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160 points riordan | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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yawaramin ◴[] No.45954633[source]
It's nuclear fission. It's always been nuclear fission (well, at least since the '50s) and it will continue to be until we commercialize fusion reactors. Everything else is nice to have but it's like NIH syndrome.
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thinkcontext ◴[] No.45956094[source]
It could be but the US and EU have so far been unable to build commercial fission reactors without going 2x+ over budget in time and money. China is having success but even they are not projected to have nuclear account for more than single digit percentages of their generation.

Maybe SMR's, thorium, 4th gen, etc will work out, but maybe not.

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ahmeneeroe-v2 ◴[] No.45956811[source]
The US Navy consistently builds reactors on-time and in-budget
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kragen ◴[] No.45961071[source]
The US and Russian Navies deciding to remain mostly petroleum-fueled is one of the strongest arguments against nuclear becoming very cheap: surely they would do it if it wasn't ruinously expensive, because it eliminates the national security risk of a petroleum blockade and simplifies at-sea logistics immediately.
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ahmeneeroe-v2 ◴[] No.45961384{4}[source]
Don't presume too much about the US Navy's fleet decisions. Using that same logic you could presume that smaller, aged and poorly maintained fleets are advantageous for naval supremacy since that appears to be the choice of the US Navy for a couple generations now.

Or you could presume that the complete inability to build a merchant marine fleet was also a strategic advantage!

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1. kragen ◴[] No.45961741{5}[source]
It's not just the US Navy. It's also the Russian Navy, the French Navy, the Chinese navy of the PLA, the British Navy, the Indian Navy. If nuclear power were cheaper than oil, or anything other than much more expensive, at least one of those would have gone all-nuclear.