AN:
Credits to Vasilisa, perfect_shade and TheBattleSage for feedback and revisions.
Also credits to Lincolnator69, tomaO2 and timuzhti for their inputs on what nuclear power developments could look like in Tanya's world. It took a while for me to find all of the information and think about how they would fit in this world if utilized.
1953 January 20th, somewhere in Germania:
As Lergen and I entered the seemingly ordinary gray concrete building that revealed little on the outside, and held the secrets to Captain Rickover's projects inside, I was in a bit of a mixed mood. I wish I didn't have to keep advancing military technology, but that ship had long since sailed past with the death of the Chairman and Li goading Shu into becoming a war fanatic with the slaughter of Shu's family.
Although I had previously ordered the budget for nuclear weapons development to be cut off, the nuclear scientists carried on with their work for a 'next generation' nuclear bomb, relying entirely on their own calculations instead of in real-life experiments. And even though the budget was cut, they still had plenty of equipment and stockpiled material to conduct experiments in a limited fashion in the name of 'exploring the option of new nuclear power sources'.
Somehow the stubborn nuclear scientists got ahold of the Turoetker chess computer along with some additional computer components, and Allen and his technical staff are in the process of reprogramming the computer for nuclear calculations.
And how did they get the money required for this idiocy? They siphoned a bit of the Ministry of Energy's budget that was meant for advancing reactor designs. Their argument was that advancing nuclear science would unlock the potentials of both power generation and weapons development, and they 'needed to experiment with computers' to develop one that would help with their research by shouldering most of the calculations.
Why am I cursed to be surrounded by war manics on all sides? Even the Akinese and Chinese were all struck with bloodlust from their earlier skirmishes. I had seen the Akinese proposal to Germania to have us station our forces on an island by the name of Formosa. With how thinly stretched my military already was from being prepared for two entirely different crises halfway around the world, the last thing I needed was to poke the CSR with a token army that would likely be obliterated in its entirety within the first hours of a full war between them and the Akitsushima Dominion.
I had also recently learned that the military and the BND were also funding the development of satellite technology, which had been accelerated now that the new government in the CSR slammed shut their doors to the world. Alfred Zettour strongly argued how the army, navy and air force would benefit from satellite communications and photo reconnaissance, while René Zettour had been equally invested in satellite research. It seems the satellite critics had carefully avoided picking arguments against the two Zettours for some reason.
Simultaneously, the intercontinental ballistic missile project was yielding mixed results, the very thing that the satellites could end up riding on to fly to space. The first missile fired from Malagasy successfully flew over 2,000 kilometers and landed just outside of the target zone in the Arabian Sea. Unfortunately the second missile was delayed due to unusual instrument readings, repaired, delayed again due to fuel leaks, and after being repaired again, it was finally launched. Only to then pull a return to sender by suddenly and erratically veering back towards the launch pad area, prompting the panicked engineers to remotely detonate it before the flying rocket of death hit them.
There's no way I'm going to allow any explosive warhead or an exorbitantly expensive satellite on that unreliable missile as of right now.
When I entered the massive room, I could see what appeared to be the center sections of two submarine hulls sitting in separate concrete pits, with water tanks lined up along one edge of each of the pits.
Captain Rickover rounded a corner with Admiral Gerhard, stopping his conversation the moment he met eyes with me, starting with a perfect military salute. "Good morning President Degurechaff. If you would follow me, we are about to watch a rapid recovery startup process for the pressurized water reactor, and it can't be delayed or we would have to do a full normal recovery."
"What was the cause of the shutdown?" Lergen asked with a shocked expression as we followed Rickover.
"The reactor shutdown earlier had been due to a wiring fault in the safety interlock." Rickover huffed before looking down at his watch as we followed him into the reactor control room. "We have less than an hour to restart the reactor. If a submarine loses reactor power at sea, it has to be able to rapidly recover from it while running on battery power before it is forced to surface to run the diesel backup."
A junior officer in the control room stopped mid-brief on something when we walked in. "Ah, good mor-" the junior officer turned to face Gerhard, Lergen and me, before Rickover cut him off.
"Shut up!" Rickover knife handed the flinching junior officer while Gerhard looked on. "Did I give you permission to be distracted?! Focus on your job!"
"Navy personnel?" Lergen raised an eyebrow as we watched the sailors and the junior officer finish their briefing of what they would be doing before calling out their actions and going to work, along with other sailors, officers, and technical staff observing the event off to the side.
"I have to train our sailors and officers to competently maintain the reactors and handle incidents that scientists and engineers would have never considered to be possible. If they are going to take safety shortcuts due to unique or combat situations, they need to know exactly what they will be getting themselves into and weigh the risks with whatever gains they will get out of that." Rickover responded. "And for that to happen, I first need to find the optimal ways to train them. Once they are 100 meters underwater and somewhere in the Atlantic, they are on their own."
"What about the existing navy training staff? Why are you building a new one from scrat-" Lergen asked only for Gerhard to put his hand up and motioned Lergen and me to step out of the control room while Rickover shuffled towards one of the instrument panels to take a look.
