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Old 2012-07-06, 00:46   Link #22381
Sumeragi
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What are you going to do about insurance? The rates are going to be high with these kind of jobs.
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Old 2012-07-06, 01:59   Link #22382
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Originally Posted by Sumeragi View Post
What are you going to do about insurance? The rates are going to be high with these kind of jobs.
Give a lower payout, and endorsements not covering their "lack of corporate diligence" to the company.

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Old 2012-07-06, 02:10   Link #22383
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The guy has been offered his job back.

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/20...-job-back?lite
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Old 2012-07-06, 04:24   Link #22384
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Really informative read about Japan's anti nuclear protests.


Quote:
MEANWHILE, TENSIONS are rising in Japan once again. Weekly protests in front of Noda's residence in opposition to nuclear reactivation are attracting more participants, with some 45,000 people gathering at a protest on June 22.

This is part of the ongoing struggle of Japan's new anti-nuclear resistance, which was inspired by the Arab Spring last year, as years of increasing anger toward the role of government and corporations have finally erupted. Criticism of the mainstream media has also developed through this movement, as Japanese citizens became increasingly skeptical of government information after the nuclear crisis last year.

Japanese activists were also inspired by last year's Occupy Wall Street movement in the U.S., as they face rising unemployment and underemployment in their country. And with his approval rating sagging below the 30 percent, Noda's decision to restart nuclear reactors is also facing international criticism. Activists from the U.S. to Australia, in Europe and Asia, are signing petitions and organizing rallies outside their countries' Japanese embassies and consulates in solidarity with Japan's anti-nuclear resistance.

"I believe this is the current global wave," said anti-nuclear activist Keiko Ochiai. "We must once again take democracy into our own hands if we want to shift away from the miserable reality to more hopeful direction."
http://socialistworker.org/2012/07/0...lear-ambitions
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Old 2012-07-06, 05:20   Link #22385
monir
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Originally Posted by SeijiSensei View Post
Japan panel: Fukushima nuclear disaster 'man-made'



Listening to the BBC's radio coverage of this story revealed a remarkable fact that I don't believe is in the online story. The paragraph that addresses the "cultural" issues, particularly the desire for consensus decision-making and acceptance of authority, only appears in the English-language version of the report released for international distribution. That paragraph is nowhere to be found in the Japanese version. How anyone thought this fact wouldn't be noticed is beyond me. Whether anyone in Japan will learn about this difference in the versions is an interesting question.

You can hear this discussion on the BBC's Newshour podcast. It's not up yet on the web site since Newshour is airing on the World Service right now. It should appear later on today at http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/newshour.

Update: It's there now under the "Play recent episodes" header on the right-hand side of the page.
I just finished reading the NY Times version of the article. Dr. Kurokawa has some interesting things to say:
“What must be admitted, very painfully, is that this was a disaster ‘Made in Japan,’ ” Dr. Kurokawa said in his introduction to the English version of the report. “Its fundamental causes are to be found in the ingrained conventions of Japanese culture: our reflexive obedience; our reluctance to question authority; our devotion to ‘sticking with the program’; our groupism; and our insularity.” The Japanese version contained a similar criticism.
WOW!

Well, it's as real as it gets. I also have to say that the Japanese are stuck with nuclear power for the foreseeable future whether they like it or not if they want to kickstart their growth and prosperity. If they truly want to start from scratch to explore the alternative which is the current populace consensus, their resolve will be tested to the limit just because the alternative has ways to go before it can meet the current output a nuclear energy dependent country like Japan demands. And I'm talking about resolve that span years and years.
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Old 2012-07-06, 06:04   Link #22386
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A Lifeguard was fired for saving someones life, but since it was out of his "zone" he had broken the rules for going to the persons aid. Thus they fired him, however his story got on to the news...

http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/05/us/flo...red/index.html

Than...

http://abcnews.go.com/US/fired-fla-l...ry?id=16716225

The guy is smart enough to know they're only offering him his job back because it got in the news and are trying to save their image. Many Lifeguards have quit in protest over what happened.
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Old 2012-07-06, 06:18   Link #22387
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This hate for nuclear power makes my brain hurt. Fission power is a perfectly fine stopgap measure until we can get D-T fusion figured out.
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Old 2012-07-06, 06:23   Link #22388
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It's normal, they suffered a huge tradegy and it's still fresh on their minds. It will be years from now before they finally let go and stop making such a huge fuss about it. Besides, whether thet want to admit it or not that need that Nuclear Plant there. Anyone in political power in Japan knows how important Nuclear power is and that nothing they say will change it. They're still years from somehow getting alternate energy sources set up that can produce even a fraction of the output of a single Nuclear Plant.
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Old 2012-07-06, 06:44   Link #22389
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The problem with nuclear power in Japan is that there is the so-called "Nuclear Mafia" where the industry, scientists, and bureaucrats all watch each other's back. It's one of the most tightly closed clique within the Japanese industry, which closed it off to oversight from the public. The protests here are much about the Nuclear Mafia as they are about nuclear power in general.
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Old 2012-07-06, 09:16   Link #22390
SaintessHeart
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sumeragi View Post
The problem with nuclear power in Japan is that there is the so-called "Nuclear Mafia" where the industry, scientists, and bureaucrats all watch each other's back. It's one of the most tightly closed clique within the Japanese industry, which closed it off to oversight from the public. The protests here are much about the Nuclear Mafia as they are about nuclear power in general.
Where are the fujoshis when you need them?

