Re: Dr. Norman C. Rasmussen, 75, Expert on Nuclear Power Risk, Dies

[Jurriaan Bendien <bendien@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thank you Michael for your amazingly astute comment. I will try to take this
logical illustration to heart, self-critically. Post-fectum rationalisations
of past behaviour (justification or apology) are an important problem in the
theory of ideology and learning theory. The answer is not to abolish a
concern with the past, but approach it correctly.

J.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Pollak" <mpollak@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2003 9:59 AM
Subject: [PEN-L] Dr. Norman C. Rasmussen, 75, Expert on Nuclear Power Risk,
Dies


> [This just seems like a monument to cognitive dissonance to me.  This guy
> invented a way of appraising nuclear risk.  A mere four years later, it
> was proved spectacularly wrong.  The result: cook and rerun the numbers
> until in retrospect they come out perfect.  Then give him an award for his
> "contributions to nuclear safety."  And title his obituary "Expert on
> Nuclear Power Risk."  Expert on risk?  He was the expert on how not to
> estimate risk.]
>
> [Even under his original, in retrospect absurdly sanguine estimate, if
> there were 500 reactors in the world -- and there are currently 440 --
> you'd be expecting one core meltdown on average every 40 years.  And this
> Rasmussen and the industry considered a warrant for expansion so that
> they'd happen more often than that!]
>
> [Meanwhile under the revised estimate, which was cooked to account for
> 3-Mile Island, you'd now be expecting one every 2 years -- which is
> obviously just as completely untrue as the original estimate. Which seems
> to indicate that not only were revised figures shamelessly cooked to fit
> one case for which we knew the answer, but the method itself is a complete
> and utter fraud, since it's never given anything even close to the right
> answer yet.] [Tellingly, both he industry continued to advocate nuclear
> power even under the new figure, which would have testified to certifiable
> madness if they actually believed it.]
>
> [For this he received the Enrico Fermi award, one of the oldest and most
> honored awards in the nation (sez MIT of itself).  And goes to his grave
> hailed as an expert on estimating risk.  Because fault tree analysis must
> be true.  Because otherwise we'd have to admit the existence of radical
> uncertainty.]
>
> [If Nero was alive today, he wouldn't name a horse a counsul.  He'd
> appoint him an expert. And everybody would listen respectfully.]
>
> New York Times
> July 28, 2003
>
> Dr. Norman C. Rasmussen, 75, Expert on Nuclear Power Risk, Dies
>
>    By MATTHEW L. WALD
>
>    N orman C. Rasmussen, a former professor of nuclear engineering at
>    the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who pioneered a
>    technique for measuring risk at nuclear power plants, died on July
>    18 at a nursing home in Concord, Mass. He was 75.
>
>    The cause was complications from Parkinson's disease, his son,
>    Neil E. Rasmussen, said.
>
>    In 1975 Dr. Rasmussen oversaw the production of a landmark report,
>    the 21-volume Reactor Safety Study, sponsored by the Atomic Energy
>    Commission, a precursor of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The
>    report predicted that in power reactors in this country, a core
>    damage accident would occur only once in every 20,000 years of
>    operation, with one reactor running for one year counting as a
>    year of operating experience.
>
>    But after the partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island 2 reactor
>    in Pennsylvania in 1979, when the nuclear industry in this country
>    had fewer than 500 years of operating experience, a new study
>    ordered by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reassessed the risk
>    and estimated it at one meltdown per 1,000 years of reactor
>    operation.
>
>    The commission disavowed some of the findings of the Rasmussen
>    study. But it continued to embrace his technique, now known as
>    probabilistic risk assessment, which involved drawing up a "fault
>    tree" to trace how problems can spread through a plant when a
>    piece of equipment fails. Among the problems with the Rasmussen
>    study were that it overlooked some risks, like fires, and that it
>    was based on reactor designs that did not include the Three Mile
>    Island type.
>
>    Dr. Rasmussen was a professor of nuclear engineering at M.I.T.
>    from 1958 until 1994, and was in charge of the institute's nuclear
>    engineering department from 1975 to 1981. In 1985, the government
>    presented him with the Enrico Fermi Award for his "pioneering
>    contributions to nuclear energy in the development of
>    probabilistic risk assessment techniques that have provided new
>    insights and led to new developments in nuclear power plant
>    safety."
>
>    Born in Harrisburg, Pa., Dr. Rasmussen served in the Navy from
>    June 1945 to August 1946 and graduated from Gettysburg College in
>    1950. He received a Ph.D. in physics from M.I.T. in 1956.
>
>    In addition to his son, of Concord, Mass., survivors include a
>    daughter, Arlene R. Soule, of Littleton, N.H.; five brothers,
>    Frederick, of Moorestown, N.J., Howard, of Charlotte, N.C.,
>    Holger, of Penn Valley, Calif., John, of Columbus, Ohio, and
>    David, of Clarksville, Va.; and four grandchildren.
>
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