Wednesday, September 19, 2012

'Safe' nuclear power


Everybody wants safe nuclear power until safety gets in the way of profits, then somebody is in trouble and it ain't the management. One man's story of how he disobeyed management orders to continue a reactor start up in the face of newly discovered leaks tells us much about management in this industry.
Mr. Hicks proceeded to ignore Mr. Nazat and shut it down anyway. This ended up costing the company $6 million in lost revenue and repairs, which were extensive. It turns out that there were several pipes and pumps that had been installed incorrectly and the entire reactor was essentially a ticking time bomb. Mr. Hicks did what was legally required to spare not only the surrounding population from the devastating effects of radiation poisoning but, Mr. Hicks contends, he also saved the company from the massive lawsuit and bad press that would have inevitably resulted from the inevitable “incident.”

For his efforts, Mr. Hicks was fired.

And this is why nuclear power is insanely dangerous. The powers-that-be at FPL apparently concluded that the fine and lawsuit would cost less than the lost revenue or that it was worth the gamble that the inevitable “incident” wouldn’t occur until after they had left the company, thus making it someone else’s problem. Either way, they couldn’t allow employees to get the idea that laws and regulations take precedence over executive decisions to endanger lives.
Even in the face of nuclear disasters, management will play its self-serving cost analysis games.

Comments:
Could it be he was let go for valid reasons, but he's falsely claiming whistleblower status?

 

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