10 ms·

During onboarding, the CEO told a story about how an employee's logic error caused a manufacturing plant to shutdown for hours. They of course corrected it, and

by windows2020 4y ago

During onboarding, the CEO told a story about how an employee's logic error caused a manufacturing plant to shutdown for hours. They of course corrected it, and production resumed, but the company was on the hook for millions in lost revenue. Later that evening, the employee got a call from the CEO. "I suppose you're calling to let me go." The CEO replied, "Why would I do that after paying for a million dollar lesson?" That's how I feel about nuclear.

samwillis 4y ago
In 200 years when the planet is on fire our ancestors will look at us and won't understand how we could have made such bad decisions. Yes, there is a (tiny) risk of nuclear disaster that makes an area uninhabitable, but thats (in my view) better than the whole plant eventually become so. (I very much hope this statement is hyperbolic)
- brazzy 4y ago
  It's simply a false dichotomy that we have the choice between committing to nuclear energy generation, or catastrophic climate change. We don't need nuclear energy. We really, really don't.
  - bradlys 4y ago
    In order to avoid catastrophic climate change (hard to say we even can at this point) - we need anything we can get. Nuclear is part of anything we can get.
    - Gwypaas 4y ago
      Following that line of reasoning. Considering we get 3-6x as much energy investing in renewables compared to nuclear then a single cent in invested into nuclear is an enabler of climate change right?
      - bradlys 4y ago
        You're using a false equivalency fallacy though - that economics matter at all in this. We need anything to get us to lower GHG emissions - regardless of cost.
        Gwypaas 4y ago
        Of course it matters. Money and people available to do the work is not infinite. Or do you disagree? Therefore we have to optimize for the most impact possible. Is spending 3x as much as off-shore wind and 6x as much as on-shore optimizing for impact? Can straight up honestly claim that?
        samwillis 4y ago
        My issue is really the lack of progress with and utilisation of Nuclear over the last 40-50 years. In my opinion the anti nuclear movement resulted in extending the time we continued to burn coal. Quite right, at the moment the larger impact would be with renewables. However my original comment was not only in reference to decisions we are making now but also those of the last 50 years. If we had concentrated on using Nuclear, and not succumbed to the fear about it, we would be in a much stronger position now than we are.
        Gwypaas 4y ago
        It is simply economics. The anti-nuclear movement is insignificant but a very handy scapegoat. If nuclear made sense on a cost basis it would have pushed through somewhere globally. It's quite telling that not even authoritarian states, or very centrally controlled like France have managed that. I agree that nuclear would have been preferable to fossil energy. But today renewables is way cheaper than either alternative.
        bradlys 4y ago
        You're using very poor arguments. A lot of whataboutism. A meteor is coming to destroy the entire world. Do you sit around and wonder, "Is spending money on this really in the best interest of our shareholders for this quarter?"
  - Cthulhu_ 4y ago
    It's a tradeoff in the end, because the current generation of renewable energy is so much more expensive and involved than the equivalent in a nuclear energy plant. I mean in my country, the energy grid is at capacity due to increases in demand AND production. It's very attractive to get solar panels installed on your house, but the grid cannot handle the influx of new production. Whereas attaching a new nuclear plant to the main grid would be less of a headache.
    - brazzy 4y ago
      >the current generation of renewable energy is so much more expensive and involved than the equivalent in a nuclear energy plant. This may have been true 15 or even 10 years ago, but nowadays the exact opposite is the case. > It's very attractive to get solar panels installed on your house, but the grid cannot handle the influx of new production. Whereas attaching a new nuclear plant to the main grid would be less of a headache. How is that supposed to make any sense at all? The grid likes nuclear-flavored power better?
      - curtainsforus 4y ago
        The grid prefers smooth, even, intertia-backed turbine-generated power to the choppy screams of a million inverters.
- fulafel 4y ago
  Likely they will be more puzzled by our focus on increasing energy production in the vague hope it will quickly displace most oil/gas production and use, instead of capping co2 emissions.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ruined 4y ago
sometimes the lesson is "don't concentrate radioactive isotopes, you haven't developed the institutional incentives to contain them reliably, and will eventually experience terrible disaster"
dctoedt 4y ago
> The CEO replied, "Why would I do that after paying for a million dollar lesson?" That's a variation of something supposedly said by IBM's Thomas J. Watson, Sr.: “Recently, I was asked if I was going to fire an employee who made a mistake that cost the company $600,000. No, I replied, I just spent $600,000 training him. Why would I want somebody to hire his experience?” [0] [0] https://blog.4psa.com/quote-day-thomas-john-watson-sr-ibm/ https://blog.4psa.com/quote-day-thomas-john-watson-sr-ibm/ (which doesn't include a source for the quote)

