That’s the headline on WashingtonPost.com.
Perhaps now all the people who were talking about “context” will put the continuing catastrophe in the same light, as in nuclear disaster that was foretold, sort of like BP, but this time instead of wildlife and habitat we have uninhabitable for humans as a sub-heading: Experts Had Long Criticized Potential Weakness in Design of Stricken Reactor.
From the New York Times this morning:
The warnings were stark and issued repeatedly as far back as 1972: If the cooling systems ever failed at a “Mark 1” nuclear reactor, the primary containment vessel surrounding the reactor would probably burst as the fuel rods inside overheated. Dangerous radiation would spew into the environment.
Now, with one Mark 1 containment vessel damaged at the embattled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant and other vessels there under severe strain, the weaknesses of the design — developed in the 1960s by General Electric — could be contributing to the unfolding catastrophe.
[...] G.E. began making the Mark 1 boiling-water reactors in the 1960s, marketing them as cheaper and easier to build — in part because they used a comparatively smaller and less expensive containment structure.
Let’s see how MSNBC covers this in context.
It’s amazing how stupid and stubborn our leaders, political and business, remain. We knew that ultra-deep water drilling was dangerous, yet the Obama administration had no problem letting BP, a company with safety violation issues, go ahead in the Gulf. Now comes a 1960-era General Electric plant, which had problems from the start, putting an entire culture in Japan at risk.
In 1972, Stephen H. Hanauer, then a safety official with the Atomic Energy Commission, recommended that the Mark 1 system be discontinued because it presented unacceptable safety risks. Among the concerns cited was the smaller containment design, which was more susceptible to explosion and rupture from a buildup in hydrogen — a situation that may have unfolded at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Later that same year, Joseph Hendrie, who would later become chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a successor agency to the atomic commission, said the idea of a ban on such systems was attractive. But the technology had been so widely accepted by the industry and regulatory officials, he said, that “reversal of this hallowed policy, particularly at this time, could well be the end of nuclear power.”
We can only hope it is the “end of nuclear power,” but something tells me that’s hardly true. Pres. Obama has been a recipient of the industry’s bounty, with Republicans a major mouthpiece for the nuclear industry.
Whether fossil fuels, ultra-deep drilling, as well as fighting wars for oil, now including dangerous nuclear practices, there doesn’t seem to be any amount of carnage, environmental or human, that will convince leaders that green energy should be our 21st century moon shot.
It simply doesn’t matter where you look on the political spectrum. All you see is small-minded, short-sided people who refuse to take the leap to 21st century realities.
The other issue is that your average American simply wants cheaper gas, cheaper energy, which will only empower the “clean coal” industry, which doesn’t exist.
Our nation is simply too stupid to understand that a gas tax and other taxes on mil-billionaires to help pay for alternative energy is the only way we’ll start looking at high speed rail and mass transit as a priority item instead of a budget item to be cut.
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Amen Taylor, the events in Japan are absolutely terrifying, I dont know how anyone can argue otherwise. We humans are a total disaster to this planet.
As a teenager I absolutely loved The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, read it four times over 10 years. One of my favourtie chapter of the book is the one where the Dolphins (much smarter than us) leave the planet because of how messed up humans have left it with the final message “So long and thanks for all the fish.”
It is all fiction but it seems that we have learnt nothing.
I add my “Amen!” It’s been impossible not to think about the Gulf Gusher in the last several days, because as you point out, the mentality is basically the same. The “hallowed policy” phrase used by Joseph Hendrie is perfect.
In general, we are a nation of short-term thinkers (with exceptions, of course). That’s probably an apt description of humanity in general. But beyond the use of whatever specific horrible thing Pols on Left and Right tell us will happen to “our grandchildren” if we don’t now follow their Pol plans, there doesn’t seem to be much thought given to future generations.
I want to throw up every time I hear some slimeball use that canard about “our grandchildren” it comes staight from some Frank Luntz directed focus group.
Thses guys don’t spend two seconds giving the children of the world a thought.
It’s one of the predictable phrases I can’t help but listen for, like “this great nation of ours,” “Founding Fathers,” and “God bless America,” by which, of course, they mean the United States of, not all of “America.”
These guys…
There is another piece here that links it back to the mortgage crisis and it is regulators. In all three instances; banking, deep water drilling and now the nuclear industry the regulators are not doing their job and have been coopted by the industry they are supposed to regulate.
Whistle blowers are ignored,discredited,punished.On the other hand the fradulant regulators are rewarded with six figure incomes working for the industry they previously regulated.I saw a chart somewhere that listed about a dozen bank regulators and the positions they held previously to the crash. They all…ALL…are now employed by one of the too big to fail banks.
