Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: A naval presence in the arctic
Message-ID: <5960@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 14-Sep-85 20:52:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: utzoo.5960
Posted: Sat Sep 14 20:52:38 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 14-Sep-85 20:52:38 EDT
References: <1386@utcsri.UUCP> <5952@utzoo.UUCP> <820@water.UUCP>, <793@lsuc.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 28

>      One thing that I've wondered about for a while now.  Are Nuclear
> subs safe?  Does anybody here know whether they have the problems that
> nuclear power plants have had?  Don't they suffer from radiation problems
> (being small and not having the design freedom for almost infinite
> concrete baffles)?
 
Done well, as with the US nuclear-sub program (and probably the British one
as well), they are safer than nuclear power plants.  Not because of any
technical consideration, but because crew training and quality control are
better.	 The US Navy operates the world's biggest nuclear fleet, with more
reactors than the entire US nuclear-power industry, and has *never* had a
serious accident or radiation leak.

The Soviet nuclear fleet is a slightly different story.  If you are ever
offered a tour of a Soviet nuclear sub, decline.  Or at least insist on
wearing a dosimeter, and get it checked afterward.

At risk of opening an inappropriate debate, I feel compelled to point out
that even commercial nuclear power plants are the safest way of generating
large amounts of power yet devised.  All power-generation methods kill,
by industrial accidents if nothing else, and the deaths/gigawatt-hour value
is consistently lower for nuclear plants than for anything else.  They also
release less radioactive material into the atmosphere than most coal-burning
power plants, and the waste from a nuclear plant is less dangerous than the
arsenic-laden muck that comes out of a coal-burning plant's stack scrubbers.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry