I use a root cause analysis system for determining why incidents/ccidents have happened that was developed by the nuclear power generation community. It's very effective at sussing out human factors in an event. It's called TapRooT.
For an interesting story where chernobyl is featured prominantly, read "Wolves eat Dogs" by Martin Cruz Smith.
I've always thought of Chernobyl as one of the two biggest contributing factors (the other being Afghanistan) to the fall of the Soviet bureaucracy. I guess you could say I look at the "basics" of socialism as the operational design, the workings of a privileged, dictatorial bureaucracy as the user interface design, and the efforts of the people caught in the middle - trying to "make things work" - as the human system. The failures of Chernobyl and Afghanistan destroyed the image of the Kremlin's rulers as infallible and all-powerful. The political meltdown stared shortly thereafter.
Chernobyl accident caught attention because there was a physical explosion. There are thousands of accidents that happen on NPPs every year, they are just not as "loud" but pretty disastrous none the less: leaks into the water and air, for instance, and of course - nuclear waste. NPPs operate with an average annual loss of a few billion dollars. They don't make any economic sense - unless you consider them a stepping stone in the nuclear weapons development process, of course. There was certainly human error involved, however even if an NPP works as supposed to, it is not safe. Chernobyl just happened to explode and cause a whole bunch of damage in a quick period of time. Others are causing the same consequences over the years.
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For an interesting story where chernobyl is featured prominantly, read "Wolves eat Dogs" by Martin Cruz Smith.
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I guess you could say I look at the "basics" of socialism as the operational design, the workings of a privileged, dictatorial bureaucracy as the user interface design, and the efforts of the people caught in the middle - trying to "make things work" - as the human system.
The failures of Chernobyl and Afghanistan destroyed the image of the Kremlin's rulers as infallible and all-powerful. The political meltdown stared shortly thereafter.
Reply
NPPs operate with an average annual loss of a few billion dollars. They don't make any economic sense - unless you consider them a stepping stone in the nuclear weapons development process, of course.
There was certainly human error involved, however even if an NPP works as supposed to, it is not safe. Chernobyl just happened to explode and cause a whole bunch of damage in a quick period of time. Others are causing the same consequences over the years.
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