Unimportant Smack-Fu Master, in training
3y
96
Admiral Rickover's 1953 paper reactors memo:

http://www.ecolo.org/documents/documents_in_english/Rickover.pdf

Still a classic.

Excerpt:

An academic reactor or reactor plant almost always has the following basic characteristics:

It is simple.
It is small.
It is cheap.
It is light.
It can be built very quickly.
It is very flexible in purpose (“omnibus reactor”)
Very little development is required. It will use mostly “off-the-shelf” components.
The reactor is in the study phase. It is not being built now.
On the other hand, a practical reactor plant can be distinguished by the following characteristics:

It is being built now.
It is behind schedule.
It is requiring an immense amount of development an apparently trivial items. Corrosion, in particular, is a problem.
It is very expensive.
It takes a long time to build because of the engineering development problems.
It is large.
It is heavy.
It is complicated.
Click to expand...
That said, some PWR and BWR modular designs are very far along and should be started soon. //

panton41 Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
13y
8,509
Subscriptor
One thing I keep in mind is that there's a few companies in the United States that install 3-4 reactors a year and generally on-time and under budget - General Dynamics Electric Boat Company, Huntington Ingalls Industries and Newport News Shipbuilding.