by Joseph V. Rees; University of Chicago Press;Copyright © 1994 Reviewed by Ace Hoffman June 28th, 2026 Recently, two small events prompted me to read Joseph Rees' 1994 book Hostages of Each Other: The Transformation of Nuclear Safety Since Three Mile Island 32 years after it was published. The first event was that someone exclaimed to me recently: "All these years looking at nuclear issues and I never heard of INPO before! What is it? What do they do?" Shortly thereafter, I was looking through a very pro-nuclear thread somewhere, and a couple of posts referred to Rees' book as the "bible of the industry" because it documented the "incredible" transformation to a "safety culture" following the March 28th, 1979 partial reactor core meltdown at the nearly-new reactor #2 at Three Mile Island (TMI) in Pennsylvania. According to Rees' book (and the posts in the thread), the transformation was almost entirely due to the creation of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) later that year, as an industry response to the accident at TMI. I didn't spend very long in the thread, but I purchased a used copy of Rees' book and read it. I had always thought of INPO as a cabal of nuclear power utilities which did two things: First, members discuss among themselves serious events at member reactors, so as to prevent other plants from having the same problem. Second, they hide their findings from the public and (usually) from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) as well. Why all the secrecy? Nuclear power is full of dichotomies, and strange things sometimes make sense in the nuclear arena. But a secretive group of companies doing extremely hazardous work, trying to implement inadequate solutions to unsolvable problems, is often a recipe for disaster. Also, INPO is financially dependent on the nuclear utilities for funding while also responsible for "enforcing" the nuclear utility industry's voluntary self-regulation. That certainly appears to be a conflict of interest, especially if a reactor has serious problems and should be shut down permanently (let alone, that all of them should be).* Rees often refers to a technique referred to as "public shaming" that INPO uses to bring a recalcitrant reactor utility company in line — one with a lot of shutdowns, for instance. The problem is that it's not actually a public shaming at all: It's ONLY a room full of nuclear company CEOs! Normally, the "real" public never hears anything. Rees' book does not address the most important nuclear industry dichotomy: Whether the benefit to society of providing electricity to the grid using nuclear energy is (or is not!) worth the risk to the general public from meltdowns. In reality the answer is no**, and by now it's also clear that even the economics don't make sense. Nuclear power has always been highly subsidized by the government (i.e., the taxpayer), and since 1994 the relative (inflation-adjusted) cost per kilowatt has plummeted for wind and solar, while it has gone up and up and up for nuclear. And subsidies for anything nuclear have only gotten larger, especially recently. Rees tried very hard to show that (by the time of the book's release) INPO had successfully addressed various other dichotomies of the nuclear industry. But with the benefit of 32 more years of fresh data to consider, data that includes several near-catastrophic failures by the American nuclear industry (examples below), it's hard to see the creation of INPO as a success, even if it is not a failure — yet. Delaying a catastrophic accident isn't the same as preventing it entirely! Near-misses have happened despite INPO and the NRC's best (we assume) efforts, and despite the additional decades of experience. One thing is obvious: Lessons learned have been — and continue to be — forgotten. Rees keeps mentioning (but usually only slightly) the nuclear industry's real problem: Cost. Yet he almost never gets beyond that to the more serious problem: The catastrophic effects of a large nuclear accident on the population of America: The cancers, strokes, heart attacks and other problems radiation causes to humans (and other living things). Rees never mentions the problem of constant radioactive releases, except regarding their effects on worker exposures — an important topic, for sure, but what about us? The eating, breathing public, of which there are many thousands for every nuclear plant worker? Chernobyl is barely mentioned in Rees' book. There's no mention of the risks from war, let alone drone warfare (I'll give him a break on missing the risk from drones — but there's no excuse today). Perhaps Rees assumed things like these are "external" events (along with tornadoes, floods, wildfires, tsunamis, earthquakes, etc.) and not related to whether INPO's efforts "succeed" or not. But other potential risks, such