samwillis 4y ago

In 200 years when the planet is on fire our ancestors will look at us and won't understand how we could have made such bad decisions. Yes, there is a (tiny) risk of nuclear disaster that makes an area uninhabitable, but thats (in my view) better than the whole plant eventually become so. (I very much hope this statement is hyperbolic)

brazzy 4y ago
It's simply a false dichotomy that we have the choice between committing to nuclear energy generation, or catastrophic climate change. We don't need nuclear energy. We really, really don't.
- bradlys 4y ago
  In order to avoid catastrophic climate change (hard to say we even can at this point) - we need anything we can get. Nuclear is part of anything we can get.
  - Gwypaas 4y ago
    Following that line of reasoning. Considering we get 3-6x as much energy investing in renewables compared to nuclear then a single cent in invested into nuclear is an enabler of climate change right?
    - bradlys 4y ago
      You're using a false equivalency fallacy though - that economics matter at all in this. We need anything to get us to lower GHG emissions - regardless of cost.
      - Gwypaas 4y ago
        Of course it matters. Money and people available to do the work is not infinite. Or do you disagree? Therefore we have to optimize for the most impact possible. Is spending 3x as much as off-shore wind and 6x as much as on-shore optimizing for impact? Can straight up honestly claim that?
        samwillis 4y ago
        My issue is really the lack of progress with and utilisation of Nuclear over the last 40-50 years. In my opinion the anti nuclear movement resulted in extending the time we continued to burn coal. Quite right, at the moment the larger impact would be with renewables. However my original comment was not only in reference to decisions we are making now but also those of the last 50 years. If we had concentrated on using Nuclear, and not succumbed to the fear about it, we would be in a much stronger position now than we are.
        Gwypaas 4y ago
        It is simply economics. The anti-nuclear movement is insignificant but a very handy scapegoat. If nuclear made sense on a cost basis it would have pushed through somewhere globally. It's quite telling that not even authoritarian states, or very centrally controlled like France have managed that. I agree that nuclear would have been preferable to fossil energy. But today renewables is way cheaper than either alternative.
        bradlys 4y ago
        You're using very poor arguments. A lot of whataboutism. A meteor is coming to destroy the entire world. Do you sit around and wonder, "Is spending money on this really in the best interest of our shareholders for this quarter?"
- Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  It's a tradeoff in the end, because the current generation of renewable energy is so much more expensive and involved than the equivalent in a nuclear energy plant. I mean in my country, the energy grid is at capacity due to increases in demand AND production. It's very attractive to get solar panels installed on your house, but the grid cannot handle the influx of new production. Whereas attaching a new nuclear plant to the main grid would be less of a headache.
  - brazzy 4y ago
    >the current generation of renewable energy is so much more expensive and involved than the equivalent in a nuclear energy plant. This may have been true 15 or even 10 years ago, but nowadays the exact opposite is the case. > It's very attractive to get solar panels installed on your house, but the grid cannot handle the influx of new production. Whereas attaching a new nuclear plant to the main grid would be less of a headache. How is that supposed to make any sense at all? The grid likes nuclear-flavored power better?
    - curtainsforus 4y ago
      The grid prefers smooth, even, intertia-backed turbine-generated power to the choppy screams of a million inverters.
fulafel 4y ago
Likely they will be more puzzled by our focus on increasing energy production in the vague hope it will quickly displace most oil/gas production and use, instead of capping co2 emissions.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

ruined 4y ago

sometimes the lesson is "don't concentrate radioactive isotopes, you haven't developed the institutional incentives to contain them reliably, and will eventually experience terrible disaster"

dctoedt 4y ago

> The CEO replied, "Why would I do that after paying for a million dollar lesson?" That's a variation of something supposedly said by IBM's Thomas J. Watson, Sr.: “Recently, I was asked if I was going to fire an employee who made a mistake that cost the company $600,000. No, I replied, I just spent $600,000 training him. Why would I want somebody to hire his experience?” [0] [0] https://blog.4psa.com/quote-day-thomas-john-watson-sr-ibm/ https://blog.4psa.com/quote-day-thomas-john-watson-sr-ibm/ (which doesn't include a source for the quote)