Nobody Builds Reactors For Fun Anymore 326
stox tips an article from Nobel Week Dialogue about the biggest problem of the nuclear power industry: it's not fun anymore. The author, Ashutosh Jogalekar, expands upon this quote from Freeman Dyson: "The fundamental problem of the nuclear industry is not reactor safety, not waste disposal, not the dangers of nuclear proliferation, real though all these problems are. The fundamental problem of the industry is that nobody any longer has any fun building reactors. Sometime between 1960 and 1970 the fun went out of the business. The adventurers, the experimenters, the inventors, were driven out, and the accountants and managers took control. The accountants and managers decided that it was not cost effective to let bright people play with weird reactors." Jogalekar adds, "For any technological development to be possible, the technology needs to drive itself with the fuel of Darwinian innovation. It needs to generate all possible ideas – including the weird ones – and then fish out the best while ruthlessly weeding out the worst. ... Nothing like this happened with nuclear power. It was a technology whose development was dictated by a few prominent government and military officials and large organizations and straitjacketed within narrow constraints. ... The result was that the field remained both scientifically narrow and expensive. Even today there are only a handful of companies building and operating most of the world's reactors. To reinvigorate the promise of nuclear power to provide cheap energy to the world and combat climate change, the field needs to be infused with the same entrepreneurial spirit that pervaded the TRIGA design team and the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs."
Slight change in title, if I may (Score:5, Insightful)
We are in decline (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Slight change in title, if I may (Score:5, Insightful)
How can they? Our STEM programs today like to drain all the creativity from their students. They're all aimed at creating lab drones who dream of being in charge. No one dreams of discovery anymore.
Yes, priorities are truly fucked nowadays. A Nobel to these folks is the ultimate line on a resume. Not a sign that they may have played some roll in the advancement of humankind.
You've just hit on something. (Score:3, Insightful)
You've just hit on the major problem with ALL corporations today. They are run by accountants, attorneys, HR, and pussy managers that bow to their control. When is the last time someone was hired without their involvement? 1930? This is why nothing can get done anymore. A bunch of peon wannabes in one of those departments think they run the show. It's high time CEOs, boards of directors, and other higher ups grow a pair, that includes you ladies, and tell these people, "NO, this is what we are going to do, NO we need to hire this person right now, not next month, now!" You can be diplomatic as you want but you need to put your foot. You work for me. If you don't like it, GTFO! These people need to understand they do not run the business. Until that happens you company is doomed to failure.
Not real research (Score:3, Insightful)
Since then, Wilson has [...] conducted research on medical isotopes for cancer treatment...
As impressive as his site is, that's not real research.
Real research [wordpress.com] is only done by professionals who have (or are pursuing) an advanced degree, with the backing of a university or government-funded research facility. There are no "gentleman" scientists [wikipedia.org] any more, and there are no contemporary examples of real science done by 'regular folks.
This issue was addressed in an article from a couple of days ago. Haven't you been listening?
America centric.. (Score:4, Insightful)
I expect the innovators will move on to more friendly climates. My dad taught me to never count the US out - you guys have the best of everything and the worst of everything. Nowhere else produces more nobel prize winners.. or more criminals.
I wonder if that time is coming to an end.
Nuclear energy is too important. Renewables are a joke. It's low quality, low density power from a thermodynamic standpoint. We're either going to burn every bit of carbon and then go nuclear, or go nuclear. Either way, we have to master this technology, and we (humans) will. The only question is what happens between now and then.
Myself, I'm going to encourage my kids to learn Chinese. Sigh.
Re:Slight change in title, if I may (Score:5, Insightful)
Completely agree. As a child, I learned a good deal about chemistry and explosives through DIY activities. Those childhood lessons (nobody got hurt) have gotten me some good jobs at major aerospace companies and at a space startup. A kid doing today what I did back when would be instantly jailed and put on the terr'ist list forever. Hell, I fear what would happen if DHS were to find my oxy/acetylene welding set in my home shop. Our increasingly Draconian restrictions are fencing off ever more sources of inspiration and creativity.
On whose planet? (Score:3, Insightful)
If the nuclear boys want to play with dangerous toys, they need to find a nice uninhabited planet to do it on. The innovation has been in wind, solar, geothermal, and even natural gas. Those guys are smart, they are having fun, and they do not destroy massive chunks of real estate.
Read the October 1986 issue of Scientific American to see what happens when guys having fun melt down a reactor.
Re: You've just hit on something. (Score:1, Insightful)
As a lawyer...even we are beholden to the zombie MBA plague. "If you can measure it you can manage it" isn't a way to deal with the law or run a court system, but damned if the MBAs won't attempt it anyway.
Re:Not real research (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm assuming you're being sarcastic, but the fact is that because as a species we've been systematically looking into the unknowns for a few hundred years now, there's not very much low-hanging fruit left. You do certainly hear stories about some teenager discovering something really cool, and that's great and should be encouraged and celebrated. But the fact of the matter is that most scientists (let alone the average public) won't do much more than add a tiny bit of knowledge to some very specific field. We're past the days where you could invent powered, controlled flight in a garage, in the same way the Wright brothers were past the days where you could invent calculus, and so on. Science is like a tree, and if you're lucky you might discover the next level in the tree - but the nodes are smaller.
And that's great! The reason it's so hard to discover new things is because we know so much now, and the stuff we know we don't know requires building huge rings under Europe, or launching satellites, or building telescopes that cover entire deserts or something. Basically, we're advancing as a species. But yeah, the size of discoveries nowadays do tend to be proportional to resources.
yes and no (Score:5, Insightful)
More innovation - yes. But please not the hacker spirit of Silicon Valley.
You see, if your website is full of holes, that's bad for your company. But if your nuclear reactor is full of holes, that's bad for everyone.
Re:America centric.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Renewables are a joke.
The joke is thinking that digging up a bunch of stuff and burning it when it's not necessary is a good idea. So what if you have to make hay while the sun shines?
Re:Not real research (Score:5, Insightful)
There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement.
-- Lord Kelvin, 1900
Re:Slight change in title, if I may (Score:5, Insightful)
It had nothing to do with the war on drugs. The shifts came from consumer protection laws. A pre WWI set is a very dangerous toy by today's standards.
Re:What would you expect? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What would you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless the moderator is damaged and bits of it fall into the tank, or worse still block the plug hole.
Re:Slight change in title, if I may (Score:4, Insightful)
"Don't try this at home" isn't fun. It's merely entertainment.
Mythbusters is to science as pro wrestling is to sport.
Ie pro wrestling is 'sports entertainment'.
Re:Wealthy give up their wealth? They don't have t (Score:4, Insightful)
Ford had competition: the Commies. For much of the 20th century, the potential success of communism --- that it could create a better life for the working masses than bare-knuckle capitalist exploitation --- provided a major policy influence on the capitalist elite. Along Ford's logic, the working masses needed to be kept happy with a rising standard of living to maintain support for a "benevolent oligarchy" against radical demands for social justice and equality. However, with the collapse of the USSR into another feudal oligarchy, it's easier to push the "there is no alternative" capitalist propaganda line while quality of life declines under later capitalism (less pressured to compete against alternate social forms). Now, you see the wholesale looting of the middle and working classes, as all the gains made over the past century are clawed back by the super-rich.
Re:Slight change in title, if I may (Score:4, Insightful)
The high school one from the 1950s, no doubt about that. It also has the much more interesting experiments. Problem is just that you can't get 9 out of 10 chemicals you need anymore due to "safety concerns" and trying to get the tenth puts you on a no-fly list and grants you a personal visit from guys that come at 6am.