as: Internal sabotage by disgruntled workers, ignoring warnings from whistleblowers, accidental airplane strikes, etc. also aren't mentioned. Not sure of his excuse for that. INPO was NOT created because nuclear industry executives were worried about the horrific public health impacts of a severe accident and what they could do to prevent it, but rather, INPO was created because they were afraid (rightly so, I suppose...) that one more TMI-level failure (let alone something worse) would put ALL the nuclear utilities in America out of business forever. As of today, that industry-killing event hasn't happened. But we've come close far too often. INPO recognized that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was (and is) setting MINIMUM operating requirements. In INPO's opinion (and presumably everyone's, including everyone at the NRC) every reactor should nevertheless strive for "excellence". That sounds good, but it introduces another dichotomy: If the potential accident absolutely mustn't happen to protect the nuclear business itself, shouldn't the federal regulations be strong enough to protect the public at least as well? From the nuclear industry's perspective, TMI didn't prove that NRC regulations were too weak — but rather that they were too complicated and/or too hard to follow. And the last thing the industry wanted as a result of TMI was to have to deal with even more regulations. Every new regulation invariably costs the utilities money. But they knew they had other problems too: Before TMI, they already had a public relations nightmare on their hands. Opposition to nuclear power was growing without any help from a severe accident, and now they had that too — and a movie, coincidentally out at the time, called The China Syndrome. If that wasn't bad enough, new reactors were costing far more than estimated, and extended outages and sudden shutdowns were much too frequent. (Only some of this is in Rees' book.) Each of the NRC's thousands and thousands of regulations were designed to prevent worst-case scenarios from developing, and to protect people (both the public and nuclear workers) from getting what the NRC considers "excessive" amounts of radiation. But with thousands of regulations, each expressing "minimum" quality standards, and with NRC inspections comparatively sparse and incomplete, and training requirements minimal at best, the "fix-on-fail" attitude of management (left over from their fossil-fuel days) was bound to lead to trouble — especially when sometimes even the NRC's "minimum standards" weren't being met. And to make matters worse, the industry wasn't learning from its own mistakes. As Rees writes, TMI didn't have to happen: Similar stuck-valve events had occurred twice before: Once at the Davis-Besse reactor in Ohio, operated by a different corporation, and once at a reactor in Switzerland. The reactor operators at TMI had not heard about (or had not read about) those events, had not learned the symptoms nor the procedures to handle the situation. (Side note: An expert I've known, who wrote a book about TMI and worked directly under Admiral Hyman Rickover, explained that the TMI operators, who were ex-Navy reactor operators, responded PROPERLY for a naval PWR reactor having the exact same problem — but that is actually the OPPOSITE of what needs to be done for the same stuck-valve problem in a commercial PWR reactor — even though both are Pressurized Water Reactors! What would have sunk a submarine in one case, is what would have saved the reactor at TMI. As I said, nuclear reactors are full of dichotomies...) The current reality is that INPO hasn't actually solved the problem it was created to solve. Instead, the nuclear industry has merely been VERY lucky. But luck runs out eventually, and serious accidents are inevitable if the industry doesn't shut down permanently first. Instead, the nuclear industry is seeking to build new reactors and to extend existing reactor licenses to 60 and 80 years — for reactors that were only built to run for 40 years at most. The proof that it's not working the way Rees and INPO expected is in the events that have occurred since the book was published (that we know about) which have nearly caused meltdowns. For example: Davis-Besse (again) but with a hole in the Reactor Pressure Vessel Head (RPVH) that went unnoticed due to carelessly ignoring clogged filters — clogged with rust particles from the RPVH — clogging that went on for months before someone leaned against a control rod during a refueling outage (he wasn't supposed to do that, but in this case, fortunately, he did it). The control rod leaned over like the Tower of Pisa — and that's when they found the hole that went all the way through to the thin stainless-steel liner — which was already bulging outwards from the pressure! Another example: The