The Fascinating Life of the "Father of the Nuclear Navy"

[@thomasgreene5750]

Anyone in reactor development should reflect on the fact that Rickover was authorized to develop submarine reactors in late 1948, and starting with paper concepts, developed and built two full-scale prototypes, built the ship reactors, built the submarines, put the PWR sub to sea in January 1955, a bit more than six years later, and the sub with the sodium reactor went to sea two years later, in 1957.

[@whatisnuclear]

The dedication and focus and power he had to make this happen is truly incredible.

[@scottmedwid1818]

Thank you for posting this Tuesday, November 5. Listening to this this morning will be a nice break from election coverage here in the States ... just finished listening to this episode, once again I learned a ton. Thank you for your great work!

[@jeffplumblee6376]

I would 100% buy a pull string Rickover toy that said his famous quotes. Get on that immediately

[@harlandfazardo799]

I was a Navel Nuclear Submariner in the 1970s. Rickover was still involved in the navy nuclear program at this time. One of the stories about Rickover was he would personally interview all the officers in HIS program. One of his favorite questions was he would tell them to do something to piss him off, and if successful they would immediately be thrown out of his office. Of course, there are many stories of what these officers did in response to this demand.

[@jeffersonkent5836]

One of my favorite podcasts. thank you very much.

[@ericdanielski4802]

Nice episode.

[@achalhp]

Please also do an episode on Alvin Weinberg.

[@northerncaptain855]

Back in the mid 70’s Admiral Rickover Insisted on personally interviewing and approving every Naval Officer to enter the Naval Nuclear Program. My former roommate upon commissioning was a candidate and upon his personal interview, Rickover somewhat rudely turned him down. My ex-roommate was crushed and left the Navy upon completion of his enlistment. Whether Rickover was correct or not who can say.

[@chrisjohns38]

I worked with many ex-nuclear navy officers who survived the Rickover vetting process. Every single one of them were exceptional nuclear professionals.

[@thomasgreene5750]

If you want a fuller understanding of Rickover and his methods, read Ted Rockwell's book "The Rickover Effect: How One Man Made a Difference". Rockwell met Rickover at Oak Ridge in 1946, worked directly for him until the mid-1960s, and kept in touch with him until his passing. Rockwell was a perceptive fellow, and he paints a vivid portrait of the man and those early, formative days of reactor development.

[@jaydenwilson9522]

Thanks for sharing! You seem knowledgeable about the stuff... so I am going to ask. What do you think of Thorium Reactors with Anti-Corrosive Casings?

[@thomasgreene5750]

@jaydenwilson9522 Thorium is not directly a fuel for a reactor. It can be transmuted into a fuel, Uranium-233, using excess neutrons from a reactor operating on one of three fissile isotopes: Uranium-233, Uranium-235, and Plutonium-239. The most technically feasible approach to exploiting Thorium would be to start with U-235, the only one of those three isotopes available in nature, and shift over to U-233 as it becomes available from transmuted Thorium-232. The primary reason the Thorium-232/U-233 cycle hasn't been used except in an experimental way is economic, not technical. A once-through U-235-based fuel cycle is much less expensive. For commercial production of electricity, the cost of the power produced is the driver. At present, it is difficult for any nuclear-based alternative to compete economically with the non-nuclear alternatives. Currently, the least expensive nuclear-based alternatives commercially have once-through U-235-based fuels. There is enough natural uranium available at near-current ore prices to operate about twice as many conventional reactors as the world currently does for at least two or three generations. Once that resource is mostly used up, and assuming additional natural uranium ores are not found, then breeding alternatives such as the Thorium-232/Uranium-233 cycle or the Uranium-238/Plutonium-239 cycle could be used if they are able to compete economically with the then-available non-nuclear alternatives. The available supplies of Thorium-232 and Uranium-238 to support breeding cycles is, for any practical purpose, inexhaustible.

