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."
Where's the kaboom? (Score:5, Funny)
There is supposed to be a big kaboom.
Iran isn't fun anymore either... (Score:2, Funny)
...it must be their nuclear program.
Re:Where's the kaboom? (Score:5, Funny)
That's earth shattering kaboom, you insensitive clod. Now where's my illudium Q-36 explosive space modulator.
Re:On whose planet? (Score:5, Funny)
they need to find a nice uninhabited planet to do it on
Don't worry, they're working on the 'uninhabited' part.
Re:On whose planet? (Score:5, Funny)
Good thing too. Eagles eat rabbits. Are you seriously going to defend a monster that rips apart cute little bunnies and feasts on their lifeless corpses?
Re:Slight change in title, if I may (Score:4, Funny)
"Don't try this at home" isn't fun. It's merely entertainment.
I thought it was an entreaty to go behind the neighbour's shed to try it.