Skip to main content

Paper quotations, real quotations

By Kevin McCoy
Admiral Hyman Rickover is remembered for many things. Among them is his dim view of "paper reactors", that is, nuclear reactors that exist only on paper. Over at Wikiquote, there is a reasonably long quotation from The Admiral that details how paper reactors differ from real reactors. It is said to be taken from the Journal of Reactor Science and Engineering, June 1953. I have seen the same quotation elsewhere, with the same source cited.

It'’s always good form in the nuclear industry to cite sources, but they have to be the right ones. In this case, I'm not convinced that the source is correct. I have spent a couple of hours with the online catalogs of several research libraries, including the libraries of Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory, the John Crerar Library at the University of Chicago, and the Library of Congress. I always come up with the same result: there is no listing for the Journal of Reactor Science and Engineering, and the journals with similar names do not seem to go that far back in time.

I have one other reason to think that The Admiral'’s discussion of paper reactors and real reactors is from a different source, but it is a very tenuous reason. During a chance conversation, someone told me that he thought the quotation was from Rickover'’s testimony to a Congressional committee that wanted to know why his projects were overrun. The last part of the quotation would be appropriate for such an occasion: "Yet it is incumbent on those in high places to make wise decisions and it is reasonable and important that the public be correctly informed. It is consequently incumbent on all of us to state the facts as forthrightly as possible."

Do any of our readers have memories long enough to identify the real source of this quotation?

Technorati tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fluor Invests in NuScale

By
You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap...
1 comment
Read more

Wednesday Update

By
From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin...
Post a Comment
Read more

Nuclear Utility Moves Up in Credit Ratings, Bank is "Comfortable with Nuclear Strategy"

By
Some positive signs that nuclear utilities can continue to receive positive ratings even while they finance new nuclear plants for the first time in decades: Wells Fargo upgrades SCANA to Outperform from Market Perform Wells analyst says, "YTD, SCG shares have underperformed the Regulated Electrics (total return +2% vs. +9%). Shares trade at 11.3X our 10E EPS, a modest discount to the peer group median of 11.8X. We view the valuation as attractive given a comparatively constructive regulatory environment and potential for above-average long-term EPS growth prospects ... Comfortable with Nuclear Strategy. SCG plans to participate in the development of two regulated nuclear units at a cost of $6.3B, raising legitimate concerns regarding financing and construction. We have carefully considered the risks and are comfortable with SCG’s strategy based on a highly constructive political & regulatory environment, manageable financing needs stretched out over 10 years, strong partners...
Post a Comment
Read more