Hi everybody!
I'm back, having finished my 6 cycles of chemo finally.

I wanted to comment about my experience with nukes. After Three-Mile Island happened, everyone was shaken up and I was hired to work on a nuke that was under construction, but not yet up and running. My job was to review what had been built and to make sure that any mistakes were documented, corrected, and that the contractor, the utility, the architectual engineering company, the engineering management company, and the NRC all agreed, before the final product was turned over to the utility. The job was what is called a Time and Material" job, meaning that there was no cost bid into a contract, so the cost was whatever it cost in manhours and materials - it was prohibitive, I can tell you.

Anyway, we found lots of tiny mistakes but also big mistakes, too. Since this was the early 80's, not many other plants were still under construction, and thus could not be as thorough in their reviews of safety issues as we were. Just think back to the 80's and the 70's - lots of very high people were building those things, and we had to make sure those mistakes were corrected. I know that the one I worked on, was squeaky clean and safe, but I wonder about others - SONGS falls into that category.

Just thought I'd share my perspective. It is, as it has always been, that they can be built safely, but what happens after the building phase, is another, completely different safety issue. Sadly, people have short memories.

Beth