"Captain Rickover has been a constant source of internal controversy in the navy, which included pushing aside the existing navy instructor staff. He directly contacted the Ministry of Energy for them to establish nuclear safety oversight for naval reactors, citing that he did not trust the navy to audit itself and wanted the ministry to have the authority to shut down nuclear powered vessels that failed safety inspections. I had reached out to an American admiral and they laughed, telling me that Rickover is our problem to deal with now."
Ah, I could see why Unified States Navy was more than happy to let him leave the country. He must have driven up all of the admirals and the politicians up the walls with his blatant disregard for chain of command. Reminds me of my early years when I took a very harsh stance against those that went against my orders. Despite his technical competence, there's a point where his attitude could become abusive and irritates people to the point of causing productivity losses, and I would have a serious problem if others in the military also disregard the chain of command like what he is doing.
"Please remind him that if he continues to bypass his superiors and he gets himself disciplined for it, I will be there to see his disciplinary hearing. Bypassing the chain of command goes both ways. If he wants attention from the very high ups for positive stuff, the same applies if he makes a mess."
"Yes President." Gerhard nodded.
Rickover was staring at the opened step-by-step instruction book and narrowed his eyes when we walked back into the control room.
"Why didn't you mark your pre-conditions in the book before beginning the process? Did you not mark your steps either?"
"I, uh…" The junior officer stuttered as Rickover flipped through the logbook.
"Oh good at least you kept the logbook up to date. Otherwise I would have told you to completely shut down the reactor and do a normal startup. The Devil is in the details, but so is salvation. Verify the pre-conditions again!"
As we watched the students run through the checks again, I turned to Rickover with a smile. "Some intense training. I like it."
Rickover stared at the instrument panels as the students resumed their work after the verifications. "They all have excellent resumes... So what I'm trying to find out is how they will behave under pressure."
"Ah, reminds me of back when I was putting the 203rd mage battalion through intense training. What was the fastest plant recovery that was done?" I asked while watching one of the sailors begin fiddling with the rod control system.
"Previous ones were scheduled drills, after I had personally verified the reactor was ready for drills to be run on it." Rickover growled. "This one is not a drill. With enough sweat from practice, the less blood there will be in war."
"Are you at least rotating them so they aren't burning out and start making mistakes due to exhaustion? Even the best drilled soldiers are still humans."
"If they can make sound, rapid decisions even after long practice runs, then I am confident that they will be able to handle deployment situations where they are racked out of their beds to respond to an emergency. But during normal operations, yes they will be rotated and there will be many checks and balances for plant configuration changes or maintenance."
When they finished bringing the reactor back to full power, Rickover looked down at his watch and then at one of the staff members. "43 minutes. I expect that time to be brought down without compromising safety. Resume the regular drill and reactor startup and shutdown schedules. I'll be away at a meeting."
He then turned around to face us as he prepared to exit the control room. "There's a meeting room where we can hold our long term project discussions. If you would follow me."
"And what's the second submarine hull about?" I asked him as we followed him.
"Your scientists had been debating fiercely over what reactor designs would replace the graphite moderated reactors." Rickover huffed as he climbed up the stairs to the second floor with us following him. "Pressurized water reactor and molten salt reactor are the two designs that the Ministry of Energy wanted to test. The high costs of safety systems and heavy containment structures for the graphite moderated reactors consumed a large portion of the construction and maintenance budgets, and without the need for further weapons grade plutonium production capacity expansion, the ministry wants an inherently safer reactor design."
"The ministry contributed a large amount of funding to the naval reactor developments, with the requirement of us upscaling a proven reactor design for a land-based power plant." Gerhard added.
"And the differences between the two reactors?" I asked as we entered the meeting room.
Rickover proceeded to start listing out differences on the chalkboard in the room.
"The molten salt reactor has some advantages, and a glaring disadvantage. I'll start with the advantages. It doesn't need to be pressurized, making leaks far less catastrophic compared to highly pressurized radioactive water. That simplifies the reactor vessel, pipework and safety systems. The much higher operating temperature allows the secondary loop's steam to also be at a higher temperature and thus improve thermodynamics efficiency, extracting more work with the same amount of nuclear power. The refueling is simpler with the fuel being mixed in with the molten salt coolant, which avoids the pressurized water reactor's requirement for the reactor vessel to be opened for refueling. The reactor control, especially during shutdowns, startups or large power changes, is much simpler with Xenon-135 being bubbled out of the liquid, in which that gas acts like a phantom control rod that complicates pressurized water reactor operations."
He then shifted over to the next section of the chalkboard. "Now for the disadvantage. Specialized alloys are required to resist corrosion and neutron embrittlement at extremely high temperatures. The reactor vessel, pipes, pumps, heat exchangers with the secondary loop, and anything else in contact with the fluids need to be made with such alloys. Combined with the high scrap rates of those alloy components that failed quality checks, building the molten salt reactor is expensive. I calculated that a submarine with a molten salt reactor will cost about two times more than a submarine with a pressurized water reactor."
