US Awards Peter Thiel–Backed Nuclear Startup $900 Million
3d 18h ago by sh.itjust.works/u/AcidiclyBasicGlitch in news from gizmodo.com
The U.S. government is shelling out a whopping $2.7 billion to three companies in an effort to strengthen domestic uranium enrichment, amid surging electricity demand from AI data centers.
The Department of Energy announced on Monday that it will award $900 million each to American Centrifuge Operating and Orano Federal Services, as well as General Matter, a nuclear startup backed by billionaire investor Peter Thiel.
The funding will be distributed through task orders over the next 10 years, under what the department described as a “strict milestone approach.”
That's a MUCH better us of MY Taxpayer Dollars then FEEDING STARVING AMERICAN CHILDREN!
Don't forget funding things like CPB, too.
So glad we can enrich the weird end-times freak Peter Thiel. The fan of Curtis Yarvin and The Sovereign Individual.
One step at a time. Maybe we stop using tax dollars to cause child starvation before we ease into preventing child starvation.
Good news, we can do both!
... But we won't
Free money for billionaires to make themselves more money. The GOP really is just a group of pedophiles.
The dems love billionaires as well.
We really need to get over our obsession with billionaires and stop letting them have so much influence.
100% agreed. Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries and the DNC leadership are corporate and AIPAC whores.
Only the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and a couple of independents are actually on the side of the American public.
Idk if you can call any Democrat politician progressive.
We can tell that ydk.
Alright, then which federal Democrat politician is actually progressive?
Ilhan Omar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Progressive_Caucus
Are search engines still valid nowadays? Nobody should have to memorize random national politicians’ names when it is ridiculously easy to search online.
All your responses seem to point that you’re just arguing for the sake of arguing.
You’re sadly right, AOC showed her true colors when she voted to rearm Israel’s Iron Dome. Bernie has also expressed support for defending Israel.
Bernie really isn't a Democrat, he's an independent that runs under the Dem ticket for presidential elections.
Further proving the point that there are no progressive Dems.
People forget that, and it's the very reason the Dems would NEVER nominate him for president.
He's not a Dem, he doesn't raise money for Dems, and he criticizes the Dems as much as Republicans. We may not see much difference between them, but I assure you, the DNC views Bernie as just as much an outsider as any MAGA candidate.
The nomination for the presidency is the highest honor a party can offer a member, and they aren't going to give it to an outsider who is trying to hijack their party system for his own advancement, any more than they'd give it to a MAGA.
AOC showed her true colors when she voted to rearm Israel’s Iron Dome.
AOC is still a politician, and the Jewish vote in her district is extremely important to her staying in Congress, and eventually getting Schmuck Schumer's senate seat, which is soon, I hope.
Those weren't her "true colors" those were her political colors. If we want her to continue all the other good work she does, then we have to acknowledge the poltical realities that she has to navigate to keep her job.
We know AOC, we KNOW she doesn't approve of the Gaza Genocide, so we have to trust her. Trust is something that I almost NEVER extend to any politician, but her and Bernie are about my only exceptions.
Well, when the electorate only gets our news from the media and aren't capable of researching candidates on our own, how else do you get elected?
It’s capitalists in general, not just billionaires.
We need to reframe the concept of billionaires among the public. In reality, they are seriously mentally-ill people with uncontrolled OCD that manifests itself as Financial Hoarding.
If a neighbor was hoarding animals, or rusty cars, or old newspapers, etc., the authorities would step in, get them mental health assistance, and clean up the mess.
But that's not how we handle people that hoard money. Instead, we worship them, excuse them, laud them as great businesspeople, and give them MORE money. Can you imagine if the government responded to the lady with 100+ cats, who is making the entire neighborhood miserable, by giving her 100 more cats, making the situation even worse?
That's what we're doing with Sociopathic Oligarchs, and making a bad problem even worse. Now they are battling for Trillionaire status, and we are already seeing people like Musk using his money to act like a nation, cutting personal deals at the expense of entire nations. He has already shown his willingness to control Starlink over battlefields.
What will happen when they start becoming trillionaires, and can fund their own military? What if multiple trillionaires decide to form an alliance, and form their own Military-Industrial complex, and start manufacturing their own armaments, including nuclear?
None of that is far-fetched, and is easily predictable. With that much money, at some point, some psychopath is going to go rogue, and then we'll all be wondering why we didn't stop them when we had the opportunity.
They are mentally ill, let's treat them as such.
These people got so much money it’s literally an existential threat to the rest of us
Ready Player Two
Mama Mia!
Wait until they start becoming trillionaires, form alliances, start their own Military-Industrial complex, conquer land, and create their own sociopathic Libertarian governments, complete with eugenics and slave labor.
The problem with setting up a neofeudalist mafia regime is that there’s always someone waiting to slit your neck and take your place. Except in the modern era it will be one of their capos shooting a hellfire missile right up their asshole. That’s one of the reasons why we left the imperial/monarchic systems behind hundreds of years ago.
Evil never dies, goes bankrupt, or loses control.