I mean, one of these rotten girls can write/draw a short love manga/LN where a middle-aged divorced nuclear bureaucrat falls in love with a intern nuclear scientist fresh out of Todai, but the intern suffers radiation poisoning due to a covered up nuclear leak. His boss, who is in love with him and intends to make the nuclear bureaucrat his successor, was the one authorising the cover-up and the bureaucrat discovers it. Will he reciprocate his boss's love, or will he stand against all odds to help the young intern he loves?


Though there isn't much media coverage about how the nuclear mafia works for anyone to do an expose on it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by synaesthetic View Post
This hate for nuclear power makes my brain hurt. Fission power is a perfectly fine stopgap measure until we can get D-T fusion figured out.
They don't exactly hate it IMO, they just fear it.

The human focus on nuclear technology is always on the bomb before the power plant because nobody really cares how their appliances are being run; it is pure ignorance converted into stupidified irrational dislike for nuclear power.

Unless they have a better solution, I suggest that we make them undergo liposuction and use their fat to fuel the conventional power plants.
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Old 2012-07-06, 10:28   Link #22391
Vexx
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Quote:
Originally Posted by synaesthetic View Post
This hate for nuclear power makes my brain hurt. Fission power is a perfectly fine stopgap measure until we can get D-T fusion figured out.
I don't hate nuclear power at all... I'm just becoming convinced over the decades that very few who wants to own/run one can be trusted with the operation.
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Old 2012-07-06, 12:18   Link #22392
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Originally Posted by Vexx View Post
I don't hate nuclear power at all... I'm just becoming convinced over the decades that very few who wants to own/run one can be trusted with the operation.
Just leave it to the engineers who, you know, built them to run it. Don't make it a political operation, which they do anyway.

That's the problem, politicization.
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Old 2012-07-06, 12:29   Link #22393
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That sort of blind trust in "engineers" is part of what the recent report on Fukushima criticizes. For instance, look at how the spent fuel rods were managed, putting them in large pools of water inside the reactor enclosure. That doesn't seem especially safe to me. Couple that with not having any contingencies to pump the necessary water into the pools to keep the rods covered if the main power blew out. The result was that awful hydrogen explosion that sprayed large quantities of radioactive material into the atmosphere and the Pacific.

These plants are based on General Electric designs that are something like half-a-century old now.

If anything the problem was too little "politicization," in the sense of active regulation of the industry by government officials. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission also suffers from "regulatory capture" by the industry being regulated. Then there was the "regulation" of oil drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. We all know how well that turned out.
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Old 2012-07-06, 12:51   Link #22394
Anh_Minh
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lightning_Wing View Post
Just leave it to the engineers who, you know, built them to run it. Don't make it a political operation, which they do anyway.

That's the problem, politicization.
An engineer - provided he doesn't overlook something, or make a mistake, which are always possibilities - can only give you a risks and possible benefits of various approach. How to weigh one against the other, however, is a political decision. If we don't believe that people, that voters, can accept risk when it's honestly presented to them like they're adults, then we don't believe in democracy. Maybe we can move to China or something.

One problem is that the political process if clogged by the lobbies. They're not necessarily intrinsically evil, but they do have too much power. Wasn't there an Onion article about a lobby for the common people? Maybe we need something like that...

Another is that, despite what I said, nobody really believes in letting people decide. Everyone, me included, always thinks he knows better than the sheeple he's surrounded with.

A third, more specific to this case, is that everyone likes cheap electricity, but nobody wants to live near a nuclear plant. (Except the guys who work there, I guess.)
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Old 2012-07-06, 12:56   Link #22395
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i think the best way to make sure all safety issues are taking into consideration is to have the plant manager, owner/CEO/chairman and their family live inside the plant.
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Old 2012-07-06, 13:07   Link #22396
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(Independent) Malware may knock thousands off the internet on Monday
Quote:
The warnings about the Internet problem have been splashed across Facebook and Google. Internet service providers have sent notices, and the FBI set up a special website. But hundreds of thousands of people around the world may still lose their internet service on Monday unless they do a quick check of their computers for malware that could have taken over their machines more than a year ago.

Despite repeated alerts, the number of computers that probably are infected is more than 277,000 worldwide, down from about 360,000 in April.

Users whose computers are still infected on Monday will lose their ability to go online, and they will have to call their service providers for help deleting the malware and reconnecting to the internet.
Time to hit the panic button scan?
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Old 2012-07-06, 13:12   Link #22397
Dhomochevsky
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As an engineer myself, I would not trust them blindly, because they are humans too and they may really be wrong sometimes.
But just as an artist is never fully satisfied with their last creation, an engineer always has something they would do better if they could do a project all over again.
However economic rules usually don't allow this. Often they don't even allow for the best solution from the beginning. So even if the engineer sees the problem, they have only limited resources to work around it.

