AP Investigation Concludes US Nuke Regulators Weakening Safety Rules 199
Raenex writes "An investigation by the Associated Press has found a pattern of safety regulations being relaxed in order to keep aging nuclear power plants running. According to their investigation, when reactor parts fail or systems fall out of compliance with the rules, studies are conducted by the industry and government. The studies conclude that existing standards are 'unnecessarily conservative.' Regulations are loosened, and the reactors are back in compliance. From the article: 'Examples abound. When valves leaked, more leakage was allowed — up to 20 times the original limit. When rampant cracking caused radioactive leaks from steam generator tubing, an easier test of the tubes was devised, so plants could meet standards. Failed cables. Busted seals. Broken nozzles, clogged screens, cracked concrete, dented containers, corroded metals and rusty underground pipes — all of these and thousands of other problems linked to aging were uncovered in the AP's yearlong investigation. And all of them could escalate dangers in the event of an accident.'"
They're describing most of the U.S. infrastructure (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not just nuke plants. U.S. infrastructure in general has been sinking into the shitter since the 70's. My own city's sewer system and coal-fire power plant are both in need of almost complete replacement. And don't even get me started on the bridges.
Of course, the deterioration of some pieces of infrastructure are a little more dangerous than others.
Regulatory capture, it's not just for oil anymore! (Score:5, Insightful)
Some people are concerned about waste (which is a good thing to be concerned about) and some are concerned about accidents.
I am concerned about regulatory capture, which is the consistent theme of government regulation. This is just one example of many. Yes, it will lead to accidents in the future. But I think examining the root cause is useful.
Almost any kind of government regulation is eventually going to result in the regulatory body being co-opted by those doing the regulation. This will happen largely invisibly, and most of the time will only be readily apparent when disaster strikes. And then, the problem will be blamed on a few corrupt individuals and it will be 'fixed'.
It, of couse, was systemic, and not the result of a few corrupt individuals. And all that will be fixed is perception while the problem continues to persist. We see this in the oil industry, the telecommunications industry, and now we're seeing that the same is true of the nuclear industry.
Of course, this was a problem in Japan too. It's quite obvious that the company running the Fukishima reactors consistently understated the severity of the issue while it was happening, and I expect that a detailed investigation will show that the plants should probably never have been operating in the first place.
Regulatory capture. It's inevitable.
This is my biggest worry. I'm not at all sure how the problem can be fixed either.
...so make it easier to build new plants! (Score:2, Insightful)
What the hell do you expect when the regulatory bodies are hostile to licensing new plants, which would use newer, safer designs and technologies, and when they do deign to license one they smother it in enough red tape to quadruple the cost?
Re:They're describing most of the U.S. infrastruct (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the norm through the "developed" world. I guess it is referred to as developed since anything new is not going to be built anymore. We just sit on the labor of our parents and grandparents, reaping rewards and then bitch that stuff breaks.
It is time to start building new things and planning for the future. New reactors. New, fast rail. Better planned cities. Cities that are less noisy and more friendly to actual human than a car (eg. see Paris or New York vs. Chicago or Los Angeles).
Re:Regulatory capture, it's not just for oil anymo (Score:4, Insightful)
your premise, that capture is inevitable, is false in my opinion. If regulating bodies are/were properly funded this would not be the case. The problem is to fund them properly, the governement would have to pay the regulators more than they would get in the industry itself. That is how you prevent losee of people to the industry and thus create minimal conflict of interest.
Actually by doing this you reverse the flow, making being the regulator the end goal, so that the best in the field are regulators.
The problem of course is the cost is really high for this. Especially in areas such as finance.
Re:They're describing most of the U.S. infrastruct (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, the deterioration of some pieces of infrastructure are a little more dangerous than others.
And this, not waste disposal, not nuclear proliferation, not anything else, will be the functional death of nuclear power.
FTFA:
Commercial nuclear reactors in the United States were designed and licensed for 40 years. When the first ones were being built in the 1960s and 1970s, it was expected that they would be replaced with improved models long before those licenses expired.
But that never happened. The 1979 accident at Three Mile Island, massive cost overruns, crushing debt and high interest rates ended new construction proposals for several decades.
Instead, 66 of the 104 operating units have been relicensed for 20 more years, mostly with scant public attention. Renewal applications are under review for 16 other reactors.
No engineer in their right mind would have suggested keeping generation 1 nuclear plants running 'forever'. Perhaps they could be run for long times with strict attention to detail and risk and significant monetary expense, but that's not happening. This is not going to end well. Not at all.
This is why we need to pay for journalism (Score:5, Insightful)
Folks, this is why we need to find a way to pay for true investigative journalism. This sort of thing is NOT going to be uncovered by crowdsourced reports or bloggers with (other, non-journalist) day jobs and bills to pay. Wikileaks relys on insiders having a motive for revealing information; there are merits to that method but it doesn't cover all cases.
Those of you complaining about how journalism is crap, this is an example of non-crap journalism.
I don't know a great way of funding journalism like this. The Associated Press is funded by member newspapers who use their stories in the local papers. No one is paying for the local papers because of Google News and the like, so if those papers go under, AP's funding is probably in some jeopardy over the next 5-10 years. I would be fine with paying the AP directly somehow, but I still don't see a means of making that work.