Ah yes the pro quo
I've got a lovely quid to sell you...
How much?
2 sticks of RAM should do it
S***. In this economy?
$Texas
Cronyism. They always say "There's no money for that" when it comes to helping people who need it, but as soon as it comes to helping their rich friends or building monstrosities of vanity, suddenly they find the money for it.
At this point, ordinary income-earners in america should just stop paying taxes, because they'll never see that money come back to help them in anyway. It's all getting funneled directly to the rich, who also happen to be receiving enormous tax cuts.
It's stealing from the poor to give to the rich...
Just call it what it is — capitalism.
Some capitalists might argue on ideological grounds that government intervention is not a truly free market (although none would turn down government funds if offered, because they've sold their souls to the infinite pursuit of greed).
In reality though, most modern capitalism is crony capitalism. So the distinction loses meaning.
Cronyism implies someone with their hands on the levers of power pulling them to help their friends/accomplices, which this certainly is an example of.
tRump hands out favors to anyone who bows to him. It's cronyism.
The reality is that never in the entire history of capitalism has there been a free market, and in fact there is nothing capitalists fear more than a truly free market.
The most successful companies inevitably become monopolies, which gives them near total control of the market, and the capitalist at the top trembles at the thought of competition arising that may unseat him. So he bribes a politician to make laws that favor him and allow him to find new ways to control the world and maintain his status. Eventually, inevitably, as is the case now, the state and the capital class become indistinguishable.
The free market is a myth, and I personally would rather have an economy that is planned for the good of the common person than the rich motherfuckers who enslave us.
In essence, I agree with you. Perhaps that just means that all capitalism is crony capitalism. It's not that big of a distinction to my mind.
And yes, I too would much prefer an economy that's planned for the good of the common person. Why does that feel more like a pipe dream with each passing day?
I'm sure you mean socialism, where the government picks the winners and losers? /s
Don't worry, we will fork over 10x that in 20 years when we have to clean up all of the obsolete and abandoned data centers. There is no way any company is going to do that themselves.
I thought he made that kind of money as spare change on the lecture circuit when he tells people he knows about the anti-christ.
Or when he tells them public education is a waste of time, and they should just “do what they’re good at” as if they inherently know what that is.
Fallout looking more and more realistic by the day…
FUCK PETER THEIL. His Cocksucking bitch ass will be the end of us
The cock sucking part doesn’t seem relevant. Plenty of straight monsters out here.
Its not relevant in the homophobic way OP meant, but it kind of is relevant that he has aligned himself with some of the same people who would destroy him if they had the opportunity.
Billionaires aren't gay or straight. They're not people in the sense that we know them. They have no authentic community, they've removed themselves from the human race.
It does when he uses it to keep people silent and on his leash, people like JD Vance, who has been fully OWNED by Theil since he was in college. Literally every job he's ever had was given to him by Theil, including the VP.
Collecting politicians is the new Sociopathic Oligarch hobby.
Plenty relevant because he says women voting in america is a bad thing. but he loves it up the ass more than any women I bet
Classic lib with internalized homophobia can’t wait to call people slurs because they’re on the wrong team
Were you also furious at minorities that voted for trump? Did you call them slurs
what?
His misogyny terrifies me. But plenty of gay men believe women are fully equal humans and even enjoy our company.
yes, I never said this wasn't the case. just that Peter Theil is a vile cocksucker.
Peter Thiel plans to kill us all and emerge from the ashes.
This guy watched the Fallout show didn't he?
Hmmm, more corruption and destruction of the working class.
Billionaires should not exist. They serve ZERO purpose and only work to hurt us.
Fallout here we come. For one am not ready to die in Anchorage
Alaskan Front please
baked Alaskan
Fuck Peter Thiel in the ear. He and Stephe Miller are such vile pieces of shit.
Welcome back to the political spoils system
Kill em all
Trump’s prying the bribe out of his hand 😝
Eat the rich
The Nazis are spending our money.
What else is new. They never stopped spending it.
Love me some nuclear investment.
It's the best carbon-free base load power we have.
Too bad this is highly unlikely to benefit the public at large and just go to ensuring our tech overlords have enough juice for the surveillance state they are creating.
The cheapest choice for reliable power in the US is natural gas. Fossil fuels are often in the news for causing all kinds of issues. Therefore a statement like "this is highly unlikely to benefit the public at large" seems quite unfounded. That is, unless you don't consider burning fossil fuels instead to be a harm.
If you give a shit about our future, investments in carbon-free power are to be celebrated.
Your missing my point. This is solely being driven by the need being created by data centers, not from any kind of environmental analysis. I have zero confidence the energy created from these projects will go to public infrastructure in a way that will drive down costs for the average American. This will likely solely benefit the tech oligarchs at the helm of these companies to keep their operational costs to a minimum.
Because AI is not about turning a profit, it's about surveillance and if you give a shit about the future, that is not something you can forget.
