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Comment by fakedang | Hacker News Reader

China's betting on renewables while Republicans are betting on nuclear fusion and gutting the NRC.

Hardly. China is also betting on nuclear fission and nuclear fusion:

1. Fission: TMSR-LF1 (a thorium breeder, molten salt research reactor)

Based on US work in 1960s and independent Chinese Sinap work in 1970s. They recently published that they had detected Protactiunium in the salt - a new milestone.

2. Fusion: EAST tokomak

https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/nuclear-energy/chin...

We would all be better off if the US and China just collaborated.

I know that China's actively researching Nuclear fission, fusion and even have the world's first thorium reactor pilot - in fact, they might even be having a lot more effort and investment being put into nuclear than the rest of the world combined. But they aren't putting all of their chips and actively betting with a Hallelujah on fusion to provide energy. They're ramping up renewables production side by side while still funding fusion research.

Republicans on the other hand are hoping somehow that a gutted NRC will pave the way for looser regulations that will help ramp up conventional nuclear fission and nuclear fusion timelines (all efforts invested into by the current president's family and his fellow cronies of course), while abjectly gutting down any progress in renewable energy in the present moment.

China knows better than to weaken their position in the global theater by having large dependence on other nations for energy. They are aiming for domination and they are well on their way.

China is fine with dependence on other nations, it just can't rely on sea-based imports when the US could easily block them by blockading the strait of Malacca. That's why China has invested so heavily into their Belt And Road initiative (which is notably a giant land-based shipping route).

Actually, it seems China has given up on the feasibility of BRI because they don't control all the variables in their partner countries. Which is why Xi has been super focused on creating an autarkic economy dependent on domestic demand and encouraging production for the native population, as a back up. Failures in helping industrialize countries such as Pakistan and those in Africa due to systemic and unavoidable issues have soured on the Chinese. That autarkic vision hinges strongly on a solid renewables energy production base.

Has Nuclear Fusion received massive funding improvements in the last ~12 months?

Well the Trumps, Thiel, etc are all invested heavily in a bunch of publicly traded nuclear fusion and nuclear fission companies, so those presidentially-backed firms are seeing outsized funding gains.

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