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Comment by johnchristopher | Hacker News Reader

> The US Navy has never had a major nuclear accident for a reason.

The Air Force, on the other hand: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_Palomares_B-52_crash

This is discussion about nuclear power generation, not of nuclear weapons, though. Quite different things. Nuclear, esp. thermonuclear weapons are indeed designed to inflict untold damage.

Sure, but since someone brought the military as an argument for an example of safe nuclear power generation and since AFAIK military forces never did civil nuclear power generation then I believe it's fair game to bring a counter-example to that ^^.

I was very specific for a reason. Army had a nuclear accident once where rods blew through a man. Fascinating reading. http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/ph241/berrios1/

Thanks for the link.

Jokes and gentle jabs apart I am all for exploring the option of SMR and set things up with the Navy's assistance or the government's military forces (also through knowledge transfer if needed and/or career paths, etc.). À la Star Trek.

The US Navy has lost/dropped some nuclear bombs too. But what he means is they've never had a serious reactor accident. They've lost two nuclear submarines, but neither was due to a problem with the reactor. Fumbling a nuclear bomb is obviously very concerning, but I don't think it reflects poorly on their ability to run reactors safely. They have several thousand reactor-years of safe operating experience, that doesn't happen by accident.

Exactly, Navy Nuclear training and management is exceedingly stringent. This shows in the track record.

And also the US Army.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1

I said US Navy as they are one of the largest nuclear power operations in the world.

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