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On moving fast and breaking things
Craig Piercycpiercy@ans.org
So much of what is happening in federal nuclear policy these days seems driven by a common approach popularized in the technology sector. Silicon Valley calls it “move fast and break things,” a phrase originally associated with Facebook’s early culture under Mark Zuckerberg. The idea emerged in the early 2000s as software companies discovered that rapid iteration, frequent experimentation, and a willingness to tolerate failure could dramatically accelerate innovation. This philosophy helped drive the growth of the social media, smartphones, cloud computing, and digital platforms that now underpin modern economic and social life.
Today, that mindset is also influencing federal nuclear policy. The Trump administration views accelerated nuclear deployment as part of a broader competition with China for technological and AI leadership. In that context, it seems willing to accept greater operational risk in pursuit of strategic advantage and long-term economic and security objectives.
Oleg I. Buzhinskij, Yuri M. Semenets
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 32 | Number 1 | August 1997 | Pages 1-13
Technical Paper | First-Wall Technology | doi.org/10.13182/FST97-A19875
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A review of some characteristic features of the boronization process, properties of boron-carbon films, and the influence of these features on tokamak discharges is presented. Boronization, as defined here, is a plasma chemical vapor deposition of a thin a-B/C:H film on the first wall of fusion reactors. As a result of boronization, oxygen, carbon, and heavy impurities (e.g., iron, nickel, and chromium) are suppressed, and hydrogen recycling is reduced, which substantially improves the characteristics of tokamak discharges. A two-stage complex protection of both the first wall by boronization and of limiters, divertor plates, and radio-frequency antennas by the application of thick B4C coatings provides further improvement of tokamak plasma parameters.