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Mismanagement and the poor training of operators seems to be a consistent theme with incidents at nuclear plants. For example, from the investigation of the TMI
by dmm 16y ago
Mismanagement and the poor training of operators seems to be a consistent theme with incidents at nuclear plants. For example, from the investigation of the TMI incident,
"The investigation strongly criticized Babcock and Wilcox, Met Ed, GPU, and the NRC for lapses in quality assurance and maintenance, inadequate operator training"^.
So here's a relevant question:
Do accidents happen at mismanaged plants, or do accidents reveal the level of mismanagement which is common across the industry?
^https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident#Investigations https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Three_Mile_Is...
- mixmax 16y agoA third possibility is that blame is assigned to the operators for political reasons.
- dmm 16y agoAbsolutely. I'm trusting these reports to evaluate something (nuclear facilities) I know nothing about. It's the best information I have. On a related note, people seemed to be really focused on blame. The question of who (government, corporations, individuals) is to blame comes up all the time. Personally I don't see this as a very important question. I mean let's say we study the situation and decide to blame the operators. Then what? What have we gained? A scapegoat? That does nothing to help us make future decisions. I think the focus on blame is a distraction from our understanding of the situation as a whole. The chain of causation never really ends. Even if you could single out a individual operator as the cause of an accident, who hired them? trained them? Why does one person have so much power without oversight? Why were their actions not noticed? What aspects of the culture of nuclear power allowed this to happen?
- JoachimSchipper 16y agoI agree that fine-grained assignment of blame may not be that useful, but that doesn't mean that finding out where things went wrong is useless. Maybe companies always focus on profits over safety; in that case, maybe nuclear reactors should be state-owned or not exist at all. Maybe the governmental oversight failed; maybe anyone should be allowed to inspect the reactor, or the IAEA should be funded to do regular inspections. Maybe one operator did something wrong; maybe hiring practices should be revised, or maybe any important decision should be signed-off by two senior engineers.
- dmm 16y agoI am very interested in finding out where things went wrong. Maybe it's the word "blame" that I have issues with. I see the word blame used like the ultimate goal of an investigation is to find a person to punish. It might be emotionally satisfying but I don't think it's useful.
- richieb 16y agoYou can start with a 9.0 earthquake and a tsunami...
- JoachimSchipper 16y agoI think we are in violent agreement.
- guscost 16y agoI can only hope that the longer this goes on, the more ridiculous and offensive it will seem, in light of the situation they've been dealing with.
- angstrom 16y agoSeems to crop up whenever process is substituted for accountability. I'm not sure more training is the answer so much as accountability.
- rwmj 16y agoDon't forget the time that another Japanese nuclear company (JCO) allowed workers with "no proper qualification and training requirements" to prepare batches of fuel. What could possibly go wrong ...? https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Tokaimura_nuclear_accident https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Tokaimura_nuc...
- lutorm 16y agoAnother relevant question is whether those that assess the risks of nuclear power include the risks of mismanagement, or if they carry some assumption, kind of like the "efficient market" hypothesis, that people will maintain the numerous redundancies and not feel like it's not that important because after all, there are numerous redundancies.
- gamble 16y agoThe first rule of the nuclear power industry is that you always protect the nuclear power industry. It stems from a culture ultimately rooted in nuclear weapons and the cold war. From the very beginning, civilian atomic power has always had a dual role - in addition to producing electricity, it has always been about either producing weapons-grade material directly or (as in the case of Japan) providing a break-out capacity to go nuclear. Government and the military have a far deeper commitment to nuclear than any comparable power generation technology. On the other hand, you have the public fear of contamination. Any accidents further undermine support for nuclear, so far better simply to shoot-and-shovel rather than owning up to problems and potentially improving safety in the future. I have supported nuclear myself in the past, but the polyannish and deeply irresponsible response of nuclear supporters during this crisis has me reconsidering. I'm becoming skeptical that real, fallible human beings are capable of safely managing a technology with so much political baggage and black-swan potential.