Please boycott this PRO-NUCLEAR forum!

-- Anonymous, June 30, 1999

Answers

Y'know, I don't want to hear it Scott. And I'm getting quite annoyed with you.

I have been up the NRC's collective ass for the better part of two years on Y2k, before it was a gleam in NIRS's or UCS's eye. But I approached it from a technical standpoint, and was the only commentor that had significant and accepted input to NRC GL-98-01. You can read my comments to the NRC on NRC's website. You can do a little searching around my website.

I take a different approach than the anti-nuke crowd, and I admit it. I went to Navy nuke school. After the Navy, I spent the better part of 20 years in the nuclear industry. I believe in the technology. I don't believe in the way many of these facilities are being managed these days. I believe that the regulatory process has been totally co-opted by big money interests, represented at this time primarily by NEI. And I think that the negative synergistic nature of deregulation, intense lobbying by the industry, and basically no accountability except to shareholders may ultimately lead to a nuclear calamity at sometime in the future for these reasons.

At the same time, I believe that the concept of producing energy by splitting atoms is fundamentally sound and that safe technology exists to do this *and* deal with ancilliary issues such as waste disposal. Unfortunately, the industry and it's byproducts have become so politicized that it will be absolutely impossible for this power source to remain safe and viable over the long haul. Alternate plans need to be made NOW to phase out nuclear energy, or alteratively, reconstruct the industry from the ground up. But again, there's no political will. We will all be paying for this lack of foresight in 10 years.

I don't believe for a moment that the trench level people operating these facilities are buffoons and a bunch of Homers as you seem to. They are, for the most part, competent, dedicated people living near the plants. Their families are as much as risk as yours are. They have been forced to live with corner cutting, bean counting management and do the best they can with a lousy situation.

Back on Y2k. Where was TMIA 2 years ago when I couldn't even get Dave Lauchbaum at UCS interested in Y2k? Until this was percieved not as a technical issue, but as a means to an end by NIRS and UCS and groups such as yours, Y2k was not on the radar screen.

This forum is not pro or anti-nuke. IT'S A Y2K FORUM. Deal with it. NIRS has a discussion forum. Use it, or set one up for the TMIA website. Have a ball. But quit slinging it here.

-- Anonymous, June 30, 1999

Oh, and do me a favor. Have the balls to post under your real name. And if it ain't Y2k related, it gets yanked.

Have a nice day.

-- Anonymous, June 30, 1999

Rick,

Well stated response. Couldn't have said it better myself.

Note to KP: GOORA!

-- Anonymous, June 30, 1999

Thanks KP, As long as Rick has been intelligently challanging those of us working on Y2k in the nuclear industry, I totally missed that Rick is pro-nuke!

Seriously, we do need to keep the topic to y2k, thats a tough enough subject without injection pro/anti nuclear propoganda. Sticking to the subject - Y2K in electric power - is what makes this the most intelligent Y2K forum forum on the web.

We don't even use those "names" that they call each other in the other forums (poly's, doomers, and many others I do not understand yet and don't want to know). Well, alright, so I do call Lane a "doomer" on rare occasion when he is "snipping" at me, but other than that, were fairly well behaved. Regards

-- Anonymous, June 30, 1999

and i thought this day would never come.

i agree with factfinder!!!

factfinder says:

Seriously, we do need to keep the topic to y2k, thats a tough enough subject without injection pro/anti nuclear propoganda. Sticking to the subject - Y2K in electric power - is what makes this the most intelligent Y2K forum forum on the web.

end of text

i don't believe it matters whether you are pronuke or antinuke... that is not what should drive the issue of turning the reactors off for the rollover. i believe that you can come from either side and agree that the stability of the electrical grid is necessary for the safe functioning of the nuclear facilities. since no one knows how stable the grid will be... logic dictates that the nukes should go down until the stability of the grid is assured.

if we all come out of y2k relatively unscathed we can argue on another day and on another forum whether or not they should remain online.

the difficulty in maintaining a 'focused' view of y2k and the nukes is the necessity of bringing the frailities of the nuclear industry to the light of day and not wandering far afield.

it is easy to come to the conclusion that, in the present state of affairs, we are treading on shaky ground. the risks to those that feel we are prepared are as great as to those who feel we are not prepared.

i personally feel as though we are in much better shape now than i did last year at this time. the electrical industry 'lucked out' in alot of ways... this does not, by any stretch of the imagination, mean that i feel we are out of the woods as there are many things that impact on the delivery of electricity from outside the industry itself.

also, there are still many unanswered questions and many plants that are not y2k ready.

it is a shame that we can not weigh the risks in an objective fashion with out polarizing into camps... but that does not seem to be the way of mankind.