Emergency Core Cooling System (ECCS) — the last resort to prevent a meltdown — at the Monticello nuclear reactor was UNAVAILABLE for the first ~30 years of operation (three-quarters of the reactor's planned lifespan) because temporary bolts that locked down baffles for the ECCS during shipment to the reactor had never been removed. If the ECCS had been needed, it would not have worked. (No ECCS has ever been fully tested. That would be far too risky.) Another example: At the San Onofre nuclear facility (now closed permanently), a large number of tubes inside the replacement Steam Generators (SGs) started vibrating excessively. The SGs (two SGs per reactor, two operating reactors at the site) contained nearly 10,000 individual tubes each. After just a few months, one of the tubes in one of the new SGs started leaking. Reactor operators did not realize the seriousness of what was happening and took about 20 minutes before deciding to shut down ("SCRAM") the reactor. They were waiting to see if the leak would get worse, or, if they're lucky, it would self-heal and they could keep operating, since "minor" SG tube leaks do plug themselves up sometimes, or, if the leak is small enough, it can be lived with while staying within NRC "ALARA" regulations. Tubes are tested and leaking tubes can be sleeved at the next fuel swap when the reactor is shut down anyway. But what was actually occurring at San Onofre was a vibration that was getting exponentially worse every minute, and a complete tube breakaway — or several — was perilously close to happening. A pressurized water reactor cannot survive more than a couple of complete tube bursts before a Loss Of Coolant Accident (LOCA) becomes as inevitable as from a hole in the RPVH. Another example: In 2014 a portion of the secondary coolant loop at the aging Vermont Yankee plant (a Boiling Water Reactor (BWR), a reactor design with two coolant loops) suddenly partially collapsed, causing the reactor to be shut down permanently due to the cost of repairs. Any time a nuclear reactor MUST rely on its emergency backup systems, it's a step closer to a disaster. In the past, Emergency Diesel Generators (EDGs) have failed to start during routine testing. At Fukushima, the EDGs were ALL flooded by the tsunami, and three American-designed General Electric BWRs melted down. (A fourth GE BWR reactor was being refueled at the time.) Why the 2011 Fukushima accident didn't cause America to shut down ALL the GE-BWR reactors in the USA will forever be a mystery to this author. There were nearly two dozen of them at the time (in addition to Vermont Yankee, Oyster Creek has also been closed). Rees' glowing praise for INPO was CLEARLY premature, but what else did INPO try to fix, besides distributing insider information that the NRC didn't even have? Another problem INPO felt it desperately needed to solve was the "fossil fuel mentality," meaning an attitude of "wait until it fails to fix it", which was held by former fossil fuel/now nuclear utility executives, and is antithetical to the attitude needed for operating a nuclear power reactor. Most of the INPO senior positions were filled with former Rickover navy guys. "Fix-on-fail" meant "failed-to-fix" to them. It's still not known why we lost the Scorpion and the Thresher, but neither poor maintenance nor improper operation have ever been ruled out (nor has much else, other than a meltdown of the reactor cores — I'm pretty sure that's been ruled out in both cases). At the time, America's nuclear navy was run by Admiral Hyman Rickover, and was always a "tight ship" but those accidents made them get far, far more careful. When TMI happened, thousands of former naval reactor operators were already working in the "civilian" nuclear industry (tens of thousands have since made the transition). So why weren't the high standards of the nuclear navy (two lost subs notwithstanding) being upheld in the "civilian" commercial nuclear industry? In any industry, most managers, from the CEO down, spend a lot of time and effort on lowering costs and becoming more efficient. They know the competition is doing that. INPO wanted to see more nuclear reactor engineers and operators in management positions, because "safety" is, and always will be, the most important thing in the nuclear industry. Perhaps even worse than lack of experience running a nuclear reactor, INPO saw that nuclear utility corporate management's "fossil fuel mentality" didn't seem to include much respect for their own workers. They thought of them as "worker-bees" and "blue-collar workers" meaning disinterested, replaceable human robots that come in, do their job, and go home. In other words, workers who are not mentally invested in the success of the corporation. Of course that's rather harsh: Most workers in most industries DO care about the quality of the