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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.
Jean Baccou, Jinzhao Zhang, Philippe Fillion, Guillaume Damblin, Alessandro Petruzzi, Rafael Mendizábal, Francesc Reventos, Tomasz Skorek, Mathieu Couplet, Bertrand Iooss, Deog-Yeon Oh, Takeshi Takeda, Nils Sandberg
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 194 | Number 8 | August-September 2020 | Pages 721-736
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2020.1759310
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Uncertainty analysis is a key element in nuclear power plant deterministic safety analysis using best-estimate thermal-hydraulic codes and best-estimate-plus-uncertainty methodologies. If forward uncertainty propagation methods have now become mature for industrial applications, the input uncertainty quantification (IUQ) on the physical models still requires further investigations. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development/Nuclear Energy Agency PREMIUM project attempted to benchmark the available IUQ methods, but observed a strong user effect due to the lack of best practices guidance. The SAPIUM project has been proposed toward the construction of a clear and shared systematic approach for IUQ. The main outcome of the project is a first “good-practices” document that can be exploited for safety study in order to reach consensus among experts on recommended practices as well as to identify remaining open issues for further developments. This paper describes the systematic approach that consists of five elements in a step-by-step approach to perform a meaningful model IUQ and validation as well as some good-practice guideline recommendations for each step.