I am not sure that we disagree that much.
Neither of us is for hiding information or distorting the truth by either governments or private concerns. Neither of us believes nuclear power is without consequences. And both believe that it has to be very carefully superintended. We both believe that the Japanese disaster is extremely serious and will be so for some time as its ramifications are revealed. While you are more knowledgeable in these areas I can’t say that enough information is public to say what those ramifications are.
It is ironic that the whole disaster could have been avoided had the designers considered plate tectonics and the possibility of a drop in the ground compromising the wall protecting the plant from a tidal wave.
Japan built the largest nuke plant in the world atop a seismic fault it didn’t know about, until an earthquake knocked the plant offline. I wonder if they really didn’t know about the seismic risk there. TEPCO et. al. did know that the Fukushima plants were on seismically active locations and ignored warnings from a researcher regarding massive (large scale) tsunami risk due to prior history.
Prior to March, we would agree that nuke power must be carefully superintended. But now, based on all the research I did as a response to Fukushima, I believe there is significant managerial rot entrenched in the industry - I believe this rot would have occurred in any industry that was protected and subsidized as this one is. There are incentives (e.g., not to comply with safety regulations; a worker helped TEPCO conceal damage to a containment vessel being manufactured so he became the company hero) and the capacity to restrict access to information that allow managerial issues to simply fester and replicate. THen there are the stakes - no insurer can afford to insure a plant; managers take a look at the bottom line and stretch decision making beyond acceptable limits. So governments insure the plants and end up with ‘hothouse’ type managerial policies that would have been healthier had they been subject to the viscitudes of the open market (profits, losses, open scandals, ENRON type hearings etc.) The combination of high stakes and protection has atrophied the industry’s professional capacity - IMHO. So now I read ‘must be carefully superintended’ and I raise a brow and sigh - how can it be carefully superintended in a protected hothouse absent the toughening, strengthening forces that built healthy organizations?