output. Most would want to say something if they see something wrong — even if it's not their direct responsibility. They might be afraid to, but they'd want to. Trying to ease that tension is a normal industrial management problem. But what are merely "normal" human tensions in a "normal" industry can lead to "abnormal events" (as the industry likes to call them) in a nuclear power reactor. Catastrophic failures (aka "abnormal events") in the nuclear industry are a health crises for the rest of humanity. But what seems to concern the nuclear industry most about the public is NOT our health, but our opinion — which produces another dichotomy: On the one hand, they need the public to believe that what the nuclear industry is doing is extremely safe, affordable, could never cause a problem, and the operators are open and honest about everything. On the other hand, none of that is true: Nuclear energy is extremely risky and they know it, it is far from affordable (and they know that too), and it has nearly-constant problems (of course they are aware of that as well). Those problems need to be covered up or the public will turn against nuclear power. They know that all too well. Another dichotomy has to do with the pay scale for reactor operators. As Rees mentions, originally the utilities did not want the operators to be required to have college degrees. They considered the reactor operator job minor, boring, and relatively unskilled. INPO changed that, but that caused another problem: Who's going to pay for it? Fossil fuel plant operators within the same corporation didn't think nuclear reactor operators deserved more pay or had a more difficult job. Maybe they do, maybe they don't, but they certainly have a lot more responsibility. Reactor control room operator jobs ARE boring most of the time. Then suddenly the reactor operators need — not only all of their combined experience to figure out what to do — but they also need to know when and who to call for help, communication skills for describing the problem, when to give up and SCRAM (shut down) the reactor, and when to simply adjust things a little at a time and ride the problem out. Alas, money talks. It always has the last say, because if the money runs out... nothing can move forward. No productive output, no maintenance, no jobs. Rees had little choice but to discuss the problem of cost at some point (and mention it in quite a few other places) because it always, inevitably, becomes the overriding factor determining what gets done. INPO sends out hundreds of suggested actions, methods, policies, "frameworks" (the nuclear industry seems to like that word so I'll throw it in), and edicts (required changes). Some are quite expensive: For example, at one point INPO required each nuclear utility to hire over 100 new employees to cover better training, better record keeping, and better management. That's not cheap! But it sounds like a good idea, doesn't it? Uptime is what makes the money and pays the salaries (and the bonuses). Rees contends that uptime was the main driving force for nuclear reactor operators prior to TMI, and INPO's "institutional" programs were implemented to change that to a more purely quality-based emphasis, one where "good enough" isn't good enough if better can be done, and if better can be done, everybody in the industry should be doing it the better way. But near-catastrophic accidents have NOT stopped happening. With 94 aging reactors currently (2026) operating in America, America is collectively getting/risking almost a century of operating experience every year. The nuclear reactor industry knows it's living on borrowed time. Borrowed from the American public, which will lose that time due to shortened lives from cancers, heart attacks, strokes and other health issues forevermore. Rees expected the next few years after his book was published to confirm ("or not") that the changes INPO was implementing — or attempting to implement — across the U.S. commercial nuclear fleet would be successful. Rees wrote that "time will tell" and mentioned a five year time-frame... which wouldn't have been enough to prove success anyway, because success in preventing a nuclear meltdown in America, or a spent fuel pool fire, or a dry cask breach — cannot be measured in years, or even decades — it must be measured across the ENTIRE time-frame that America uses (or misuses) nuclear power (including storing the radioactive spent fuel), because by definition, an accident that puts the nuclear industry out of business will be absolutely catastrophic for the average American, whether it happens today or any time in the future. There is no "time-frame" for proving you have done everything necessary to avoid an accident that would be so bad it must never happen. There are quite a few quotes in Rees's book from "experts" in