We're still burning coal in this country. If AI dies down and we shut down the coal plants because we have more nuclear, that's a win
Yeah, I have no problem with government investing in industry, I have always liked nuclear. Where my concerns lie is in the obvious cronyism and the myriad government investments that have ended up not bearing fruit for anyone but the rich.
But this one may be different!
That ship has sailed. With renewables and storage nuclear makes no financial sense and dispatchable power doesn't work well with base load generation.
That's just... not true. Nuclear absolutely makes sense, it's just that there's not enough public appetite for it. In particular, small modular reactors (SMRs) are very much needed for distributed power generation.
There's not enough storage with renewables that can compete with nuclear. The technology that currently exists doesn't scale from a cost perspective, which is why the storage startup space has become so hot in the last 5 years.
Nuclear is way more expensive than renewables, it’s not public appetite, it’s that it’s impossible to get funding if you can’t get a government to cover the cost. Another reason lenders are jumpy is that nuclear frequently goes way over budget and takes longer than initially estimated.
By the way, last I checked SMRs don’t exist in any meaningful capacity.
Sodium ion batteries are already on the market, they’re much cheaper than lithium, work across a far wider range of temps, they don’t catch fire, don’t lose capacity over many charge cycles, and sodium is cheap and abundant. New nuclear takes at least 10 years to build, typically longer. By then sodium batteries will be everywhere, as well as repurposed batteries from older EVs.
What’s the argument for new nuclear? Make it make sense.
Nuclear has a better value-adjusted levelized cost of energy. SMRs are very much developing but have been deployed in some areas outside the US.
Sodium ion batteries are great for many reasons but also aren't as energy dense, so you need a way larger footprint. I'm not saying we should only do one of the other, it's all of the above. Also repurposed EVs aren't really a thing at scale, nor does there seem to be that much investment into it from a quick search. The main investment is into full recycling of batteries.
I don’t think you can win the economic argument, everything I’ve seen suggests nuclear is far more expensive and it’s not getting cheaper, whereas renewables are but if you’ve got sources, by all means let’s see them.
Sodium batteries don’t require a way larger footprint, it’s true they’re not quite as energy dense but they’re being used in EVs in China, there’s a little reduction in range for the same size pack but they’re way better in extreme cold and heat so you’re not drawing as much power to condition the battery.
If we’re talking 10-15 years from now, when a new nuclear plant would come online, there’s going to be a lot of EV batteries around. Maybe they get recycled but that seems a waste when they’ve only lost a little capacity. I guess we’ll see.
https://www.iea.org/reports/projected-costs-of-generating-electricity-2020
That's 6 years old and written in conjunction with the NEA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Energy_Agency
Still there's this from that report:
In the US, at least nuclear is much more expensive than wind and solar.
Here's last year's figures. Nuclear is crazy expensive.
https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/levelized-cost-of-energyplus-lcoeplus/
Renewables can't do it alone. Nuclear can be a large help.
I mean ... that's just not true.
It is.
This is going well, isn’t it?
Typically it’s on the person making the assertion to back it up with evidence but you do you.
Didn't you just say something without backing it up
Yeah - if I cared I probably would. But I don't.
Storage costs balloon when you go full renewable, because instead of just storing enough for the night, you need to charge up enough during the summer to last the winter since solar power dries up.
Having a constant 20% of power nuclear would decrease the need to make a huge amount of batteries, since you can serve the demand on a lower amount of sunlight.
But what about wind? It works in places that are windy and have space for it, and America doesn't have super high voltage transmission to cover every area.
You just can't connect everything to shore up needs of every area because the country is too big and we forgot how to build things
You just can’t connect everything to shore up needs of every area because the country is too big and we forgot how to build things
It’s called HVDC, it’s been in use for decades. Just admit you like nuclear because reasons and we'll call it a day.
It's not going to support 100% renewable usage. It is not built to transfer solar power from Nevada to Minnesota
Everything works better when you have baseline nuclear power, transmission losses decrease, storage costs decrease, coal and gas get phased out. Remember that batteries need to be replaced often and they are very much not green. Nuclear plants operate on the scale of decades before getting replaced.
Those are the reasons I like nuclear.
It is not built to transfer solar power from Nevada to Minnesota
This exists and is longer than that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_Madeira_HVDC_system
Everything works better when you have baseline nuclear power
Nope. Baseline isn't helpful when you're dealing with dispatchable generation, I already mentioned this.
Remember that batteries need to be replaced often and they are very much not green.
Nope. I already mentioned that silicon ion is capable of thousands of charge cycles.
they are very much not green.
Nope. Not when you're comparing it to the amount of concrete in a nuclear plant.
Like every other pro-nuclear person it's all about feels with you. I've given you plenty of evidence, which you've rejected much like a cultist would do. I see no point continuing to discuss this with someone who has made an emotional decision to support nuclear in the face of all the evidence.
That's in Brazil, though? What do you mean it exists. High speed rail exists in China, I've been promised it since early 2000s in California and yet...
What do you mean by dispatchable generation?
Thousands of charge cycles means a few years? 2000 days is just 6 years