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On moving fast and breaking things
Craig Piercycpiercy@ans.org
So much of what is happening in federal nuclear policy these days seems driven by a common approach popularized in the technology sector. Silicon Valley calls it “move fast and break things,” a phrase originally associated with Facebook’s early culture under Mark Zuckerberg. The idea emerged in the early 2000s as software companies discovered that rapid iteration, frequent experimentation, and a willingness to tolerate failure could dramatically accelerate innovation. This philosophy helped drive the growth of the social media, smartphones, cloud computing, and digital platforms that now underpin modern economic and social life.
Today, that mindset is also influencing federal nuclear policy. The Trump administration views accelerated nuclear deployment as part of a broader competition with China for technological and AI leadership. In that context, it seems willing to accept greater operational risk in pursuit of strategic advantage and long-term economic and security objectives.
B. G. Hong, J. H. Seo
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 60 | Number 2 | August 2011 | Pages 533-537
Blanket Design and Experiments | Proceedings of the Nineteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (TOFE) (Part 2) | doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A12437
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
To determine the radial build of tokamak reactor systems, a one-dimensional radiation transport code is coupled with the system analysis. Neutronic effects such as the tritium breeding capability and the shielding characteristics are self-consistently calculated in the system analysis which allows a determination of the design parameters of a reactor which satisfy plasma physics and engineering constraints simultaneously. We apply this coupled analysis to determine the radial build of tokamak reactor systems and show that it is a powerful tool for the optimal design of a tokamak reactor.
