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posted by janrinok on Tuesday February 14 2017, @09:34AM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-not-what-you-know... dept.

A large majority of geeks are enamored with nuclear power -- it's very cool technology after all. The problem of course, is that a nuclear power plant is a complex piece of machinery and successfully building one to operate safely is a delicate task, a lesson Toshiba learned the hard way:

Those troubled projects in the American South are now threatening the Japanese icon's foundations. The value of Toshiba shares has been cut in half over the last six weeks, wiping out more than $7 billion in market value.

It appears a huge part of the problem stems from reliance on a pipe supplier. James Bernhard Jr. bought a pipe fabrication business ("Shaw") for $50k in a bankruptcy deal and then used his awesome dealmaking ability to parlay that into becoming Toshiba's plumber. Of course, in the modern world being a great businessman means sucking money down like a frat boy at a keg, and Bernhard went on to sell Shaw for $3.3 billion even while screwing up all the pipes (from TFA linked above):

After Westinghouse hired Shaw to handle construction in 2008, it wasn't long before the company's work came under scrutiny. By early 2012, NRC inspectors found steel in the foundation of one reactor had been installed improperly. A 300-ton reactor vessel nearly fell off a rail car. The wrong welds were used on nuclear modules and had to be redone. Shaw "clearly lacked experience in the nuclear power industry and was not prepared for the rigor and attention to detail required,'' Bill Jacobs, who had been selected as the state's monitor for the project, told the Georgia Public Service Commission in late 2012.

So there you have it. The reason some geeks (me for example) oppose nuclear power has nothing to do with the technology, and absolutely everything to do with the morons who run it. Businessmen being in charge of this technology means it will never achieve its potential and that it will always be dangerous, because by the time something goes wrong, they'll be spending their billions on hookers and blow in some remote private tropical island paradise, far far away from any consequences of any kind.


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  • (Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday February 14 2017, @10:27AM

    by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 14 2017, @10:27AM (#466909) Journal

    "This place ain't gonna last forever. I've seen the welds. You wiv me?" -- TWI tutor teaching us about visual inspection of welds at the nuclear power station I once worked at.

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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 14 2017, @10:33AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 14 2017, @10:33AM (#466911) Journal

    "This place ain't gonna last forever. I've seen the welds. You wiv me?" -- TWI tutor teaching us about visual inspection of welds at the nuclear power station I once worked at.

    Just from curiosity, did it last?

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by turgid on Tuesday February 14 2017, @10:41AM

      by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 14 2017, @10:41AM (#466914) Journal

      It was built with the intention of lasting 25 years. They got 40 out of it, completely safely. Technically it could have easily gone on to 45 or maybe 50. It was a Magnox, designed in the 1950s and commissioned in the early 60s, built like a brick outhouse. The limiting factor for the life of the reactors was Wigner energy build-up in the graphite moderator combined with erosion IIRC.
      A well-run nuclear power station is a very boring place :-) I got very bored and left after nearly five years.
      I wish we built software the way the British built nuclear power stations...