4 ms·

> Reactors should not be for-profit. Maybe. The motivations are different for a government project, but I'm not convinced that they're better.

• nickff 11y ago
  Yes, this point is the basis for 'public choice' theory.[1] The levees in New Orleans were government built and maintained; should we not take the failures there into account before we rush to judge the private sector for Fukushima?[2] The other problem with blaming private actors for problems at Fukushima is that (as far as I can tell) they followed all the standards and regulations as required by the regulators responsible for public safety, which seems to indicate that if anyone was at fault, it was the government regulators. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_levee_failures_in_Greater_New_Orleans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_levee_failures_in_Greater...
  • RockyMcNuts 11y ago
    > if anyone was at fault, it was the government regulators. that seems to imply that the power plant's owners responsibility was not to ensure safe operation, but merely to follow the government regulations. to my ear, the tone of the argument is that there is a 'rush to judge' private actors who cannot be judged or blamed. surely, it's possible that oversight was inadequate on the part of both management and regulators?
• nitrogen 11y ago
  There are other organizational types beside government and for-profit, and even those two aren't mutually exclusive.