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Of course you could design a machine that can run for 60 years. It's just a bad idea to depend on it. A nuclear reactor has regulatory oversight and a risk man
by ianhowson 10y ago
Of course you could design a machine that can run for 60 years. It's just a bad idea to depend on it.
A nuclear reactor has regulatory oversight and a risk management plan. It must survive the failure of any single component, no matter its reliability target.
Over 60 years, those 'highly unlikely' threats -- earthquake, terrorist attack, military action -- they become 'kinda probable'. No single component can survive these, and you'd be foolish to try.
- hazeii 10y agoPDP-11's are still powering nuclear reactors to this day - a few years back GE were looking for programmers to keep them going (interesting to me, since I programmed them in octal and Macro-11 back in the early 80's). http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/19/nuke_plants_to_keep_pdp11_until_2050/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/19/nuke_plants_to_keep_...