Regulatory capture is a big problem. One of the more bizarre twists in the Japanese nuclear story is that a program to develop robots that could remotely work inside damaged nuclear generating stations was canceled out of fear that it would send a message that nuclear power isn't safe.
Regulatory capture is THE problem. Contrary to the parent post's claim, the problem is not with our "economic system". It's that, if you're going to regulate something (particularly something as complex as nuclear energy), then you need experts. And the only place to get those experts is from the industry. Generally, those people are naturally going to look at the industry from a certain perspective, one that views the activity of the industry as important, and its status quo as something other than an historical accident.
Until you can find a way to extract human nature from the regulatory process -- and that's even before we start talking about corruption -- you're not going to get anything better.
So sure, the industry tries to push the boundaries, and we should call them out for that. But while doing so, we must also consider how the regulators -- themselves humans -- might do even worse. That side of the equation is too often overlooked.
> It's that, if you're going to regulate something (particularly something as complex as nuclear energy), then you need experts. And the only place to get those experts is from the industry.
This is a very key point.
One of the ways that the Navy's nuclear management agency (NR) has tried to avoid the problem of regulatory capture is that they train their own experts in addition to pulling experienced personnel from the nuclear-powered fleet.
Those who have never been underway but still understand nuclear power and administration are typically thought of as a bunch of pompous no-fun assholes... but that's their job and they do it well. They have little to no ability to be empathic with ship's crew as they've not been underway and dead tired and all that... and so it's that much easier to demand that the right thing is done instead of the easy thing.
It's not enough just to train your own experts though. NR pulls people back from the fleet, as those with operational experience are those who best understand the typical shortcuts that might be employed by the crew, and how to detect that those shortcuts are being practiced.
But you're exactly right, it's impossible to design a safe nuclear power industry without looking at how best to design the regulatory component.
Interesting point of note: the US Navy's nuclear program has far more miles of safe travel than the shuttle program, or any other program ever, despite a maximum speed in the vicinity of 30 mph. That means the number of operating hours is fantastically larger.
This is difficult for me to understand. Are you suggesting that if nuclear power were completely unregulated, Tepco's behavior would've been more virtuous (as I read it, totally virtuous)?
Or is the claim that regulation made the problem somewhat worse, and this margin (between how bad the problem would've been without regulation and how bad it was with regulation) is the only part that would even be humanly possible to rectify?
Because if I owned the plant and I didn't have any regulators to deal with, I would think it in my interest to behave even worse: to lie more, to hide more, to be even less concerned about doing a thorough job of preventing the public's exposure to regulation.
You should look up "regulatory capture" it means something very different than how you are taking it.
Just so it's not a low-content post, a company can lobby the government to change, weaken or not enforce existing regulations, and often they compound this with bribery of the regulator. Many large companies in the United States go further and lobby to extend or re-word regulations specifically to give themselves a monopoly over the regulated market. All of these actions are forms of regulatory capture.
Other examples of it: the present state of the us patent and copyright system, especially if you include enforceable work-for-hire clauses and the language in various treaties referring to copyrights. Elon Musk's difficulties selling his electric cars online in Texas and other states are due to regulatory capture by car dealerships in that state. In general, most government-backed monopolies or "public-private partnerships" can safely be expected to involve a significant amount of regulatory capture.
Still though you should look it up because both the term and the actual process are really useful at figuring out the hows-and-whys of US government domestic actions.
Regulatory capture is when the people tasked with keeping an industry on its best behavior have too close ties to the industry, through personal connections or financial incentives, and are no longer able to do their jobs.
I would agree that we have a problem with inadequate or corrupt regulators in several industries.
Regulatory capture can take the form of outright corruption, but the more insidious form is cognitive capture. That's where the regulators simply don't have a sufficiently detached perspective from those they are regulating. They internalize the needs and thought patterns of the industry as there own.
A related phenomenon in foreign affairs circles is called "going native".
That's very interesting. It's easy to imagine how, as a regulator, going out to dinner with the regulated (or their representatives) on a regular basis would influence your thinking. It doesn't require a conspiracy theory, so it gives us a great jumping-off point for a rational discussion about how to limit the opportunity for this phenomenon to manifest. Thanks for the new viewpoint!
> This is difficult for me to understand. Are you suggesting that if nuclear power were completely unregulated, Tepco's behavior would've been more virtuous (as I read it, totally virtuous)?
If it were unregulated by government, then yes. It's a bit misleading to say there would be absolutely nothing regulating the industry if government wasn't.
That was a government sponsored program that was government canceled in the first place. A private company, would not have even bothered with it in the first place, especially if there was no subsidy.