Gerhard sighed as Rickover put down the chalk. "Also, I should mention that Krup was furious about the scrap rates for molten salt reactor, and so was Mannesmann when we rejected many of their components for the pressurized water reactor. Both of their lobbyists are likely already at work. I also expect the two companies to potentially lobby for their respective reactor focuses."
"How big was the scrap rate?" Lergen put his hand over his forehead in annoyance.
"Unlike the graphite moderated reactors where the design was massively over-engineered and thus somewhat tolerant of material defects, I don't have that luxury with submarines." Rickover shrugged his shoulders. "Every kilogram that I put into the reactor construction for safety could have been utilized for something else."
"And the competitors?" I raised an eyebrow.
"The rest walked off when they saw the specifications, or only provided a small fraction of components. For the molten salt reactor's special alloys, Krup was the only one that stuck through after their competitors gave up." Gerhard shook his head.
With so few companies willing to make the stuff, that reminds me of how in my previous life, Toyota's supply chain was crippled by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami when they discovered some of the critical material inputs would not be available for at least months because they had lacked sufficient supply chain resiliency. And I certainly wouldn't want constructions of submarines, aircraft carriers and land power plants to be held up by something similar.
"Will we have at least dual source suppliers? In case Krup or Mannesmann experiences major production disruptions, or they try to extort with excessively high prices?"
The blank stare from Gerhard was all I needed to know.
"Well, that's going to need to be fixed. I understand that they don't want to share their trade secrets in order to maximize profits. But I won't allow them to hold Germania's nuclear navy and power plants hostage to potentially a single company. We can offer financial incentives such as subsidies to encourage them to license technology to a second supplier. But if they refuse, I am willing to delay nuclear reactor constructions while we wait for their competitors to come back and try again. As for the two different reactors, I'm assuming the plan is to launch both submarines and see how they perform over time?"
"Indeed. The Ministry of Energy footed much of the bill. They will get their data. The navy's other next plan would be to upscale the proven submarine reactor for an aircraft carrier."
"Any concerns that you have with the projects other than the listing of the issues?"
"Three things that concern me." Rickover started writing on another chalkboard. "The first one is while the reactor designs are ready to be implemented in an actual submarine instead of a mockup hull, it'll be a race against time to have a fully trained crew by the time the first nuclear submarine launches. They will need to study theoretical nuclear physics, thermodynamics, chemistry, material science, electrical engineering and everything about the reactor and the engine room. Then learn the basic operational knowledge. And many details are different for the two different reactors."
"Why the engine room as well?"
"Unlike a graphite moderated reactor, increasing steam demand on the secondary loop will raise reactor power by lowering the reactor coolant temperature. Actions in the engine room, such as shifting engine or electrical generator loads, will impact the reactor. Speaking of which, I still need to plan how we would conduct a secondary loop steam line rupture drill, as that would quickly cause reactor power to skyrocket. For the pressurized water reactor, that would be disastrous because the reactor coolant loop will overheat and overpressure from the inevitable loss of cooling unless the heat is vented off in another way. The molten salt reactor has no risk of meltdown or bursting from overpressure, because the fuel is already melted to begin with, and is easier to deal with in a loss of cooling situation. But for both reactors, the secondary loop's released steam will kill the crew even if the reactors are put into a safe condition."
"And the other two concerns?" Lergen asked.
"How the reactor fuel behaviors will change over time, which will determine when the nuclear submarines need to have their fuel replaced to maintain acceptable performance levels. The graphite moderated reactors showed that different parts of the fuel channels deplete at different rates depending on their location within the reactors. The molten salt reactor's refueling schedule is difficult to calculate with the insufficient field data to correlate with theoretical calculations. And then there's also the concern of how the reactors will age over the span of a decade or two. Material fatigue accelerated by neutron embrittlement is a particular concern."
"I don't expect perfection with the first generation of nuclear submarines. Do whatever it takes to ensure that the crews can safely operate them." I clapped my hands while smiling. "As long as I don't have to worry about submarines randomly sinking and taking their entire crews with them, it will be fine."
1953 February 3rd, in Duisbuch:
Dertinge took notice of the New Granadian representative not touching his coffee for the past half hour after taking a single sip.
'Well, they are very fond of their coffee.' He thought to himself before continuing the conversation.
"Do you think the ceasefire between your country and Brasilia will hold?"
Carlos Arellano's face twisted in disgust. "The one brokered by the Americans? It's just a delay to a war. They are preparing for war. And so are we. I'm not here to discuss holding hands with the Brasilians or their little Peruvian partner. New Granada needs military equipment, materiel and production assistance for us to win the war."
"Would the Unified States object to the foreign arms purchases?"
"They will be preoccupied with Brasilia's upcoming nationalization of the Vaccaro Fruit Company's assets. I would be surprised if they chose to not back New Granada."
"I'm sorry, nationalization?" Dertinge stammered.
