NEI Nuclear Notes

Last week the PBS series Frontline took on the safety culture of BP. Although titled, " The Spill ", and ostensibly focused on the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the 54 minute expose dwelt almost entirely on the history of significant events at BP's mainland American facilities. Using bits of the backstory on the 2006 explosion at BP's Texas City refinery which killed 15 people, a 2006 leak from an Alaskan pipeline that spilled more than 206,000 gallons of oil, and the 2007 swamping of the Thunderhorse oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, Frontline portrays BP as taking risks other companies thought unreasonable and putting cost-cutting ahead of safety. Frontline makes it appear that Deepwater Horizon was the inevitable result of putting production before safety. Some online comments about the Frontline documentary question the balance and accuracy of the presentation. We'll leave that to others to decide, but take the appearance of the Frontline docum...

We’ve been doing a number of posts about the Deepwater Horizon and how the experience of nuclear energy might act as a useful guide going forward, but let’s look at the actual nuclear energy experience today. We admit to no longer being surprised by news of a country wanting to deploy nuclear energy. Still: Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dipu Moni and her Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov witnessed the signing of the agreement between Russia's atomic energy corporation Rosatom and the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). Bangladesh had requested the Russian authorities to assist in establishing two nuclear reactors with a capacity of 1,000 megawatts each by 2015, the spokesman said. This is an excellent example of a country moving forward with nuclear energy where it might have chosen coal-fired plants to aid in its progress. This way, its people gain the benefits of modernization while avoiding some of the pitfalls. And it sounds like the Bangladeshi really need ...

In today's Washington Post , Steven Perlstein shares thoughts on the politics of regulation after Deepwater Horizon. The title gives you his main point: "Time for Industry to End Its War on Regulation." Perlstein cites examples of oil, coal and financial regulators being too close to, or too cowed by, the industries they oversee. He believes regulation was too lax under the Bush administration and considers it laughable that industry observers would suggest that 16 months into the Obama administration, regulation has already become too tight. Perlstein describes the value of regulation as helping stave off low-probability events that could have devastating consequences. In the financial sector, he acknowledges that regulation may "trim profits" for the businesses involved, but insists we remember the benefit associated with this cost: The big flaw in the business critique of regulation is not so much that it overstates the costs, but that it understates its ben...

Mathematically, risk is expressed as Probability times Consequences. Following a tragic accident, however, public discourse focuses only on consequences. This is understandable - after the accident, we take no comfort in knowing that it was very unlikely to occur. In the case of Deepwater Horizon, which exploded 27 days ago, the consequences have been horrific: 11 souls lost, millions of gallons of oil leaked into the Gulf of Mexico, and millions of dollars in lost income for businesses dependent on the waters of the Gulf. Staggering as this toll is, for the companies and industry involved the damage to reputation and credibility may be just as great. Against the focus on earthshaking consequences, risk communicator David Ropeik reminds readers of the Huffington Post that: [F]ocusing on these high profile events...can distract us from greater risks...[We] are creating vast dead zones in the oceans off our urban coasts where runoff laced with fertilizers is feeding the growth of masiv...