> handling nuclear reactors and nuclear materials, and the US Navy is the only service that does that
That's not entirely true. I'd be willing to bet the Navy has the most experience in this regard, the Army still runs reactors and the Air Force handles nuclear material. Both investigating implementing reactors in future plans:
"Fast Burst Reactor (FBR) — The FBR is an unmoderated and unreflected cylindrical assembly of uranium and molybdenum alloy. The FBR produces high-yield pulses of microsecond width, as well as long-term, steady state radiation, to closely simulate the neutron radiation environment produced by a fission weapon"[1]
"The Defense Department is looking to develop miniature nuclear reactors to supply power to domestic military bases in an emergency, and later to power expeditionary forces"[2]
The other services are also heavily involved in National Laboratories that do a lot of the nuclear research for the federal government.
>the total harm done by all such incidents involving radioactive materials is orders of magnitude less than the total harm done by releases of materials connected with fossil fuels
Point noted and I don't know enough to disagree. But the issue wasn't which form of energy was the most safe, it was whether the military is inherently better at managing such systems because of their organizational structure. The military may foster accountability but I don't personally think this is attributable to a chain of command, but rather due to the emphasis on leadership principles and mature processes. There's plenty of civilian organizations that have a well-structured chain of command.
>I think the primary factor is simple unwillingness to tolerate any deviation from proper procedures. The existence of a military chain of command might not be essential for that, but it certainly makes it a lot easier.
Agree 100%. Out of curiosity was that officer actually fired (discharged/loss of commission) or reassigned? Reassignment is pretty common on the civilian side when people show themselves incapable of executing duties appropriately.
[1] https://www.wsmr.army.mil/testcenter/dir/Pages/Survivability...
[2] https://www.airforcemag.com/pentagon-working-on-mini-nuclear...
I wasn't aware that they were currently running any. You are right that I left out that the Army did used to have a small program, though--none of their reactors were more than about 10 MW, IIRC--but I thought it was shut down in the 1970s and they never had many reactor-years of operation.
> the Air Force handles nuclear material
Yes, fair point, the Air Force does handle nuclear weapons and associated materials.
> Both investigating implementing reactors in future plans
Yes, true. I've thought for a while that the obvious way for the US government to encourage nuclear power as well as generate some revenue independently of taxes would be to build a reactor for every US military base and sell the excess power generated back to the grid.
> the issue wasn't which form of energy was the most safe, it was whether the military is inherently better at managing such systems because of their organizational structure
If you left out "because of their organizational structure", I would agree with your description of the issue. I don't think organizational structure is the only relevant factor.
> Out of curiosity was that officer actually fired (discharged/loss of commission) or reassigned?
Reassigned, to a different command (not a ship), to duties not involving nuclear in any way. (I may have said "fired" in one of my posts describing this, but in military lingo that means "reassigned". Actually discharging someone requires a court martial, and the rules for when that can be done are much stricter.)
> Reassignment is pretty common on the civilian side when people show themselves incapable of executing duties appropriately.
But the definition of "incapable of executing duties appropriately" is very different in the civilian world. A minor administrative error wouldn't qualify. (By "minor administrative error" I mean an error of the order of "a single document was not filled out correctly", not an error of the order of "many things over an extended period of time were not done correctly". The latter might get you reassigned in the civilian world; the former won't.)
Yes, but it was about the military in the context of handling nuclear reactors and nuclear materials, and the US Navy is the only service that does that. (The Army did during WWII because it ran the Manhattan Project, but that was a one-time event and not representative of long-term practice.) So the Navy is the only relevant service.
> I'm assuming you're speaking from personal experience
Yes, as I've mentioned several times in various posts in this discussion (not all in response to you).
> Maybe your criteria is different for what constitutes a mishap
I was speaking specifically about reactor incidents, which is what Fukushima was. If you include releases of radioactive material that do not involve any issue with a reactor, yes, there have been incidents, some of which you note. A similar statement to the one I made about reactor incidents also holds for those: the total harm done by all such incidents involving radioactive materials is orders of magnitude less than the total harm done by releases of materials connected with fossil fuels (oil spills, coal ash, chemical spills, etc.; coal ash, btw, is more highly radioactive than many types of radioactive waste from nuclear reactors).
> I'm not convinced it's necessarily a byproduct of organizational structure of "chain of command"
I think the primary factor is simple unwillingness to tolerate any deviation from proper procedures. The existence of a military chain of command might not be essential for that, but it certainly makes it a lot easier. It would be very difficult for a civilian organization to justify summarily firing a high-level official over a single administrative error, as I saw done with a Navy officer (I mentioned this in another post elsewhere in this discussion).