Globally, there have been at least 99 (civilian and military) recorded nuclear reactor accidents from 1952 to 2009 (defined as incidents that either resulted in the loss of human life or more than US$50,000 of property damage, the amount the US federal government uses to define major energy accidents that must be reported), totaling US$20.5 billion in property damages. Property damage costs include destruction of property, emergency response, environmental remediation, evacuation, lost product, fines, and court claims. Because nuclear reactors are large and complex accidents onsite tend to be relatively expensive.

At least 56 nuclear reactor accidents have occurred in the USA. Relatively few accidents have involved fatalities. The most serious of these US accidents was the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Davis-Besse has been the source of two of the top five most dangerous nuclear incidents in the United States since 1979.

The nature of their [offshore platforms] operation - extraction of volatile substances sometimes under extreme pressure in a hostile environment - means risk; accidents and tragedies occur regularly. The US Minerals Management Service reported 69 offshore deaths, 1,349 injuries, and 858 fires and explosions on offshore rigs in the Gulf of Mexico from 2001 to 2010. In July 1988, 167 people died when Occidental Petroleum's Piper Alpha offshore production platform, on the Piper field in the UK sector of the North Sea, exploded after a gas leak. The resulting investigation conducted by Lord Cullen and publicized in the first Cullen Report was highly critical of a number of areas, including, but not limited to, management within the company, the design of the structure, and the Permit to Work System. The report was commissioned in 1988, and was delivered November 1990. The accident greatly accelerated the practice of providing living accommodations on separate platforms, away from those used for extraction.

However, this was in itself a hazardous environment. In March 1980, the 'flotel' (floating hotel) platform Alexander L Kielland capsized in a storm in the North Sea with the loss of 123 lives. In 2001, Petrobras 36 in Brazil exploded and sank five days later, killing 11 people.

Given the number of grievances and conspiracy theories that involve the oil business, and the importance of gas/oil platforms to the economy, platforms in the United States are believed to be potential terrorist targets. Agencies and military units responsible for maritime counterterrorism in the US (Coast Guard, Navy SEALs, Marine Recon) often train for platform raids.

On April 21, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon platform, 52 miles off-shore of Venice, Louisiana, (property of Transocean and leased to BP) exploded, killing 11 people, and sank two days later. The resulting undersea gusher, conservatively estimated to exceed 20 million gallons as of early June, 2010, became the worst oil spill in US history, eclipsing the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Japan's nuclear crisis is causing an increasing number of other countries, including China, France and Germany, to reconsider their use of nuclear power. German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Thursday for a "measured exit" from nuclear power and an expedited transition to renewable energy.

"When the apparently impossible happens in such a highly developed country as Japan ... then the whole situation changes," Merkel, a former environment minister, told parliament, according to Agence France-Presse. She ordered a temporary shutdown Tuesday of the seven oldest of Germany's 15 nuclear reactors while authorities conduct safety probes. At least one has been permanently shuttered.

China's State Council said Wednesday that the government will suspend approvals for nuclear power plants so it can conduct safety checks at existing plants and those under construction, reports the Associated Press. China has 13 nuclear power plants in use but plans to add many more as it seeks to reduce its reliance on coal-fired plants, which emit greenhouse gases. It's also developing solar, wind and hydropower.

Keynes described the action of rational agents in a market using an analogy based on a fictional newspaper contest, in which entrants are asked to choose a set of six faces from photographs of women that are the "most beautiful". Those who picked the most popular face are then eligible for a prize.

A naive strategy would be to choose the six faces that, in the opinion of the entrant, are the most beautiful. A more sophisticated contest entrant, wishing to maximize the chances of winning a prize, would think about what the majority perception of beauty is, and then make a selection based on some inference from their knowledge of public perceptions. This can be carried one step further to take into account the fact that other entrants would each have their own opinion of what public perceptions are. Thus the strategy can be extended to the next order, and the next, and so on, at each level attempting to predict the eventual outcome of the process based on the reasoning of other rational agents.

"It is not a case of choosing those [faces] that, to the best of one’s judgment, are really the prettiest, nor even those that average opinion genuinely thinks the prettiest. We have reached the third degree where we devote our intelligences to anticipating what average opinion expects the average opinion to be. And there are some, I believe, who practice the fourth, fifth and higher degrees." (Keynes, General Theory of Employment Interest and Money, 1936).

Keynes believed that similar behavior was at work within the stock market. This would have people pricing shares not based on what they think their fundamental value is, but rather on what they think everyone else thinks their value is, or what everybody else would predict the average assessment of value is.

1 2 Back