By now, I think it’s entirely possible at least some of the “regulators” are actually doing the job they are really hired to do — take care of whatever industry they supposedly “regulate.” It makes the transition to lobbyist or upper level management so much smoother.
The ‘regulators’ haven’t been doing their jobs for a long, long time:
“”Enron was able to inflate its book earnings due to abusive tax shelters allegedly set up with the help of Wall Street banks,” said Erika A. Kelton, a Washington, D.C. attorney with Phillips & Cohen. “My client’s knowledge of how Wall Street operates and his unflagging persistence in convincing the IRS to investigate Enron were instrumental in the government’s recovery.”
The whistleblower first provided the IRS with detailed information in 1999 about abusive tax shelters Bankers Trust and other Wall Street firms allegedly helped Enron create that allowed Enron to operate tax free while lying about its reported profits for years before Enron declared bankruptcy in 2001. The shelters, including one nicknamed “Project Cochise” and another called “Project Steel,” involved artificial duplication of tax deductions so that Enron would generate fictitious pre-tax income on its financial statements. The tax fraud allowed Enron to evade taxes on more than $600 million of taxable income, resulting in more than $200 million of federal tax savings and the bogus reporting of over $300 million of financial accounting income. The IRS was able to recover only a percentage of taxes and penalties owed due to Enron’s bankruptcy.
“If the IRS had pursued this information in 1999 when my client first informed them of these abusive tax shelters, the government might have realized the depth of Enron’s problems and perhaps taken steps that might have helped avoid a total meltdown,” attorney Kelton said.”
What will our next regulatory failure be? Pharma, Food, water,air?
TM,
Agree with just about everything , w/some minor disagreement on our nation is to stupid to understand the need for higher gasoline taxes, and taxes on mil-billionaires. I think a minority of the population is too stupid to see those taxes as the avenue to broadening our energy sources. Its our elected leaders who by and large lack the courage to pass the legislation to get those taxes in play, or are willfully ignoring the need to do so out of loyalty to corporate interests. I think that is the real problem.
Living in the NYC metro region – I vivedly remember the brutal and long fight to prevent several nuclear power plants from being built in NYC boroughs and Long Island during the 70′s and 80′s. This would be the Shorham Nuclear plant for research purposes for those that do not live in the area.
Citizens from across all political spectrums in the region including Connecticut right across Long Island Sound -fought the construction and implementation of nuclear power plants in the region. In fact one plant had been built and was moving towards opeartion-after a few billion was spent on it, when the whole project was ended w/o any nuclear plant going live.
One of the principal reasons was the evacution plan and ability to evacute the residents of the region in case of a disaster/meltdown. The reality set in that there was no way you could effectively evacuate the several hundreds of thousands and millions who lived in NYC or on Long Island and the region. The density of the population could not be supported by the road infrastructure. Couldn’t happen.
The citizens with some help from local politicians, folks of all political stripes, stopped it.
I don’t know if that sort of activism and bipartisanship is capable of occuring in these times. But if it can then the folks in other regions need to get it going if they want to prevent construction of nuclear plants where they live.
My observation, over many years, is that US “businessmen” (CEOs, etc.) are the stupidest and most short-sighted beings on the planet! Everything is about money–nothing else matters. And they aren’t even that good at making money when all is said and done. Same with our politicians. What a bunch of losers!
It is important to remember that GBush spent 8 years putting religious conservatives and right wing republicans into as many government positions, including regulatory positions as possible. He swept out as many Clinton/Gore professionals as possible. This is one of the reasons for the disasterous lack of response to Hurricane Katrina.
While the press was focused on the fictional missing “w” characters from computer keyboards, our regulatory system was gutted and filled with people whose goals were to put their religious and political beliefs into our government systems.
Obama did nothing to change this when he came into power, something I was shocked about, and we are still seeing the results of the republicans power grab.
I was shocked too AliceP. I remember the night before the inaugaration,thinking….Thank God Obama will come in and replace all those Bush appointees..didn’t happen. In fairness I think the Rethugs have fought all of his appointments tooth and nail!It only takes one in the Senate to put a hold on someone…talk about undemocratic!
It went far deeper than appointees – remember the young woman who was “politially testing” federal prosecutors? And religious testing in hiring – Then there were the appointees at all levels who got their buddies in the civil service to open up jobs to them so they could stay in the government jobs – you know, the ones with real pensions and great benefits – and they could keep implanting our regulations, definitions (you know, like ketchup is vegatable) and enforcement rules with their ideology.
Meanwhile, House Republicans have called an “emergency meeting” to determine how to permanently defund NPR. Please make it stop!
If only I could…