> Until you learn to factor in the glowing green frogs and the
> vampires, you just won't get it.  Nuclear Power is different than any
> other kind of science.  When dealing with NP, you must learn to throw
> out the scientific method and substitute "worst case is the truth"
> reasoning. No amount of safety procedures will work, people who are
> handed the responsibility to operate NP facilities rapidly go insane
> and pull levers at random, while singing a green frog song.  On top
> of all of that , NP has killed more people in that last 50 years than
> have died from all other causes during the entire history of
> mankind.  If you are alive right now to read this sentence, your
> chances of dying from out of control radiation clouds spewing from
> Yucca Mountain is  123%.  Trust me on this.

Ah ... I think I've got it now...

Jack


On 2/28/08, Apptech <apptech@paradise.net.nz> wrote:
> >> The LOUC is the same as the bogeyman behind the tree, the
> >> glowing
> >> green frogs, etc.  LOUC is proportional to the Hubris
> >> Factor.
>
> This can be true, and too often is.
> But using it as an excuse to ignore LOUC in all cases, or in
> cases where it suits one desires to do so, helps guarantee
> UC. Murphy loves this approach.
>
> LOUC needs to be part, alas, of any study of a project of
> any magnitude. A good question (or two) is/are  "What is the
> worst possible outcome, and am I prepared to accept the
> possibility of that outcome occurring". The first question
> is often not able to be answered with accuracy but a skim
> over the release-candidate answers usually gives you a good
> clue to the second answer.
>
> eg    As much for the stupidity that even engineers can
> manage as for the sermon:        The Clutha hydro dam is
> NZ's largest. To stand by the hydraulic jump at the bottom
> of its spillway when the lake is full is to look into the
> face of death at a few metres remove. Similar to standing in
> the hillside caverns at Lauterbrunnen where the Eiger melt
> water travels its subterranean path. An awe and fear
> inspiring experience in both cases. But not my point :-).
> The dam was built on top of an active faultline. Once the
> implications of this were reanalysed during the decade or so
> of construction they spent a vast amount of money not only
> strengthening the design but in modifying the hill tops
> around where the new lake would be to reduce potential size
> of the quake induced avalanches will occur in a major
> earthquake, so that any local 'tsunami' would be less likely
> to overtop the dam catastrophically. Competent people have
> reanalysed the result and claim that there is a reasonable
> prospect that the dam will fail given too probable to be
> nice circumstances.
>
> If you offered me a cheap enough price on an Apricot orchard
> a mile downstream from the dam I'd happily consider retiring
> there without and great reference to the dam factor in my
> reckonings.
>
> This does not prove my strong like of surfing but rather
> demonstrates that people who aregue for the predictability
> of nuclear waste storage can be about as one eyed in their
> decision making as I, and as the many current Clutha apricot
> farmers.
>
>
>
>         Russell
>
>
>
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