Comment by alephnerd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by alephnerd | Hacker News Reader

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> I don't see why rich nations[1] don't simply subsidize mass nuclear energy production as state policy

> Honestly probably only really viable in China and the U.S. plus maybe South Korea

Because it costs a lot of money.

For example, India quietly (by HN and Reddit standards) passed a nuclear energy megabill in December which has a TAM of $214 Billion [0]. French (EDF), American (Westinghouse, Holtec, GE Vernova Hitachi), Russian (Rosatom), and Korean (Hyundai) JVs with Indian Public (NPTC, BHEL) and Private (Tata, L&T, Jindal Group) players are now able to build and distribute nuclear energy without dealing with an older SOE and can subsidize the buildout [1] using Green Bonds, which gives them access to around $56 Billion in capital [2] with an added .

These players will also be eligible for India's $2.5 Billion SMR subsidy [3]. This also helps India's $160 Billion data center buildout [4] which is being subsidized by the Indian government [5], and piggybacks on India's $205 Billion infrastructure buildout [6].

Other countries can do that as well, but if they are fine spending tens to hundreds of billions of dollars - that's where the blocker arises, but most of the players with this technology are now backlogged with orders from this buildout in India and other existing and in-progress buildouts.

> outside of petrostates, which have the whole petro thing going on

The UAE [7] is participating in financing India's nuclear buildout as part of their defense pact.

[0] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-08/india-see...

[1] - https://powermin.gov.in/sites/default/files/Seeking_comments...

[2] - https://www.climatebonds.net/news-events/press-room/press-re...

[3] - https://www.trade.gov/market-intelligence/india-energy-small...

[4] - https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2227953&re...

[5] - https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/01/india-offers-zero-taxes-th...

[6] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-06-12/india-...

[7] - https://www.business-standard.com/india-news/india-uae-annou...

The U.S. spends $500 billion a year on electricity[1]. $2 trillion dollars worth of bonds to lower the price per kWh is modest, especially given that it would enable new tax revenue from manufacturing and chemical production, where electricity is usually the highest input cost, even in China.

[1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=62945

> The U.S. spends $500 billion a year on electricity

But the American energy industry has negative net margins [0], which makes buildouts difficult without significant state support as the American energy industry is operating at a loss after operations cost are included.

> $2 trillion dollars worth of bonds to lower the price per kWh is modest

Land and Liability.

The upfront cost to build is significantly higher in the US because land is privately owned. On the other hand, India's federal and state governments are subsidizing land purchases for nuclear reactors as part of the SHANTI Act. The only other large economy doing something similar is China.

Furthermore, liability has remained a major issue in the US. India [1] and China [2] both gave nuclear operators a broad liability shield which externalizes the cost of a nuclear accident, especially for SMRs as they cap out in the $30-50 million range in India and China.

If the US can provide a similar liability shield beyond what is already on the books, buildout would be much faster, but this is politically untenable as can be seen with the data center buildout. Imagine the attack ads - "Trump"/"Newsom"/"Vance"/"Pritzker" are poisoning innocent Americans while in the pocket of Wall Street and BigTech. A growing number of Americans view any kind of infrastructure buildout as a subsidy for rich people, almost as if there was an ongoing social media campaign for years that has solidified this sentiment amongst Americans [3].

The big capital players at this point in this space are the US, China, Japan, South Korea, India, Russia, and France. All the other 6 (even Russia) have blocked Chinese access to initiatives and subsidizes for domestic nuclear buildouts, and Russia is also blocked from 4 of them.

That said, the US has quietly started similar initatives as well, like the $80 Billion SMR buildout [4] but HN will never give Trump a win.

[0] - https://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/New_Home_Page/datafile...

[1] - https://www.nortonrosefulbright.com/en/knowledge/publication...

[2] - https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/ubccommun...

[3] - https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/dra...

[4] - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/westinghouse-megadea...

>which makes buildouts difficult without significant state support

Which is why I said to subsidize it as state policy in the original comment.

>cost to build is significantly higher in the US because land is privately owned

Which is why I said there should be liberal use of eminent domain in the original comment.

> Which is why I said to subsidize it as state policy in the original comment

And as I pointed out, it's almost impossible because of the political implications

> there should be liberal use of eminent domain

Eminent domain is de facto impossible in the US in 2026 and would take decades of litigation for a project the size of an SMR.

---

Even the current megaproject the Trump admin initiated will come on the chopping block this election cycle.

Hell, look at ProPublica [0], UC Berkeley Law's [1], and former Democrat political appointees [2] opposition despite this being almost the exact same as similar initiatives we worked on during the Biden admin.

Once the Republicans are out of office, they'll go on the same attack like they did with the IRA.

We have a far-right [3] and a far-left [4] media ecosystem that are backed and subsidized by our enemies who mutually attempt to undermine such initiatives.

[0] - https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-nuclear-power-nrc-s...

[1] - https://legal-planet.org/2026/02/02/new-trump-nuclear-reacto...

[2] - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/trumps-big-nuclear-r...

[3] - https://www.isdglobal.org/media-mentions/the-role-of-tucker-...

[4] - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/05/world/europe/neville-roy-...

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