Isaac Meyer

Prof Scott Kemp

22.16
09 Feb 2018
Reading Response: Cowan and Davis

In the two readings this week, the authors exposed some of the major historical pitfalls
that have befallen nuclear engineering. They each provide an interesting take on the development
of nuclear technologies and the eventual decline in nuclear power plant production. While
Cowan goes into some of more historical details and figures involved in the origins of nuclear
power, the Davis paper takes a more clinical approach in observing the market for nuclear power
and its future potential.
Cowan’s metaphor of choice is “the multi-armed bandit”. This is a problem in probability
theory that involves a situation where there are multiple options for investment with varying
unknown distributions for return. The important message which Cowan elucidates is that we did
not choose LWR technology because it is the cheapest or safest of possible nuclear technologies,
but our initial choice and investments in research have made it both of those things. This increase
in safety and decrease in costs results from “learning-by-doing” and “learning-about-payoffs”.
Cowan posits that these factors have a synergistic effect in which the increased knowledge in a
single technology will lead to more investment in that technology which will in turn lead to more
knowledge of that technology. While the evidence of these effects can not be denied, Cowan
over exaggerates the level to which they have plagued nuclear technologies. The learning curve
of reactor construction would exist with any reactor technology initially chosen. At one point of
the essay it seems that Cowan is personally blaming Admiral Rickover for apparently hasty
construction of the first LWR. He describes opinions of scientists who were unsure if this was
the best path forward, but these accounts seem cherry-picked and if there truly was such
hesitance surrounding the LWR, why were their voices not louder? Of course, this does not mean
that research should have been slowed on other nuclear technologies. I just take contention with
the idea that if we had picked the “right” technology that somehow nuclear energy would be
cheaper and more abundant today.
The Davis article also includes interesting points that in some ways contradict Cowan’s
narrative. According to Davis, learning-by-doing did not always dominate and lead to a cost
benefit. Even internationally, “the French nuclear program was the ideal setting for encouraging
learning-by-doing, so one might have expected costs to decrease over time” [Davis 54]. In reality
they did not. The same could have been expected of other nuclear technologies, as they matured
regulation would still have increased and the inherent nuclear nature of the device would not
have changed. Davis outlines the struggles facing nuclear economics of the future. Essentially,
without government intervention in the form of a carbon tax or a drastic change in natural gas
prices, nuclear does not present an economically feasible option for electricity generation. He
does admit though, that technological breakthroughs may change this trajectory.
The current outlook of nuclear power in the United States may seem bleak. Cowan
presents historical postulations for the technologic gridlock of the industry, while Davis makes
an analytic overview of the state of nuclear economics. It is clear from both works, however, that
there are many reactor technologies to be explored and that the power source can still play a
large role in nascent economies, if not domestically.