this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2025
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Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.
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It's not even trying to solve the right problem. In the US, the NRC has given out licenses for new reactors. They're sitting there without the funding needed to go forward.
I have no doubt that licensing is a long process. It should be. That's how we keep fission power safe. But the more fundamental reason they're not getting built is because they reliably blow their budget and schedule.
Hell yeah.
Nuclear energy isnt a technical problem, it's a human problem. Specifically, the real expense in US nuclear construction is that there are only a handful of contractors who have the tribal knowledge to actually do nuclear construction e.g. pour concrete, install old-fashioned non-networked electrcal control systems, big switchgear, pipefitting, startup V&V, an so on.
They'll all gladly monkeywrench, slow walk, and re-work every step because they know there's no real competition for fleet-wide contracts, and no one from the CEOs to the craft on the ground want the job to end, so you get it decades late or not at all.
One more piece of evidence that prompt fondlers are not serious people.
Source: am person of nuclear
Hence, SMRs.
Yeah SMRs rule. They are so easy to build. You just move the map over to where you want them to be built, press the Building button or hotkey (B) and then choose the SMR (hotkey: S). Then you move the mouse over to where you want to place the SMR; a silhouette will appear at the target location. You click to start the build. It’s 150 minerals, 50 gas, and takes 15 seconds to construct. Just a few keypresses and you have green, clean energy anywhere you want it :) Crazy that nuclear power is so easy to get but governments treat it like it’s so scary.
Just make sure you have a few missile turrets protecting the area if you're playing against zerg. You don't want your SCV that is building the SMR to get sniped by a flock of mutalisks.