"Brasilia revealed incriminating evidence showing that Vaccaro Fruit Company was the one who hired the agents that killed President Juan Guzmán and his wife. Coincidentally, last week Vaccaro Fruit Company's goons opened fire on unarmed labor strikers, both in New Granada and Brasilia, and predictably accused the strikers of being communists." Arellano then rolled his eyes. We suspect Brasilia still had a role in the attempted coup against our country."
"The nationalization of a major US corporation's assets would spark retaliation from the Unified States. And regarding the shootings, what has your government done about it?"
"And I would expect the Unified States to turn a blind eye to us shopping for arms." Arellano paused for a moment and sighed. "As for the shootings, we took the unpopular decision to not do anything about it. There are protests in my country over my government's lack of response to the shooting, but my superiors believe appeasing the Unified States is necessary. Meanwhile the incumbent Brasilian government got a massive popularity boost in the middle of their elections. Balancing domestic and international politics is always a mess."
"I would assume the Unified States would want to sell arms to your country."
"We're just looking for options. Don't want to risk overpaying for things when we have war that we need to win." Arellano then took a drink of water, still ignoring the now cold coffee.
"What do you have in mind for purchasing?" Dertinge cleared his throat.
"What do you have available?" Arellano leaned forward.
Dertinge raised an eyebrow.
'What could they be wanting instead of just asking to buy rifles and other basic equipment?'
He then reached into his briefcase to retrieve lists of military equipment to hand to Arellano. The lists of obsolete equipment from the army, air force and navy that Degurechaff and Lergen had agreed on selling and even licensing the production of them. Degurechaff wanted to sell them to help fund the Germanian military's modernization.
Arellano quickly skimmed through the lists, then marked the sections before giving them back to Dertinge.
"Can I get demonstrations and prices on all of these? And the costs of having advisors help train our military on using them? We'll consider most of them depending on their performance and the total cost. We would also be interested in licensed productions."
"You want to buy our destroyers, helicopters and jet fighters?" Dertinge stared at the lists.
"Wars are not won by half-hearted measures. It is a pay to win ordeal. And this is why we are shopping with more than just the Unified States and other countries, to get the maximum value of our money."
Dertinge then cleared his throat. "We can also assist in licensed productions of selected systems."
"To make things simpler, we could purchase the entire production lines to import it back home instead of trying to build our own domestic production lines." Arellano waved his hand dismissively.
Dertinge stared in shock. He knew the two countries hated each other, but had not expected New Granada to mortgage decades of their future with heavy debts to crush their arch rival.
'If New Granada is this desperate to achieve decisive victory, what is Brasilia doing in the meantime? Especially if the Unified States blocks foreign arms sales to Brasilia? And where is New Granada going to acquire the money?'
"Will you be paying us directly or purchasing on credit?"
"It comes down to if it's cheaper for us to borrow the money from elsewhere and pay you directly, or buy the goods and services on credit from you. Once we determine what to buy, we will ask about the financing terms." Arellano relaxed his shoulders, then looked at the very cold coffee. "On a side note, what would it take for New Granadian citizens to open a coffee shop in Germania?"
A few hours later, in Cologne:
Dertinge frowned when he saw what was ahead of him. There was no way his automobile would be able to get through the Rosenmontag Carnival Parade to meet President Degurechaff at the Cologne City Hall.
'And pickpocketing will be a problem when I have sensitive documents'
"We're going for a walk." Dertinge instructed his two assistants as he opened his suitcase to put his valuables in it. "Keep an eye on your belongings."
He then retrieved a spare shoelace stored in the suitcase to tie its handle to his right hand, then stepped out of the vehicle. As he and his assistants pushed through the crowds, the common costumes among the crowd caught his attention. He could see quite a few people were dressed up as President Degurechaff, with a lesser but still noticeable number of people also dressed up as Serebryakov and Lergen. Then there were the banners and statues that depicted Degurechaff as Saint Mary, and flags of the old GWP symbols that featured an orb.
He paused for a moment to scan the crowd again. He could see a visible number of pairs of homosexual partners that were part of the parade or the attendees, with no signs of fear or hesitation from them. The presence of people being openly homosexuals disgusted him, but trying to reverse that would be impossible even if President Degurechaff and her lover suddenly died today. There would certainly be push back from the people who enjoy their freedom.
'I knew President Degurechaff was extremely popular, but to see this… There is no way a political opponent could ever challenge her. Even if they wanted to, trying to restrict homosexuality would invite a repeat of the end of President Paul's stay in Berun.'
Continuing to push along, he watched the parade floats of the three and Ardenaue pass by, and was mildly annoyed that he was not included.
'All of these carefree people, completely oblivious to the international rumblings. But who can blame them when they can just put their faith in a single person to take care of all of the problems for them?'
A splash of beer suddenly hit his face, and he felt his briefcase being tugged on. Wiping the beer away, he gave the death glare at a would-be pickpocket that tried to grab his suitcase as his two assistants withdrew their pistols.
