Nuclear Reactor Quotes

Leave the atom alone.

I think there's something really poetic about using nuclear power to propel us to the stars, because the stars are giant fusion reactors. They're giant nuclear cauldrons in the sky.

Goodness, I know nothing about nuclear energy.

I would say that I was absolutely convinced of the possibility of our making an uranium engine, but I never thought that we would make a bomb; and at the bottom of my heart, I was really glad that it was to be an engine and not a bomb.

There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.

When fission was first discovered, within perhaps a week, there was on the blackboard of Robert Oppenheimer’s office a drawing—a very bad … drawing of a [atomic] bomb.

And at ten, or whatever time, in the morning we had the press conference, what we knew is there had been an incident at Three Mile Island, that it was shut down, that there was water that had escaped but it was contained.

My hope and my intention was that people would experience the tragedy of what Chernobyl was in every regard: a scientific tragedy, a political tragedy, an emotional and personal tragedy, all of that.

Look at Fukushima. Should we or should we not agree with the U.S. government that none of that radioactive energy is making its way here? Hello!

If you set aside Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, the safety record of nuclear is really very good.

American nuclear reactors are well into middle age. The median age of an operating reactor in the U.S. is 34 years, placing start-up in midst of the Carter administration.

'Nuclear' is nothing but trouble. Do you say 'new-clear' or do you say 'nuke-you-ler'? Whoever invented that word had obviously never studied the human mouth. We don't have enough muscles in our face to make that group of letters come out smoothly. The word is missing a middle syllable, for cryin' out loud.

In 1947 I defended my thesis on nuclear physics, and in 1948 I was included in a group of research scientists whose task was to develop nuclear weapons.

Unlike uranium, plutonium was created in an American lab in 1940, but scientists soon realized that it could produce even wilder chain reactions and even bigger explosions. In fact, fearing another country would create it, too, the American government went to great lengths to keep even the existence of plutonium a secret.

Prime Minister Menachem Begin ordered the destruction of an Iraqi nuclear reactor near Baghdad in 1981. This action delayed an Iraqi bomb by at least 15 years. The whole world condemned Israel - only to realize later how farsighted it had been.

While many technological measures can be taken to secure safety at nuclear power plants, such measures on their own cannot cover great risks.

I was 15 when Chernobyl happened, I've been vaguely thinking about it for most of my life. But somewhere around 2015, it occurred to me that I didn't know how it happened, which seemed like a pretty bizarre lapse in my understanding of the world and how it functions.

Nuclear power will help provide the electricity that our growing economy needs without increasing emissions. This is truly an environmentally responsible source of energy.

When I was in high school, I was in a special math class. I was infatuated with physics, particularly nuclear physics, Einstein, and the Big Bang. I read a lot about black holes. And partly because I'm so lazy I thought you could do all this just by looking at the sky and thinking up universes. It didn't seem like hard work when I was a kid, so I enrolled in this class.

This new power, which has proved itself to be such a terrifying weapon of destruction, is harnessed for the first time for the common good of our community.

In the Navy, I slept mere feet from a nuclear reactor, so I have no knee-jerk opposition to traditional reactors.

My job was to produce plutonium that was used for atomic bomb.

Before Chernobyl or without Chernobyl the nuclear power was the safe thing.

Everybody after Fukushima had to reassess the safety of nuclear. When I set out to design a reactor, I knew it had to be passive and intrinsically safe.

When I started walking and I looked down and I saw on the floor this water, which looked like, you know, water in your basement except it happened to be in the auxiliary building of a nuclear power plant.