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Comment by ksidudwbw | Hacker News Reader

And that reactor has also tested and proven reliability. Quirks have been evened out

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.

How 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 :)

I 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.

I suspect the reason you don't understand is because you're unaware of the reliability issues and health risks associated with the alternatives.

you mean like the literal tons of radioactive waste sent into the atmosphere by burning hydrocarbons?

I 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...

>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! :)

People 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.

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