Quote:
Originally Posted by Lamplighter
It's as if there is no institutional memory of what it was like during the 3-Mile and Chenoble incidents, and no assurances that anything different will be done in building the new reactors over what was done before.
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So many forget why those (and other less documented accidents and near accidents in the UK, Canada, outside of Detroit, Davis Bessie near Toledo, Brown's Ferry, etc) accidents occurred. In every case, management failures.
In Three Mile Island, management was so negligent that Three Mile Island 1 could not restart until all Met Ed management resigned. When the last of the problems did resign - and he kept refusing to - then Three Mile Island 1 restarted two days later.
Three Mile Island 2 is a perfect example of why failures happen. Management refused to replace a leaking valve that keeps coolant inside. All in the name of cost controls. Three Mile Island failed literally days after a restart. After a refurbishment that should have replaced that defective valve. Management (no different than GM's) was so business school brainwashed as to refuse to replace that valve. Everyone here should know that story. Because everyone should know why failures happen.
Are you listening to the Government inquiry into Deepwater Horizon? Engineering plans were changed ad hoc. The term 'unbalanced' should be a glaring fact in anyone who discusses that disaster. In every case, a classic management fubar. Fundamental violations of what William Edward Deming taught even 50 years ago.
There are no accidents. These are human safety failures only possible when management is not doing its job.
Today's reactor designs are even more human resilient. So how to make anything resilient when a worker decides to put a lit candle under electric control wires to find an air leak?
It is called education. And it is why America's more productive industries need so many immigrants from India and China. The problem is not that technology. Problem is so many Americans educated, for example, wastefully as communication and business majors. Who cannot even do a quadratic equation. And then get angry when their MBA school professor asks them to solve one.
So, do you know who created the NE American (2003) blackout? From Indiana, Michigan, Ontario, to NYC? If you do not, then you are also the reasons for 'accidents'. Because anyone informed from any newspaper (or equivalent) should have known that well understood fact. Most do not. It should be obvious. But most would rather call it an accident rather that learn the reason why accidents exist. Nuclear reactors are not dangerous. Business school types - uneducated managers - are the #1 reason for disasters.
They could not find even one engineer who said it was safe to launch Challenger. So they ignored every engineer. Launched anyway. Why? Because so many Americans would call it an accident rather than blame the only reason for that disaster. So many Americans said it is always good to have incompetent management. Since we do not hold the problem criminally negligent, then more *accidents* must happen.