"Understandable. Have a good day." The teenage pickpocketer stuttered with a pale face and then ran off. Two other teenagers that just happened to be around Dertinge's assistants also disappeared into the crowd. He picked up one of them saying, "We are so dead, that's the Mafia."
'Mafia? That sounds Ildoian. Do we have an international organized crime problem? With how little checks there are on the borders between the OZEV members, it would allow international criminal opportunities, and that means there also needs to be OZEV-wide law enforcement coordination. I'll worry about that after I finish meeting with Degurechaff. At least she's not running a criminal organization.'
As he approached the city hall, he could see the woman on a balcony giving some speech that he couldn't hear over the cheering crowds, but he pressed on anyway until he approached the local police and Bundespolizei. After showing his identification card, he made his way into the city hall.
Serebryakov was waiting in the lobby. "Just in time, everyone is heading to the meeting room when they saw you come walking in. Follow me. How was the festival?"
"We just walked straight towards here without stopping. I need to use the restroom first." Dertinge wiped the sweat and beer residue from his forehead with a napkin. "I'll need to speak with the Minister of Justice to look into international organized crime."
"Why's that?"
"A suspicious activity that we ran into. I'll discuss it later." Dertinge shrugged.
"Good afternoon, how was the talk with New Granada?" Tanya smiled as everyone took their seats while Dertinge's assistants passed out the copies of the lists of items that interested the New Granadian representative before Dertinge started his briefing. The noises from the festival outside were silenced by the privacy spells being spun up and the windows were dimmed.
"New Granada and Brasilia continue to build up their military forces, materiel stockpiles and arms industries. Both have reached out to multiple countries seeking naval vessels and aircraft to purchase, along with other military vehicles, equipment and ammunition. They also have been seeking industrial experts, presumably for their arms industries."
"Including us?" Degurechaff raised an eyebrow as she and others skimmed through the papers.
"Yes." Dertinge replied.
"They want most of our old military inventory!" Lergen exclaimed in amazement. "And what about Brasilia?"
"I suspect New Granada wanted a quick, decisive war, and they might be seeking to utilize overwhelming materiel advantage. As for Brasilia, their appetite for foreign arms was much smaller and was certainly on a lower budget."
"Selling our obsolete inventory and providing training would certainly help fulfill our military's modernization budget requests from the air force, navy and army." Lergen looked at some of his own notes and then had a concerned look. "But don't the Americans have their Monroe Doctrine?"
"New Granada is gambling that the Unified States will look the other way because Brasilia is about to nationalize a major American corporation's assets." Dertinge took a drink of water. "Also, New Granada wanted to buy entire production lines from us so they can domestically produce our equipment."
"Ah. That nationalization of assets could be a problem." Lergen chuckled while Elya furiously scribbled in her notes.
Lergen then looked at Degurechaff. "About purchasing our production lines…"
"If the Americans won't object, then I have no objections to the foreign arms deal." Degurechaff smiled before her face shifted. "But where will they get their money to pay us?"
"They wouldn't answer that." Dertinge looked off to the side. "They will ask us how much we will charge them if they pay us directly by borrowing from somewhere else or we offer them credit."
"I am concerned about their ability to repay us if their war does not go as planned. I suggest we try to get them to pay us directly in cash, precious metals or resources, and let someone else lend them the money." Adenaue tapped with his pen. "I suspect they intend on defeating Brasilia and use the spoils of war to pay off the massive war debt that they will be racking up. I would prefer we minimize our risk of a possible nonpayment."
"Even a stalemated war would be ruinous for them." Lergen added in.
"Speaking of foreign arm sales, I had a team look at some of the military equipment development abroad to see if we could help speed up our military modernization by licensing them." Dertinge's assistants passed out more papers to everyone.
"Domestic arms manufacturers would be upset…" Lergen trailed off as he looked through the papers.
"We can also make use of the foreign licensing for international political gains. Anyways, two anti-air systems caught my team's attention." Dertinge got up from his chair and wrote on a chalkboard while looking at his notes.
"The first one was a rotary cannon vehicle named T250 Vigilante that was rejected by the US military. Apparently they believed there was no future for gun based anti-air vehicles and missiles would replace them. The specification for the T250 Vigilante calls for a rate of fire at 3,000 rounds per minute, with a 37 millimeter caliber. I've been told that a 40 millimeter round usually instantly kills a natural A-tier mage with a single hit."
"I'd be curious how that performs against the quadruple 30 millimeter revolver cannon setups that are currently being used for the navy's and army's anti-air. Especially for missile interceptions." Lergen nodded. "Do they have a prototype?"
"I think so. Why?" Dertinge raised an eyebrow.
"I would like them to demonstrate its performance. I'll drop any mentions of it being a foreign design to the army and navy for them to fairly evaluate it. What's the other system?"
"A 120 millimeter anti-air autocannon from Bofoors-Gullspang. Legadonian military rejected it due to its low shell velocity and high cost, and they are having yet another series of budget cuts and downsizing."
