That's probably optimistic, but there's a lot more hope in that idea than in fighting a pitched battle about solar panels, China, and "clean coal" in the current political climate.
I'm not a fan of Gates, but if this is his gameplan, I'm all in.
If we can ditch coal and fossils for nuclear, we'll have a new set of problems, but nothing as dire as "12 years before we all cook to death".
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
Don't get me wrong - there are dangers in nuclear energetics. And the long-term effects of radiation incidents are still hotly debated. But as you just demonstrated, the dangers are way overestimated in public imagination and discourse. You use as an argument an imaginable incident that is at least five orders of magnitude worse than any accident that ever happened, and that is pretty much impossible given current technology, and are comparing it to very real dangers of the alternatives.
If anything, it may be easier to pass legislation favoring nuclear under Trump: Trump likes to deregulate, he doesn't care about anti-nuclear "activists", and he understands the role of cheap energy in the economy really well.
Imagine if, instead of making their case to the administration, the advocates of the FIRST STEP Act felt it was sufficient to criticize the administration, and then give up entirely.
I see no reason why, with the right pitch, the Trump administration would be especially resistant to an effort like this. It's not as though they oppose certain "green" policies because they're "too green"; they oppose them because they are costly for, and unpopular with, their base.
Real people are not your caricatures of them.
My point is that if you couch it in the same balanced terms, there's no reason why an equally progressive initiative in energy should be assumed to be futile.