Re: Apprenticeship for our Future

On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 17:29:16 -0700, Larry Jaques
<novalidaddress@di\/ersify.com> wrote:

On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 22:24:46 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, Nick
Hull <nhull@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> quickly quoth:

In article <Ei7ug.66321$fb2.6627@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"Tom Gardner" <tom(nospam)@ohiobrush.com> wrote:

...etc. With the invention of the first nanite basic replicator, all humans
can soon become creatures of leisure and spend all their time pursuing the
arts and philosophy. All the machines will take care of themselves and we
can forget them. We are just on the cusp.

Sounds a lot like what I heard in High school many years ago; Nuclear
would make electricity "too cheap to meter'. I wonder why my electric
bill is so high if electricity is so cheap ;)

G O V ' T. R E G U L A T I O N . If we popped out another dozen or
so small nuke plants we could shut down the East Coast's coal plants,
remove their acid rain, and meet the environutters' Kyoto treaty in
one fell swoop.

--
Remember: Every silver lining has a cloud.
----
http://diversify.com Comprehensive Website Development
====================
Interesting thread but you need to look out and around, and
especially back, before you reach these kinds of conclusions.

For the first time in history, humans can produce more food than
they can eat (or at least is good for them to eat -- i.e. problem
obesity), more clothes than they can wear, more health care than
they can use, etc. etc. So what do we have? The Samo-Samo of
increasing numbers of starving, sick and naked people, falling
standards of living for the vast majority, and obscenely
increasing fortunes for the very few.

Nuclear power encapsulates this problem. The technology is here,
the demand is here, but the infrastructure and more importantly
the culture to use the technology to safely meet the demand was
marginal in the 1950s/1960s, and today no longer exists.

For examples of this see the other threads in this usegroup on
the debacle of the Boston "big dig" with its new "drop ceiling"
feature, and consider the same firms and workmen will be building
the new nuclear plants?.

A review of the news over the last few years indicates that the
U.S. no longer has the capability to manage complex or intricate
operations that produce a concrete, measurable good or service in
the long term, nor can they adhere to commonly accepted standards
of safety, decency and utility. Examples are recent refinery
explosions, train derailments, airline bankruptcies, and the
impending bankruptcy of GM and Ford.

Indeed, the record of financial firms dealing in abstractions
such as derivatives and futures such as Enron, Tyco, Global
Crossing, WorldCom, the use post-dated stock options, and the
collusion of the mutual funds in "late trading" with favored
hedge funds indicates serious, even critical moral and morale, as
well as competency problems with all sectors and levels of
American management.

In a perfect world, we would have long ago phased-out the use of
carbon fuels for large-scale power generation. Nuclear power
plants could have been constructed 2,000 (or more) feet
underground eliminating the need for a containment vessel that is
a major portion of the costs. Deep underground plants are
extremely secure, and if everything does turn to dodo, you simply
start backing up the RediMix trucks and filling up the hole. On
site fuel reprocessing eliminates the waste storage problem and
any need to transport highly radioactive materials. It also
greatly reduces the need for additional uranium mining and
processing. From numbers I have seen, the U.S. currently has at
least a 100 years supply of Uranium, allowing for increases in
power demand.

Short of a revolution with large numbers of executions, this will
never occur. Too many powerful people are getting too rich from
the present arrangements, and entire industries have grown up
such as pollution control for the coal-fired plants. Railroads
would take a big hit if the massive quantities of coal were no
longer transported, but rather were converted to synthetic
petroleum using the Sasoil [or other] process for petrochemical
feed stocks, and especially low sulfur diesel fuel. The
railroads are close to maximum capacity, and their management,
the bankers, the freight car builders, etc. are all "licking
their chops" but large-scale implementation of nuclear power
would eliminate this need, further augmenting the constituency
against nuclear power.

Other problems include:

(1) The almost irresistible impulse of American management to
build "bigger and better bespoke" plants, no two of which are the
same, thus eliminating any "economies of scale" in construction
or training, and preventing evolutionary improvement. This
included not only the nuclear components but also the
turbines/generators. [See "Big Alice" for one example of this
particular disaster.]

(2) The infiltration of corporate America, particularly the
construction industry, by organized crime, with the resulting
pay-offs, shoddy workmanship and sub-standard materials, and
compromised/intimidated inspectors.

(3) Even if the plants were turned over to the operating
companies in perfect condition, American management is innately
unable to follow through on its commitments, even those directly
impacting life and limb. Recent examples are the refinery
explosions, train derailments, and aircraft crashes, all directly
traceable to "deferred" [that is not performed] maintenance
and/or inspections because of short-run cost savings.

(4) American management is unwilling to pay adequate wages,
enough staffing, and provide satisfactory working conditions to
attract and keep the caliber of personnel required for safe
operation of nuclear plants. The resulting rotating shifts used
to minimize labor costs are another area of concern as this
seriously impacts the employee's family/social life, and is a
major contributor to accidents because of sleep disturbances.
Several serious "events" at U.S. nuclear plants, as well as
recent rails crashes, one of which released a large amount of
toxic material [chlorine] were traced directly to "sleep
deprivation." It was only by the "grace of god," that major
disaster did not result, such as the rail incident occurring in a
rural area with good communications and roads that allowed prompt
evacuation. In a constricted urban environment, such a release
would have resulted in hundreds if not thousands of casualties,
possibly dwarfing Bhopal.

Now that we have destroyed our domestic construction industry,
perhaps we can hire the French to build and safely operate our
nuclear plants for us. We have had to hire the Arabs to run our
ports?.

Unka George
(George McDuffee)

There is something to be said for government by a great aristocracy
which has furnished leaders to the nation in peace and war for generations;
even a democrat like myself must admit this.

But there is absolutely nothing to be said for government by a plutocracy,
for government by men very powerful in certain lines and gifted with the "money touch,"
but with ideals which in their essence are merely those of so many glorified pawnbrokers.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), U.S. Republican (later Progressive) politician, president. Letter, 15 Nov. 1913.
.