Good series on TMI. How would you rate the complexity and risk of operating a nuclear power plant versus other similarly sized industrial facilities, e.g. refineries?
Simplified diagrams of nuclear plants look pretty simple. Yet pictures of control rooms look exceedingly complex. Why does one look so simple and the other so complex?
As a private pilot, I know some about complex cockpits, recurrent training, simulators, NTSB accident investigations, FAA Airworthiness Directives, etc. Although the FAA and Boeing screwed up on the 737 Max design, the two crashes could have been avoided if the crews had been able to see through the complexity of the cockpit and instead see the fundamentals of flying a plane. If they had just disengaged the autopilot (a button on the control yoke), the accidents would have been avoided in spite of the regulatory failure. Seems similar to the TMI case. I don’t know if the right people at Boeing and FAA paid for their mistakes. Hope they did.
I'm not a pilot, but I don't think disengaging teh MCAS was that simple. The MCAS overrode the pilot's commands when the MCAS thought they would lead to stall. To override the MCAS,
the pilots not only had to be in manual, but they had to get the stabilizer in a near neutral position, and then cut the power (two swtiches) to the stabilizer. (I think).
Aircraft people debate on how much control to give to the system and how much to the operators. A similar debate is taking place among nuclear plant designers. The trend is to restrict the human to supervisory control (in the extreme a single shutdown button),
in which case the control rooms become much simpler. This is made possible by moving to more passive shutdown and decay heat cooling systems.
The point that I try to keep making is that, even when all else fails, as eventually it will,
the consequences are tolerable from an overall societal point of view. The benefits of nuclear including the lives saved due to less pollution, less CO2, and more wealth, far, far outweigh the radiation harm from an occasional release.
Unfortunately almost the entire system of government in the US has become an effort to deflect blame and offload risks to taxpayers. I’m no anarchist, but the NRC is far from the only part of the government that is structurally unable to perform its stated function. Until that changes, everything is just rearranging the deck chairs.
I would like to see a cost benefit super administrative body be created with the ability to overrule any agency's decisions or processes based on a cost benefit analysis
This overview agency should be closely overseen by congress. It needs to be clear that if the hardening of the bureaucratic arteries continues it's because congress is not allowing the cost benefit agency to stop it. Then it can be changed on a short election time cycle
The cost benefit super administration sounds dangerously close to Ibram "X" Kendi's "Department of Antiracism" idea that would just be a terrifying panopticon of authoritarianism in the end.
My idea is to just make sure that Congress takes back control of a lot of this stuff- basically there should be oversight committees for each of these things, and all of the regulatory actions and decisions would be subject to challenge there. Of course for that to work 1) congress would have to be a lot bigger and 2) congress would have to get a bit more serious about their jobs. The number of congresspeople has stayed the same for a long time and they now represent way too many people to really be effective looking at details, so they culture war instead.
Good series on TMI. How would you rate the complexity and risk of operating a nuclear power plant versus other similarly sized industrial facilities, e.g. refineries?
Simplified diagrams of nuclear plants look pretty simple. Yet pictures of control rooms look exceedingly complex. Why does one look so simple and the other so complex?
As a private pilot, I know some about complex cockpits, recurrent training, simulators, NTSB accident investigations, FAA Airworthiness Directives, etc. Although the FAA and Boeing screwed up on the 737 Max design, the two crashes could have been avoided if the crews had been able to see through the complexity of the cockpit and instead see the fundamentals of flying a plane. If they had just disengaged the autopilot (a button on the control yoke), the accidents would have been avoided in spite of the regulatory failure. Seems similar to the TMI case. I don’t know if the right people at Boeing and FAA paid for their mistakes. Hope they did.
Tom,
I'm not a pilot, but I don't think disengaging teh MCAS was that simple. The MCAS overrode the pilot's commands when the MCAS thought they would lead to stall. To override the MCAS,
the pilots not only had to be in manual, but they had to get the stabilizer in a near neutral position, and then cut the power (two swtiches) to the stabilizer. (I think).
Aircraft people debate on how much control to give to the system and how much to the operators. A similar debate is taking place among nuclear plant designers. The trend is to restrict the human to supervisory control (in the extreme a single shutdown button),
in which case the control rooms become much simpler. This is made possible by moving to more passive shutdown and decay heat cooling systems.
The point that I try to keep making is that, even when all else fails, as eventually it will,
the consequences are tolerable from an overall societal point of view. The benefits of nuclear including the lives saved due to less pollution, less CO2, and more wealth, far, far outweigh the radiation harm from an occasional release.
Unfortunately almost the entire system of government in the US has become an effort to deflect blame and offload risks to taxpayers. I’m no anarchist, but the NRC is far from the only part of the government that is structurally unable to perform its stated function. Until that changes, everything is just rearranging the deck chairs.
I would like to see a cost benefit super administrative body be created with the ability to overrule any agency's decisions or processes based on a cost benefit analysis
This overview agency should be closely overseen by congress. It needs to be clear that if the hardening of the bureaucratic arteries continues it's because congress is not allowing the cost benefit agency to stop it. Then it can be changed on a short election time cycle
The cost benefit super administration sounds dangerously close to Ibram "X" Kendi's "Department of Antiracism" idea that would just be a terrifying panopticon of authoritarianism in the end.
My idea is to just make sure that Congress takes back control of a lot of this stuff- basically there should be oversight committees for each of these things, and all of the regulatory actions and decisions would be subject to challenge there. Of course for that to work 1) congress would have to be a lot bigger and 2) congress would have to get a bit more serious about their jobs. The number of congresspeople has stayed the same for a long time and they now represent way too many people to really be effective looking at details, so they culture war instead.
Not sure if my idea is better than yours...