Nuclear Power and The Big Stick

I’m not Stewart Brand or Bill Gates but we have something in common; we are all for nuclear power. Big Gates is extremely rich and Brand is a big time environmentalist, but I’ve got personal experience.

Granted, I know nothing about this fourth generation reactor that’s supposed to be able to burn it’s own waste they’re talking about, but I do know about living right next to an operating nuclear reactor. I’m not talking about in the same town, or evan down the street. I’m talking about right next to. Feet. While I was in the navy, I was stationed aboard a nuclear submarine. The reactor was right down the hall, so to speak.

The first nuclear submarine was the Nautilus, built some time in the fifties. My boat, the Ulysses S Grant, Was commissioned in the sixties, we’ve been doing nuclear power for a while. I don’t know how many nuclear powered naval vessels there are or have been. It’s a lot. We know how to do nuclear reactors and run them safely.

I don’t think all future reactors have to be the same, but I do believe they should be standardized. Here are the models that are approved. Here’s the type of sights they can be built on. Here’s the qualifications a company has to build and operate them. Here are the hoops you have to jump thorough. It seems to me all that can be laid out up front. Agree and you get your permit.
This would eliminate the much of the cost over runs and delays in building. We know how to build and operate these things in a safe and efficient manner. I think it’s time to get off the stick and get to work, tell all the people were worried about blackmailing us over our dependence on oil they can borrow the stick if they can figure out something to do with it...