I wrote:
It is a little difficult to decide whether you would prefer to live next to a coal-fired plant run by idiots & street-hood Mafiosi dropouts, or a nuclear plant run by those same idiots. . .
"Street-hoods" is an exaggeration, but a friend of mine with inside knowledge of the Tokai nuclear fuel plant, where the criticality accident occurred, told me the industry tends to attract gum-chewing pomaded young men who do not have many prospects and who do not pay much attention to safety lectures. I read about a guy like that at a U.S. nuclear fuel plant who pooh-poohed the safety regs. He went around saying: "This stuff can't really hurt you! We don't need all these damn rules." One day, to prove his point, he dipped his arm into a drum of liquid high-level rad-waste. He died in agony within months. My friend described the nuclear industry the way Wouk described the U.S. Navy: 'A machine designed by geniuses to be run by idiots'
That does not mean that officials or industry follows recommendations made by scientists, but they do not contradict them or contradict them.
I meant to say "contradict or ridicule them." - Jed
