@kravietz @rysiek @aehnnek@universeodon.com
I completely agree that zero-power nuclear reactors were developed for urgent military reasons. Non-zero-power reactors seem to have been developed for non-urgent military reasons (originally they weren't even targeting submarines) in the US (Rickover and Naval Reactors); I am ignorant about the Soviet counterpart.
Do you think that there was a (perceived?) pressing military need for nuclear propulsion that sped things up, or that the post-war environment was friendly to even foibles entertained by the Navy, or something else?
> and when it works, both interest and funding should be much accelerated.
It seems to me that what should accelerate interest and funding is already _reliable prediction_ of it working. Do you expect that this could happen nontrivially earlier?
@kravietz @rysiek @aehnnek@universeodon.com
Nuclear weapons program needed reactors only for plutonium production. The culmination of that effort was Hanford B. Its construction was similar to Windscale: it was a cube with various rods stuck in it cooled with a large flow of water (as opposed to air in Windscale). This is not a design suited to power generation via steam production (if not for any other reason, due to inability to operate at higher internal pressures, due to its construction). Due to its low-pressure-water cooling, it operated at at most ~100degC (measured in outgoing cooling water; fuel elements and graphite core were naturally hotter), so it didn't allow exploration of higher temperatures. It also didn't have various feedback loops that power production plants would have due to e.g. the cooling being a loop (in Hanford B apparently the hot cooling water was discharged into the same river it was taken from).
The reactor research from Hanford B onwards didn't contribute to atomic weapons and IIUC it was clear at that time that no further research was necessary for production of more atomic weapons. And yet first reactors producing power appeared within a few years.