-- Anonymous, June 30, 1999

Well, alright, so I do call Lane a "doomer" on rare occasion when he is "snipping" at me, but other than that, were fairly well behaved.

I guess I can live with that. :-)

-- Anonymous, July 01, 1999

"...Please boycott this PRO-NUCLEAR forum! "

Hopefully KP will begin the boycott immediately.

-- Anonymous, July 01, 1999

The sky really is falling - I think I agree totally with marianne! When Y2K is over, how about we gather at her place and chew the fat over some vienna sausages, rice and bottled water? (grin) (see marianne, some eccentrics omit caps, I use (grin) instead of the cute little smiley. Can a solar oven cook pizza???

-- Anonymous, July 01, 1999

cl says] how about we gather at her place and chew the fat over some vienna sausages, rice and bottled water? (grin) (see instead of the cute little smiley. Can a solar oven cook pizza???

m responds] well, here is the story cl... no vienna sausages... i'm a vegetarian, but having said that, i've got enough food to feed three shifts at all 5 nuclear plants in my area.

since i was worried,... uh, concerned, about the power industry and the oil and gas industry and the distribution system and the... oh well, you get the picture, i opted to stick with the more primitive forms of ethnic food.

so if you like indian[curry], mexican, or chinese we can all have a grand fete at my house. as there is an art show here every august, big party weekend... we should hold it in august.

but, hey... where are you going to get all the horses and wagons in order to get here?

-- Anonymous, July 01, 1999

Rick: well spoken! Hoozah! for Rick.

cl: great idea, if everything turns out moderately well I'll have a good chunk of stored food with which to celebrate.

marianne: I've put in an advance order for a Honda VV (coming out this fall). It's a hybrid gas/electric and gets a steady 70 miles per gallon. Worst case you recharge the batteries with Solar and drive at 20mph. :-)

Regards,

--aj

-- Anonymous, July 01, 1999

hey aj... doesn't your neck hurt holding it at that 45 degree angle all of the time?

-- Anonymous, July 01, 1999

Please boycott this PRO-NUCLEAR forum!

I think KP meant to post this in the new "No good deed should go unpunished" forum. Keep, up the good work, Rick, thanks for your tolerance on moderating your forum, must be like trying to herd a bunch of cats

-- Anonymous, July 01, 1999

More like trying to keep a lions and tigers and bears act together. ;-)

-- Anonymous, July 02, 1999

PRO/or/ANTI -NUCLEAR- is not the issue.

We heard Marianne(etc) loud and clear. (And also DID a fair share of our Anti-Nuclear work over the years. Both anti-power & weaponry. Hate nuclear energy & weapons with a passion.)

BUT - the thought of no electricity (esp. in this highly nuke dependant-region (NYC/PHILA/DC,etc. ) -is just too horrendous to consider. The Bell-Atlantic mid-East corridor. The most densely populated biz-gov region of entire country.. also-perhaps the most crucial to future of the planet?? THE SITUATION IS UNPRECEDENTED.

WE are in a public forum - and can only guess at what's going on in the private industry discussions! And government officials' . My heart goes out to them.

Such volitile decisional scenarios include: risking a nuke emergency or two or three... but alternatively - risking loss of electricity/water/etc. to riots, chaos & loss of life? Stock market crash, business sectors, DC government, gimme a break - - very Messy martial law? The reality is way too awesomely complex to even consider. Is it our job?

How would any of us decide? Within the various tiers and domino-inter-relationships involved??

[Maybe we can prepare individually-safe for y2k - but how does one MEASURE the potential threat to the infrastructure. If several nukes are borderline compliant? Human safety....ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.]

-- Anonymous, July 02, 1999