With
the Paris conference on climate change beginning in two days, and
with many thinking that this is the world's last realistic chance to
plot a path toward survival, a venture capitalist named Peter Thiel
makes a case for nuclear energy in the NYT.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/28/opinion/the-new-atomic-age-we-need.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region&_r=0
He is
not wrong. The overwhelming issue of our time is, will mankind
survive? In my early lifetime the threat was the Nazis – yes,
mankind would have survived, but the history would be troubled. Then
the threat was nuclear weapons, and truth be told, it still is. On
The Beach was not unreasonable fiction, except how beautiful Ava
Gardner was, and I guess Gregory Peck. But the threats are
accelerating. nClimate change, né
global warming, is arguably the most serious of all. James Lovelock
sees disaster but not total annihilation. There will still be
“mating pairs in the Arctic,” he says, which is less than totally
reassuring.
What is behind it all is the
exponential expansion of the anthropocene age.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene).
I have used the image of the beehive before, and it comes to mind
again. When humans crawl all over the world and all over each other,
they stay alive by an interconnectedness that works for a limited
time. But nothing stays the same for long, and if you are precarious
you eventually fall, and that's inevitable with our exponential-ness.
The only alternative is planning, and restraint, and a sense of all
being into it together. Good luck with that.
Nonetheless, we keep trying,
and nuclear is an important option, as Thiel says. Years ago, when
it became apparent that we had a problem and my Dad had not yet died,
he and I discussed it in a couple of words, which was all we needed
since we tended to think alike. All of his professional life as a
neurosurgeon, my Dad had looked at dangerous operations and
unpalatable choices, delayed decisions and followed cases assiduously
until a choice became clear and sometimes inevitable. And when we
talked, even in his decline, he faced the problems of the earth with
the same coldly reasonable calculations that he used in judging the
advisability to operate. So when I asked him, “Dad, what do you
think about climate change and energy?” he responded, “I think we
have to go nuclear.” Which was just what I thought, too. I
figured, you just have to be careful, find the right way to do it,
and put the radioactive debris in the right spot – I figured, send
it to outer space, but then, I tend to be a risk taker.
The
problem was, however, that we were both thinking like doctors, like
Lone Rangers, which is what old fashioned doctors tend to do. We
were thinking, get your best doc and go on in and be careful to do it
right, concentrate, do it right.
But
that way of thinking is a mistake. Nuclear power can't be operated
by a Lone Ranger. Nuclear power has to be run by a large
organization; as a matter of fact, since the world is a big place, it
has to be run by many large organizations. So it's not an individual
challenge, it's an organizational challenge, which is a horse of a
different color.
Earlier
this year we visited Japan and, as is my custom when traveling, I
read the local English language press. There was an article about
the Fukushima accident of 2011. I remembered that it was clear early
on that Tepco, the utility company that ran it, had disingenuously
reported about and dealt with the accident, not to mention having
made mistakes with the initial design. It seemed to be a poorly run
organization with strong political support charged with what could be
a dangerous mission. Now the Japan Times reported that no
significant changes in administration have been made. I read that a
citizens' committee – a citizens committee! What a sign of
entrenched bureaucracy! -- had twice (twice!) recommended that the
top officials of Tepco should be tried for ineptitude and negligence.
They reasoned that punishment would have a deterrent effect in the
future, and thus perhaps change organizational behavior. But the
article reported that twice had this recommendation has been
dismissed by the establishment prosecutors.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/10/03/national/media-national/whos-responsible-fukushima-disaster/#.VhDhz6KiahQ.
It
reminded me of the investigation of Chernobyl, which found that
political appointments had so infested the organization that it was
non-functional. To the Russians' credit, they made the
investigation, just as the Japanese did. But the consequences for
personnel were few; after all, these were favored apparatchiks who
had been placed there in the first place.
Here's
the point: you can build organizations for a purpose and get
impressive success. You can win World War II, go to the moon, build
the 50's Yankees. But then, over time, organizations decline. They
just do. Guardians of nuclear missiles in North Dakota get lazy and
drunk and no checks are made on the missiles. NASA leaders dismiss
warnings from their intimidated scientists that the O-rings might not
work at low temperatures. CDC forgets to safeguard the smallpox
vials. Achievement organizations become blame organizations, as
incentives shift from high accomplishment to avoiding blame, where
personnel shift from dream-seekers to get-a-job-and-get-promoted
seekers. It's just the natural history of organizations.
So as
the VC Peter Thiel touts nuclear as the answer, he thinks
technically, not organizationally. VC's think about starting a
company and selling it, usually, not operating it into perpetuity.
Could you build nuclear plants all over the world that would never
fail, or if they failed, would have damage contained? Maybe.
Computers have become very powerful. But there are still operators
all over to oversee the plants, and if they are not unqualified
apparatchiks, or Tepco bureaucrats, they can still be Homer Simpsons.
Thiel thinks that the downsides of accidents have been exaggerated,
and that side effects can be contained. Maybe he's right. Maybe my
father and I were right. Or maybe we need nuclear not as a permanent
solution, but as a bridge to a future technology that would truly
work automatically. And maybe running the risk is better than simply
continuing on as we are on the road to mating pairs in the Arctic.
And maybe Space X can take our nuclear debris on a quest to find dark
matter.
But in
the meantime, if nuclear turns out to be the necessary risk we take,
let's not just concentrate on the technology. Let's pay as much
attention to advance organizational theory as to engineering theory.
That could be the biggest challenge.
Budd
Shenkin
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