White House “Accelerating” Nuclear Power With Executive Orders | Hacker News Reader

White House “Accelerating” Nuclear Power With Executive Orders

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28 pointsCGMthrowaway30 comments

Even if they bypass the NRC by having the DOD build/regulate the plants, I'm just not seeing how any nuclear gets built in the US when natural gas, solar, and wind are so damn cheap. Unless the feds pay for the whole thing, nuclear still won't be competitive.

And I'm skeptical that the plan will survive the political backlash. Rightly or wrongly, no one wants to live next to a reactor that *isn't* regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Just imagine the tv ads...

Spot on IMHO as far as my understanding of the economics goes, going back years. Only real argument is "but you need _something_ for base load" and wishcasting re: SMRs.[1] IMHO Microsoft and Facebook's odd PR rounds around it in service of their AI stories didn't help public policy at all

[1] I'm an odd duck and extremely bullish on fusion and bearish on SMRs, Commonwealth fusion keeps hitting milestones, whereas I haven't heard of any SMRs shipping in any quantity

Yes you do "need _something_ for base load", obviously. And noone appears to have any reliable solution to this apart from nuclear. So commonsense is playing a part here (not something you often see, particular in the HN comments section).

I'm kind of stunned how much extra effort you put into being condescending over and over during a contribution whose idea is "only nuclear is reliable for base load"

Kinda shocking we have a power system then, no? :)

No it's not shocking. For base-load 24/7 power the only option is nuclear (as part of the mix) if we want to go fully carbon-free. I'm not explaining anything complicated here.

I don't know what you're trying to say, at all, really, because you were very condescending and now, very short.

"For base-load 24/7 power the only option is nuclear" is false.

"For base-load 24/7 power the cleanest, by far, option w/r/t greenhouse gases is nuclear" is true.

"For base-load 24/7 power the only option is nuclear (as part of the mix)" is nigh-unparsable.

In any case, it's unreasonable to claim I thought the following was false:

For base-load 24/7 power the cleanest, by far, option w/r/t greenhouse gases is nuclear

Nothing in my comment could plausibly indicate it. In fact, my comment says: "Only real argument is "but you need _something_ for base load""

Also in any case, your tone in both cases has robbed us of a positive interaction, in favor of you getting to feel good, but really smug, for 30 seconds after your first comment.

ok I was assuming you would understand the obvious context in which nuclear power was being discussed. And I dont feel good or smug or anything like that. I'II leave it there.

My $0.02: Not a fan of wind anymore. The land area required and natural habitats intruded on or destroyed is just something I no longer want to see more of. It'd be nice to be outside and not have man made structures everywhere. Is it better than coal? yeah, I guess... if I had to choose between the two.

No issues with solar other than international geopolitical ones (where cells are made seems to cause some trade issues). Solar farms seem to be far more dense.

Here in rural America, turbines use very little land. Probably similar to an oil well. The field it is placed in loses little capacity for other farm uses. The farmer gets a nice subsidy and the county receives tax revenue. This scenario is the majority of the US.

I agree they do not fit into urban environments. And they also do not fit in tourist areas, where people wish to gaze upon unspoiled nature, such as many mountain ranges in the US.

The first time I saw the red beacons on the western Illinois wind turbine field I was at first confused and then absolutely awestruck. There are SO MANY.

That’s a strange sentiment. They are going up in mostly barren land that is basically windswept (well, that’s where the most wind is!). So maybe it can be mixed with agriculture, but this is not what I would consider prime natural trekking land. The only thing it affects are scenic drives like through the Columbia river gorge (lots of wind turbines and hydroelectric dams).

I think that's the problem. People look at it an fail to comprehend the immense biodiversity present that they're ruining.

[flagged]

Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer...

Eschew flamebait.

Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Please don't preach down to people on the internet as an attempt to control others who disagree with you. - Rule 0

Try not to anger the mods

<https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/2586/origins-...> ;-)

Now, Because Reasons, I must find a good dragon emogi...

I don't know what it is I'm meant to agree or disagree with about your comment, but I'm a moderator here and my primary job is to keep discussions within the guidelines so HN has a hope of continuing to be a place people want to visit to engage in intellectually curious conversations. I only saw your comment because other users flagged it.

> no one wants to live next to a reactor that isn't regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Even if given a choice (is that even guaranteed at this point?) some people would chose to fight it, sure. But then you have Starbase, TX that sold their soul to Musk by democratic vote. So there will always be some people who would gladly sell out for anything, including living near a local renegade nuclear reactor, for a chance to make more money.

No matter how promising or dumb it seems, like all other thing being done right now, it doesn't matter, as long as someone billionaire gets another few billion out of it. Even if it costs us trillions.

Like halting an extravagant tariff war after advising today is a good day to buy stocks?

Also given the current defense secretary being some guy Trump saw on Fox News with proven abilities to accidentally send bombing plans to journalists via message apps you've got to wonder how competently it'd be done.

Curious how they’re planning on doing this after letting DOGE gut the agencies that will need to follow through.

It’s like they think that science happens through happy thoughts and fairy dust and not by employing… you know… actual scientists.

NRC, are you know, just unnecessary, bureaucratic red-tape. The guy down the way with a truck in Times Beach said he'd remove it cheap.

By privatizing the ground level work.

Doing this with minimal regulation and move fast break things ethos was always the plan.

You can always accelerate the acceptance timeline by running emergency shutdown procedure on a reactor already in operation. I saw a movie about it -- apparently you can even get promoted to making it work.

So they’re trying to accelerate the acceleration of fission?

One could wonder if such plans will just split apart…

Look, this is a serious discussion, so it's better to moderate those accusations, so they don't woosh to fast above everybody's heads

https://archive.is/Odyi3

Ultimately, I hope the plans work.

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