Thank you! You summed up the false dichotomy perfectly Scott - hippies vs great reset, with no hope for humanity, which is a BS framework! We can and should use technology for the good of all people, not to indulge the Malthusian agenda of the elites.
Wow, great article! This sheds so much more light and reaffirms/shores-up the idea of Bill Gates still being a schmuck. I had already come to the view that Bill Gates sucked before Covid hit, and then the handling of the Pandemic only made my view of him worse. But at the same time, I had come to view SMR's as a solution to our energy crisis. Then I saw that Gates was one of the biggest promoters of this, and didn't know what to make of that. Now you've clarified it so much what Gates' promotion of this stuff is really about. Wow! This needs to be said!
And...yes, I have also seen critics of SMR's and critics of Gates/Musk and others...but the criticisms were always from people screaming hysterics from the Left, usually woke women who hated any kind of power at all, even wind and solar, because they hate technology and growth in general (Greta Thunberg is protesting windmills as a incursion into indigenous land). NEVER is the argument that you are saying above made. Magazines such as Medium routinely decry Gates / Musk et al as "billionaires who want to go to Mars to escape the hell on earth they are creating" while at the same time painting post-apocalyptic scenarios of entire ecosystems collapsing, and population declining down to 10% and Humanity going back to the Dark Ages. Then those articles routinely end by saying: "though nuclear power may be a carbon-free energy source, they are still bad because they lull people into thinking they can still enjoy their same level of consumption." The message? Go back to hoe and plow, Peon, and get into your Hunger Games District!
So what you end up with is a false, limited hangout argument between billionaires who want Growth For Mee, Not For Thee, vs Degrowth hippies who think a future Dark Age will be some kind of Pot and Patchouli picnic, frolicking with flowers in their hair around the Maypole with wonderful "indigenous" people (noble savages) in a scenario that could only be dreamed up in Cameron's Hollywood CGI studios for Avatar.
I dunno man- I think this is just one of those things where it takes really deep pockets to get a lot of this new nuclear stuff off the ground (because the hippy jerks have poisoned the well for so long). But of course once it gets proven out, then it will naturally expand and get cheaper for everyone and all sorts of extra uses will spring up. Cut ol' Billy G a little slack. I just wish Gates would fund his damn test reactor with his own money rather than coming to the public trough every time. Its not like he is skint.
We need ALL sorts of nuclear plants- the big LWRs are great for baseload, the Molten Salt and Sodium Fast Reactors are going to be great for grid demand flexibility and fast ramping heat storage. High Temperature Gas reactors are going to be critical for high temperature industrial heat (see Dow/XEnergy collab).
Some of this could be new deal style funded like the TVA, but a lot of it will be private and I am cool with that too. I want a microreactor in my basement someday (or at least one shared by neighborhoods for residential heat and electricity to make things resilient).
There are so many possibilities with this because of nuclear's energy density advantages that we can't possibly know what the best path is. It is going to be some combination of radical centralization for cost and decentralization for flexibility at the same time. Libertarians and Marxists will both find things to like and dislike I am sure!
Thank you! You summed up the false dichotomy perfectly Scott - hippies vs great reset, with no hope for humanity, which is a BS framework! We can and should use technology for the good of all people, not to indulge the Malthusian agenda of the elites.
Wow, great article! This sheds so much more light and reaffirms/shores-up the idea of Bill Gates still being a schmuck. I had already come to the view that Bill Gates sucked before Covid hit, and then the handling of the Pandemic only made my view of him worse. But at the same time, I had come to view SMR's as a solution to our energy crisis. Then I saw that Gates was one of the biggest promoters of this, and didn't know what to make of that. Now you've clarified it so much what Gates' promotion of this stuff is really about. Wow! This needs to be said!
And...yes, I have also seen critics of SMR's and critics of Gates/Musk and others...but the criticisms were always from people screaming hysterics from the Left, usually woke women who hated any kind of power at all, even wind and solar, because they hate technology and growth in general (Greta Thunberg is protesting windmills as a incursion into indigenous land). NEVER is the argument that you are saying above made. Magazines such as Medium routinely decry Gates / Musk et al as "billionaires who want to go to Mars to escape the hell on earth they are creating" while at the same time painting post-apocalyptic scenarios of entire ecosystems collapsing, and population declining down to 10% and Humanity going back to the Dark Ages. Then those articles routinely end by saying: "though nuclear power may be a carbon-free energy source, they are still bad because they lull people into thinking they can still enjoy their same level of consumption." The message? Go back to hoe and plow, Peon, and get into your Hunger Games District!
So what you end up with is a false, limited hangout argument between billionaires who want Growth For Mee, Not For Thee, vs Degrowth hippies who think a future Dark Age will be some kind of Pot and Patchouli picnic, frolicking with flowers in their hair around the Maypole with wonderful "indigenous" people (noble savages) in a scenario that could only be dreamed up in Cameron's Hollywood CGI studios for Avatar.
I dunno man- I think this is just one of those things where it takes really deep pockets to get a lot of this new nuclear stuff off the ground (because the hippy jerks have poisoned the well for so long). But of course once it gets proven out, then it will naturally expand and get cheaper for everyone and all sorts of extra uses will spring up. Cut ol' Billy G a little slack. I just wish Gates would fund his damn test reactor with his own money rather than coming to the public trough every time. Its not like he is skint.
We need ALL sorts of nuclear plants- the big LWRs are great for baseload, the Molten Salt and Sodium Fast Reactors are going to be great for grid demand flexibility and fast ramping heat storage. High Temperature Gas reactors are going to be critical for high temperature industrial heat (see Dow/XEnergy collab).
Some of this could be new deal style funded like the TVA, but a lot of it will be private and I am cool with that too. I want a microreactor in my basement someday (or at least one shared by neighborhoods for residential heat and electricity to make things resilient).
There are so many possibilities with this because of nuclear's energy density advantages that we can't possibly know what the best path is. It is going to be some combination of radical centralization for cost and decentralization for flexibility at the same time. Libertarians and Marxists will both find things to like and dislike I am sure!