[@jaydenwilson9522]

@@thomasgreene5750 Well it still uses Uranium but its mostly Thorium.... which is far less volatile than the other stuff. And China has had their trial running for 2 years now no?

[@thomasgreene5750]

@@jaydenwilson9522 Please see the updated version of my previous reply. I was working from my phone and inadvertently sent that reply before I had finished composing it. I waited until I had access to a computer with a decent keyboard to finish it. Regarding your most recent reply, I am not sure what you mean by “volatile”, but there is an ample, for all practical purposes inexhaustible, supply of both Thorium-232 and Uranium-238 if one wants to operate a breeding cycle. Both the Uranium-238/Plutonium-239 breeding cycle and the Thorium-232/Uranium-233 breeding cycle can produce a little more primary fuel (Pu-239 and U-233) than they consume by transmuting the Thorium-232 and Uranium-238 to their respective fissile isotopes. Reactor engineers think in terms of fuel doubling time, the time it takes to accumulate enough excess primary fuel (that is, the primary fuel in excess of that needed to sustain operation of the reactor) to start up another breeder reactor. For both options, practical doubling times are in the range of 15 to 30 years. China has a small, experimental molten-salt reactor with a rated thermal power output of about 2 MW. My understanding is that it was completed in 2021, that it took them until the summer of 2023 to get approval from their regulator to operate it, and that they began operating it a month or two ago. It is a little smaller than but similar in concept to the molten salt reactor experiment (MSRE) operated at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the 1960s. The Chinese molten-salt program seems to be roughly where the U.S. program was in the 1960s when it was discontinued. China is experimenting with a few different reactor concepts. In addition to the molten-salt reactor you mentioned, they have two pebble-bed high-temperature gas reactors in service now. They have two engineering-demonstration-scale sodium fast reactors (600 MW electrical output) in construction with the first one nearly ready for operation. They have a small, modular pressurized-water reactor (PWR) with a 125 MW electrical output under construction. They have two units of a scaled-up, 1400 MW version of the 1150 MW AP1000 PWR under construction with the first unit currently in power-ascension testing. However, the mainstay of the Chinese nuclear program is the large 1000 MW to 1200 MW PWRs that they build for commercial electricity production. The Chinese have, on average, put 3 to 4 large PWRs into service per year for the past 14 years, and their construction program is ramping up, with about 30 units currently under construction. Three new units are entering service this year, three next year, five in 2026, and six new reactors each year after that. Their construction program for commercial power production is concentrating on three designs. The most common design being built is the Hualong One, a 1050 MWe, updated, Generation III version of the three-loop PWR built in France and China for decades; there are 16 of these under construction and about 14 more in the pipeline waiting for construction starts. The second most common design being built is the AP1000, an American 1150 MWe PWR design that was recently built at Vogtle in the U.S.; China has four units in service now, eight units under construction, and about a dozen more are in the pipeline waiting for construction starts. Finally, there are four Russian VVER-1200s, a 1200 MWe PWR, under construction. As impressive as the Chinese nuclear program is, nuclear is a small part of China’s electricity production: about 5%. Most of their electricity comes from coal-fired plants. China put about 47000 MWe of coal-fired units into service in 2023, equivalent to about 43 of their large PWRs, and started construction on 70200 MWe of new coal-fired units, equivalent to about 64 of their large PWRs. China used about 4.6 billion metric tons of coal in 2023. To put that into perspective, the U.S. used about 390 million metric tons of coal that year, about 1/12 China’s coal consumption.

[@thomasgreene5750]

@@jaydenwilson9522 I have tried to respond to your latest message, but for some reason, my reply does not post. Please see the update to my earlier post; it was incomplete because I was working from my phone and inadvertently sent it before I finished it. I will try one last time to post my seperate reply to your latest questions.

