What Is It Good For?

Oversight. Huh. Good God, y'all,

Does the following sentence from The New York Times make you nervous?

… [I]n a data-driven system, under which [federal agency] inspectors mostly review records rather than look at [the actual thing they're supposed to guarantee the safety of], the agency might have lost touch with actual conditions.

Well, it makes me nervous. The Federal Agency referred to in that sentence is the F.A.A. and the actual thing the inspectors are supposed to guarantee the safety of are airplanes. And apparently they haven't done such a good job of things. 3000 flights or so will have been cancelled by week's end this week, and just so that they can undergo safety inspections that were neglected--and this is after prior cancellations by Delta, Southwest, and other airlines.

Apparently the FAA does not do inspections itself; it instead relies on the integrity of the airline companies. And today the Times revealed that, much to everyone's surprise, the airline companies have not always behaved as impeccably as the FAA would have hoped.

Five Southwest Airlines planes grounded last month because they had not been properly inspected had precisely the kind of cracks that the inspection order was intended to detect, an official of the agency testified Thursday to a Senate subcommittee.

Having caught on that the companies it regulates cannot be trusted, the FAA has begun auditing the airlines for compliance with its rules and has grounded aircraft for inspection in unprecedented numbers. Hundreds of thousands of travelers are being stranded. The financial repercussions for the airline companies and their employees will be catastrophic, and the effect will be nationwide in an already teetering economy.

But the FAA doesn't care. They evidently place a higher value on human life than on financial well-being. (That and the Senate and House are breathing down their necks and calling for FAA heads to roll for not having monitored airline compliance more closely to begin with.)

Do you think it's possible, Lord, that the Senate and House might start calling for NRC heads to roll? Because the NRC hasn't just been lax in enforcing compliance. Indeed, NRC staff seem to have been actively bending rules themselves. To whit: The NRC's own Office of the Inspector General ("OIG") found in an audit of the NRC license renewal process that:

1) In over 70% of the audited plant renewals the NRC staff did not verify the authenticity of technical safety information submitted by nuclear power plant operators; and

2) NRC staff reviewers routinely "cut and pasted" whole sections of the renewal application text into their own safety reviews, rather than write their own evaluations.

3) The NRC had no procedures in place to check whether the safety reviews were done properly.

That quote is from theNuclear Information and Resource Service web site.

Also from that web site: When the OIG audit became public information, six environmental groups joined forces and petitioned the NRC "to halt the license renewal process for America's aging fleet of nuclear power plants until objective and independent analysis is conducted into the current licensing renewal process."

The NRC got to decide whether to create a nuclear industry equivalent of the current airline industry fiasco. The FAA has grounded nearly 2000 planes until the integrity of their inspection processes was ensured. The NRC could have "grounded" plant license renewals, including that of Vermont Yankee.

But, of course, it didn't. The environmental groups' petition was denied.

Entergy and, indeed, other nuclear power plants up for relicensing had warned about catastrophic financial repercussion (of the sort that the airlines and their employees are now suffering) should the NRC redesign the relicensing process and re-start the applications for license extension. That's not surprising. In general, we Entergy employees try to rile up regulators as well as the public with worries about what the loss of the Vermont Yankee plant would do to the local economy.

But, really, Lord. We're stretching a point about financial repercussions. Yeah, things might get dicey for Entergy shareholders. But slowing down relicensing or even shutting down Vermont Yankee won't necessarily leave people out of work--or out of electricity. Renewable energy jobs are soaring in Germany. According to Truthout, they...

...shot up to 249,300 in 2007, almost double the 160,500 green jobs in Germany in 2004.

According to revised government figures, as many as 400,000 people could be employed in the renewable energy industry in Germany by 2020. This is 100,000 more jobs than a previous study had predicted due to the boost that the country's economy and exports received as a result of massive investment in the renewable sector.

"The systematic expansion of renewable energy is not only good from the environmental and climate policy point of view but also for innovation, growth and employment in Germany" Sigmar Gabriel, the German Minister for Environment said.

New figures published on March 14, 2008 (Bruttobeschäftigung 2007 by Marlene Kratzat, Dietmar Edler, Marion Ottmüller and Ulrike Lehr) show that solar sector jobs are being added the fastest but that employment in all green energy segments has been growing rapidly.

Biomass, which accounts for 39 percent of all renewable energy jobs in Germany, employed 96,100 people in 2007, up from 56,800 in 2004.

Jobs in wind power, which accounts for 34 percent of green energy jobs in the country, grew to 84,300 in 2007; in 2004, 63,000 people were employed in wind power.

Exports in wind power technology grew to €5.7 billion [US $8.9 billion] in 2007, up 7 percent from 2006. Stronger exports offset a drop in investment in wind farms inside the country as the sector consolidated after years of rapid growth.

The booming solar sector saw jobs grow to 38,600 in 2007 up from 25,100 in 2004 as investment poured into photovoltaic production facilities mainly in eastern Germany.

The geothermal sector saw the number of people employed increase from 1,800 in 2004 to 4,200 in 2006. However, the number of jobs in hydropower have remained more or less steady at 9,400 in 2007 or one percent down from 9,500 in 2004.

Observers say that even these higher job growth estimates for 2020 may be too pessimistic if Germany manages to maintain its current share of exports in renewable energy plants and components in the world's rapidly growing renewable energy industry.

At least 134,000 jobs in renewable energy created so far in Germany are thought to be a direct result of Germany's renewable energy law, which gave a big stimulus to investment.

In addition to jobs in renewable energy plant production and maintenance, there were 4,300 jobs in renewable energy-related research, scientific funding bodies, public relations and local government in 2006.

Figures published by the German government show that renewable energy sources accounted for 14.2 percent of the gross electricity consumption of the country in 2007. The increase of 20 percent from 2006 is enough to power a city the size of Hamburg.

Renewable energy sources generated 222 terawatt hours (TWh) in 2007 in electricity, heating and fuels, accounting for 8.5 percent of the country's total energy consumption, and saving 114 million tons of carbon dioxide.

So, like I said, God: Does this kind of stuff make you nervous? Or are you laughing? Because this is supposed to be a funny prayer blog but I'm not hearing any chuckles from you right now.

Amen,

Fake-Rob