DOGE Just Ended Nuclear in America [video] | Hacker News Reader

DOGE Just Ended Nuclear in America [video]

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30 pointsnativeit12 comments

I'm not going to watch the youboob, but if the title is an accurate summary, I'd say at least DOGE is getting this one thing right... (20.000 monkeys with typewriters may be correct after all)

The cost, and never yet solved problem of all the spent fuel ever used still sitting in "temporary" storage onsite at the reactors, means that nuclear is a disaster that only benefits the corps that get the govt contracts to build the things.

The "gee wiz" and "buck rogers adventure club" members here on HN (who also advocate flying off to Mars for space ranger adventure) may be in favor of this "futuristic" power source, but anyone who's even marginally objective can see that in the current world, spending that money on grid storage will come online and pay off much faster, and not yield tons of radioactive waste (that no one knows what to do with, and nobody wants).

Since this new article just came through the HN feed a couple of days after this comment, I wanted to cross reference it here:

Five Things the “Nuclear Bros” Don’t Want You to Know About Small Modular Reactors

https://blog.ucs.org/edwin-lyman/five-things-the-nuclear-bro...

With the comments section here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43825285

Which is, of course, flagged by those same nuclear bros 8-/

The author of that article:

Ed Lyman

Director, Nuclear Power Safety, Union of Concerned Scientists

Edwin Lyman is an internationally recognized expert on nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism as well as nuclear power safety and security. He is a member of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, and has testified numerous times before Congress and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

https://www.ucs.org/about/people/edwin-lyman

So, of course, HN readers are much MUCH more authoritative and entitled to flag any opposition the author might voice to the idiocy of proliferating nuclear fission and it's byproducts.

So much for "freedom" and "liberty", of speech or any other expression of opposition, among the real lib-tards... lib-tard-tarians...

Not so surprising when viewed in the context of Cory Doctorow's "Capitalists Hate Capitalism" meme.

Did nuclear ever have a future in America?

Not with the insistence upon American-style Privatization, it doesn’t. It’s the kind of high-risk low-reward investment best suited to national projects, not private investment - hence the LPO. It’s also the sort of energy we sorely need more of (even before the current crop of LLMs), but aside from the odd “portable” reactor design, nobody wants to finance because of guaranteed cost overruns, a glut of middlemen to carve off every slice of meat from the bones, and an increasing attitude towards nationalizing energy grids.

America's nuclear legacy has Admiral Rickover all over it and my understanding is that he was very against privatized nuclear energy. Boeing's own operations and actions vindicate him in so many ways.

If you want Nuclear, you have to ask would you want Boeing or a Boeing like company to run nuclear plants in America? Would you want an administration as careless as this one running those nuclear plants?

That's the problem. We are a nation that doesn't have any sense of responsibility anymore and often times punishes it. Nuclear is something that severely punishes irresponsibility.

It's probably worth reading his final testimony to congress: https://www.worldfuturefund.org/Articles/rickover.html

I think that ultimately we will need nuclear power because we are exhausting our nonrenewable resources; that is, coal and oil. I think they will go far more rapidly than we think they will and the cost is already going up. I believe that nuclear power for commercial purposes shows itself to be more economic, but that's a fake line of reasoning because we do not take into account the potential damage the release of radiation may do to future generations.

I'll be philosophical. Until about two billion years ago, it was impossible to have any life on earth; that is, there was so much radiation on earth you couldn't have any life - fish or anything. Gradually, about two billion years ago, the amount of radiation on this planet and probably in the entire system reduced and made it possible for some form of life to begin, and it started in the seas, I understand from what I've read, and that amount of radiation has been gradually decreasing because all radiation has a half-life, which means ultimately there will be no radiation.

Now, when we go back to using nuclear power, we are creating something which nature tried to destroy to make life possible. Now that is the philosophical aspect, whether it's nuclear power or using radiation for medical purposes or whatever. Of course, those are not bad because they don't last long, but every time you produce radiation, you produce something that has life, in some cases for billions of years, and I think there the human race is going to wreck itself, and it's far more important that we get control of this horrible force and try to eliminate it.

