The Hubris of Nuclear Engineers

By DAVE LINDORFF

GE, the company that boasts that it "brings good things to life," was the designer of the nuclear plants that are blowing up like hot popcorn kernels at the Fukushima Daiichi generating plant north of Tokyo that was hit by the double-whammy of an 9.1 earthquake and a hugh tsunami.

The company may escape tens or hundreds of billions of dollars in liability from this continuing disaster, which could still result in a catastrophic total meltdown of one or more of the reactors (as of this writing three of the reactors are reported to have suffered explosions and partial meltdowns, and all could potentially become more serious total meltdowns with a rupture of the reactor container), thanks to Japanese law, which makes the operator--in this case Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) liable. But if it were found that it was design flaws by GE that caused the problem, presumably TEPCO or the Japanese government could pursue GE for damages.

In fact, the design of these facilities--a design which, it should be noted, was also used in 23 nuclear plants operating in the US in Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Vermont--appear to have included serious flaws, from a safety perspective.



SNIP...........

GE may end up having to change its motto to: "GE brings death to things."


http://counterpunch.com/lindorff03152011.html

Might be some bargains out there?

as the East's BP.

makes an excellent swear word.

There is an even worse hubris and criminality in some oil dictators.

I'm sure that you are using a TV that was designed in the 1960s. No? Why not?

I'm sure that you are using a telephone that was designed in the 1960s. No? Why not?

I'm sure that you are using a microwave oven than was designed in the 1960s. No? Why not?

In a nutshell, these reactors are 40 years old, designed 50 years ago. They should have been replaced decades ago but the utility company decided to keep them in service. It is a tragedy and IMO just keeps getting worse. I'm a proponent of Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors, Pebble Bed Modular Reactors and SMRs, not the type of reactors in use in Fukushima but this is now a tragedy for all the people of that region and we should be sending aid to that area to help them through this most difficult time. Yet, some here on DU are practically salivating at the chance to bad mouth nuclear power, relishing each new juicy detail of the "failure" in the news.

If your answer to the first 3 statements at the top of this post is "yes" then you get to complain about this 50 year old nuclear design. If not then we should all count our blessings if these Japanese reactors can be cooled down soon enough to avoid an even bigger disaster. No human being should be cheerleading this disaster, IMO.

First, he gets a number of facts simply wrong. Zirconium cladding would have a hard time catching on fire in a way that would matter. It would need really high temperatures temperatures and so having the Zr burn would be redundant. It's like the aluminum in thermite: Yeah, it ignites, but I'm not really worried about the Pepsi can sitting on my desk or the wire my grapevines are hanging on. The H2 explosions were caused by H2 that had been vented from the cooling system--even though Lindorff claims that the explosions were caused by H2 that couldn't be vented. I guess if you're good at critical thinking you don't really need to have accurate facts. (I can sympathize with his lack of knowledge: I was a language major, too, and have seen lots of people insisting that microwaved food releases microwaves when digested, or that a pill in the gas tank would convert water into gasoline; I was also a science major and know that these people may be intelligent but they're also ignorant.)

Second, the matter of the waste storage pools is a bit hypocritical. They're designed that way to keep all the radioactive material in one place, to reduce the number of redundant systems, to have one set of security for both. Yeah, it doubles down. But it means that the radioactive material isn't scattered about; you remove it from the reactor, move it a very short distance, and leave it. In the absence of a single nuclear waste depository--the kind of thing so many people argue is a Really Bad Thing--it's a tolerable kludge. We also can't bear the idea of moving the stuff because of the risks. It means that instead of a very small risk to one place, requiring very small short-term risks, but with huge bad consequences if that small risk pans out, you get scores of places with larger risks for each place. Welcome to the kind of fall-out not wanting one Incredibly Bad Thing gets you--a whole set of Really Bad Things. It's the bargain we all struck. Talk about buyer's remorse.

(As an aside, he seems to be acutely upset that something he assumed to be true wasn't--that the spent fuel ponds weren't scattered about at a remove from the nuclear plants. In other words, he felt betrayed because he didn't have his facts right, not that facts actually matter unless you turn out wrong because of your mistakes. Now, for a language major that's bad, but it happens. For a journalist, well, can one say "hubris"? Oh. Yes. One can say it. He said it. Just not wrt himself.)

Third, he ignores that engineering is about complying with safety standards that themselves need to be set given what's possible. If all safety standards were set at 0.0000000001% risk, it would be relatively easy to set them. You'd also find that things get so much more expensive that they simply aren't made or don't get done (but, of course, not doing things is also risky). I'm surrounded by risks: I could catch something from my cat, my computer's transformer could catch fire, the laptop's lithium battery could explode, somebody could break down the front door and shoot me, I've been sitting for an hour and could develop a thrombosis in my lower extremities, a plane could crash on me. (Solutions: No computer, kill the cat, get rid of everybody that could break down the door, ban guns and knives, force me to move around--but no so much that I could have a heart attack). Damn: Forgot the stress that results from worrying about all these things, that could give me hypertension and a stroke.

Fourth, he also seems to overlook that what we understand changes. What we find acceptable changes. Building Hoover Dam, an FDR project, involved the massive abrogation of human rights and had obscenity, irresponsibly lax safety standards. By today's standards, that is. Then they were okay, so FDR's off the hook as being a cruel, ruthless, hopeless oppressive criminal. An engineer found certain flaws in the old GE BTW reactors unacceptable; he was overruled. He may even have been right. It's an imperfect world. That's part of what makes it a challenge, and so fascinating.

And, fifth, Lindorff--having demonstrated so neatly that even the self-appointed perfect people are still capable of error, are therefore fallible--really insists that others (apart from himself, it would seem) be infallible. I guess the come-back would be that journalists don't really matter because they don't do anything of any great importance. (What am I saying? I seriously can't imagine Lindorff saying such a thing and actually meaning it.)

Nice smackdown.