Re: Nuclear no-wins, etc.

[Bob Flood <bflood@SLAC.Stanford.EDU>]

At 03:39 PM 9/4/97 -0500, you wrote:
>Brian,
>The issue is not that the the plume went undetected.  Everyone agrees that
>that is not good.  The question is whether such a deficiency warrants a
>procedure change, or surveillance periodicity revision, or maybe better
>equipment; instead of pulling the plug because of the failure to detect a
>non-hazard.

The problem with this is that the public sees this as a matter of luck
rather than control. The fact that the undetected release turned out to be
small was just good luck - the release could just as well have been a large
one. Now it may be argued that a larger quantity is much more likely to be
detected, but the public won't see it that way.

Having said that, I still don't think the events at BNL deserve the death
panalty. If this approach was implemented universally, every auto plant
that produced a car with brake problems would be closed, every refinery
that had a fire would be closed, etc, etc, etc. Clearly, the attempt to
close the reactor a BNL doesn't fit with the way other potentially
hazardous activities are treated. I can't help but wonder if the effort
isn't just a headline grabber for a couple of local politicians who really
don't intend to follow through on the threat.


Bob Flood
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
(415) 926-3793     bflood@slac.stanford.edu
Unless otherwise noted, all opinions are mine alone.