3 ms·

There are many reasons to be skeptical of how the military might USE this kind of reactor. Ill-considered foreign deployments conducted by contractors without e

There are many reasons to be skeptical of how the military might USE this kind of reactor. Ill-considered foreign deployments conducted by contractors without exit plans could cause many problems. But, there are fewer reasons to to be skeptical about a DOE National Lab's ability safely to develop some prototypes and learn a lot. Three Mile Island's near-meltdown was 42 years ago now. Even though there hasn't been much new construction of civilian nuclear power plants since then, it's absolutely worth investigating whether new reactors designs can be safer than 20th-century ones. Not investigating is a form of security through obscurity: always a bad idea. OTOH: A former president put a former Texas governor (Perry) in charge of the DOE, and Perry, when he took the job, was surprised to learn their major mission is dealing with all things nuclear. It's conceivable the DOE could fall under incompetent political leadership again.

azernik 5y ago
The military generally doesn't hand off this kind of gear to contractors or to any but the most reliable allies. If they can get all of their own troops out - which the US did in Afghanistan - they can get out a high-value piece of equipment like this. (Militaries also have a long history of training troops on how to quickly disable gear in danger of capture.)
Lammy 5y ago
Good points. I wish they’d just stick with safe, limitless Bunker C diesel which hasn’t contributed to environmental damage at all over the previous 42 years. I didn’t look that up but I know it’s correct because there’s no way the global merchant marine fleet’s 17-thousand cargo vessels would be allowed to burn it in every corner of the world if it could leak out or if obtaining it was environmentally-destructive or if only one nation’s currency was allowed to purchase it: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2003/feb/16/iraq.theeuro https://www.theguardian.com/business/2003/feb/16/iraq.theeur... Gotta watch out when searching for this stuff though, because Our Enemies’ propaganda distribution networks will use it as an excuse to blame America for having to protect the world from evil people like Saddam and Gaddafi https://www.rt.com/news/libya-all-about-oil-818/ https://www.rt.com/news/libya-all-about-oil-818/ You can tell RT are lying because Vladimir Putin owns only a paltry 50.002% stake in the world’s largest coal gas company and they probably welcome a little camaraderie from rival producer-nations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gazprom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gazprom

azernik 5y ago

The military generally doesn't hand off this kind of gear to contractors or to any but the most reliable allies. If they can get all of their own troops out - which the US did in Afghanistan - they can get out a high-value piece of equipment like this. (Militaries also have a long history of training troops on how to quickly disable gear in danger of capture.)

Lammy 5y ago

Good points. I wish they’d just stick with safe, limitless Bunker C diesel which hasn’t contributed to environmental damage at all over the previous 42 years. I didn’t look that up but I know it’s correct because there’s no way the global merchant marine fleet’s 17-thousand cargo vessels would be allowed to burn it in every corner of the world if it could leak out or if obtaining it was environmentally-destructive or if only one nation’s currency was allowed to purchase it: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2003/feb/16/iraq.theeuro https://www.theguardian.com/business/2003/feb/16/iraq.theeur... Gotta watch out when searching for this stuff though, because Our Enemies’ propaganda distribution networks will use it as an excuse to blame America for having to protect the world from evil people like Saddam and Gaddafi https://www.rt.com/news/libya-all-about-oil-818/ https://www.rt.com/news/libya-all-about-oil-818/ You can tell RT are lying because Vladimir Putin owns only a paltry 50.002% stake in the world’s largest coal gas company and they probably welcome a little camaraderie from rival producer-nations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gazprom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gazprom