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Access anywhere, anytime: Nuclear power, Ice Camp, and Rickover’s enduring standard of excellence
Admiral William Houston
As U.S. Navy submarines surface through Arctic ice during Ice Camp 2026, they demonstrate more than operational proficiency in one of the harshest environments on Earth. They reaffirm a technological truth first proven in August 1958, when the USS Nautilus completed its submerged transit of the North Pole: nuclear power enables access anywhere, anytime.
The Arctic is unforgiving, with vast distances, extreme cold, shifting ice, and no logistical infrastructure. Conventional propulsion is constrained by fuel, air, and endurance. Nuclear propulsion removes those constraints. Only a nuclear-powered submarine can operate anywhere in the world’s oceans, including under the polar ice, undetected and at maximum capability for extended periods. Nuclear power provides sustained high speed and the endurance to reposition across the globe without refueling.
Albert Kreuser, Jörg Peschke
Nuclear Technology | Volume 136 | Number 3 | December 2001 | Pages 255-260
Technical Paper | Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT01-A3243
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The quantification of common-cause failures (CCFs) is often connected with uncertainties in how to interpret observed CCF events and with how far they are applicable to the specific group of components in question. A method has been developed that allows consideration of these kinds of uncertainties on the basis of a modification of the Binomial-Failure-Rate model. The quantification of interpretation uncertainties by means of interpretation alternatives is discussed as well as their effects on the estimation of the coupling parameter of the underlying CCF model. The estimation of the coupling parameter under consideration of the aforementioned uncertainties is performed by a Bayesian approach. To facilitate the specification of interpretation uncertainties, a default proposal of the interpretation vector is automatically generated on the basis of component fault states gained by expert judgment. Modification of the default vector is possible depending on engineering judgment of technical or operational differences between the observed and the target group of components.