31–40 of 237 posts
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I don't see how expensive energy helps us "upgrade civilization".
Its only expensive because its been regulated to death. In terms of potential energy output in a given area its tops.
Move fast and break things this is not.
Cheap ubiquitous distributed power systems will change the world in many weird ways. Watch small modular nuclear offer home installation for ~$reasonable and getting cheaper every year. Fast forward 20 years from the advent of essentially infinite energy results in WWIII and a new “Great Detente” but only after all the assholes have wreaked all the havoc they can. There are dark days ahead but ultimately a brighter f…
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While that is true, if there is something worthwhile enough in a far and safe location - it won't stay that way
It’s everywhere. It’s in the shed in your backyard. Nobody knows it’s there. Lots of people have them. It’s an appliance. The worst thing an evildoer can do is blow up your own house and the few around it. and no one does that because you go to jail forever. The worst thing you can do is let it melt down, which means it quietly shuts itself down.
No, they can take the isotopes out and dump it into your local water supply. Or if they're suicidal and the isotopes have been encapsulated in some sort of tamperproof system, grid the whole thing down to granulated powder using less than $20,000 of power tools (disregarding their own health and the entire nearby area, of course) and then dump it into the local water supply.
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Serious question, do you actually think that if you distribute millions of small nuclear reactors to homeowners geographically spread out around all of North America, 0.000% of them will be dangerously mentally ill, criminally reckless or inclined to terrorist like activity? Based on the frequency and number of mass shooter type incidents, (or like, David Koresh and the Branch Davidians) this would be a very naive vi…
have you never heard of tamper-proof containers? mess with it, it’s useless and you go to jail for a long time? Plus, they’re ubiquitous, you don’t know who has one, max damage is minimal even worst case — go fish!
But I can’t disagree that it’s more exciting to imagine terror dreams.
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I don't see how expensive energy helps us "upgrade civilization".
Unlimited energy for 200 years is a good step, no?
And not if plants can't get cooling water because of drought.
https://www.euronews.com/2026/06/25/france-takes-nuclear-rea...
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I'd like to see a well reasoned plan to install small modular nuclear power at peoples houses that prevents the mentally ill, criminally reckless or terrorist minded people from cracking them open and obtaining access to the isotopes.
There isn’t much need to extract isotopes if you have an actual working reactor, is there? Just use that as-is to cause whatever damage.
https://www.chevron.com/newsroom/2026/q2/chevron-signs-20-ye...
The idea is to bring the data centers, power generators and energy supply together in the ~same physical space so the only thing you have to transmit is data. Moving energy is way more expensive than moving information.
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While that is true, if there is something worthwhile enough in a far and safe location - it won't stay that way
It’s everywhere. It’s in the shed in your backyard. Nobody knows it’s there. Lots of people have them. It’s an appliance. The worst thing an evildoer can do is blow up your own house and the few around it. and no one does that because you go to jail forever. The worst thing you can do is let it melt down, which means it quietly shuts itself down.
We should have been building more nuclear. We’re not going to upgrade civilization with windmills and putting on sweaters. Think of how much power we’ll need for millions of robots?
Unit economics for renewables coupled with storage are excellent. I agree we should reform nuclear regulation to allow new nuclear plants to pencil out. I disagree that we should discount the value of renewables.
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It’s everywhere. It’s in the shed in your backyard. Nobody knows it’s there. Lots of people have them. It’s an appliance. The worst thing an evildoer can do is blow up your own house and the few around it. and no one does that because you go to jail forever. The worst thing you can do is let it melt down, which means it quietly shuts itself down.
You're seriously proposing that a country with regular mass-shootings should give everyone a device that can cause a radioactive meltdown or a small explosion?