I do not believe that nuclear power is worth it if it creates radiation. Then you might ask me why do I have nuclear-powered ships? That's a necessary evil. I would sink them all.

Based on this long quote, I don't see how it's worth reading the whole thing, the thinking on display is very unscientific, it reads more like a confirmation-bias poem.

Well, you couldn't be more factually wrong.

That man is one of the top engineers of the 20th century and gave America nuclear submarines in 4 years and he's talking to non experts.

Congress frequently asked him specifically about nuclear policy. They asked him explicitly about 3 mile Island:

Admiral Hyman G. Rickover was later asked to tell Congress why naval nuclear propulsion (as used in submarines) had suffered no reactor accidents, defined as the uncontrolled release of fission products to the environment resulting from damage to a reactor core. In his testimony, Rickover said:

Over the years, many people have asked me how I run the Naval Reactors Program, so that they might find some benefit for their own work. I am always chagrined at the tendency of people to expect that I have a simple, easy gimmick that makes my program function. Any successful program functions as an integrated whole of many factors. Trying to select one aspect as the key one will not work. Each element depends on all the others.

Rickover is about as far as you get from magical unscientific thinking and as close as you can get to an expert on nuclear safety. He was the epitome of an engineer and his nuclear safety record was as good as it gets.

Maybe his "doing a job" would convince you he's not a magical thinker, I can't imagine anyone who actually does engineering disagreeing with it: https://govleaders.org/rickover.htm

I was in no way passing judgement on the man, just the text here. Geniuses have bad days, and everyone makes mistakes. I think he had an agenda and tailored his speech to what he thought of his audience.

> We are a nation that doesn't have any sense of responsibility anymore and often times punishes it.

Oh my god you get it. I always cherish moments where my wavelength on something aligns with a complete stranger's, however brief; it's that fleeting moment of validation that "You're not alone in this thought", though my OCD quickly reminds me not to take that as an invite to nerd-dump.

As for Admiral Rickover, I had not heard this name until today. After a quick read through his Wikipedia page, I can gladly add him to a very short list: "People I'd love to have a drink with and talk at length, and I don't even like alcohol." I might have to add some biographies about the man to my reading list to get more context, because at first blush he seems exactly like the kind of man I aspire to be: ensuring accountability is taken properly by those below, because I must be accountable for them to those above me.

That needs a tl;dr. At least we got to see him tackle connections.

He rambles too much... I tried to TLDR with AI transcript:

Within the LPO which staff was cut and why would it have this effect ChatGPT said:

In the context of Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO), staff reductions have primarily impacted business services roles, including administrative and support positions. For instance, Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner (BCLP) laid off approximately 50 employees in the U.S. and U.K., mainly in business services, as part of a restructuring to manage costs and align with practice demand . Reuters

These cuts are often driven by a combination of factors:

    Cost Management: Firms aim to reduce overhead by outsourcing routine tasks to regions with lower labor costs, thereby achieving significant savings . 
    LPO&Law

    Technological Advancements: The adoption of AI and automation in legal processes allows firms to handle tasks like document review and data entry more efficiently, reducing the need for certain support roles . 
    Press Release Distribution

    Operational Efficiency: By outsourcing non-core activities, firms can focus internal resources on strategic initiatives and client engagement, enhancing overall competitiveness . 
    iBridge LLC+1iBridge LLC+1

While these measures can lead to improved efficiency and cost savings, they may also result in increased workloads for remaining staff and potential challenges in maintaining service quality if not managed carefully.

it’s difficult to believe that American private business isn’t willing to finance all kinds of crazy innovative businesses and we need the government to do it.

Do we really believe that venture capitalists or pro-nuclear wealthy Americans such as Bill Gates can’t find a way to finance their nuclear projects?

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