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It is all about creating the industrial base with people going through university specializing in it. In 2017 this angle was up in the news in the UK. Take the

It is all about creating the industrial base with people going through university specializing in it. In 2017 this angle was up in the news in the UK. Take the responses as you like. > The government is using the “extremely expensive” Hinkley Point C nuclear power station to cross-subsidise Britain’s nuclear weapon arsenal, according to senior scientists. > In evidence submitted to the influential public accounts committee (PAC), which is currently investigating the nuclear plant deal, scientists from Sussex University state that the costs of the Trident programme [1] could be “unsupportable” without “an effective subsidy from electricity consumers to military nuclear infrastructure”. > [...] > This week, the Green MP Caroline Lucas asked the government about the Ministry of Defence and the business department discussing the “relevance of UK civil nuclear industry skills and supply chains to the maintaining of UK nuclear submarine and wider nuclear weapons capabilities”. > Harriett Baldwin, the defence procurement minister, answered that “it is fully understood that civil and defence sectors must work together to make sure resource is prioritised appropriately for the protection and prosperity of the United Kingdom”. > [...] > At the PAC hearing, the Labour MP Meg Hillier asked whether “Hinkley is a great opportunity to maintain our nuclear skills base”. > Lovegrove answered: “We are completing the build of the nuclear submarines which carry conventional weaponry. So somehow there is very definitely an opportunity here for the nation to grasp in terms of building up its nuclear skills. I don’t think that’s going to happen by accident. It is going to require concerted government action to make that happen.” https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/12/electricity-consumers-to-fund-nuclear-weapons-through-hinkley-point-c https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/12/electricity-... > Andrew Stirling believes that there was a crucial, largely unspoken, reason for the government’s rediscovered passion for nuclear: without a civil nuclear industry, a nation cannot sustain military nuclear capabilities. In other words, no new nuclear power plants would spell the end of Trident. “The only countries in the world that are currently looking at large-scale civil power newbuild programmes are countries that have nuclear submarines, or have an expressed aim of acquiring them,” Stirling told me. > Building nuclear submarines is a ferociously complicated business. It requires the kind of institutional memory and technical expertise that can easily disappear without practice. This, in theory, is where the civil nuclear industry comes in. If new nuclear power plants are being built, then the skills and capacity required by the military will be maintained. “It looks to be the case that the government is knowingly engineering an environment in which electricity consumers cross-subsidise this branch of military security,” Stirling told me. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/21/hinkley-point-c-dreadful-deal-behind-worlds-most-expensive-power-plant https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/21/hinkley-point-c... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trident_(UK_nuclear_programme) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trident_(UK_nuclear_programme)

indymike 4y ago
Oh, boy. This is 1950s propaganda against nuclear weapons and is 180 degrees from what hapend, and is just an attempt to create a chicken and egg circular argument. The military investment is what enabled widespread civilian nuclear power - for example, the US Navy trained thousands of engineers, operators, technicians and electricians who made it possible to build and staff civilian reactors. There are many industries like nuclear where the drive for military superiority led to the birth, acceleration, and sustenance of entire industries. We don't like to admit it sometimes, but if you look at Silicon Valley, you can see the military roots that gave rise to the semiconductor industry and internet industries in plain sight. Arguing that nuclear submarines are somehow subsidized in your electric bill is a far, far stretch - if anything those submarines are subsidizing the utility company, training their future employees and most importantly guaranteeing the viability of the government that issued the bonds to build the power plant, and guarantees the safety of it's operation. > Andrew Stirling Is an antinuclear activist, a former board member of Soviet funded Greenpeace and is not a credible name to raise in any argument about energy policy, save raising money for anti-nuclear groups.
- Gwypaas 4y ago
  You are missing the forest for the trees in your blind defense of everything nuclear. There is no problem with the fact that the civilian nuclear programs came from the military ones. The point is that we have come full circle. For a nation not the size of the US, you today need to have a civilian nuclear program to have the industrial base to enable the military ambitions. Look at Sweden, a country once capable of building nuclear reactors. Today you can not even study nuclear engineering at any of the universities at the graduate level. The demand does not exist, so the programs died out. That is why you need to civilian complement. Otherwise, it is simply too costly.
  - indymike 4y ago
    I think you'd be better served by a different argument served with a lot less bluster directed at me (forest for the trees, blind defense, etc...). What you are arguing is that an industrial sector that was created with military funds, has a market far bigger than it's original military application. Nuclear is no different than nearly every other industry that relied on military research money, then early purchases that fueled initial industry growth, followed by growth where the sector's market grew to dwarf it's military purchases. In all cases, the military does benefit from less expensive chips, or pre-built utility communications infrastructure, or even less expensive fuel for submarines -- it is a simple and natural economic effect of scale.

indymike 4y ago

Oh, boy. This is 1950s propaganda against nuclear weapons and is 180 degrees from what hapend, and is just an attempt to create a chicken and egg circular argument. The military investment is what enabled widespread civilian nuclear power - for example, the US Navy trained thousands of engineers, operators, technicians and electricians who made it possible to build and staff civilian reactors. There are many industries like nuclear where the drive for military superiority led to the birth, acceleration, and sustenance of entire industries. We don't like to admit it sometimes, but if you look at Silicon Valley, you can see the military roots that gave rise to the semiconductor industry and internet industries in plain sight. Arguing that nuclear submarines are somehow subsidized in your electric bill is a far, far stretch - if anything those submarines are subsidizing the utility company, training their future employees and most importantly guaranteeing the viability of the government that issued the bonds to build the power plant, and guarantees the safety of it's operation. > Andrew Stirling Is an antinuclear activist, a former board member of Soviet funded Greenpeace and is not a credible name to raise in any argument about energy policy, save raising money for anti-nuclear groups.

Gwypaas 4y ago
You are missing the forest for the trees in your blind defense of everything nuclear. There is no problem with the fact that the civilian nuclear programs came from the military ones. The point is that we have come full circle. For a nation not the size of the US, you today need to have a civilian nuclear program to have the industrial base to enable the military ambitions. Look at Sweden, a country once capable of building nuclear reactors. Today you can not even study nuclear engineering at any of the universities at the graduate level. The demand does not exist, so the programs died out. That is why you need to civilian complement. Otherwise, it is simply too costly.
- indymike 4y ago
  I think you'd be better served by a different argument served with a lot less bluster directed at me (forest for the trees, blind defense, etc...). What you are arguing is that an industrial sector that was created with military funds, has a market far bigger than it's original military application. Nuclear is no different than nearly every other industry that relied on military research money, then early purchases that fueled initial industry growth, followed by growth where the sector's market grew to dwarf it's military purchases. In all cases, the military does benefit from less expensive chips, or pre-built utility communications infrastructure, or even less expensive fuel for submarines -- it is a simple and natural economic effect of scale.