How long did you serve? When you say "never had a single problem", are you being literal?

I'm abstractly aware that nuclear technology is reliable, but your anecdote somehow makes it more relatable. You've piqued my curiosity :)

I was on the sub for three years. I am not aware that we had any incidents with the reactor. We had a pipe break and start to flood the sub, but that wasn't nuclear related. In the shipyard we had an incident where the neutron detector pegged high but it was determined to be caused by TIG welding.

https://www.twi-global.com/technical-knowledge/job-knowledge...

>We had a pipe break and start to flood the sub, but that wasn't nuclear related.

That sounds absolutely terrifying. How did you guys end up fixing it?

>In the shipyard we had an incident where the neutron detector pegged high but it was determined to be caused by TIG welding.

Neat! :)

People on submarines tend to know the systems they are responsible for very well since their life may depend on it. In this case they knew which valves to turn to stop the flow.

I really don’t understand this reliability question. There was Fukushima and Chernobyl in my lifetime. Fukushima got earthquake and tsunami at the same time. Shit happens. I have no opinion about Chernobyl since it was in a country with extremely poor working culture. But otherwise in my opinion nuclear power plant is just another piece of big machinery. Comparable to semiconductor fab. They have there enough of interesting gases to gas whole population of the next city. But it never happened yet.

I suspect the reason you don't understand is because you're unaware of the reliability issues and health risks associated with the alternatives.

you mean like the literal tons of radioactive waste sent into the atmosphere by burning hydrocarbons?

The crew running the reactor during the accident were poorly trained, poorly managed, and weren't comfortable pushing back against bad management. There is no doubt that Chernobyl had a poor work culture, a rot that came from the top but nevertheless permeated the whole facility.

The person most personally responsible went on to manage another, similar system.

Management failings are part of the risk profile of any hazardous technology, from nukes to feedlot pig farming. Leaving them out produces dishonest numbers.

What are you responding to? I am responding to a claim that acknowledging poor work culture at Chernobyl is bigotry.

It's not bigotry (an intolerance of others) nor is it even prejudice (judging before you have the relevant facts.) It's a widely acknowledged historic fact that Chernobyl had a terrible workplace culture.

If you want to criticize somebody for ignoring Chernobyl's workplace culture, then you should have responded to sitkack, who seems to think that people shouldn't talk about this aspect of the disaster.

> who seems to think that people shouldn't talk about this aspect of the disaster

You are putting words in my mouth.

The failings of the team running a poorly designed uncontrolled experiment are widely known. Attributing it to a "poor working culture" needs to address specifics and just sounds like Ukrainians are bad at their jobs because ???