"Legadonia Entente must have gotten complacent with the Russy Confederation…" Degurechaff frowned while Elya looked at her notes and then nodded in agreement. "And OZEV still has to maintain forces in Belarusia, Kieva and Crimea with the Rus military buildup along those borders, and us having to maintain forces in Iberia-Colchis while Caucasia continues to burn."
"You mean an artillery gun." Lergen had a deep skeptical look, as if he questioned Dertinge's intelligence.
"Per the specifications they gave us, 80 rounds per minute with a 52 round magazine. They have a prototype that the Legadonian military refused to buy."
Lergen sighed. "I'll have to let the army figure out what they want to do with that unorthodox thing, after the testing confirms the Legadonian engineers' insanity."
"President Degurechaff, any suggestions of what political gains we could accomplish by potentially licensing those designs?" Dertinge looked at the woman.
"For the American vehicle, tie it in with our request to the Unified States to sell arms to New Granada. I still want to inform them of us considering selling arms as the quantity of materiel, advisors and industrial assistance would be impossible to hide," the woman replied. "For the massive autocannon, I would like to hear a response from Legadonia Entente and Suomi if they are serious about the hydroelectric dam and electrical grid projects that we offered to help fund, or if they are going to continue dragging their feet. If the oil from the Middle East is cut, I'm going to pull that offer and instead focus on other energy conservation or generation projects because I know that building those dams will easily take a few years."
She then paused for a moment as if a thought struck her.
"What's the progress on the Diet elections so we can officially have a functional legislature and end my emergency decree?"
Everyone stared at her, she quickly had a confused look on her face.
Adenaue cleared his throat. "You wanted the Diet for?..."
"I mean the people should have a say in the foreign deals and budget changes that we are going to be making, right?" She shrugged her shoulders. "I can't be running on emergency Presidential powers forever."
"Well, the elections are still a few months out at least." Adenaue sighed. "The political parties in Germania are still reforming unless you want the GDU to dominate the elections from just being the least shattered political party after what President Paul did."
She clenched her fists as she got up from her chair. "If they are so lazy with putting themselves back together, I don't have confidence in their ability to run the Diet. They need to hurry the hell up. I'm not going to put up with a repeat of the incident where they dragged their feet on finding a replacement President when I was busy with the war against the Russy Federation! Look out there!"
One of the windows was temporarily undimmed and she angrily gestured at the window where the crowds of happy revelers could be seen. "The populace has had to put up with a lot of nonsense from its political class over the past year, they deserve better than that, need to have parties that represent their will. If they can't get their act together I may be forced to build my own political party from scratch again; I don't look forward to it, but if I have to I will."
After the meeting:
Dertinge felt someone grab his shoulder and pull him into a side room. It was Adenaue.
Adenaue glanced around as he shut the door, then softly spoke. "We're going to have to specifically recruit pro-Degurechaff people to stay ahead of her so that she doesn't establish her own political party."
"And what if she retires again?" Dertinge raised an eyebrow. "We both know what happened to the GWP when she left."
"If she's going to establish her own political party, she's not retiring anytime soon. We can't allow her to fully legalize her absolute control over Germania with a Diet filled with rubber stampers."
Dertinge quietly chuckled as he shook his head. "We are stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea. Letting Degurechaff have direct influence would just be the old GWP all over again except under the GDU's facade, and it would only be a matter of time before our influence is chipped away like what happened to the old guard GWP members when they were visited by a 'pretty blond woman' who is now in charge of the BND. Letting her build a new GWP would result in the GDU and other political parties to fade away."
"Is there any point in avoiding blindly obeying what she does?" Adenaue looked down at his shoes.
"Be a politician in the Francois Republic or Allied Kingdom, but that would mean trading one problem with a very different set of problems." Dertinge rolled his eyes.
AN:
The first molten salt reactor was built for powering an aircraft. My assumption is that if a MSR reactor design can fit in an aircraft and the aircraft can take off with the weight, it can also go into a submarine: wiki/Aircraft_Reactor_Experiment
Fuel was first added to the reactor on October 30, 1954. Initial criticality was reached at 3:45 P.M. on November 3
wiki/Alvin_M._Weinberg#Molten_salt_reactors
Under Weinberg, ORNL shifted its focus to a civilian version of the meltdown-proof Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) away from the military's "daft"[35] idea of nuclear-powered aircraft. The Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) set a record for continuous operation and was the first to use Thorium irradiated to produce uranium-233 as fuel. It also used plutonium-239 and the standard, naturally occurring uranium-235.
molten-salt-reactors-military-applications-behind-the-energy-promises/
Then, under the leadership of its director Alvin M. Weinberg, the Oak Ridge Laboratory pursued the concept for civilian applications with the construction of a 7.4-MWth MSR, which operated for five years before being permanently shutdown in 1969 (Figure 3). The reason testing was stopped was mainly political, as the MSR experiment in Oak Ridge wasn't providing enough workload to other laboratories, while at the same time research on fast-breeding reactors was ramping up, requiring the engagement of more and more resources.
