5 ms·

> the justifiably-paranoid might ask what else is wrong if they've let a maintenance issue this relatively unimportant slide... Exactly. It seems like the kind

> the justifiably-paranoid might ask what else is wrong if they've let a maintenance issue this relatively unimportant slide... Exactly. It seems like the kind of negligence that should get a license revoked and have the plant seized and handed over to a more competent manager (Duke seems reasonable). I wonder if there's precedence for such a move when it comes to utilities in the US? Edit: It doesn't seem quite as negligent after a second reading, but ... still makes me wonder what else has been done quickly and without really addressing the root issue...

roenxi 3y ago
What do you think happened here? To me it reads like there was an issue, the the issue was identified in a preemptive maintenance program and got fixed. The regulator's [0] complaint seems to be the operator may have been able to detect the problem sooner. The sounds acceptable. We're not able to run any piece of gear without the occasional failure - the argument with nuclear is a failure scenario appears to be about as damaging as the business-as-usual so all y'all be mad for putting so much effort into preventing it that nuclear became uneconomic. Uneconomic because finding and fixing a crack in a pipe in the backup system is 4-on-a-5-tier system of regulatory response and has people talking about delicensing the operator. [0] Oh wait I know this regulator. The dude who is in charge has a B. Arts in Religious Studies - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_T._Hanson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_T._Hanson - which isn't a problem in itself but I felt it was apart of a pattern when it came to heads of the regulator. Their backgrounds didn't inspire my confidence.
- nikau 3y ago
  > We're not able to run any piece of gear without the occasional failure Seems like they could easily pressurize the pipes when idle to detect leaks
  - roenxi 3y ago
    Next time you stub your toe, reflect that you could have moved your foot differently and not stubbed it. And yet nobody called for you to be delicensed from anything, even though you were just less competent (I mean, seriously, when that day comes you'll have just fucked up walking!) and did more damage to your own body than SC nuclear plant was ever likely to do to anyone.
    - lamontcg 3y ago
      A large enough natural disaster in SC that took out the power grid and exposed the fact that the generators would fail if they were put to use, could cause a Chernobyl/Fukushima-class of disaster. A little bit worse than stubbing your toe, unless you commonly cause a hundred billion dollars in damage every time you kick your coffee table.
      - roenxi 3y ago
        You're imagining an act of god that does precisely so much damage that the difference between catastrophic failure and a non-event is this one cracked pipe. That was, please note, detected and fixed before failure. The odds of that happening are crazy low. And the downside of that risk coming to fruition is a 0-death to near-0-death crisis (which is much better than whatever this precise external shock will cause). Deal with the risk. Living is risky. The environmental disaster you posit is more dangerous than the nuclear scenario you envision as a result! The efforts to eliminate this risk have done far more damage so far even your hypothetical would cause.
        Gwypaas 3y ago
        > You're imagining an act of god that does precisely so much damage that the difference between catastrophic failure and a non-event is this one cracked pipe. That was, please note, detected and fixed before failure. Take the severe Forsmark incident in 2006 in Sweden. Many of the "defense in depth" layers had been accidentally removed through freak occurrences and upgrades. Thus loss of cooling became almost a certainty. That is why you test and do not accept half fixes to placate the operators profit margin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsmark_Nuclear_Power_Plant#July_2006_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsmark_Nuclear_Power_Plant#J... > And the downside of that risk coming to fruition is a 0-death to near-0-death crisis (which is much better than whatever this precise external shock will cause). And a at least $200B bill to cleanup the mess in Fukushimas case. Lets remove the Price Anderson Act so they have to pay the true cost for their risk? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear_Industries_Indemnity_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear...
- trehalose 3y ago
  How economic is a nuclear meltdown that this particular regulation, requiring nuclear power plants to have usable backup generators, is not worth the cost of compliance?
  - roenxi 3y ago
    I don't know. You don't know. It is likely that the regulator doesn't know either. Maybe even the plant owner doesn't know. But what is fairly clear is that the USs anti-nuclear strategy has caused thousands of deaths, untold pollution and a lot of poverty because it pushed energy prices up. It squelched the safest and cleanest form of power we've ever discovered from taking root. People should calm down about calling for license revocations because something turned out to be imperfect. Especially since we don't know how much redundancy is built in to this system. The standard applied to nuclear power safety is excessive.
    - trehalose 3y ago
      > Especially since we don't know how much redundancy is built in to this system. For us to read an article before making dismissive comments isn't merely polite--it's essential for us to be able to communicate effectively with each other. The article explains that this plant has two backup diesel generators, both of which have been having problems. (It also links to older articles detailing the plant's long history of negligence in fixing problems after they were discovered--this wasn't the first time.) > People should calm down about calling for license revocations because something turned out to be imperfect. The standard applied to nuclear power safety is excessive. Imagine for a moment that you live in a rented home, and for twenty years, the plumbing has been repeatedly cracking and leaking, and each time you tell the landlord, they wait weeks or months before calling a plumber, who only puts temporary patches on the leaks. Would you be satisfied each time the plumber eventually comes? Or would you like to hold your landlord and plumber to a higher standard than nuclear safety?
      - roenxi 3y ago
        > The article explains... You're trying to assess the safety of a highly redundant engineered system design (likely paranoidly designed) based on the opinions and research of Sammy Fretwell, journalist. That isn't actually a good way to try and engage with the problem - journalists are typically not engineers and frequently aren't in the room when decisions are made. The plant engineers believe the situation is safe enough. The regulator disagrees. The regulator could be reasonable in their disagreement but this particular regulator is famously unreasonable and excessive in their safety demands. Likely by design. And by and large that is what we can glean without doing a lot of research going through primary sources and engineering reports. It is a good article, but it is the regulators opinions are not the end of the story on this one - the problem here is that the regulator's opinions and enforcements are damaging society as a whole. > Imagine for a moment... I like that metaphor because it illustrates how the fluid system continues to work perfectly adequately despite cracks in the piping.

