This was a beautiful assessment of how vile the policies have been concocted, deployed and arbitrarily enforced - thank you for your continued clear eyed vigilance
As background, when the NRC says the "same design", they means the exact same design down to the most trivial detail. There were several attempts at this sort of "standardization" before the official adoption of Design Certification. One was a six unit package for Byron Station, Braidwood, and Marble Hill, three pairs of identical Westinghouse PWR's. (The Marble Hill plants were never finished.)
A contractor had positioned a construction trailer on the turbine deck at the generator end. The trailer was in the way of a hole they needed for one of auxiliary pipes. So the crew located the pipe in a slightly different place.
When the NRC found out about this "change", the plans for the other five units had to be redrawn to match the "new" location and reapproved, or the plants would not qualify for treatment as the same design. This trivial adjustment was nowhere near the fission island.
We can chuckle at such nonsense, but that would miss the tragic point. Such behavior is the result of a system which monomaniacally focuses on bureaucratic and career protection and from which there is no appeal. But who put that system in control of nuclear power? We are the real villains.
No, no chuckle, just a deep sorrow and sigh that the regulator is deeply selfish, and rebellious. Thanks for continuing to prove your point with examples. There is a reputation inertia that is fantastically hard to overcome. The general public hears abolish the NRC as tin foil hat stuff. We need a way to mock them, degrade them, make them a laughing stock. Without shame the system will never change.
Blame the system, not the people. NRC employees are no more selfish than any other group of randomly chosen humans. But they have bought the Intolerable Harm Lie and WE have given them absolute power. This combination inevitably leads to anti-societal and sometimes silly behavior.
In this case, if "same design" does not mean "exactly the same" what does it mean? If I allow a plant to make a trivial alteration, I'm not properly enforcing the reg. If we start allowing "trivial" changes where does that lead? Where do we stop? One of those trivial changes could possibly cause a release, and that is intolerable both for me and society.
The safe course both for me and society is to enforce the rule exactly as written. Society has given me absolute power to make nuclear 'safe'. If I don't use it to make nuclear as safe as possible I should be fired.
I say again: it's the system, not the people. I apologize for wording that does not make that clear.
I mean shame the system, mock the system, make songs about the system. Make the system "radioactive" to the point that the good people who enforce it are ashamed about it. You are giving us the material - we just need someone with the sense of humor to turn it into a skit!
This was a beautiful assessment of how vile the policies have been concocted, deployed and arbitrarily enforced - thank you for your continued clear eyed vigilance
Carl,
As background, when the NRC says the "same design", they means the exact same design down to the most trivial detail. There were several attempts at this sort of "standardization" before the official adoption of Design Certification. One was a six unit package for Byron Station, Braidwood, and Marble Hill, three pairs of identical Westinghouse PWR's. (The Marble Hill plants were never finished.)
The lead unit was Byron Station 1, latter famous in the single phase loss screw up. https://jackdevanney.substack.com/p/what-actually-happened-at-byron-station
A contractor had positioned a construction trailer on the turbine deck at the generator end. The trailer was in the way of a hole they needed for one of auxiliary pipes. So the crew located the pipe in a slightly different place.
When the NRC found out about this "change", the plans for the other five units had to be redrawn to match the "new" location and reapproved, or the plants would not qualify for treatment as the same design. This trivial adjustment was nowhere near the fission island.
We can chuckle at such nonsense, but that would miss the tragic point. Such behavior is the result of a system which monomaniacally focuses on bureaucratic and career protection and from which there is no appeal. But who put that system in control of nuclear power? We are the real villains.
No, no chuckle, just a deep sorrow and sigh that the regulator is deeply selfish, and rebellious. Thanks for continuing to prove your point with examples. There is a reputation inertia that is fantastically hard to overcome. The general public hears abolish the NRC as tin foil hat stuff. We need a way to mock them, degrade them, make them a laughing stock. Without shame the system will never change.
Dave,
Shaming is not the way to go.
Blame the system, not the people. NRC employees are no more selfish than any other group of randomly chosen humans. But they have bought the Intolerable Harm Lie and WE have given them absolute power. This combination inevitably leads to anti-societal and sometimes silly behavior.
In this case, if "same design" does not mean "exactly the same" what does it mean? If I allow a plant to make a trivial alteration, I'm not properly enforcing the reg. If we start allowing "trivial" changes where does that lead? Where do we stop? One of those trivial changes could possibly cause a release, and that is intolerable both for me and society.
The safe course both for me and society is to enforce the rule exactly as written. Society has given me absolute power to make nuclear 'safe'. If I don't use it to make nuclear as safe as possible I should be fired.
I say again: it's the system, not the people. I apologize for wording that does not make that clear.
I mean shame the system, mock the system, make songs about the system. Make the system "radioactive" to the point that the good people who enforce it are ashamed about it. You are giving us the material - we just need someone with the sense of humor to turn it into a skit!