So I finished Midnight in Chernobyl. Good book on the Soviet RBMK reactor disaster. So my recommendation the above subject book popped in my amazon recommendations.

It’s by William McKeown. It tells the story of the U.S. nuclear that not too many people know about. How inter-service rivalry between the Army, the Navy and even Air Force propelled the U.S. Nuclear industry, And the story of the SL-1 incident. That’s the fascinating one.  I’m just up to the point in the book where the incident takes place. A near melt down. When you think about it there have been two incidents with nuclear power in the U.S. SL-1 and Three Mile Island.

Of course it makes me wonder how many other incidents have happened in nuclear power plants in the U.S. that we’ve never been told. I’d venture that it’s happened several times.

And thankfully the U.S. Air Force never got their nuclear powered aircraft. Seems the bio-shielding would have made it too heavy. Can you just imagine the catastrophe if one of those aircraft ever crashed.

But funny enough the U.S. Navy has done alright with nuclear power. You can thank old Admiral Hyman Rickover for that one. But it’s funny I met an old Navy guy who told me they won’t let nuclear subs and carriers dock in Europe because of the radiation risk. Yeah I know. They’re the safest fission reactors we have.