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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.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday February 14 2017, @01:51PM
I was just going to say: Nuclear Power is just incompatible with our current level of business regulation. We're not responsible enough to handle it on the money side - we've got the technical chops, we make it work in the military, but the free market can't handle the ROI horizon.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 14 2017, @01:54PM
but the free market
Free markets have nothing to do with nuclear power.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by turgid on Tuesday February 14 2017, @01:57PM
Correct. Free Markets work on a quarterly basis. A nuclear power plant needs to be designed, constructed, operated and decommissioned on a 100 year time scale. Only Public management and funding makes sense.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday February 14 2017, @02:22PM
Correct. Free Markets work on a quarterly basis. A nuclear power plant needs to be designed, constructed, operated and decommissioned on a 100 year time scale. Only Public management and funding makes sense.
No, that has nothing to do with free markets which are merely very low regulation markets (completely absent in the nuclear power world). And I'll note here that a key reason "quarterly basis" thinking works at all is because of government "too big to fail" bailouts and government policies like Keynesian spending which eliminate a fair bit of business risk - both greatly reduce risk that would otherwise trip up short term thinkers.
Free markets are one of those things that are criticized when they are deliberately broken badly. Kind of like complaining that the car doesn't handle well when you remove an axle.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday February 14 2017, @02:28PM
Point missed completely. If you subject your nuclear power station to "Free Market" forces, how can you guarantee that you're going to be profitable next quarter, let alone over the many decades that the plant will exist?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Tuesday February 14 2017, @04:00PM
According to market theory, capital costs (barriers to entry) do not exist.
More fundamentally, the price system ignores externalities. That is why you need governments imposing things like carbon taxes.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday February 15 2017, @03:52AM
According to market theory, capital costs (barriers to entry) do not exist.
Sounds like a pretty solid reason to decide that "market theory" doesn't fully apply then.
More fundamentally, the price system ignores externalities. That is why you need governments imposing things like carbon taxes.
I agree. But governments aren't particularly good at deciding what the externalities are either.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 14 2017, @02:07PM
Aaaahhhh, I'm relieved.
Better stay this way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday February 14 2017, @07:18PM
From the story, Westinghouse hired Shaw, a contractor in a free market. Presumably they contracted with this clown based on price, it certainly wasn't his qualifications and experience.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday February 15 2017, @01:33AM
From the story, Westinghouse hired Shaw, a contractor in a free market. Presumably they contracted with this clown based on price, it certainly wasn't his qualifications and experience.
Two things: first, "free market" means something, but it doesn't mean the heavily regulated market of nuclear industry contracting. Second, the Shaw business was twenty years old with an even older business incorporated in. While I agree in reality that it didn't have what was needed, on paper it did (that is what "qualification" is after all). Someone screwed up and now several businesses will pay for that failure. So here we see the strengths of both market and regulation approaches. Poor quality construction doesn't find its way into a running nuclear reactor and the cost of the screwups are contained to the parties responsible for the screwups.