This IS Engineering (Score:3, Insightful)
Sometimes, this is what engineering is about. When faced with a difficult problem, sometimes the design solution is rewrite the problem. It's a fact of life. Conservatism is the easy side to fall on when you write requirements. The time and effort it would take to write just-conservative enough requirements doesn't justify the cost of doing so. With equipment built and in-place, it is now worth the time to find out what you really need.
And yes, I realized there is a flip-side to going to far with this. But that's why we pay engineers - to make tough decisions when money, equipment, and lives are on the line. -- www.awkwardengineer.com [awkwardengineer.com]
Re:Regulatory capture, it's not just for oil anymo (Score:5, Insightful)
your premise, that capture is inevitable, is false in my opinion. If regulating bodies are/were properly funded this would not be the case. The problem is to fund them properly, the governement would have to pay the regulators more than they would get in the industry itself. That is how you prevent losee of people to the industry and thus create minimal conflict of interest.
Actually by doing this you reverse the flow, making being the regulator the end goal, so that the best in the field are regulators.
The problem of course is the cost is really high for this. Especially in areas such as finance.
Regulatory capture is not so much about a revolving door between industry and regulator as about how companies use regulation for their benefit and to keep out competition. While paying regulators more would help lessen the revolving door it would not do much about the underlying reasons behind regulatory capture. You'd just have better regulators to capture.
The ultimate problem? Us. (Score:4, Insightful)
The biggest issue is ultimately the short sighted consumer (read: voter) who wants everything and as cheaply as possible...
If there were a real market for clean safe energy that cost twice the amount of regular juice someone would supply the demand. Same thing with sweat shops producing our clothing, electronics, everything. Humans aren't ultimately that smart.
Yes, I'm cynical. But also an idealist. Maybe one day we'll learn?
Re:This is why we need to pay for journalism (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe if the "news outlets" did more if this kind of thing, rather than the never ending celeb gossip drivel, they'd still have a business? When the "news" is fluff about a kid getting his hair cut and several quoted tweets from twatter, it's pretty clear why no one pays any attention to so-called news.
Not just the US, but the World (Score:5, Insightful)
Either everyone is cutting costs or seeing how much slack they can get away with.
Fukushima was a wake-up call - seems we stupid simians need one every 20 or so years, to remind us we can poison our own air, water and food supply if we don't take it seriously.
There's also a good chance the American Way of trying to maximize profit has encouraged everyone to cut corners, where much of it was just common practice of American public and private sector before. The difference between public is cutting spending, where private wants to keep the money for that big check for the CEO and to look all pretty to Wall Street.
Re:This IS Engineering (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Fucking Capitalism (Score:4, Insightful)
Profits > Safety Safety > Freedom Ergo... Profits > Freedom Clearly this is what the founders intended
It's no longer Capitalism, it's Corpratism. Now bow down and worship your master.
Re:They're describing most of the U.S. infrastruct (Score:3, Insightful)
The government can buy everyone a car. You'll just get a magical free car out there in your driveway. Catch is, you can never transfer ownership to anyone else. You have to buy the insurance, the fuel, do the maintenance, etc. Suddenly, that free gift is looking pretty expensive, knowing that you'll have to pay maybe $5,000 a year to use it. Ok, so maybe you won' t use it, you'll just maintain it to save money so it holds its value. But you've got a family of four and all of you got a free car, so now you're stuck paying $12-20k a year to maintain and use them (your 4 and 6 year old can't drive, so it's pointless to pay the full $5k on them).
At the end of the year, you also get a bill for the amortized cost of the car over 50 years, so now you're paying an extra $4k/year. 40 years from now, your 4 and 6 year old will still be paying off a car that was already rusty before they could drive it, even if they never asked for it in the first place.
Meanwhile, the four of you see constant improvements and new technology come out, but you can't afford to upgrade because you already have your existing vehicles that you're still paying off and paying to maintain, regardless of their usefulness since you can't afford to pay an additional $20k penalty to take them to the junk yard. Maybe you stop spending the money to maintain them, knowing that you'll eventually have to scrap them anyway, in the hopes that it'll free up money to pay for your mortgage and groceries since you've fallen on hard times. You find yourself falling further and further behind because you're locked in to decades old technology while everyone else around the world gets the latest greatest stuff.
Decades later, maybe you can say that your life benefited greatly from your "free gift" or maybe you can say it was an albatross around your neck. Some of the things government spends money on actually has a well reasoned long time benefit, but lots of it doesn't and just ends up as another weight around the neck of the people. We may have a lot of infrastructure thanks to FDR and Ike (highway), but most of it is crumbling since we couldn't afford to maintain it in the first place and, even knowing we couldn't afford it, we wanted to spend the money designated for maintenance on other projects anyway, constantly shifting the burdens to the next generations while using their money to buy today's voters. Thomas Jefferson warned that it was unfair for any government project to require the money of people 20 years later precisely because it would lead to one generation stealing from the next to benefit themselves without the care of the desires of the future generations.
Instead of building stuff just for the sake of building stuff, how about we carefully consider what we really need government to build, repair and tear down and provide for the future upkeep of that infrastructure up front? Nah, that hurts us too much, we'll screw over our grandkids so we don't have to actually pay for what we want. What could possibly go wrong?