e.g., "China Tariffs Blocked Bill Gates’ Plan for Safe Nuclear Power"
https://futurism.com/trump-china-tariffs-bill-gates-nuclear-...
also, SpaceX managed to make reusable rockets, I just have to imagine we could make nuclear energy feasible if we approached it from first principles and took a hard look at the entire process.
And as Texas showed us last week, without regulations, profit motive alone is not enough to maintain proper equipment. The nuclear plant that tripped off could have made months worth of profit in less than a day. Yet they did not do simple weatherization preparations that they knew they should have based on 2011's events.
I would modify Madison's quote: If everyone were angelic, proactive, and wise, no government or regulations would be necessary. Since none of these can ever be true, government and regulations will always be essential.
I'm in Austin and froze for 3 days because of piss-poor under-regulation due to lack of grid and backup power investment. ERCOT did they best they could while under-resourced and then thrown under the bus by the MSM and libertarian, anarcho-capitalist sympathizers like Abbott.
but obviously there's no such thing as perfect regulation. it's imperfect, just as with everything else. so you have to ask the question.
regulations are often good and necessary, but they also often outlive their purpose and we end up with stagnation and regulatory capture from large corporations, where startups can't compete. or in the case of nuclear, even a Bill Gates' backed company has a hard time being able to build.
I think that was the promise of Small Modular Reactors - you certify reactor by itself, making the plant certification much easier and faster. I'm not sure that materialised, though.
The other thing is old Soviet idea of using small nuclear reactors for heating - put small reactor to every town and run central heating to the housing estates, meaning you get to use close to 100 % of the heat output of the reactor, instead of the ~ 30 % the turbines give you in electricity.
Of course, if things go wrong, you have very efficient radioactivity delivery mechanism to every home. And outside of very cold climates it might be actually less efficient than a modern heat pump, even accounting for the heat conversion.
Also, solar thermal energy storage is an idea, as well as the potential of solar PV hot working fluid cogen.
Stanford's SESI is interesting, but it would be awesome if solar, wind, or fusion could take the places of fission and methane in cogen applications.
From time to time I ride my bicycle along the levees of the Elbe river from Hamburg to Brunsbüttel. There are two NPP's on the way(now shut down, or in the process of being so. One on the other side of the river, Stade already is.).
Anyways, one called 'Brokdorf' irritated me. Why? Because it looks exactly like that thing in Iran called 'Busher' which I've seen in the media!
Why is that? Because Siemens built it there in license from whomever. Only the painting of the heavy lift shaft on the side of the reactor is different.
While there may be many differences in the details of the implementation inside I feel this special snowflake thing is an unnecessary complication.
Because viewed from afar there are maybe two to three dozen common types cookie cutted all over the world.
Should be possible for the insides also.
Just saying.
The NRC knows their job, have excellent people, and are good at it. It's like questioning whether we need the NTSB or not.
Maybe before throwing shade on something you know nothing about, it's often best to not prove that you're speaking from your tail end. ; )
EDIT: You made a bunch of edits. No, you in particular and no one else have to state which regs are bad if you're making this presumption. "Innovation" and the stability of risk management are often at cross-purposes; don't upset what works and is standardized for consumerist novelty in a fucking nuclear reactor.
and maybe they are right about every regulation, that's a possibility! but clearly something has gone wrong when we could have had a clean grid powered via nuclear energy by now. so I think it would be wise to question everything in the chain.
Is that what we're seeing? Which institutions and experts do you think are failing us?
Could it actually be the case that institutions and experts are 99% accurate in their output, but the information ecosystem around us is highlighting the 1% of inaccuracies and presenting them as fatal flaws (while ignoring the fact that the alternatives to these institutions and experts have less than 50% accuracy)?
Certainly you could make the case that there are some people with an ideology and/or incentives to make sure that governments don't work for the benefit of the people they are supposed to serve, but if that's the threat model then all proposed plans need to be considered against that threat.
I agree, and I think all proposed plans should absolutely be considered against that threat. I certainly hope that's not a radical take on my part....
I'm sorry but that is not happening IMO. What is happening is non-experts decide what to do without listening to institutions and experts. We are seeing the result of what you seem to be advocating. We should listen more to the experts and institutions and look at other places that have less of these kinds of problems, like Scandinavia.
There are many countries around the world that implemented good ideas (Where To Invade Next?), like Finland baby boxes and no school homework, France with proper school lunches, Italy's work day and labor relations, and many countries with adequate healthcare and free college. It's better to borrow good ideas than believe everything is excellent when there are areas that need improvement.