Edmund Storms wrote:
My reservations are not about making and using small reactors but the design and promise made by the Hyperion Company. . . .
The problem is with a promise that the reactor requires no attention and can be scattered over the countryside as local heat sources. Too much can go wrong and the proposed design requires a lot more operational experience before it can be relied on to be safe.
Ah. It is a shame they are not using a more reliable design. It would be a pity if small fission reactors started off on the wrong foot and developed a bad reputation for reliability or safety.
New technology is usually judged more harshly than existing technology. We expect much higher levels of safety and reliability from airplanes and automated people-mover trains than we do from automobiles. When new technology fails at first it often develops an unwarranted bad reputation, and it never recovers. The Lockheed Electra turboprop airplane was a good example. Two of them crashed, in 1958 and 1960, because of "whirl-mode" induced flutter from the large propellers. This was a known problem but it had never been experienced or studied in depth with previous aircraft. The problem was soon discovered, and corrected by 1961, but the reputation of the airplane never did recover.
- Jed
