the radio she likes, she goes to YouTube to find it. And that’s also where she discovers new music.

“Everybody always knew that there was a lot of consumption and that Youtube is a phenomenal venue to break new artist and break new songs,” said Robert Kyncl, the head of global content at YouTube. He says YouTube’s been part of the music hit-making ecosystem for quite a while now.

“We are part of the ecosytem, we shouldn’t be isolated and sit out there on an island,” Kyncl said.

Billboard has been including data from major streaming music sites like Spotify and Rhapsody but it just started including YouTube today. And that’s put the "Harlem Shake" -- a song that’s also become a popular video meme on YouTube -- to the top of the Billboard Hot 100. "Harlem Shake" is the first song by a virtual unknown to hit the top of the charts.

Andrea Domanick is an entertainment writer at the Las Vegas Sun. She says if artists want a song to be a hit, it’s almost essential to have it on YouTube.

“There’s been maybe one or two occasions where I have not been able to find a song I wanted to listen to on YouTube and it’s been incredibly frustrating,” said Domanick. “And I remember thinking, what, why, how does this person not have this song up? Do they not want people to hear their music?”

Domanick says YouTube is basically the new radio, and it’s about time Billboard acknowledged it.

When the giant winter storm Nemo hit New England two weeks ago, the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Generating Station in Plymouth, Mass., lost outside power for several days. Diesel backups took over operating the reactors' cooling system. Pilgrim has the same kind of reactors that failed less than two years ago at Fukushima, Japan, after an earthquake and tsunami crippled offsite power and emergency back-ups. The Pilgrim incident comes as the U.S. nuclear industry is fighting proposed new safety measures meant for a crisis that might begin exactly this way.

Of the 104 reactors in the U.S., 31 are very like those in Fukushima, that lost power, melted down and exploded. I'm entering one of them, the Dresden Nuclear Station, about an hour southwest of Chicago.

View GE Mk I & Mk II Reactors in the U.S. in a larger map

After Fukushima, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission studied what happened. Should it require new safety measures here, even though a crisis is very unlikely?

It's not zero," says Charles Casto, director of NRC Region III, the Midwest. "Hah. The probability's not zero; it's something."

Region III has about two dozen reactors. We spoke at Casto's office. Nuclear regulation, he said, is about possibility more than probability.

"You take your best -- based on history...you know, what has history shown you that the probability would be?" Casto said. "But that doesn't mean zero."

The Fukushima reactors, and their 31 U.S. cousins, including Dresden and the Pilgrim Station, are old Mk I and II boiling water reactors, built by General Electric. The safety enclosures for the reactors are too small. If their cores start to melt down, the containments could fail in several ways, including radioactive hydrogen gas building up and exploding ...as at Fukushima. There's an increasingly politicized dispute between the industry and the NRC over how to make preventing meltdowns safer.

Dresden, the first commercial nuclear plant in the country, is operated by the largest nuclear energy company in the U.S. -- Exelon Generation. It looks dated but extremely well maintained. It hums.

Gregory Roach, the senior NRC inspector here, showed me back-ups on backups on backups, flood protection, fire protection. An hour into the tour, we came to the part I most wanted to see -- the venting system.

"We showed you where the hardened vents were for the dry well, so now this is downstream," Roach said.

He was pointing to a pipe overhead that exits the container wall. The vent system...if power fails, and the back-ups fail, and radioactive hydrogen builds up, you can probably save the reactors by venting the hydrogen.

"And this pipe goes up to the main stack, 300 feet, and then releases into the environment," Roach said.

The Japanese vents mostly didn't work; that's what caused the explosions.

"So you learn a lesson of Fukushima Daiichi," Casto said. "And then you put in standards and say your vent must be able to operate under those conditions."

A year ago, the NRC issued a new order: vents must be reliable.

"Does that mean during an accident you have to be able to get access to it?" Casto asked. "Does that mean you have to do it remotely?

The industry and the NRC are working on it; the industry has until the end of 2016.

Now, here's what the fight is about: do the vents at these 31 plants also need filters? Because, in the best of conditions, some radioactive gas and particles may escape in venting -- and in the very, very unlikely worst of conditions, a lot could escape.

"You have to establish the 'what if'," Casto said. "What if it does happen? What if the improable happens?"

Reactor cores hold dozens of tons of radioactive material. At Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island in 1979, about half the core melted, but the containment held, and the venting was relatively minor. We don't yet know how much escaped from Fukushima; it's too dangerous to go look. But there are scenarios in which it's possible to lose a good part of those dozens of tons through the vents. With filters, virtually all of it is captured.

To a layperson, nuclear regulation can be almost as daunting as nuclear physics. The Dresden plant is a wonder of machine technology -- in it I got reacquainted with the idea of awe.

The NRC process for new rules...that's messier.

The chances of a reactor ever needing a filter are so small that you can't justify the cost. But the NRC staff concluded that the consequences of no-filter could be so bad, they should be required anyway. By NRC procedures, if the staff wants to override normal cost-benefit standards, the five commissioners have to vote to approve, and the fight is on.

A week after the NRC staff testified for filters in January, 21 House Re-publicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee sent the NRC a letter admonishing the staff. There is plenty of money at stake.

"External filter vents would be an additional approximately $15-20 million per unit," said David Czufin, an engineer who runs the Dresden plant for Exelon.

Exelon has 10 more of these reactors, so filters could cost the company more than $200 million -- on top of many other precautions, he said.

"Additional connections, additional equipment, stored equipment for readiness..."

Exelon does plan to spend $400 million in the next three years for post-Fukushima modifications, some of that for vents -- but not filters.

"The one thing I would tell you is that the Fukushima event, we have learned a lot from it," Czufin said. "We continue to look at how the plant in Japan was operated differently from my plant."

He's right; they are different. The independent Japanese commission on Fukushima says so: U.S. plants are much better regulated, run and prepared. And nuclear is already at a competitive disadvantage, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, natural gas plants can produce electricity for about 40 percent less. If the industry loses this one, it's going to hurt.

A last question for the director of NRC Region III, Charles Casto. Is he satisfied now that under circumstances like Fukushima Daiichi, he has the technology to operate vents at the stations that are under his authority?

"Yes, we believe that we have reliable vents and that the operators can do a controlled vent in a reliable way during an accident," Casto said.

But unusual things do happen, as at the Pilgrim Station. Without the filters, there is a very small chance that those vents might become a kind of radioactive fire hose. That's what the fight is about.

The NRC Commissioners are voting on this now -- a process that can take weeks, or longer.

How many movies do you see in the theater a year? Two per month, maybe? At that rate, that’s 75 hours you’re spending in the theater each year, if every movie lasts three hours.

But stats show that Americans on average spend a lot more time -- 142 hours a year -- playing video games. That’s why Sony’s PS4 announcement last night is a big deal, even though company didn’t necessarily unveil its new gaming console.

"The biggest surprise of last night was the fact that there wasn't even a console in the house," says CNET's Jeff Bakalar, who covered the event in New York.

Though they lacked hardware, Bakalar says Sony did promote new console features, such as social gaming and Internet connectivity.

To hear more about Sony's PlayStation plans, click on the audio player above.