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Comment by devxpy | Hacker News Reader

So it's more about the beuraucracy than the tech?

Some years ago, I listened a person who was both involved in governmental oversight of the building project and a card carrying member of Green Party. He was really happy that they had spotted a missing welder's certificate. (There was no complaint about the quality of the work, only about the missing paper work.) He was laughing out loud, in a joy of an accomplishment, for the fact that the project was delayed for year or so for this.

So yeah, I would go for the bureaucracy.

If you are building a nuclear reactor and have doubts about the qualification of a worker, it would be irresponsible to not investigate.

There have been numerous issues with the quality of the work (the Wikipedia article has a list.) "Many large components, such as pressurizer forgings and some reactor internal parts, had to be re-manufactured once or twice to achieve the specified quality."

The thing was that safety oversight was not about the safety but about finding loopholes and formalities to cause maximum cost overruns and maximum delays to the project.

Or to put it in another words: I guess that same guy (and his friends) are having a raging boner for such number of delays. They consider each and every delay an accomplishment. It's a fucked up attitude.

If in 2 years the building collapses, and they find out that one of the welders had no certificate, how would the public react? How would you react? (even if the collapse had nothing to do with the welding itself)

I've never heard anyone complain ever about the quality of certification of workers when something went badly wrong except as part of a larger pattern of serious abuses.

So I'll go with nobody caring. If one rogue welder can cause a project to fail then the safety systems are beyond deficient and the undercertified welder would be the least of their problems.

If this set a project back by 12 months then the inspectors were overzealous. There were probably other problems that set the project back and the bureaucrat didn't understand the situation.

It's about the difficulty of implementation. Areva and Siemens are not able to finish the construction. Safety requirements obviously make it more difficult than, say, an airport (BER), and I bet the organisational culture of the constructors leaves something to be desired. "The build quality just isn't what it used to be." (Not a direct quote from Wikipedia.)

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