How do we have nuclear powered submarines/ships/satellites but don’t have nuclear power for our homes/cities ect?

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More appropriately, I may be thinking of fusion, which leads to what is the difference between that and what we currently use?

In: Physics

8 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

We do! Don’t you ever watch the Simpsons?

A bunch of nuclear power plants were built in the 60s & 70s all across the US.

I think on the whole, the country soured on the idea, though. Although it is clean and carbon-neutral, any accident that may occur has too much potential to be disastrous.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Umm…most nuclear reactors operating in the world are generating electricity. So not sure why you believe we have no nuclear power homes/cities. Some places generate more of their electricity through nuclear – France about 70%; some have no nuclear power plants in their grid like Iceland.

Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s all about operator proficiency and reliability. The Navy has well trained and obedient operators. Whereas regular people need to be told “don’t take this medicine if you are allergic to this medicine.”

Anonymous 0 Comments

What are you talking about? We have TONS of nuclear power plants powering homes, cities. It’s not safe/effective to have personal nuclear power but it creates 14% of all electricity in the world, 20% in U.S.

Anonymous 0 Comments

We do have nuclear power for some cities – that’s what a nuclear power plant does.

Having a household reactor would be extremely difficult and dangerous.

It’s also difficult and dangerous in military ships/submarines, but it’s worth it for the advantages (unlimited range, etc.). A nuclear sub can afford the specialized crew.

And nuclear powered satellites are a totally different system – it’s more like a nuclear battery that provides a low level of consistent power for a very long time. Even those are only used when other options (like solar panels) won’t work.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Nuclear power plants for cities were actually the first things developed. It currently provides around 10% of all electricity in the world.

For many years nuclear was the go-to method of electricity. Hell France was almost completely powered by nuclear until quite recently. The favorability of nuclear power has lessened considerably over the last few decades and especially after several nuclear incidents such as Three Mile Island (US), Chernobyl (USSR), and Fukishima (Japan)

Anonymous 0 Comments

Nuclear power needs a lot of looking after to prevent something going wrong and the ships have engineers dedicated to that task 24 hours a day which wouldn’t be appropriate for a single house, however in many locations nuclear power stations do supply a proportion of the electricity to homes.

Anonymous 0 Comments

It takes a huge amount of capital to build and operates a nuclear plant. The average homeowner or small city does not have the right operational knowledge, capital, or ability to deal with waste. Most baseload nuclear plants are profitable because they operate at scale. The military rarely faces the same economic limitations.

That said, there are promising small scale nuclear plants being developed that might work out at the city or light industrial scale.

Another issue regulatory in that any broad use of small-scale nuclear power generation would have to come with security considerations. By its nature, the military can secure its own projects.
the average homeowner might not be able to.