
Originally Posted by
Bad Robot
.... However I probably wouldn't live next to a volcano, or downstream of a dam or in a flood plain.
What do you think of this? Late '70s, a consortium of Utilities planned, received all permitting, proceeded to build one of the larger nuclear power plants outside of Phoenix, the Metro area then having well over a million population. Prevailing winds were westerly (FROM the west?). Of all sites proposed, construction commenced DUE WEST of Phoenix, perhaps 30 or 40 miles, just south of Interstate 10. Many were unhappy about the prospects....
As work dragged on in the '80s, original planned costs escalated from something like $ 4.5 billion to $ 11 billion. Electric customers were livid, and rightly so. Numerous big problems come to mind, one of which was enormous coolant pumps which had failed during testing. Japanese designed and built, they admitted they had never built pumps that large before! Adequate backup funding was perilous. Having three reactor units, popular thought was the entire project might be scrapped; however, eventually, the first unit went on line, followed by the others.
An Electrician friend and co-worker of mine, left the tennis ball manufacturing facility where we worked, to tackle the nuke plant. After several months, he told me he could never have imagined the red tape: each individual electrical connection he was responsible for, was inspected by many different factions, about 10 in all, this requiring a 1 hour job to take several days. Small wonder the cost over-runs were tremendous. The real kicker, to me, was that of the Utilities involved in ownership of the project, NOT ONE had any nuclear expertise whatsoever, no one with scientific technical ability to pre-judge many of the decisions to be made, or weigh the claims of the contracting companies, one of which I believe was the infamous Bechtel Corp.
Now, having bored you to death, my wife and I lived there all during this fiasco. Would you have considered staying in the area, given all the negative wrong-turns involved? jocular
