5 ms·

So you trust the military (which wouldn't do this directly anyway, they would just contract to a for-profit company), an institute which is purpose-built to kil

So you trust the military (which wouldn't do this directly anyway, they would just contract to a for-profit company), an institute which is purpose-built to kill other humans on the orders of the state, over a private company that merely seeks to turn a profit? Militarism has always been about profit and greed, more so than any company. And unlike companies, they are basically above the law.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
Yes. US Navy nuclear engineers are military service members, not contractors, and are therefore part of the chain of command. There are consequences for failing to follow protocol. https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Home/NNPTC/ https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Home/NNPTC/
- bumby 7y ago
  I see you've never personally experienced the US military... Kidding aside, while many service members do uphold their oath honorably, there's plenty of non-compliance and outright malfeasance without accountability. And to the grandparent, the military does run reactors outside of ships (but typically for research as far as I know)
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - pdonis 7y ago
    > I see you've never personally experienced the US military I see you haven't bothered to actually look at the record. The U.S. Navy has decades of operating many nuclear reactors on ships and submarines with no incidents. > there's plenty of non-compliance and outright malfeasance without accountability Not in the U.S. Navy's nuclear program. Even what would be considered minor infractions in other parts of the military are grounds for immediate dismissal. I saw that happen once while I was in the Navy and stationed at a shipyard. A minor administrative irregularity got the reactor officer of a ship fired; he was off the ship the same day and never came back.
    - bumby 7y ago
      I don't know if you took that personally, but it was an obvious tongue-in-cheek comment. If you look at one of my earlier replies, I acknowledged the relatively good (but not pristine) record of Navy warships but also linked to a list of a surprising number of military mishaps (both facility and weapons related). To be fair, the list dwindled as the timeline became more recent.
    - Ididntdothis 7y ago
      The Navy has the advantage that they don’t have the same cost pressure a civilian reactor has. I am pretty sure their MW/$ cost is much higher than would be acceptable for a nuclear power plant.
      - toomuchtodo 7y ago
        Which is why commercial reactors cannot exist. The MW/$ delta between a military and commercial reactor is the risk premium for safe operation.
        pdonis 7y ago
        > The MW/$ delta between a military and commercial reactor is the risk premium for safe operation. No, it isn't, since we also have many, many civilian reactors that have operated for decades safely. What's more, even if we take into account all of the harm done by all the nuclear accidents that have ever happened, including Chernobyl and Fukushima, the harm done by nuclear energy per unit of energy generated is still orders of magnitude less than the harm done by fossil fuel energy per unit of energy generated. And that is only actual harm that has already occurred--it doesn't take into account potential future harms (such as climate change--I personally don't think that's a very significant component of the harm done by fossil fuels, but I'm not arguing that point here, because what I've said is true even if any such potential harm is ignored--any potential future harm to the climate from fossil fuels just makes them look even worse than they already do). The price premium paid by the military for nuclear power is for operational flexibility, not safe operation. The Navy's capital ships need to be able to steam anywhere in the world without having to worry about fuel. The Navy's submarines need to be able to operate submerged and undetectable for months at a time. Nuclear power is a necessary enabler for those operational capabilities, so the Navy simply can't tolerate any deviation from proper procedures since it would jeopardize those capabilities. The fact that this approach also leads to much increased reactor safety is a benefit, to be sure (and in the early days of Navy nuclear power, when much less was known about reactor safety than is known now, this benefit was indeed a key selling point for allowing the Navy to operate nuclear ships and subs), but it's not the primary purpose. If the greatly increased operational capability had not been there, the Navy wouldn't have bothered with nuclear power in the first place.
deleted 7y ago
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toomuchtodo 7y ago

Yes. US Navy nuclear engineers are military service members, not contractors, and are therefore part of the chain of command. There are consequences for failing to follow protocol. https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Home/NNPTC/ https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Home/NNPTC/

bumby 7y ago
I see you've never personally experienced the US military... Kidding aside, while many service members do uphold their oath honorably, there's plenty of non-compliance and outright malfeasance without accountability. And to the grandparent, the military does run reactors outside of ships (but typically for research as far as I know)
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- pdonis 7y ago
  > I see you've never personally experienced the US military I see you haven't bothered to actually look at the record. The U.S. Navy has decades of operating many nuclear reactors on ships and submarines with no incidents. > there's plenty of non-compliance and outright malfeasance without accountability Not in the U.S. Navy's nuclear program. Even what would be considered minor infractions in other parts of the military are grounds for immediate dismissal. I saw that happen once while I was in the Navy and stationed at a shipyard. A minor administrative irregularity got the reactor officer of a ship fired; he was off the ship the same day and never came back.
  - bumby 7y ago
    I don't know if you took that personally, but it was an obvious tongue-in-cheek comment. If you look at one of my earlier replies, I acknowledged the relatively good (but not pristine) record of Navy warships but also linked to a list of a surprising number of military mishaps (both facility and weapons related). To be fair, the list dwindled as the timeline became more recent.
  - Ididntdothis 7y ago
    The Navy has the advantage that they don’t have the same cost pressure a civilian reactor has. I am pretty sure their MW/$ cost is much higher than would be acceptable for a nuclear power plant.
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      Which is why commercial reactors cannot exist. The MW/$ delta between a military and commercial reactor is the risk premium for safe operation.
      - pdonis 7y ago
        > The MW/$ delta between a military and commercial reactor is the risk premium for safe operation. No, it isn't, since we also have many, many civilian reactors that have operated for decades safely. What's more, even if we take into account all of the harm done by all the nuclear accidents that have ever happened, including Chernobyl and Fukushima, the harm done by nuclear energy per unit of energy generated is still orders of magnitude less than the harm done by fossil fuel energy per unit of energy generated. And that is only actual harm that has already occurred--it doesn't take into account potential future harms (such as climate change--I personally don't think that's a very significant component of the harm done by fossil fuels, but I'm not arguing that point here, because what I've said is true even if any such potential harm is ignored--any potential future harm to the climate from fossil fuels just makes them look even worse than they already do). The price premium paid by the military for nuclear power is for operational flexibility, not safe operation. The Navy's capital ships need to be able to steam anywhere in the world without having to worry about fuel. The Navy's submarines need to be able to operate submerged and undetectable for months at a time. Nuclear power is a necessary enabler for those operational capabilities, so the Navy simply can't tolerate any deviation from proper procedures since it would jeopardize those capabilities. The fact that this approach also leads to much increased reactor safety is a benefit, to be sure (and in the early days of Navy nuclear power, when much less was known about reactor safety than is known now, this benefit was indeed a key selling point for allowing the Navy to operate nuclear ships and subs), but it's not the primary purpose. If the greatly increased operational capability had not been there, the Navy wouldn't have bothered with nuclear power in the first place.

deleted 7y ago

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