Sadly I think Jones is correct. The nuclear power industry got off track early in the 1960’s when GE,Combustion Engineering, B&W and Westinghouse got together and concluded that big was beautiful. They “cornered the market” for big reactor equipment with their big established fabrication capability. They convinced utilities around the US and the World that big plants were the way to go based on a fairytale called “Economy of Scale.” Washington Public Power System—its name before default—with its non-technical board of directing farmers was sold a bill of goods. Three different 1000 Mw plants at one site—easy to care for and cheap to build—only a carrying charge for about 8 years with no productivity. Three of the WPPS bonds went into default and only one of 4 power stations was completed.
The Naval Reactors program started to build a big light water breeder reactor (Th-232 to U-233 breeder) based on the final core operated in the Shippingport Nuclear Power Plant for the planned Diablo Canyon Plant, but backed out because of issues with size of the reactor and safety margins required for operations. Fracture mechanics design of the reactor vessel head was a major issue. It became clear that big reactors were not desirable. Safety and Costs were issues. The Industry however went ahead with the big plant, big cost and profit idea and is now in decline. As Jones pointed out—they should have and should now “think small and modular “. The government AEC, ERDA and DOE with NRC went along with the bad ideas—nuclear—industrial--government village was well established. Bob Cook From: Jones Beene Sent: Friday, September 04, 2015 9:26 AM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [Vo]:Re: Fred Zoepfl From: Orionworks - Steven Vincent Johnson Ø IMHO, nuclear physics will not be destroyed by the advent of LENR. I think it will adapt. Not only will it adapt, and it could thrive… Perhaps Big-Fizz is poised to claim priority and take ownership of the field. LENR could become the best thing that has happened to mainstream nuclear physics in 70 years. Former skeptics will be saying “told you so.” Let’s face it … the prestige of mainstream physics is almost dead following the numerous billion dollar boondoggles and growing taxpayer discontent, For instance, the Higgs boson (bogon), Princeton’s toroid, Superconducting Super Collider, ITER & successors, NOVA & successors, National Ignition Facility (NIF) and of course LHC and dozens more… a string of costly failures, salted with a few overblown advances, which is breathtaking in only the amount of funds wasted and huge pensions which will carry forward that waste for decades to come. Generally, nuclear physicists are/were the crème-de-la-crème of hard science. However, in truth, that past glory means very little in the Cyber world of today. All of science has become so specialized that any brilliant mind, untrained in the broader field but with the assistance of digital technology, can focus on a narrow niche and understand it better than the professor who has taught the broader field for 30 years. Credentials mean little wrt the cutting edge of physics . There has been a sea-change in the locus of major breakthroughs – away from the Ivy League or even the minor state school – back to the well-equipped garage. And anyone who has followed the vortex group over the years realizes that it is top heavy with programmers may have learned a little physics along the way, but who look at LENR mostly as a control problem. Holmlid’s work is emblematic of such a threat to the National Labs and others who are draining billions from DoE working on massive dead-end projects. He is at the convergence of LENR and ICF – but at a scale where results can be found in a garage and on a budget of less than a million instead of a billion per. Mainstream fizzix can do nothing on a tight budget and especially with milestones, and funders are beginning now to realize that the form factor of the National Ignition Facility can be reduced to a tabletop – so there could be a lot of overpaid physicists taking big cuts. Which can be a good thing – think Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard or Steve Jobs – think small and modular. Jones
