Government solutions solve the problems of the world

Years ago, a special aired on PBS about the proliferation of nuclear plants. Of interest, after Three Mile Island, was a plant in Tennessee and one in Georgia. Both took novel solutions to prevent something similar to TMI. The French model was examined where all the plants were of the same basic design and as upgrades were implemented as the technology matured, it would be applied to all existing plants. Since they were all based on the same model, upgrades would fit right in with existing infrastructure.

But as the special pointed out, America doesn't work that way. Plants are remarkably individual depending on area, demand and local ordinances. In a socialist society controlled by a central government, these are not even considered. So what works in France might not work here at all.

It turned out, that at the time, over 87% of the power in France was supplied by nuclear. This has since grown to well over 90%. However, France is a miniscule country compared to America and their power consumption isn't the same as ours. In addition, there is no real profit connected with power generation and any potential shortfalls can be made up through taxation. Interestingly, power isn't free in France even though it is totally supplied by the government.

Anyway, back to the plants in America. The producers of the special interviewed several of the executives of the proposed and developing plants with a varying of opinions. However, one statement rang through and it was a remarkable statement that made it through the PBS biased editing. The statement was: "Government doesn't look out for you. If you have concerns, you need to address them yourselves. If you allow government to make decisions for you, you can guarantee that government only makes decisions based on government needs."

Shocking? Wasn't the government supposed to look out for us? After all, wasn't this the country where the government represented the people and took care of the people? According to the local groups that approved the plants, such was not the case. For every safety measure they wanted, they had to fight government officials. The group in Georgia made one simple request. If the request was met, the construction of the plant could go forward and safety issues. Here was the request: All executives from the power company managing the site and all upper management had to live next to the plant. If the plant was so safe, the executives and management could prove it by moving their families there.

An interesting thing happened. The original plan was all of a sudden found inadequate and a new plant design was offered. A compromised was reached with the power company. While the Board and upper executives were exempt from the residency requirement, the managers were not. The reason this compromise was achieved was because the Board and upper execs didn't even live in the state. The power company had concerns all across America so they were freed from the residency requirement.

Now, had the local people left it up to government, who knows what they would have ended up with? Since many municipal projects are subject to minority set asides and lowest bid contracts along with a level of official corruption that makes Baksheesh in Turkey look like a simple tip, there was no guarantee that a plant overseen by the government would be any safer that a plant that was the outcome of free market enterprise. See, if a company makes bad stuff, people don't buy it. But if the government controls the process, shoddy construction, materials and processes can rise to the top for a number of reasons.

Now, the question was asked: Why didn't this happen in France? Well, it did. While the French did finally agree on a model, it came after a lot of failure. By the way, no more nuclear plants can be built in France and they are now taxing and allocating a lot of money for technology -- like wave and tidal systems -- to produce energy with the ultimate goal of reducing the number of nuclear plants over time.

It seems that while nuclear can be efficient, waste disposal is difficult and maintenance is difficult. Eventually, they will have to disassemble these plants and deal with the waste products and this is a major undertaking that makes the construction look simple. Over time and as technology improves, these difficulties will be overcome. Factor in human error and the actual safety record of the nuclear plants is quite impressive.

But back to the special. The bottom line was that people have to watch government and distrust government solutions. While the big lie is that government is watching out for you, it is more true and factual that government doesn't care about you at all unless you organize into a power bloc. As individuals, we are powerless against government.

You must be vigilant and watch government actions to ensure that something completely against your best interest isn't being sold as a solution to all your problems.

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