the nuclear industry who clearly know that an accident bad enough to put the industry out of business would, indeed, be a catastrophe for the country. (Some examples are shown below.) Rees explains that INPO's influence on the industry was intended to instill the proper work ethic in the plant's work force, and the problem started with management, sometimes all the way up to the CEO of the company. But that's not the whole story, as Rees explains. Even the CEO and the BOD (Board of Directors) are under financial pressure all the time. The company is supposed to make a profit, after all! Just because a plant has a lot of "uptime" doesn't mean it's running well. It can also mean problems are being ignored that should result in a shutdown. At Davis-Besse in Ohio, the reactor containment dome's filters were clogging. Why? "We'll find out when we shut down for a fuel swap" was apparently the thought that almost cost America an unstoppable, complete meltdown. In the aftermath of any major nuclear accident in America, one question will always come up: Who is to blame: Does the real problem lie with the NRC, to the extent that their "minimal" requirements were too minimal or too vague? Does it lie with the reactor's management for letting workers treat the NRC "minimums" as "good enough" when for whatever reason, apparently they weren't? Does it lie with a poor training program, so even the NRC minimums were not actually attained? Does it lie with the person who was in charge of distributing information to the appropriate employees? (Vital information from INPO, the NRC, etc..) And lastly, and only lastly, does it lie with the person who actually made the mistake? Rees' book emphasizes that INPO understood that always blaming just the person who actually made the mistake wasn't going to stop it from happening again. But regardless of who is to blame for a specific event, all the risk decisions discussed in Rees' book involve balancing the limited resources (money) needed for reducing the risk of one type of catastrophic event against limited resources needed for reducing the risk of some other type of catastrophic event. The reactor only makes a profit when it's running, so no matter how hard the NRC and INPO together insist that "safety" is the overriding concern, it never really can be. When all is said and done, the spent fuel will remain, at great risk, in canisters with walls barely thicker than an eggshell (proportionately, of course). Why not thicker walls? Cost. Until there are no operating nuclear reactors anywhere, the greatest risk will be the most unstoppable force of all: Human error. Even the most accurate person makes mistakes. People especially make mistakes when 99.9999% of their life is spent being nowhere near a critical, life-threatening decision and then suddenly WHAM! Being a nuclear reactor operator is often described as like being an airline pilot in this way: Hours and hours of boredom with sudden moments of sheer terror. How many times do nuclear reactor operators come home with sweaty palms and a shaky voice? I'm sure it's very rare, but it's undoubtedly ALSO true that there is NO WAY to find out how a person will handle those moments until those moments actually happen. Regardless of training, sometimes people fail at the crucial moment. With nuclear power, everyone in the industry knows that's simply "not acceptable." Then, when it happens, they investigate, keep secret what they discover, and then assume it can never happen again because safeguards have been put in place, procedures have been modified, and someone's been sent for special training... In summary: Rees was fair enough for what he covers, and he uncovered a lot of information, despite INPO's secretive nature. But that's not the whole story. After reading Rees' book about INPO's belief that they can accomplish the impossible forever, it's never been more clear to me that a catastrophic nuclear accident in America is inevitable (unless we shut down all the reactors). by Ace Hoffman, Carlsbad, California USA * Like INPO, the NRC is mainly funded by fees paid in by the utilities — which means NRC funding will drop disproportionately (compared to the overall cost for a much-needed regulatory agency) as more and more reactors are closed and never reopen. (This will also happen to INPO's funding). Revitalizing the industry with SMRs won't help the NRC (or the public, or INPO), because President Trump has used Executive Orders to force the abandonment of practically ALL nuclear regulation. Hopefully Congress can find a way to restore some degree of sanity to the U.S. regulatory environment soon. ** As documented in the 450+ other posts at this blog site ( https://acehoffman.blogspot.com ), and elsewhere! Note:
