Why does the navy have so much better nuclear track record?

[lumberjack_jeff]

The US Navy has at least 80 nuclear reactors under full-time use. They have accumulated 5400 "reactor-years" of accident free history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_navy

[Poll_Blind]

1. They can also hide their fuckups as well. Not saying they're lying but I'm saying it wouldn't...

...be unheard of.

PB

[itsrobert]

2. accident free?

What's your source?

[lumberjack_jeff]

8. .

http://www.navy.mil/navydata/testimony/safety/bowman031029.txt

[itsrobert]

11. sad

How some people are so gullible.

[pintobean]

19. What's your source?

[itsrobert]

21. Let's make this simple and accept the government is telling us

the truth.

[pintobean]

23. Have you served in the military?

[itsrobert]

24. Why do you ask?

A lot longer than most.

[tekisui]

3. Better than an on land reactor?

They have the benefit of being in the water at all times. Plus, they are consummate professionals.

[driver8]

4. I was a Navy nuclear plant operator...

I can't really tell you why we operate safer -- maybe because the Navy doesn't have to cut corners and answer to stockholders or turn a profit?

I can tell you that there are many back-ups and safeguards -- but the Japanese plants had them, as well. Also, we don't have to worry about earthquakes or tsunamis-- just torpedoes and missiles and bombs!

[pintobean]

15. Not to mention navy training

and the heavy price one would pay for not doing everything by the book.

[Statistical]

5. Nonprofit.

No reason to cut corners.
No reason to push reactors beyond their designed operating specs.
No reason to skip inspections or falsify reports.

I am pro nuclear but I believe they should be publicly owned non-profits run by governmental entity.

[FSogol]

6. +1. n/t

[nemo137]

9. +2

[Ikonoklast]

26. Um, about that "No reason to skip inspections or falsify reports" thingy.

It does happen, due to laziness and/or incompetence.

I have personal knowledge of just one happenstance.

On a nuclear boat.

[harun]

7. Because their mission is operational reactors not making money.

[Bluerthanblue]

10. because cost is NOT an issue- and much of the technology

would never be accepted in the public sector because it would prove not profitable. This is part of the reason.

One of my sons was talking about this with me earlier.

He said that if commercial plants were built the way the Navy has built their reactors, there would be no room for any kind of profit.
Solar and Wind energy would be much more viable in contrast, without the long term consequences and half-lives.

[jpak]

12. But we forget the Navy reactor at McMurdo Station Antarctica

look it up

[Marr]

13. Well... if they did have a catastrophe, I doubt they'd call it that.

[hobbit709]

14. Much smaller scale among other things

[pintobean]

17. A warship puts an awful lot of demand on its propulsion system.

[hobbit709]

20. It's still smaller.

Even a Nimitz class carrier has a smaller reactor than a land based power reactor.

[pintobean]

22. I didn't say it wasn't.

A formula 1 race car is smaller than a Vista Cruiser station-wagon.

[driver8]

25. They are smaller -- but did you know that a carrier has two reactors?

Except the Enterprise -- which has 8.

[kenny blankenship]

16. unregulated individual initiative, profit motive, decentralized authority, free market forces

in short, the US Navy Way, since the days of John Paul Jones.

[customerserviceguy]

18. Their reactors are on ships

that can probably withstand tsunamis and earthquakes. The problem here is that Japan is the most seismically-vulnerable nation on Earth, and bad luck just finally caught up to them.

I don't have a problem with nuke plants in geologically stable areas, but Japan has nothing like that. If we managed nuclear energy as a global resource, nuke plants would be put in the very safest locations, and run by the best scientists in the world, and protected from attack by a world military/police entity, but that's not happening in my lifetime. I sure couldn't envision the Japanese people asking China to run their nukes for them 40-50 years ago when these things were planned and built.