3 ms·
> The ash needs to go somewhere and the standard practice with a lot of coal plants has been to just dump it outside, try to contain it with some infrastructure
by myrmidon 2y ago
> The ash needs to go somewhere and the standard practice with a lot of coal plants has been to just dump it outside, try to contain it with some infrastructure, and not worry too much about it.
More precisely: The standard EPA recommended practice would have been to dump the dried fly ash in a lined landfill (to prevent poisoning groundwater). This is also what whas done in the cleanup.
Allowing the disaster to occur was a clear case of insufficient regulations combined with the sort of cost-saving sloppiness that is to be expected from private companies.
Those regulations were amended and risks at other potential disaster sites were mitigated (which cost billions), finishing in 2022.
I'd like to note here that muntzing government regulations in a style that Musk advocates for ("you can always reinstate some regulations later if you run into problems") is not only irresponsible, but also impractical; it takes decades to implement regulatory changes and switching is very expensive.
- try_the_bass 2y ago> is not only irresponsible, but also impractical; it takes decades to implement regulatory changes and switching is very expensive. But perhaps this latency is itself a problem that should be solved? I understand that there are good reasons for regulation to be a slow process, but it doesn't have to (and probably shouldn't!) take decades to iterate on. And if regulation could iterate faster, some of your objections to the approach go away, do they not? This would also come with the added benefit of reducing the efficacy of regulatory capture.