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LProyect wrote: "You really are a joke. Do you come up with this stuff on your own or is this the Lambertiste education you got?" You call this a serious response? Is this the education you got from from your heros, the Cockranites? You wanna play 'bait the poster' now Louis? Grow up or should we take everything you write as taken from a 12 year old? My position on the NRC, and especially the ASME (not mentioned in the Davis-Besse piece Louis posted) manufacturing and testing standards (the links were provided in my essay) still stands. I'm not an uncritical defender of NRC...the fact is that since TMI, Davis-Besse included, there hasn't been a serious accident. Not a one with nuclear energy. Again...there simply hasn't been a TMI-like accident largley because their regs work, even with lackadaisical and/or complacency within the NRC. Despite what the article notes, fairly accurately, very single failing IN the NRC has been parsed out and brought to light BY the NRC or staffers therein. Far more workers have died in fossil fuel plants, communities effected, etc because of gas-turbines and coal plants than nuclear. IT is simply *safer* by far living next to a nuclear plant (and yes, Vermont Yankee included) than any fossil plant. The proof is in the real statistics on health and safety and no serious anti-nuclear 'activist' can challange those facts (nor even google-commandos like our sniveling Moderator...). If you think wind mills and roof top solar can replace nuclear...go for it. See you under water in a 100 years. I want to end planetary climate change and nuclear, IMO, and that of a lot more people, is one of the main ways to go to reduce carbon output while *expanding* energy use around the world. But the issue is what NRC regs, or type regs, and ASME Standards would do for offshore oil drilling. Louis thinks, from his sniveling response, a big "nothing". Of course he's ignorant of those regs since he clearly didn't follow the links I provided. That the NRC/company (Duke energy) complacency and failures at Davis-Besse were terrible and condemnable at very level, the article fails to prove the bigger picture of the generalized success from a health, safety and radiological POV of these same regs. I note that the best way to proceed is to build a movement for public power where, even under the capitalist mode of production, operations are at least that much more transparent and profit it taken out of the picture. This clearly is still on the agenda, as well as strengthening NRC regs where needed. If you read that NRC report quoted in the article (as opposed to an anti-nuke writers 'interpretation' of it) you will find that such inspections of the inner containment vessels are not signed off by multiple inspectors *including* separately from the company.) At the end of the say, you still have to ask *why* there hasn't been meltdowns and large radiological releases since TMI in the US? Why? Anyone want to guess? It's a question of risk-assessment and what we face as a planet. I've concluded, obviously, that nuclear energy is the way to go. Slowly people like me are making gains winning those on the Left to this viewpoint. The key is to be *open* to study things objectively and discuss them in dispassioned way. We did this, sort of kind of, even, at the recent Socialism 2010 conference in Oakland (lots of fun on that one). We need to apply completely new regs to off shore oil drilling at every level, from operations (we now learn that the fire alarm system was intentionally bypassed! on the rig) to manufacturing of equipment. We need to strengthen those and not just for exploratory/initial drilling projects but for platforms that already exist...there are thousands of them. We can condemn, as we should, these, the richest Oligarchy in the world and call for their expropriation. But need..transitional forms of regulations..that can be applied to the real-world privately owned enterprises that make up this Oligarchy of Oil. ASME is still the model to use, IMO. David ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
