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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.
Y. Iwai, T. Yamanishi, M. Nishi
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 39 | Number 2 | March 2001 | Pages 1078-1082
Tritium | doi.org/10.13182/FST01-A11963387
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A preliminary improved design study of the cryogenic distillation hydrogen isotope separation system (ISS) for the fuel cycle of the ITER-FEAT, a fusion experimental reactor, was carried out based on the substantial reduction of hydrogen flow to the ISS resulting from the scale reduction from the former design for the FDR-ITER. In this study, a four-column cascade was proposed considering the 450 seconds burn / 1350 seconds dwell operation scenario of ITER-FEAT instead of the present five-column cascade design of the FDR-ITER. This proposed cascade is found to be effective in all operation phases. The impact of the optional 3000 seconds burn / 9000 seconds dwell operation scenario on the present design is also discussed in this paper. Tritium concentration in the released hydrogen stream into environment must always be controlled to be lower than the regulation limit for stack release, and the two-column system for treatment of this flow is found to be effective for meeting this requirement.
