During the four decades that the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station was in operation, nuclear safety authorities and nuclear power plant owners in several countries were establishing requirements and configuring nuclear power plants in ways that could potentially have saved the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear station from disaster had they been heeded. In particular, some regulatory bodies outside of Japan reassessed the safety of installations in the event of extreme flood hazards, a station blackout, and the loss of the ultimate heat sink. In the view of safety experts participating in such assessments, had Japan acted on these developments, the plant could have survived the tsunami that struck in March 2011.
Every day we see items in the news that inspire gut reactions of outrage. The trouble is that we too often do not take the time to think about news and by thinking I mean critical thinking. A good example was when President Obama publicly spoke out upon hearing of the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates for disorderly conduct. But at least he recognized his blunder and made amends. Can that be said of many in the news commentary business that fight over being the first to give their gut reactions to things that they know very little about, like the recent killing spree in Norway. When the news first broke there was immediate blame placed on Al Qaeda, Muslim extremists, and jihadis in general. How wrong they were. The same thing happened in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing--it must have been Muslims. Wrong again. I am constantly getting emails that have gone through many generations of forwarding, all expressing outrage over one thing or another, but what they all have in common is a lack of examination of the facts. It rarely takes me long to verify the lack of veracity or the twisting of facts from these largely anonymous articles. But these emails just keep going around long after the lies have been exposed. What is wrong with America is just what Adolph Hitler recognized as his power base when he said "How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think." Far too many of us fail to think critically about what happens around us each day. Because of that we, or the people we elect to represent us, give support to laws that pass to "get tough on crime" only to discover the unintended consequences that come back to bite them. 9/11 scared us, but was our collective gut reaction appropriate? Are we happy with the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? Are we happy with the way the Patriot Act has curtailed many of our freedoms? Were our leaders using critical thinking skills when they took these measures to "Protect our National interests?" Or were they just counting on the people not thinking so that they could pursue some hidden agenda? Of course, I am not suggesting that our leaders have nothing but the highest respect for the people who elected them. Now, what do you think? And take your time thinking, don't just react. Mark - MT
Still Going Wrong!: Case Histories of Process Plant Disasters and How They Could Have Been Avoided f
Throughout the prior decade, from the day I watched the Towers get hit and thanking the Goddess or whomever helped my 35(at that time 25)year old daughter arrive home from Manhattan 2 hours before the heinous atrocity occured, I could do nothing but cry. She never came home unless she called me to say, "Hey Momma-do, coming home to see you and Grams, okay?", I'd answer, "of course it's okay, I love you, be careful and I'll see you in about an hour and a half!", you understand she never came home on a whim but on 9/11 2001 she did. Throughout this decade I've watched our Constitution become decimated, the Nuremberg Principles ignored by the Executive Branch, the Supremes turn Corporations into people, watch the EVIL DOER[cheney] add an adjective to "Rendition" giving us "Extraordinary Rendition", Yes, Virginia there is a difference between Rendition and Etraordinary Rendition and I suppose 97% of these Imbeciles may have realized this had they been disembarking from their flight, grabbed from behind on that however many feet of carpet that says, "This [however many feet] is NOT a part of these United States, then become hooded, then flown to perhaps Syria, put into a ?cell? that's the size of a grave, shackled, beaten, tortured, (nope it's not "Enhanced Interrogation" ), waterboarded, bones broken, electrical leads attached to your testicles and shocked for however long they felt or until you confessed you were al Qaeda. We had the John Warner Fiscal Act of 2007 allowing Posse Comitatus and habeas, the Great Writ from the 13th century to be suspended. Allowing Martial Law to be declared in the US of A, meaning the National Guard can be activated and allowed under orders from the Exectutive to arrest Joe Smith from Green Street because, that's all just because. The Fourth Amendment being decimated thanks to FISA with Retroactive Immunity albeit Chris Dodd amended that Amendment it still was passed, allowing AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, they were the first 3, now whomever else they hire to tap and trap our phones and email, thanks to #43! Now that bush et al are able to have a warrant for arrest thanks to ccrjustice.org, ACLU.org and the Nuremberg if they put a toe in Switzterland they can be tried at the Hague for violation of the Nuremberg Principles, ergo no more lil' book tour. Our AG has not done a thing but others have and I hope I'll see justice done in my lifetime. I thank the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights. Perhaps we'll see our Constitution restored and for that I would be truly grateful. Peace Rhoda - PA
The Role of Failure in Engineering Design: Case Studies Objectives Learn about the role of failure in engineering design Discuss classic design failures as case studies
The pages of engineering history are full of examples of design flaws that escaped detection in the design phase only to reveal themselves once the device was in actual use. Although many devices are plagued by minor design flaws from time to time, a few failure cases have become notorious because they affected many people, caused great property damage, or led to sweeping changes in engineering practice. In this section, we review several design failures from the annals of engineering lore. Each event involved the loss of human life or major destruction of property, and each was caused by an engineering design failure. The mistakes were made by engineers who did the best they could, but had little prior experience or had major lapses in engineering judgement. After each incident, similar disasters were averted, because engineers were able to study the causes of the problems and establish new or revised engineering standards and guidelines. Studying these classic failures and the mistakes of the engineers who caused them will help you to avoid making similar mistakes in your own work.
9. Three Mile Island power plant. On the day of the accident, a pressure buildup occurred inside the reactor vessel. It was normal procedure to open a relief valve in such situations to reduce the pressure to safe levels. The valve in question was held closed by a spring and was opened by applying voltage to an electromagnetic actuator. The designer of the electrical control system had made one critical mistake. As suggested by the schematic diagram shown in Figure 10, indicator lights in the control room lit up when power was applied to or removed from the valve actuator coil, but the control panel gave no indication about the actual position of the valve. After a pressure-relief operation, the valve at Three Mile Island became stuck in the open position. Although the actuation voltage had been turned off and lights in the control room indicated the valve to be closed, it was actually stuck open. The mechanical spring responsible for closing the valve did not have enough force to overcome the sticking force. While the operators, believing the valve to be closed, tried to diagnose the problem, coolant leaked from the vessel for almost two hours. Had the operators known that the valve was open, they could have closed it manually or taken other corrective measures. In the panic that followed, however, the operators continually believed their control-panel indicator lights and thought that the valve was closed. Eventually the problem was contained, but not before a rupture nearly occurred in the vessel. Such an event would have resulted in a complete core meltdown and spewed radioactive gas into the atmosphere. Even so, damage to the reactor core was so severe that the plant was permanently shut down. It has never reopened.
You rehash the tired story that Captain Hazlewood was under the influence of alcohol. That was disputed at the time and later in court where he received considerable compensation for damage to his professional image. He never worked again at sea due to his tarnished reputation.EXXON blamed everyone else for the disaster while sending out smoke screen after smoke screen trying to avoid their own complicity. Their response to the oil spill was initially chaotic and badly co-ordinated, had they responded as you suggest many of the problems still affecting Prince William Sound could have been avoided.The biggest casualty of the EXXON lie were the unfortunate seamen who serve on ships trading world-wide who are subjected to unwarranted drug and alcohol tests imposed under the so called EXXON CLAUSE in most tanker charter parties. This draconian measure was one of the smoke screens employed to divert researchers from looking too closely for the real causes.I would remind everyone, the incident happened to a US flagged vessel with a US crew in a US port. Part of the US cabotage or Jones Act fleet. Why did the rest of the world have to pay for the poor management of EXXON tankers? 2ff7e9595c