US Department of Energy solicits AMD’s help with nuke sims
AMD will join Intel in supporting Sandia National Lab’s efforts to develop novel memory tech for use in Department of Energy (DoE) nuclear weapons simulations.
The contract, awarded under the Advanced Memory Technology (AMT) program, is funded by the DoE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) as part of its post-Exascale Computing Initiative.
The NNSA is the branch of the DoE responsible for maintaining and extending the lifespan and effectiveness of the US strategic arsenal. Since the American bans on atmospheric testing in 1963 and underground testing in 1996, US military research and development has relied heavily on supercomputers to simulate the destructive potential of nuclear weapons.
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Wikipedia tells me the that Loviisa was commissioned in 1977.
I know nothing about O&M in nuclear plants - do they all last this long, or just the ones we hear about?
My heart is broke
But I have some glue
Help me inhale
And mend it with you
We’ll float around
And hang out on clouds
Then we’ll come down
Florida Power and Light’s Turkey Point Units 3 and 4 became the first reactors to apply to the NRC to operate for up to 80 years.
I’m not sure it’s comforting that a nuclear machine that qualifies for a historic plate is still operating.
I like to tease my Dad that his old workplace is now a historic site.
Last time through there, though, I had to admit to the kids that I’d been in that control room too…
If any nuclear state can coerce others by references to its nuclear stockpile, then foreign policy of any kind becomes impossible, non-nuclear states will always have to yield, and nuclear states will run the world.
Alex W sets out in his history book that this was something the USA was interested in the early days of the nuke - once the first one was developed was it difficult or hard to replicate in a 3rd country? If difficult then the first mover(s) could form an exclusive club.
This is likely one of the factors for the USA reneging on its promise to give the tech to the UK after we transferred all our progress to them. But the public reason was always the many, many communist sympathisers we sent them.
