Atoms for Profit

Professor Murphy was quite proud of his work, which involved reverse-engineering a captured Soviet nuclear reactor from one of their fast attack submarines. Perhaps 

"captured" is too dramatic a word. In truth, a billionaire named Suleiman Agha Khan had discreetly purchased the submarine which the new Russian government was too poor to maintain. The luck of the Irish must have been at work, as Murphy just so happened to have the right connections to be acquainted with Khan. The reactor required superheated steam circulation when it was not running at full power. The sub was designed to spend most of its time in port, and when the need arose, it could dash out quickly to intercept slower American ships and submarines. It was a truly impressive piece of engineering, but like so many things the Soviets built, it was undermined by their economic mismanagement.    

It was the Suvorov, an Alfa-class vessel built during the mid 1970s. The submarine's reactor was at once smaller, more powerful, and safer the usual water-cooled reactors. The key to the cooling system was the use of lead and bismuth as the cooling fluid. The heat of the reactor caused the metal lead and bismuth to melt and remain in liquid form. The heat from the liquid metal was then passed onto water, which when turned into steam, would pass through a turbine to create both mechanical energy to turn the sub's propeller and electricity for all the other devices onboard.  

The molten lead and bismuth acted as a radiation shield, which reduced the need for bulky and heavy materials like concrete and steel. In the event of a reactor leak, the molten metal would quickly solidify and seal the breach. Murphy's plan was to mass produce these reactors and connect them to the grid all across the US. Not only would this provide all the electricity the US would need for at least a century, but the price of electricity would drop so low that it would become essentially free, or "too cheap to meter", as the older advocates of nuclear power used to say. The tricky part to all this was getting through all the regulatory and funding hurdles. 

The technology and the economics of the project were all solid; what was lacking was political and public support. Murphy decided to attack the problem on multiple fronts. In 1959, the US launched the NS Savannah, a civilian ship with nuclear propulsion. It was meant to tout the benefits of nuclear energy as part of President Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace initiative. The ship toured US water serving as an ambassador for nuclear power until it was deactivated in 1971. The first phase of Murphy's plan involved reactivating the ship, but by replacing its reactor with a lead-bismuth one. This was more expensive than building a new ship from scratch, but Murphy counted on the intangible psychological benefits of the ship's reputation to make the effort worthwhile.   

On the entertainment front, Murphy convinced Khan to fund various movies and TV shows to normalize nuclear energy. Films like The China Syndrome and The Simpsons had done a good job of demonizing nuclear energy and something equally compelling was needed to heal its reputation. The TV show Murphy pitched was like an office sitcom, but with the funniest and most attractive characters being nuclear technicians and engineers. Murphy's other idea was a science fiction movie where a nuclear-powered ray gun was used to fight off an alien invasion. Khan greased the right palms, writer wrote and scripts were doctored. Chomsky talked about manufacturing consent, but what will works is manufacturing desire. There is no propaganda more compelling than a story told well. 

While that was going on, Murphy was working to sell his reactor to various countries, particularly island nations that were otherwise dependent on expensive imports of coal, natural gas, and fuel oil. Then of course, there was China and India to consider. Both those countries struggled with air pollution and high demand for electricity. They were also both dependent on imported oil. Khan had contacts in India, so he went first to lay the groundwork. Once India had bought a reactor, it was easy enough for Murphy to start selling them to China. The Chinese of course were eager to tout their achievement, which led to more demand elsewhere. Murphy was counting on the bandwagon effect to take hold. Once while watching the evening news, he saw a report which showed the estimated number of nuclear reactors in several countries. This what he had been counting on. No country wants to be in second place, whether it's Olympic gold medals or tall buildings.

Soon enough, there was a growing clamor for the US to catch up with other countries and close the "reactor gap", as it was described by pundits and politicians. Congress held a series of hearings on how to solve the crisis, and Murphy had been invited. He was ecstatic, the finish line for his long project was now in sight. All that was necessary was to show up, look nice, and not say anything stupid. Murphy, on the advice of Khan got a new suit and did some practice hearings with ex-campaign advisers and other politicos. The day of the hearing came, and it was smooth sailing until a certain notoriously contentious senator got a turn to ask questions. Senator Palomino was both the oldest senator and universally regarded as the dumbest. He was sure to say something pugnacious and incoherent.   

"Mr. Murphy, I grew up on a farm and my daddy taught me to never buy anything you can't fix yourself. This new-fangled reactor of yours would seem to violate that principle. Do you think you are smarter than our wonderful hard-working farmers?"

"Well, Senator, it's a good thing your daddy wasn't in charge of the Manhattan Project, or we'd all be speaking German right now."

There was a generous amount of laughter quickly followed by frustrated gavel banging. Murphy decided it was time to seal the deal with a rhetorical flourish.

"The source of our country's greatness has always been our ingenuity. If we can put a man on the moon, there is no reason we should settle to be second best when it comes to nuclear energy."

He didn't plan it as an applause line, but it became one. A few months later, Murphy and Khan were lounging on a Florida beach. Sure, they could have gone to a private island, but Murphy was beginning to enjoy his celebrity status. He had been invited to opening ceremonies of several new reactors since appearing before Congress.