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A molten salt reactor operated for more than 13,000 full-power hours between June 1965 and December 1969 at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. The reactor vessel, core, fuel pump, and heat exchanger were installed inside a system containment tank in a building on-site.
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Soviet Union Project 705 was a class of fast-attack submarine known to NATO forces as the Alfa. The design was powered by a lead-bismuth cooled fast reactor. The Alfa class sub is still considered the fastest military submarine ever built. Source: U.S. Department of Defense
wiki/Alfa-class_submarine
She had a top speed of 44.7 knots (51.4 mph; 82.8 km/h) and a test depth of 400 m (1,300 ft). This combined with other reports created some alarm in the U.S. Navy and prompted the rapid development of the ADCAP torpedo program and the Sea Lance missile programs projects (the latter was cancelled when more definitive information about the Soviet project was known). The creation of the high-speed Spearfish torpedo by the Royal Navy was also a response to the threat posed by the reported capabilities of submarines of the Project 705.
In comparison to the Gearing class destroyer (commissioned in 1945), which the later US destroyer designs in the Cold War era were slightly slower: wiki/Gearing-class_destroyer
Speed: 36.8 knots (42.3 mph; 68.2 km/h)
Reddit AMA of a molten fluoride salt (LFTR) engineer: r/askscience/comments/1luupt/askscience_ama_ask_a_molten_fluoride_salt_lftr/
Molten salt reactors offer twice the hot temp of current nuclear reactors. Hotter reactors means more efficient energy production. This is a fundamental physical fact. In fact, I listened to a presenter during a meeting with Eric Lowen two years ago that stated high temp nuclear would blow natural gas out of the water, forever.
The dream of Alvin Weinberg, was to produce energy so cheaply that it would be a non-commodity, and therefore improve the quality of life for all of earth. A MSR would push towards this.
Loss of coolant essentially doesn't occur, baring a leak. Salt never boils away-steel melts before this occurs. If you can find a way to get rid of heat before the steel melts, you should be set. Keeping the reactor in contact with the ground could do this.
It also should be mentioned that the rate of heat loss is proportional to temperature, at a certain temperature it should be very easy to move heat to say, the ground. This temp might be ungodly though, around 1000C.
In a true molten salt reactor, if it heats up too hot, it will melt salt in whats called a "freeze Valve" This valve is kept cool by direct contact with air. When salt clogging the valve melts, its able to drain all the salt in the reactor into a dump tank, which is passively cooled. This option is only for a molten salt reactor which has dissolved fuel, and would not be needed for a molten salt cooled reactor.
.gov/ne/articles/southern-company-and-terrapower-prep-testing-molten-salt-reactor
Because the reactor operates at a high temperature, the process is more efficient at producing electricity than light water reactors. The reactor would also produce less waste and could even consume waste from other reactors.
The MCFR has what the industry calls a "walk-away-safe" design that would shut down the reactor without any need for electric pumps to prevent fuel damage. If there is a loss of coolant flow, the fuel salt would expand through the reactor core to passively halt the process and naturally circulate to remove decay heat.
Other benefits include:
No fuel assemblies to fabricate, replace or store
Online refueling for continuous operation to increase fuel utilization and availability
Ability to use multiple fuels for operation including depleted and natural uranium, or even spent fuel
Enrichment only needed at startup
Ability to load follow and support other energy sources on the grid.
The main takeaway I got from this thread was "focus on one reactor design, standardize it for economies of scale production, and keep improving on it.": r/NuclearPower/comments/qiwpka/its_1950_how_do_you_develop_nuclear_power_over/
Pick a winner or two, stick with it. By the end of the 50's, that meant LWRs, and the HTGR as a dark horse. All of the molten salt, organically moderated, etc, was a cute side distraction.
Give up on liquid alkali cooling. Only the Russians made it work commercially, and only after a lot of effort. The AEC/DOE's love of sodium is only matched by the DOT's love of jamming helicopter engines into passenger trains. And about as successful.
Standardize designs. A big part of the construction issues in the US was the AEC was making things up as they went along. Do a standard design, build it, loop the experience into the next generation. Hell, GE went from BWR/2 to BWR/5 before Oyster Creek even went into operation!
Thorium's cute, makes your camp lantern bright, but once uranium could be found anywhere, it didn't make economic sense, except in HTGRs, which could get really nice burnup, even by today's numbers.
Stop letting perfection stand in the way of good enough. BWR superheat was a dumb idea (not to mention letting the plant be built by a tractor company), and even then, the safety case was dicey. Today, it'd be non-starter. Whatever. GE and Westinghouse figured out how to build large turbines for shitty steam.
Political:
Stop saying "It Can't Happen". The more you say that, the dumber you look when it inevitably DOES.
Stop acting like your technology is going to put an entire industry out of business. Gee that sounds fammiliar, doesn't it?
Whomever said that 'too cheap to meter' lines hould have been taken out back and eaten to death. It's been a ball and chain for decades.