I am a bit of a technocrate/enthusiast myself. Yet I am still against nuclear power in my own country as it is now. That is not because I have bought into some random scare of 'omg NUCLEAR'. It's just my experience of how the industry works.

If a for-profit organization is tasked with operating a nuclear facility, they will lower safety to the lowest possible standard allowed by regulations (or lower if they think they might get away with it) and they will exploit any loopholes not covered by regulations and cut corners wherever possible.

In almost every other sector this is balanced out by the risk of getting fined when something goes wrong, which will cut into the all important profits.

But with nuclear power plants, just like with big banks, that does not work. If something does go horribly wrong, the damages are so astronomical, that the operating company is screwed anyway. If for example a nuclear powerplant around here would make an area of of say 50km around it uninhabitable, in Germany/NRW one of the densest populated areas of Europe (and yes there are several plants nearby), there is no way the company could ever pay up for the damages.
There is also no insurance company that would be crazy enough to insure for such a case. That insurance company would get pulled down along and it wouldn't even make a dent in the total damage number.
The insurance rates alone that would be needed to really prepare for such an event would bankrupt the power company in no time.

But as long as nothing happens, the plants are a cash cow/money printing machine. And it prints more money, when operated at the bare minimum needed to keep it going. Upgrades would only cut directly into profits.

That's why I am not against nuclear power in general, but I am absolutely against nuclear power in the hands of cooperations. These things have to be handled like other vital infrastructure, that may run a deficit, but is not allowed to ever fail. Not even for economic reasons.

Last edited by Dhomochevsky; 2012-07-06 at 13:28.
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Old 2012-07-06, 13:17   Link #22398
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dhomochevsky View Post
As an engineer myself, I would not trust them blindly, because they are humans too.
But just as an artist is never fully satisfied with their last creation, an engineer always has something they would do better if they could do a project all over again.
But economic rules usually don't allow this. Often they don't even allow for the best solution from the beginning.

I am a bit of a technocrate/enthusiast myself. Yet I am still against nuclear power in my own country as it is now. That is not because I have bought into some random scare of 'omg NUCLEAR'. It's just my experience of how the industry works.

If a for-profit organization is tasked with operating a nuclear facility, they will lower safety to the lowest possible standard allowed by regulations (or lower if they think they might get away with it) and they will exploit any loopholes not covered by regulations and cut corners wherever possible.

In almost every other sector this is balanced out by the risk of getting fined when something goes wrong, which will cut into the all important profits.

But with nuclear power plants, just like with big banks, that does not work. If something does go horribly wrong, the damages are so astronomical, that the operating company is screwed anyway. If for example a nuclear powerplant around here would make an area of of say 50km around it uninhabitable, in Germany/NRW one of the densest populated areas of Europe (and yes there are several plants nearby), there is no way the company could ever pay up for the damages.
There is also no insurance company that would be crazy enough to insure for such a case. That insurance company would get pulled down along and it wouldn't even make a dent in the total damage number.
The insurance rates alone that would be needed to really prepare for such an event would bancrupt the power company in no time.

But as long as nothing happens, the plants are a cash cow/money printing machine. And it prints more money, when operated at the bare minimum needed to keep it going. Upgrades are only cut directly into profits.

That's why I am not against nuclear power in general, but I am absolutely against nuclear power in the hands of cooperations. These things have to be handled like other vital infrastructure, that may run a deficit, but is not allowed to ever fail. Not even for economic reasons.
make the decision maker and their family live in the plant.
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Old 2012-07-06, 13:19   Link #22399
Zakoo
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dhomochevsky View Post

If a for-profit organization is tasked with operating a nuclear facility, they will lower safety to the lowest possible standard allowed by regulations (or lower if they think they might get away with it) and they will exploit any loopholes not covered by regulations and cut corners wherever possible.

In almost every other sector this is balanced out by the risk of getting fined when something goes wrong, which will cut into the all important profits.

If you are in Germany, not US then, a public society or the state can take care of the facilities no?
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Old 2012-07-06, 13:37   Link #22400
Dhomochevsky
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Originally Posted by Zakoo View Post
If you are in Germany, not US then, a public society or the state can take care of the facilities no?
They could have done that I guess. It would have been the better solution.
But they didn't.

When Germany was hellbend on joining the league of nuclear societies in the 60s/70s, they heavily subsidised the developements and contruction of those plants. But the plants were built and owned by private power companies (with mostly public money).

So the public did pay for most of the initial costs of all the plants, we still do pay for all the costs in relation to radioactive waste (transport, interim storage, final storage for the next million years or so... which has not begun yet) and of course we would have to pay for any potential damages caused by catastrophic failure too, s.o..
But the plants are owned and operated by a few big power corps, that are only interested in keeping them running as long as possible with as low cost as possible...
Oh and when it's finally time to get rid of old plants, the public does again pay most of the costs of deconstruction and storing the radioactive remains.

These are all basic conditions that have been signed off by the German gov back when they were out to gain nuclear power, no matter the costs.

I guess this ridiculous setup is part of why the german public does not really like nuclear power all that much.

Last edited by Dhomochevsky; 2012-07-06 at 13:50.
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