So far as I know the government doesn't insure them. Three Mile Island was a huge financial loss for the company that owned it, not just the billion dollars for the plant but the loss of revenue and the cleanup. So there is a tremendous financial incentive to not have a large failure. That said, if you live anywhere near such a plant you personally are assuming significant financial liability if there is a failure resulting in contamination. Check your homeowners policy and you will see it excludes nuclear accidents and contamination. So if your home is deemed contaminated, you will be prevented from going there and your insurance won't pay but your bank will still insist on the mortgage payments. So perhaps it is more accurate to say that the government has arranged to have the public insure for some of the losses. For lesser failures there is definitely a cost saving attitude in many corporations where the value of life is pretty small. There is plenty of complaint about workplace safety regulations and pollution regulations but they all got their foothold because of some pretty nasty accidents in the past. With this particular accident I don't know the details of how insurance was structured (if they didn't self-insure) so I can't say who had to pay for the loss of their facility but no matter what NDK suffered a significant loss. And if they did have insurance, the new contracts (or renewals) will have all sorts of clauses about inspections and following recommendations. As for the person killed, they should be prepared for a huge payout, if they haven't already. Interesting though about what happened. The coating was supposed to prevent iron contamination in the product but it may not have been fully effective in doing that. Perhaps other coatings might yield a better product? On 11/26/2013 3:35 AM, Tom Knox wrote: > This quartz crystal accident is a canary in the coal mine that demonstrates how poor safety and regulations often work in the real world. What I feel is a bigger concern is the similar risks we have with our aging Nuclear reactors. Many are over twenty-five years past their intended life. > The problem is today they are paid for, and the government insures them, so they are very profitable. The question is do any of the safety officials and inspectors really have the authority to close them when they become inherently unsafe? I don't think so. I think they will run until one catastrophically fails. I think government oversight is far to often an illusion. > > Thomas Knox > > > >> Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 00:51:49 -0500 >> From: nerd@verizon.net >> To: time-nuts@febo.com >> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Man killed in quartz crystal accident >> >> I oncecancelled my purchase of a home when I found a sign nearby indicating an >> underground high pressure gas transmission line. These days they're probably >> removing the signs. >> >> Let's hope the government doesn't decide that precise timekeeping is of >> strategic value and not permitted amongst ordinary people. >> >> >> On 11/25/2013 11:49 PM, Joe Leikhim wrote: >>> If you really want to lose sleep, think about those old rusty 24 inch gas >>> mains running under your neighborhood like in San Bruno California. The >>> warning signs were present there as well. >>> >>> Now thanks to Homeland Security you can't find accurate gas transmission maps >>> on-line unless you are cleared. So if you are buying a house in a particular >>> neighborhood, do some walking around looking for signs of buried facilities. >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com >> To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts >> and follow the instructions there. > > _______________________________________________ > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com > To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts > and follow the instructions there. >

It was as if a seed crystal was placed in an environment conducive to that crystal growing. In this case there has been a good deal of contamination particles embedded in the growth. On 11/26/2013 9:47 AM, Brian Lloyd wrote: > On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 8:42 AM, Bob Stewart <bob@evoria.net> wrote: > >> This discussion is all very nice, but what possible relationship does it >> have to time-nuts? >> > Quartz crystals. Let's just say that it morphed from a discussion into a > meta-discussion. :-) >

"Quartz crystals. Let's just say that it morphed from a discussion into a meta-discussion. :-)" Let's just say that it's morphed from something relevant into a political argument and drop it, shall we? Bob