Jean et al, see below.

On 21 March 2011 17:00, Jean Schneider <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Fil,
> [...]
> I am wondering who is in a position (or rather: can someone be in such
> position ?) of taking such responsibility. With such systems, there is no
> author, no single decision maker, and the maintenance goes beyond
> generations. The accident highlights the fact that no one can be
> responsible: in a way, all the anonymous victims are the negative mirror of
> the anonymous decision making embedded in such technological systems.
> This is why I am asking myself such question.
> It is very different from the individual accident.

Isn't that the very nature of "accident" - that there's no one
responsible?  Sure, there may be a causative agent, human or
otherwise, but causation isn't the same as responsibility, right?

Some incidents are the result of some kind of negligence or
incompetence.  But once those are weeded out, we have only accidents
left.  Accidents will happen.  All we can do is try to mitigate their
effects and learn from the events so as to lower the risk of future,
similar accidents.  That's why there are emergency response groups and
firefighters and trauma surgeons and all sorts of other experts.
They're there to pick up the slack from real accidents.  They're also
very good at mitigating the effects of non-accidents.  I mean, it
doesn't matter at this point in time whether the Fukushima incident
was caused by incompetence, negligence, or if it was just an accident.
 Our response is the same.  Once we get things settled, we can figure
out if there is a truly "responsible" party.

This covers things that have happened.  But of greater interest to me
is the bearing of this sort of thing on preparing for the future.
It's utterly senseless to think we'll ever make anything that's 100%
safe, or 100% risk-free, or whatever.  There will be accidents.  We
would prefer to avoid them, but we mustn't lose sleep over the fact
that they will happen, else we won't be able to do anything at all.
This is where the learning bit comes in.  Once an accident happens, we
learn from it to make sure that it, and similar, accidents are less
likely to occur in the future.  Who's the "we" here?  Whoever will be
involved in recreating conditions similar to those that caused past
accidents.

In this case, we're talking about nuclear power plants.  It's to early
to know exactly what happened at Fukushima, so one should be very wary
of what anyone says.  However, it would appear that everything went
quite predictably at the beginning of the incident.  The reactors were
shut down quite easily.  However, the shutdown process assumes the
cooling system continues to operate.  The cooling systems were
relatively undamaged.  But there was no power to run them, because the
tsunami did 2 things: it knocked out the generators, and it *isolated*
the facility.  If it had not been isolated, they probably could have
run new power cables within the 6 hour window provided by the
secondary, battery backups.

Because of the lack of power, the reactors continued to produce heat
not from fission but from natural radioactive decay, and that heat
caused more damage to the facility, which led to the risky situation
in which they now find themselves.

If this is really the case - and I'm the first to admit that it's a
big "if" at the moment - then there's an easy fix that can be done to
future nuclear facilities where tsunamis are a risk: make sure the
electrical parts of the cooling systems are positioned such that large
amounts of water won't shut them down.  It would be sufficient to put
them on a short tower - maybe 15m tall.  If you get a tsunami over
15m, you'll probably have lots of other far more serious problems to
face.  There are alternatives: improve the amount of battery backup -
perhaps switch to fuel cells that can run much longer.  Compared to
the vast complexity of the reactors themselves, these fixes could be
entirely adequate and relatively simple to implement.  One might even
be able to retrofit existing facilities as part of their regular
maintenance.  (Note that 2 of the 6 Fukushima reactors weren't even on
because of maintenance. They are not causing any trouble at all, it
seems.)

As of this writing, the latest status of the 4 risky reactors is
available at http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/11032206-e.html.
 It seems as though there is some cause for optimism.  Power is coming
back on line.  Temperatures are stable.  One might question the
validity of press releases by the company "responsible" for the
reactors, but there are other sources on the Internet that largely
corroborate these things.

We can't sigh in relief yet.  It's like the hospital patient moved
from "critical" to "serious."  Lots of things can still go wrong, but
there is reason to feel a bit of confidence that we're "over the hump"
as it were.

I wonder what people feel about some of the press that this event has
been getting.  I'm thinking of the particularly disgusting sort of
prattle coming from, say, Laurence Kotlikoff and Eugene Stanley
(http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-21/nuclear-power-runs-amok-commentary-by-laurence-kotlikoff-eugene-stanley.html).
 I find their shrill sky-is-falling sensationalism rather unhelpful.

What impact has "reporting" like this on the attribution of "responsibility"?

>
>> Jean, could you explain why you think it is odd that:
>>>
>>> the destroying "potential" of some of our
>>> technological systems (major dams, power plants, but also the aggregated
>>> consumption of natural resources) is close (for the human community) to
>>> those of natural disasters.
>>
>> I agree that they are similar.  I don't understand why that similarity
>> should be odd.
>
> I think they are odd because you cannot sue weather, earthquakes and
> tsunamis... and it doesn't make much sense to sue a politician ? a few
> engineers ? a subcontractor ? for accidents. This means that the discussion
> of justice and responsibility shifts so radically when we are talking of
> such megasystems that it renders all our legal system obsolete.

Or perhaps it's just the wrong question to ask.  As I suggested above,
perhaps there just is no responsibility in some cases.
And yes, engineers are quite regularly brought up in legal proceedings
if they screwed up, and if there's incompetence or negligence
involved, all hell breaks loose.  But those aren't "accidents."

I would suggest that when there's a real "accident," then there's no
responsibility.  So the question is pointless.

>>
>> Finally, Jean I admire your goal of developing a democratic decision
>> making process.  Any group that will perform such a process with
>> respect to something having physical aspect - urban planning, policy
>> about nuclear power, etc - will have to have a grounding in science
>> far superior to that of the average population today.  Without that,
>> they'll make very democratic, but very wrong, decisions.
>>
>> I really don't know which is harder to achieve: making everyone an
>> expert, or getting everyone to trust experts. :)
>
> I do not have such an extensive ambition, because I am not aiming at having
> the people to become or trust experts, and finally agree with the suggested
> proposal (those of the experts). My point is rather: let people say yes or
> no in regard to the risks and benefits, in their personal terms and in the
> terms of a community. If an area chooses to say no to mining, or to GM
> crops, or to a nuclear power plant, or to windpower... accept it and make
> people take the responsibility and the consequences for it.

Okay; that's interesting.

Might I inquire: say there's a community, and an issue, and the
community "chooses" to say no to something, but not unanimously.  Say
20% or 30% of the community doesn't mind a nuclear plant, or GM foods,
or whatever.  Would those 20-30% still have to assume their share of
the responsibility/consequences of the community's decision?

>
> Best regards,
>
> Jean
>
>
>

Cheers.
Fil

-- 
Filippo A. Salustri, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Ryerson University
350 Victoria St, Toronto, ON
M5B 2K3, Canada
Tel: 416/979-5000 ext 7749
Fax: 416/979-5265
Email: [log in to unmask]
http://deseng.ryerson.ca/~fil/