[@hogey74]

Thanks gents. FWIW, I believe that the meanings of "professional" and "amateur" have swapped over time. Amateurs were seen as the experts because their knowledge and skill were accrued because of their love of the thing, L'Amour. Professionals were seen as less credible because they were just doing it for a job. While emotion can get in the way of rigor, I do think there is still something in that.

[@johnstubbe3113]

My dad was the engineer in charge of building the heat exchangers for the first nuclear subs took me to shipping port on the way to the worlds fair 1965 I think and we stopped at shipping port and we’re standing next to the reactor dome and my dad pulled out a pamphlet put out by Amrik over and he said unfortunately, takes too much power to refine the fuel to be economically Viable. Then I was reading a Google search on Admiral Rickover, and one of his statements was that if they had released the 3 mile island, the full report which they did not nuclear power would’ve been killed than in there

[@lahockeyboy]

My great grandfather worked for Bailey Controls which made a lot of the steam turbine controls and parts for the Nautilus.

[@whatisnuclear]

Super cool. Did he ever tell any stories about it?

[@lahockeyboy]

@whatisnuclear yeah. He couldn't stand him!

[@jaydenwilson9522]

2:50 Gentle!? That's a follow buddy! And not obnoxious at all! (What you said after.... very well-done actually!)

[@BillHerleth]

To me the most striking aspect of Rickover is that he was not selected to Lawrence Hafstad's replacement as director of the Reactor Development division of the AEC when Hafstad left in 1955. Despite having the technical qualifications, he had such poor relations with the National Labs and industry that he wasn't offered the job.

[@NomenNescio99]

It would be nice to have back Mark Nelson and his mustache on the show again as well.

[@microburn]

Always is

[@kowalityjesus]

Hold on I thought this was Mark Nelson hosting with a dye job

[@saltymonke3682]

USS Scorpion was caused by a hydrogen explosion in the battery compartment, likely caused by static electricity from a crew during charging. Since then, USN changed their procedures after that in the engine room, and there's no more accident related to the battery compartment on both submarine and surface vessels.

[@waywardgeologist2520]

So he was the Godfather of zirconium. Very cool.

[@lynndonharnell422]

I'm guessing he didn't have anything to do with the infamous torpedo debacle in ww2

[@chrisjohns38]

Nick, regarding your question as to whether or not Rickover needed to publicly humiliate staff, you’d know better than anyone given your day job history and the first major effort therein. Looking back now, where would your company be today had the CTO been a Rickover disciple?

[@jwestney2859]

WOW!

[@onpurpose2629]

Surprised you didn’t talk with Kenny Mickey his replacement.

[@yooper8778]

Is that a flux capacitor behind Nick?

[@whatisnuclear]

Yes. I made it from 3 decade counters and a 555 timer many years ago.

[@lahockeyboy]

Pebble bed, gas cooled? In the mid 1040's? So, does that mean they had Triso fuel?

[@whatisnuclear]

No, TRISO wasn't invented at that time, but they could still imagine making spherical fuel, e.g. with UO2

[@Rene-uz3eb]

Not being an expert, but it seems to me the stupid bombs have been hamstringing power plants because of the low fuel enrichment used. I can't imagine the cost of enrichment even matters compared to the power generating capacity of the fuel. Leu+ and smr seem to be euphemisms to acknowledge that.

[@אסףבר-ל7ר]

ITER should be in America

[@davidwilkie9551]

Big Bang Theory is the best and worst idea for Radiation, the 1-0-infinity Limit of embodiment functionally, the best because it is flash-fractal recognition of i-inflation/Einsteinian Curvature => Reflection Continuity Containment here-now-forever, the worst because all embodiment evidence is the same function cycles in cycling instantaneous function. Fusion-Fission Function. Safety is recognition of natural thermodynamical metastability and working with whatever you have understood until it fits ecological Totality. Rickover, lie everyone is capable of realizing, "knew" the form following functional condensation-coordination vanishing-into-no-thing half-truth of observable perspectives.