America's Navy - The Unsung Heroes Of Nuclear Energy Production: SMRs

Nuclear Power Industry

Dr. Conca reported in 2014 that the United States had over 200 nuclear reactors producing power. You might be aware of the hundred or so commercial nuclear power reactors that produce just under 20% of our electricity. But there are another hundred nuclear reactors that power 86 submarines and aircraft carriers, producing electricity, heat, fresh water and propulsion. America’s Nuclear Navy is one of the oldest and largest nuclear organizations in the world and has the best safety record of any industry.And no one ever discusses it.

But the Nuclear Navy has logged over 5,400 reactor years of accident-free operations and travelled over 130 million miles on nuclear energy, enough to circle the earth 3,200 times. The nuclear reactors can run for many, many years without refueling. They operate all over the world, sometimes in hostile environments, with no maintenance support except their own crew. These reactors can ramp up from zero to full power in minutes, as fast as any natural gas-fired plant.

Thousands upon thousands of people have continuously lived, worked, eaten and slept within a stone’s throw of a nuclear reactor for 60 years with no adverse effects at all. Annual radiation doses to Navy personnel have averaged only 0.005 rem/year (5 mrem/year; 0.05 mSv/year), a thousand times less than the Federal 5 rem/year allowed for radworkers.From the time the Father of the Nuclear Navy, Admiral Rickover, developed and built the first ship of the nuclear navy, the USS Nautilus in 1954, to the present, no civilian or military personnel on these ships, which number over 22,000 thousand people at any one time today, has ever exceeded any Federal rad limit. And none of those more than a hundred thousand people has ever been harmed by the radiation from reactors or facilities with which they were so intimately in contact.

Read more of the article....see original URL: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2014/10/28/americas-navy-the-unsung-heroes-of-nuclear-energy/#1c309a9e3eeb