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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.
Daewon Kim, Yun-Sam Kim, Kyoungyong Noh, Misuk Jang, Seoungrae Kim
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 194 | Number 12 | December 2020 | Pages 1162-1174
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2020.1777023
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The safe management of radiation sources and wastes is one of the most important elements in operating nuclear power plants (NPPs). Safe management requires periodically measuring radiation during the operation and decommissioning of NPPs, but it is impossible for radiation management systems to cover all areas, and it may be necessary for a person to measure radiation directly where the risk is high or where it is difficult to measure radiation. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a robot that performs autonomous driving and wall climbing. Active sealing and vacuum suction technologies were used for this robot in order to move existing robots to difficult places. In addition, it is possible to perform nondestructive testing as well as radiation measurements in places such as dry cask storage systems.