Not with the insistence upon American-style Privatization, it doesn’t. It’s the kind of high-risk low-reward investment best suited to national projects, not private investment - hence the LPO. It’s also the sort of energy we sorely need more of (even before the current crop of LLMs), but aside from the odd “portable” reactor design, nobody wants to finance because of guaranteed cost overruns, a glut of middlemen to carve off every slice of meat from the bones, and an increasing attitude towards nationalizing energy grids.
hayst4ck•3h ago
America's nuclear legacy has Admiral Rickover all over it and my understanding is that he was very against privatized nuclear energy. Boeing's own operations and actions vindicate him in so many ways.
If you want Nuclear, you have to ask would you want Boeing or a Boeing like company to run nuclear plants in America? Would you want an administration as careless as this one running those nuclear plants?
That's the problem. We are a nation that doesn't have any sense of responsibility anymore and often times punishes it. Nuclear is something that severely punishes irresponsibility.
I think that ultimately we will need nuclear power because we are exhausting our nonrenewable resources; that is, coal and oil. I think they will go far more rapidly than we think they will and the cost is already going up. I believe that nuclear power for commercial purposes shows itself to be more economic, but that's a fake line of reasoning because we do not take into account the potential damage the release of radiation may do to future generations.
I'll be philosophical. Until about two billion years ago, it was impossible to have any life on earth; that is, there was so much radiation on earth you couldn't have any life - fish or anything. Gradually, about two billion years ago, the amount of radiation on this planet and probably in the entire system reduced and made it possible for some form of life to begin, and it started in the seas, I understand from what I've read, and that amount of radiation has been gradually decreasing because all radiation has a half-life, which means ultimately there will be no radiation.
Now, when we go back to using nuclear power, we are creating something which nature tried to destroy to make life possible. Now that is the philosophical aspect, whether it's nuclear power or using radiation for medical purposes or whatever. Of course, those are not bad because they don't last long, but every time you produce radiation, you produce something that has life, in some cases for billions of years, and I think there the human race is going to wreck itself, and it's far more important that we get control of this horrible force and try to eliminate it.
I do not believe that nuclear power is worth it if it creates radiation. Then you might ask me why do I have nuclear-powered ships? That's a necessary evil. I would sink them all.
polotics•3h ago
Based on this long quote, I don't see how it's worth reading the whole thing, the thinking on display is very unscientific, it reads more like a confirmation-bias poem.
hayst4ck•2h ago
Well, you couldn't be more factually wrong.
That man is one of the top engineers of the 20th century and gave America nuclear submarines in 4 years and he's talking to non experts.
Congress frequently asked him specifically about nuclear policy. They asked him explicitly about 3 mile Island:
Admiral Hyman G. Rickover was later asked to tell Congress why naval nuclear propulsion (as used in submarines) had suffered no reactor accidents, defined as the uncontrolled release of fission products to the environment resulting from damage to a reactor core. In his testimony, Rickover said:
Over the years, many people have asked me how I run the Naval Reactors Program, so that they might find some benefit for their own work. I am always chagrined at the tendency of people to expect that I have a simple, easy gimmick that makes my program function. Any successful program functions as an integrated whole of many factors. Trying to select one aspect as the key one will not work. Each element depends on all the others.
Rickover is about as far as you get from magical unscientific thinking and as close as you can get to an expert on nuclear safety. He was the epitome of an engineer and his nuclear safety record was as good as it gets.
Maybe his "doing a job" would convince you he's not a magical thinker, I can't imagine anyone who actually does engineering disagreeing with it: https://govleaders.org/rickover.htm
Alive-in-2025•4h ago
That needs a tl;dr. At least we got to see him tackle connections.
bobsmooth•4h ago
stego-tech•4h ago
hayst4ck•3h ago
If you want Nuclear, you have to ask would you want Boeing or a Boeing like company to run nuclear plants in America? Would you want an administration as careless as this one running those nuclear plants?
That's the problem. We are a nation that doesn't have any sense of responsibility anymore and often times punishes it. Nuclear is something that severely punishes irresponsibility.
It's probably worth reading his final testimony to congress: https://www.worldfuturefund.org/Articles/rickover.html
I think that ultimately we will need nuclear power because we are exhausting our nonrenewable resources; that is, coal and oil. I think they will go far more rapidly than we think they will and the cost is already going up. I believe that nuclear power for commercial purposes shows itself to be more economic, but that's a fake line of reasoning because we do not take into account the potential damage the release of radiation may do to future generations.
I'll be philosophical. Until about two billion years ago, it was impossible to have any life on earth; that is, there was so much radiation on earth you couldn't have any life - fish or anything. Gradually, about two billion years ago, the amount of radiation on this planet and probably in the entire system reduced and made it possible for some form of life to begin, and it started in the seas, I understand from what I've read, and that amount of radiation has been gradually decreasing because all radiation has a half-life, which means ultimately there will be no radiation.
Now, when we go back to using nuclear power, we are creating something which nature tried to destroy to make life possible. Now that is the philosophical aspect, whether it's nuclear power or using radiation for medical purposes or whatever. Of course, those are not bad because they don't last long, but every time you produce radiation, you produce something that has life, in some cases for billions of years, and I think there the human race is going to wreck itself, and it's far more important that we get control of this horrible force and try to eliminate it.
I do not believe that nuclear power is worth it if it creates radiation. Then you might ask me why do I have nuclear-powered ships? That's a necessary evil. I would sink them all.
polotics•3h ago
hayst4ck•2h ago
That man is one of the top engineers of the 20th century and gave America nuclear submarines in 4 years and he's talking to non experts.
Congress frequently asked him specifically about nuclear policy. They asked him explicitly about 3 mile Island:
Admiral Hyman G. Rickover was later asked to tell Congress why naval nuclear propulsion (as used in submarines) had suffered no reactor accidents, defined as the uncontrolled release of fission products to the environment resulting from damage to a reactor core. In his testimony, Rickover said:
Over the years, many people have asked me how I run the Naval Reactors Program, so that they might find some benefit for their own work. I am always chagrined at the tendency of people to expect that I have a simple, easy gimmick that makes my program function. Any successful program functions as an integrated whole of many factors. Trying to select one aspect as the key one will not work. Each element depends on all the others.
Rickover is about as far as you get from magical unscientific thinking and as close as you can get to an expert on nuclear safety. He was the epitome of an engineer and his nuclear safety record was as good as it gets.
Maybe his "doing a job" would convince you he's not a magical thinker, I can't imagine anyone who actually does engineering disagreeing with it: https://govleaders.org/rickover.htm