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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.
Joseph A. Angelo, Jr., Roy G. Post
Nuclear Technology | Volume 24 | Number 3 | December 1974 | Pages 323-330
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste | doi.org/10.13182/NT74-A31494
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The heat generated by spent fuel elements and typical processing waste from both a 1000 MW(e) reference design pressurized water reactor (PWR) and 1160 MW(e) reference design high temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) were calculated for times up to 1000 years. To compensate for differences in exposure, the heat generated was expressed in terms of watts of heat generated per megawatt day of exposure. Examination of both tabular data and graphical presentations of these normalized heat generation data indicates noticeable differences in the contribution of different isotopes for each system. As anticipated, the heat generation for each fuel was greatly influenced by the transmuted isotopes 233Pa and 238Pu for the HTGR with 137Cs and 90Sr for the PWR. Data provide quantitative detailed information on the thermal power output of typical processing waste for both reactor systems for the first millennium of cooling.
