Thank you for Dreux Richard's splendid feature about the Byron Nuclear Generating Station in Illinois (published March 11 under the headline "Toxic management erodes safety at 'world's safest' nuclear plant").
Byron is one of the few nuclear power plants that I have not visited or worked at. When I worked at Taiwan's Maanshan nuclear station — even before it went critical — the same type of management-worker culture had already formed. The first years of operation of that plant were tumultuous, to say the least.
What Richard has reported on is standard power plant culture. It is no different from that at fossil-fuel powered generating stations. As such, situations such as that described at Byron will get remedied only when the causes of this generic behavior are addressed.
Don't expect the institutional ideology that produces this lose-lose condition to be a pathway to its resolution.
The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.