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From: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Newsgroups: net.sci
Subject: Re: Nuclear power and risk
Message-ID: <528@gargoyle.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 16-Jul-86 23:16:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: gargoyle.528
Posted: Wed Jul 16 23:16:10 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 18-Jul-86 05:03:16 EDT
References: <348@argus.UUCP>
Reply-To: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Organization: U. of Chicago, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 110

[Kenneth Ng]
>When will you people stop reading the popular literature and start
>reading some real articles?  

According to Mr. Ng, then, a publication is to be judged by its
intended audience, not by the quality of the research that went into
it.  Amory Lovins, for example, is a physicist with numerous
technical papers to his credit, but when he writes for a lay
audience, we should ignore what he says.  The Stockholm International
Peace Research Institute is an organization of noted scientists and
other experts, but when they publish anything a nonspecialist can
understand, it should be ignored.  By this reasoning, of course, we
should ignore Kenneth Ng's articles on the net, but...

>The June 1986 issue of Discover magazine concludes that
>terrorists almost universally use the crudest and simplest available
>weapons and bombs.

...so evidently the popular literature contains something useful now
and then.  However, Mr. Ng does not specify whether we should ignore
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and Scientific American, so I am
left in doubt.

>The problem of nuclear waste disposal will be solved as soon as
>environmentalists will stop demanding that we repeat environmental
>impact studies which have already been completed.  

May I borrow your crystal ball?  How do you know an acceptable
solution to this serious problem will be found?  Shouldn't a solution
have been found BEFORE we started producing large quantities of
wastes that will be hanging around for millennia?  But no
democratic decision was ever made to start producing these wastes.

>Other articles
>that I've written have shown the hazards of randomly disposing of
>nuclear waste at random locations around the country will kill 0.4
>people over one million years.  I think that a planned location can
>do at least as well.

You are citing controversial findings as if they were gospel.  If I
recall correctly, you have cited *one* article to support the view
that wastes can be randomly dispersed with virtually no hazard, in a
field with a large and growing literature.  "No problem, man, there's
a health physicist who says that radioactive wastes won't be a
problem."  Thank goodness our safety (and that of hundreds of future
generations) is in the hands of experts like Mr. Ng.

>> 2.  Are engineers professionally qualified to evaluate how the
>> *organizational setting*, the fact that risky systems are operated by
>> organizations and exist in an environment of organizations, affects
>> the operation of such systems?  
>
>I've read the above paragraph over and over for about half and hour
>and still don't know what in the world you are talking about.  

All right, I'll try to clarify.  The nuclear fuel cycle has been
described by Garret Hardin as follows:

 people mine radioactive ores --> people transport radioactive ores
 --> people process radioactive ores --> people form reactor elements
 --> people transport reactor elements --> people install elements -->
 people operate elements --> people disassemble reactors periodically
 --> people ship spent elements to processing plants ...

and then the flow chart doubles back on itself for recycling, and
branches off for disposal of wastes.  People also maintain storage
depots, keep records of stored material, and audit the records.  The
professional competence of engineers is in the design of the nonhuman
components of such systems.  Engineers in general are not trained in
the study of human behavior or of how organizations or society work.
Therefore engineers are unable, without input from other specialists,
to arrive at a reliable judgment on how the production of nuclear
energy and the nuclear fuel cycle will function in the real world
where they will be operated by people in organizations.  Human beings
are essential components in the system, not mere observers.  

Still less are engineers or scientists competent to make our
collective decisions on energy policy for us.  Their expertise is of
great value to the public, but in a democratic society as opposed to
a technocratic or communist society, the only group with the
competence to make such far-reaching decisions in a way compatible
with democratic values is THE CITIZENRY AS A WHOLE.  Note that I am
not talking about judgments as to matters of fact, but about *policy*
decisions.

>The 
>engineering assessments are plain and simple: to generate the same 
>power, which has the fewer risks.  To say that there are other 
>reasons to consider is to acknowledge that the antinuclear debate 
>cannot be won on technical grounds.  

Of course the debate cannot be won on technical grounds, by either
side:  energy policy is a policy question, not a technical scientific
question, although it is related to technical knowledge.  Policy
questions involve value judgments and other horrors.

>>3.  Are these professional groups interested parties?  Would the 
>>abandonment of or gradual shift away from nuclear power affect their 
>>careers adversely?  

>Oh not this false arguement again.  This is like saying a you should 
>take a car to a plumber to figure out what is wrong with the car.  

No, it like saying you should ask automotive engineers and auto
industry executives and stockholders for the most reliable opinion as
to whether any more automobiles should be produced in the United
States.  In my opinion it is better to let the marketplace, the
democratic political process, or a combination make this decision.

Richard Carnes