Nuclear Reactor History

7 Responses to Nuclear Reactor History

1. Rolf says:

   March 21, 2011 at 1:11 pm

   No objections with the basic point of the article, but an additional reason the US military was in favor of uranium-based reactor design over thorium-based was the byproduct of plutonium, which made better bombs, which the thorium reactors didn’t do. Nukes are a good way to generate electricity, if we used some modern, standardized designs.
2. Mollbot says:

   March 21, 2011 at 3:28 pm

   The Nuclear Navy is replete with lore about Rickover. He was brilliant in many ways… but he had a terrible temper and once his mind was made up that was it. Probably not a great mental habit when exploring an entirely new branch of technology.
3. JTW says:

   March 21, 2011 at 11:25 pm

   What the article doesn’t mention is that
   1) these reactors are 40 years old, and at the time were state of the art. Newer designs that are less complex simply didn’t exist or weren’t yet ready for large scale employment
   2) the reactor vessels actually performed admirably, surviving an earthquake of magnitude 9, larger than they’d been designed to deal with
   3) the problem with the generators wasn’t initially the generators themselves, but salt water contamination of their fuel supply. The designers 40+ years ago hadn’t envisioned a tsunami of the size that eventually hit them, and who can blame them for that?

   Technology lock in exists, and can cause problems with the adoption of new and possibly (emphasise that!) superior technology. But in this case it wasn’t a problem.
4. Rivrdog says:

   March 22, 2011 at 6:58 am

   JTW is on to it. The backup generators could have been made bullet-proof: the military knows all about hardening such installations (and did, in the ballistic missile launch fields), it’s all about money. When you give the bean-counters the ultimate choices which later turn out to relate to safety, you have just committed a form of suicide. As for Rickover, whatever you say about his management style, he was THE ONE when it came to giving the engineers total control and leaving the bean counters out of the equation. That’s why the Nuclear Navy has the outstanding safety record it does.

   Say what you will about Rickover, and my dad lost a promotion to Admiral because of Rickover’s famous temper and ego, but if Rickover had been made “Nuclear Czar” of the USA, we would have had a large and safe first-generation of nuke power plants, which would have led to a larger and just as safe second generation, and we would be building the third generation now. Our dependence on foreign oil would have been reduced to boot. Oh, and with Rickover in charge of national power production, it’s likely our delivery grid would be up-to-date as well, instead of being in the sorry state it’s in now.
5. Mollbot says:

   March 22, 2011 at 2:25 pm

   Well if he’d had his way entirely I’d have been a Warrant Officer as soon as I finished nuclear training; wouldn’t have complained about that paycheck. 😛
6. Bram says:

   March 23, 2011 at 6:54 am

   The article didn’t mention Pebble bed reactors by name. They supposedely cannot meltdown even with a cooling loss.

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor

   Those types of reactors are probably in Japan’s future as well as Breeder reactors that can recylce the spent fuel rods. Maybe they will spend some money on designing a Traveling Wave reactor.
7. Mollbot says:

   March 23, 2011 at 2:44 pm

   Yeah I mentioned the Pebble-bed design a few months ago I believe. Would love to see some of them up and running commercially. Or even militarily.

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