roenxi 3y ago

What do you think happened here? To me it reads like there was an issue, the the issue was identified in a preemptive maintenance program and got fixed. The regulator's [0] complaint seems to be the operator may have been able to detect the problem sooner. The sounds acceptable. We're not able to run any piece of gear without the occasional failure - the argument with nuclear is a failure scenario appears to be about as damaging as the business-as-usual so all y'all be mad for putting so much effort into preventing it that nuclear became uneconomic. Uneconomic because finding and fixing a crack in a pipe in the backup system is 4-on-a-5-tier system of regulatory response and has people talking about delicensing the operator. [0] Oh wait I know this regulator. The dude who is in charge has a B. Arts in Religious Studies - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_T._Hanson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_T._Hanson - which isn't a problem in itself but I felt it was apart of a pattern when it came to heads of the regulator. Their backgrounds didn't inspire my confidence.

nikau 3y ago
> We're not able to run any piece of gear without the occasional failure Seems like they could easily pressurize the pipes when idle to detect leaks
- roenxi 3y ago
  Next time you stub your toe, reflect that you could have moved your foot differently and not stubbed it. And yet nobody called for you to be delicensed from anything, even though you were just less competent (I mean, seriously, when that day comes you'll have just fucked up walking!) and did more damage to your own body than SC nuclear plant was ever likely to do to anyone.
  - lamontcg 3y ago
    A large enough natural disaster in SC that took out the power grid and exposed the fact that the generators would fail if they were put to use, could cause a Chernobyl/Fukushima-class of disaster. A little bit worse than stubbing your toe, unless you commonly cause a hundred billion dollars in damage every time you kick your coffee table.
    - roenxi 3y ago
      You're imagining an act of god that does precisely so much damage that the difference between catastrophic failure and a non-event is this one cracked pipe. That was, please note, detected and fixed before failure. The odds of that happening are crazy low. And the downside of that risk coming to fruition is a 0-death to near-0-death crisis (which is much better than whatever this precise external shock will cause). Deal with the risk. Living is risky. The environmental disaster you posit is more dangerous than the nuclear scenario you envision as a result! The efforts to eliminate this risk have done far more damage so far even your hypothetical would cause.
      - Gwypaas 3y ago
        > You're imagining an act of god that does precisely so much damage that the difference between catastrophic failure and a non-event is this one cracked pipe. That was, please note, detected and fixed before failure. Take the severe Forsmark incident in 2006 in Sweden. Many of the "defense in depth" layers had been accidentally removed through freak occurrences and upgrades. Thus loss of cooling became almost a certainty. That is why you test and do not accept half fixes to placate the operators profit margin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsmark_Nuclear_Power_Plant#July_2006_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsmark_Nuclear_Power_Plant#J... > And the downside of that risk coming to fruition is a 0-death to near-0-death crisis (which is much better than whatever this precise external shock will cause). And a at least $200B bill to cleanup the mess in Fukushimas case. Lets remove the Price Anderson Act so they have to pay the true cost for their risk? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear_Industries_Indemnity_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear...
trehalose 3y ago
How economic is a nuclear meltdown that this particular regulation, requiring nuclear power plants to have usable backup generators, is not worth the cost of compliance?
- roenxi 3y ago
  I don't know. You don't know. It is likely that the regulator doesn't know either. Maybe even the plant owner doesn't know. But what is fairly clear is that the USs anti-nuclear strategy has caused thousands of deaths, untold pollution and a lot of poverty because it pushed energy prices up. It squelched the safest and cleanest form of power we've ever discovered from taking root. People should calm down about calling for license revocations because something turned out to be imperfect. Especially since we don't know how much redundancy is built in to this system. The standard applied to nuclear power safety is excessive.
  - trehalose 3y ago
    > Especially since we don't know how much redundancy is built in to this system. For us to read an article before making dismissive comments isn't merely polite--it's essential for us to be able to communicate effectively with each other. The article explains that this plant has two backup diesel generators, both of which have been having problems. (It also links to older articles detailing the plant's long history of negligence in fixing problems after they were discovered--this wasn't the first time.) > People should calm down about calling for license revocations because something turned out to be imperfect. The standard applied to nuclear power safety is excessive. Imagine for a moment that you live in a rented home, and for twenty years, the plumbing has been repeatedly cracking and leaking, and each time you tell the landlord, they wait weeks or months before calling a plumber, who only puts temporary patches on the leaks. Would you be satisfied each time the plumber eventually comes? Or would you like to hold your landlord and plumber to a higher standard than nuclear safety?
    - roenxi 3y ago
      > The article explains... You're trying to assess the safety of a highly redundant engineered system design (likely paranoidly designed) based on the opinions and research of Sammy Fretwell, journalist. That isn't actually a good way to try and engage with the problem - journalists are typically not engineers and frequently aren't in the room when decisions are made. The plant engineers believe the situation is safe enough. The regulator disagrees. The regulator could be reasonable in their disagreement but this particular regulator is famously unreasonable and excessive in their safety demands. Likely by design. And by and large that is what we can glean without doing a lot of research going through primary sources and engineering reports. It is a good article, but it is the regulators opinions are not the end of the story on this one - the problem here is that the regulator's opinions and enforcements are damaging society as a whole. > Imagine for a moment... I like that metaphor because it illustrates how the fluid system continues to work perfectly adequately despite cracks in the piping.