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We never had a single problem with it in the years I was on board. There were few moving parts besides the control rods and a few valves. When I stood watch on
by mwattsun 4y ago
We never had a single problem with it in the years I was on board. There were few moving parts besides the control rods and a few valves. When I stood watch on the steam throttle the reactor power would spike when I opened the throttle up. I tell my kids I've controlled a nuclear chain reaction with my bare hands.
- omginternets 4y agoHow long did you serve? When you say "never had a single problem", are you being literal? I'm abstractly aware that nuclear technology is reliable, but your anecdote somehow makes it more relatable. You've piqued my curiosity :)
- lnsru 4y agoI really don’t understand this reliability question. There was Fukushima and Chernobyl in my lifetime. Fukushima got earthquake and tsunami at the same time. Shit happens. I have no opinion about Chernobyl since it was in a country with extremely poor working culture. But otherwise in my opinion nuclear power plant is just another piece of big machinery. Comparable to semiconductor fab. They have there enough of interesting gases to gas whole population of the next city. But it never happened yet.
- sitkack 4y ago
- MichaelCollins 4y agoThe crew running the reactor during the accident were poorly trained, poorly managed, and weren't comfortable pushing back against bad management. There is no doubt that Chernobyl had a poor work culture, a rot that came from the top but nevertheless permeated the whole facility.
- ncmncm 4y agoThe person most personally responsible went on to manage another, similar system. Management failings are part of the risk profile of any hazardous technology, from nukes to feedlot pig farming. Leaving them out produces dishonest numbers.
- MichaelCollins 4y agoWhat are you responding to? I am responding to a claim that acknowledging poor work culture at Chernobyl is bigotry. It's not bigotry (an intolerance of others) nor is it even prejudice (judging before you have the relevant facts.) It's a widely acknowledged historic fact that Chernobyl had a terrible workplace culture. If you want to criticize somebody for ignoring Chernobyl's workplace culture, then you should have responded to sitkack, who seems to think that people shouldn't talk about this aspect of the disaster.
- sitkack 4y ago> who seems to think that people shouldn't talk about this aspect of the disaster You are putting words in my mouth. The failings of the team running a poorly designed uncontrolled experiment are widely known. Attributing it to a "poor working culture" needs to address specifics and just sounds like Ukrainians are bad at their jobs because ???
- omginternets 4y agoI suspect the reason you don't understand is because you're unaware of the reliability issues and health risks associated with the alternatives.
- smegger001 4y agoyou mean like the literal tons of radioactive waste sent into the atmosphere by burning hydrocarbons?
- mwattsun 4y agoI was on the sub for three years. I am not aware that we had any incidents with the reactor. We had a pipe break and start to flood the sub, but that wasn't nuclear related. In the shipyard we had an incident where the neutron detector pegged high but it was determined to be caused by TIG welding. https://www.twi-global.com/technical-knowledge/job-knowledge/tungsten-inert-gas-tig-or-gta-welding-006 https://www.twi-global.com/technical-knowledge/job-knowledge...
- omginternets 4y ago>We had a pipe break and start to flood the sub, but that wasn't nuclear related. That sounds absolutely terrifying. How did you guys end up fixing it? >In the shipyard we had an incident where the neutron detector pegged high but it was determined to be caused by TIG welding. Neat! :)
- mwattsun 4y agoPeople on submarines tend to know the systems they are responsible for very well since their life may depend on it. In this case they knew which valves to turn to stop the flow.