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Have you ever been involved with building or maintaining a nuclear plant? I have family members who built plants back in the 80's and some still maintain them.
by lettergram 4y ago
Have you ever been involved with building or maintaining a nuclear plant?
I have family members who built plants back in the 80's and some still maintain them.
They claim the main issue has to do with government regulation(s) and unions. I can dive into it further, but effectively the regulation(s) required inspection on ever weld a welder would make. This meant you needed two welders on site, one making a weld and one signing off. You'd have a pipe fitter line up the pipe(s), a different inspector would have to come around and sign off on that work. Sometimes they wouldn't show up, so you'd end up with a days work lost (everyone still getting paid). If someone who was part of a different union or not unionized tried to do the work, the union would strike / the person would be fired.
Then at the end of it, the regulation(s) would change slightly and they'd have to cut out a large section and start all over.
This happened at multiple plants in the 80's per my family members. Today, they're pushing the plants past where they're really safe to use. In the case of Fukushima, they didn't even have a cut-off switch. It was an earlier design.
All that being said, Illinois has been running on mostly nuclear power for decades, as has France. No issue in terms of safety and relatively cheap power (natural gas being cheaper). An updated design, with a reduction in unionization and a loosening of regulations would make nuclear far better than any alternative.
You can do the math yourself and it comes out cheaper and safer than wind or solar. The other thing to consider is what happens when the power goes out in a place like Texas for a week or two due to weather conditions -- people die. Solar, coal, wind, nuclear all have pros/cons. Thus far in the United States nuclear has caused far fewer casualties than per gigawatt than any alternative.
- intrasight 4y ago>the main issue has to do with government regulation(s) You can't have it both ways - but of course they want to. The Price-Anderson Nuclear Indemnity Act shifts the risk of nuclear accidents onto the tax payers. In return, the industry accepts regulations. Tell the nuclear industry that we're taking away your insurance caps and they'll say "we can't stay in business".