Well, it's not really so much an "option" as a necessity.
Our engineers are not like they were in the 1950s, WWII soldiers who could pick up junk and make it work on the field. Or who could literally fly a plane by the seat of their pants. In an age where people talked about being "institutionalized" like it meant "crazy".
Nuclear engineers like my brother today have to live and work in institutions, and accept the realities of the social environment. They also know that to have a job, they have to make it something close to fail-safe.
In the late 1950s an Air Force officer with a physics degree did a report on nuclear bomb safety, with a sort of realistic candor that made Generals sit down and think. Yes. That was a period there. As in "PERIOD". There is in "Nuclear" a sort on Heisenberg uncertainty principle. A parallel to the location/velocity paradox with a non-zero probability minimum. If you need a "trigger" to make a bomb go off when you want it to, how do you make sure the trigger doesn't go off on accident. The same ideas apply in nuclear power plant designs.
The difference it makes today is just this. You have to engineer the fact that an accident will happen. You have to have a "Plan B", and a "Plan C" and so on to prevent meltdowns or releases of toxics. And what you will do with stuff generated.
Nuclear energy is THE SOLUTION to the fossil fuel gaffe. It is reliable, does not destroy desert habitat or kill birds.
The idea is catching on.
Our engineers are not like they were in the 1950s, WWII soldiers who could pick up junk and make it work on the field. Or who could literally fly a plane by the seat of their pants. In an age where people talked about being "institutionalized" like it meant "crazy".
Nuclear engineers like my brother today have to live and work in institutions, and accept the realities of the social environment. They also know that to have a job, they have to make it something close to fail-safe.
In the late 1950s an Air Force officer with a physics degree did a report on nuclear bomb safety, with a sort of realistic candor that made Generals sit down and think. Yes. That was a period there. As in "PERIOD". There is in "Nuclear" a sort on Heisenberg uncertainty principle. A parallel to the location/velocity paradox with a non-zero probability minimum. If you need a "trigger" to make a bomb go off when you want it to, how do you make sure the trigger doesn't go off on accident. The same ideas apply in nuclear power plant designs.
The difference it makes today is just this. You have to engineer the fact that an accident will happen. You have to have a "Plan B", and a "Plan C" and so on to prevent meltdowns or releases of toxics. And what you will do with stuff generated.
Nuclear energy is THE SOLUTION to the fossil fuel gaffe. It is reliable, does not destroy desert habitat or kill birds.
The idea is catching on.