About 0.0117% (117 ppm) of all Potassium atoms are K-40 with a half-life of about 1.248 billion years. (I love bananas, because they have no bones.) Quotes from Hostages of Each Other: "...always mindful of nuclear technology's grave risks..." (p.72; Rees, on integrity in Rickover's navy) "...the same kind of problems that happened at Chernobyl...can happen...at a U.S. plant" (p.152, quoting an INPO VP) "...given nuclear power's potential for incredibly catastrophic accidents..." (p. 179; Rees' final paragraph in his concluding chapter) "You [can't] afford to run things until they fail...the potential consequences of a breakdown are too great." (p.191 (notes section); speech to INPO CEOs by "a longtime nuclear industry official") ###
Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO): https://www.inpo.info/ Founded in 1979. INPO membership includes suppliers such as NuScale, Westinghouse, and Radiation Safety & Control Services, TRISO-X, LLC, TerraPower LLC, URENCO USA Inc. The INPO Advisory Council and Executive Advisory Group include two different people from NEI (there are a total of about 20 people in these two groups). These groups also include former NRC people, and professors (including David Victor). (source: 2025 INPO Annual Report https://static1.squarespace.com/static/64d6548c19f38a141b206058/t/69cd58d2c66188100d750efa/1775065298626/2025+INPO+Annual+Report.pdf -------------------------------- INPO's overall mission focuses on "... promoting excellence -- in the operation of commercial nuclear power plants ...". INPOs Members are "...organizations that have a license to operate or construct commercial nuclear plants in the United States..." (22 as of June 2026). There are also associate members: "... utility organizations that jointly own U.S. nuclear power plants..." In addition, INPO has partnerships for suppliers and for "The world of 'new nuclear' and advanced reactor development". Finally, INPO "... collaborate[s] with domestic and international organizations ...". Nine organizations are currently (June 2026) listed on the INPO partnerships page. (source: https://www.inpo.info/partnerships) -------------------------------- The World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) is one of the nine partner organizations. According to INPO: "Today, WANO represents more than 120 members operating over 430 nuclear power reactors through four regional centers in Atlanta, Paris, Moscow and Tokyo — as well as offices in London and Shanghai. Shanghai is in the process of being established as WANO’s fifth regional center." (source: https://www.inpo.info/history) INPO is a member of WANO and operates WANO's Atlanta Center. "Members of INPO and WANO Atlanta Centre include utilities operating commercial nuclear plants in North America, China, Romania, South Africa and UAE. We also serve traditional and advanced reactor manufacturers and architectural, engineering, construction firms and staffing." (source: https://www.inpo.info/about-us) --------------------------------- World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO): https://www.nei.o>https://www.wano.info/ Founded in 1989 (UK based) WANO describes itself as "The organization exists purely to help its members accomplish the highest levels of operational safety and reliability." (source: https://www.wano.info/about-wano/who-we-are/) -------------------------------- Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI): https://www.nei.org Founded in 1994 NEI describes its mission as: "NEI and its members promote the benefits of nuclear power, advocate for smart policies and educate lawmakers on industry issues." -------------------------------- Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NRC): https://www.nrc.gov/ Began operations January 19, 1975. The NRC mission is: "The NRC protects public health and safety and advances the nation’s common defense and security by enabling the safe and secure use and deployment of civilian nuclear energy technologies and radioactive materials through efficient and reliable licensing, oversight, and regulation for the benefit of society and the environment." International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA): https://www.iaea.org/ Established 1957 The IAEA describes itself as: "We are the world's centre for cooperation in the nuclear field and seek to promote the safe, secure and peaceful use of nuclear technologies." The IAEA further defines its background as: "The Agency was set up as the world's 'Atoms for Peace' organization within the United Nations family.
Contact information for the author of this newsletter:
Carlsbad, California USA
Author, The Code Killers:
An Expose of the Nuclear Industry
Free download: acehoffman.org
Blog: acehoffman.blogspot.com
YouTube: youtube.com/user/AceHoffman
Email: ace [at] acehoffman.org
Founder & Owner, The Animated Software Company
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