The COL process for licensing we have now.
Have the insurance framework in place earlier. Everyone moans about Price-Anderson. The government insures banks, though (nobody complains).
Stop dumbing down your education. Even today, the brochures for the naerby nuke tell you the control rods control the power, as if that's the entire story. Joe sixpack's idle mind starts wondering what if they're yanked out too fast, pop out somehow, etc. Nobody expects everyone to have a PhD in Physics, but to say that's how it works "But it can't blow up like The Bomb (tm)", isn't reassuring today, and probably was less so back then. The school films and Disney "Out friend the atom" shit basically saying a power plant was a controlled bomb...
Hire a real PR firm. From day one, the industry has had horrid PR, and it gets worse every year. These days, it's seems the industry is either just trying to extort from everyone, or setting up for a massive wind down. Maybe that's the case?
Additional reading that I looked at:
wiki/Iodine_pit
When Xe-135 builds up in the fuel rods of a reactor, it significantly lowers their reactivity, by absorbing a significant amount of the neutrons that provide the nuclear reaction.
The presence of I-135 and Xe-135 in the reactor is one of the main reasons for its power fluctuations in reaction to change of control rod positions.
The first time Xe-135 poisoning of a nuclear reactor occurred was on September 28th, 1944 in Pile 100-B at the Hanford Site. Reactor B was a Plutonium production reactor built by DuPont as part of the Manhattan Project. The reactor was started on September 27th, 1944 but the power dropped unexpectedly shortly after, leading to a complete shutdown on the evening of September 28th. Next morning the reaction restarted by itself.
r/askscience/comments/mz8pr/what_are_the_downsides_to_a_molten_salt_thorium/
Inspirations for the reactor fast recovery startup scene:
comic/003
wiki/Decay_heat
Do-nuclear-reactors-on-submarines-have-a-SCRAM-button-function-If-so-what-happens-after-it-s-used-Can-the-reactor-be-restarted-at-sea
We do run scram drills all the time. An extremely proficient engineroom crew can get the reactor back up and answering bells on the main engines in under 10 minutes from the time the scram breakers are shut. It's a carefully choreographed dance and a sight to behold when it's all working.
r/submarines/comments/mnd6x3/can_a_nuclear_submarine_turn_its_reactor_back_on/
After the Thresher sank, the procedures were changed to allow a quicker than normal recovery from a scram. The procedures were also changed to allow the main steam valves to remain open so that the residual heat in the primary loop and steam generators could drive the turbines for a little while after the scram. I'm sure actual nukes can chime in to add/correct.
r/IAmA/comments/a0afb/i_served_as_a_nuclear_reactor_operator_on_a/
An emergency startup, like you said, is from cold conditions inport, typically this means with a few hours work we can get from cold to steaming with just the inport duty section, where as a normal startup takes a takes more people and more time. Both the scram recovery and the emergency startup leave a safe margin for error, and there are many automatic trips that will scram the core in case those margin's are exceeded in the slightest amount.
Offshore oil drilling history: wiki/Jackup_rig
An early design was the DeLong platform, designed by Leon B. DeLong. In 1949 he started his own company, DeLong Engineering & Construction Company. In 1950 he constructed the DeLong Rig No. 1 for Magnolia Petroleum, consisting of a barge with six legs. In 1953 DeLong entered into a joint-venture with McDermott, which built the DeLong-McDermott No.1 in 1954 for Humble Oil. This was the first mobile offshore drilling platform. This barge had ten legs which had spud cans to prevent them from digging into the seabed too deep. When DeLong-McDermott was taken over by the Southern Natural Gas Company, which formed The Offshore Company, the platform was called Offshore No. 51.[citation needed]
wiki/United_Fruit_Company#United_Fruit_(1899)
In 1952, the government of Guatemala began expropriating unused United Fruit Company land to landless peasants.[14] The company responded by intensively lobbying the U.S. government to intervene and mounting a misinformation campaign to portray the Guatemalan government as communist.[16]
wiki/Banana_Massacre
A strike began on November 12, 1928, when the workers ceased to work until the company would reach an agreement with them to grant them dignified working conditions.[2] After several weeks with no agreement, in which the United Fruit Company refused to negotiate with the workers, the conservative government of Miguel Abadía Méndez sent the Colombian Army in against the strikers, resulting in the massacre of 47 to 2,000 people.
U.S. officials in Colombia and United Fruit representatives portrayed the workers' strike as "communist" with a "subversive tendency" in telegrams to Frank B. Kellogg, the United States Secretary of State.[3] The Colombian government was also compelled to work for the interests of the company, considering they could cut off trade of Colombian bananas with significant markets such as the United States and Europe.[4]
Reference to the carnival in Cologne: wiki/Cologne_Carnival
Reference to the T250 Vigilante: wiki/T249_Vigilante
References to the 120mm autocannon:
2018/11/04/the-worlds-largest-autocannon/
post/735551/en/
The UK also had a prototype heavy autocannon anti-air system: wiki/Green_Mace