Five years after a fire nearly destroyed Notre Dame in Paris, the famous cathedral has reopened. Emmet Penney talks about the cultural significance of Notre Dame, nuclear plants as industrial cathedrals, and the grid as our industrial commons.
Your broad discussion and ability to tie, religion, culture, modernity is really thoughtful. I'm impressed. I loved Emmett's honesty with discussion of past racial politics, current implications, cohesion, tying change-tradition.
I'm not prone to enjoying poetic language when talking industry but the reference to nuclear as the pinnacle to American/human industrial thought was quite cool. Because of the framing not just because of the technology with historical context.
What really matters is when we open a FACTORY that MANUFACTURES nuclear modules, preferrably dry ones (no H2O), that are close enough to container sized parts to be shipped to customer using the freight infrastructure. Lots of companies are working on this. Terrestrial Energy, Last Energy etc. Also Thorcon using shipyards to make nuclear barges in SoKorea is brilliant. Any auto plant that can make heavy diesel can make nuclear modules- they are much simpler.
Now we have suffered from 50 years of stalemate due to hostile regulators. The Grand Oil Party and the Dems against the Arms Race conspired to zero out innovation. Now that's over! The Senate voted 88-2 and Biden signed the Atomic Energy ADVANCE adct that gives a budget for innovation!
Remember Manufactured products are 50x cheaper and 50x higher quality that stuff built by the worlds best craftsmen, as the nuclear cathedrals were. No one can predict the cost or quality of a modern thing until the factory that makes it has 10 years to streamline. But we can anticipate that nuclear should be at least 10x cheaper than coal. So we don't need the North to sacrifice Trilions to the Global South for a just transition. Just make commercial loans for productive assets, like the World Bank has refused to do for nuclear. Everybody makes money and abject poverty is ended. Bangladesh almost completed their nuke- everybody should. But When the Russians are winning, no one else is trying.
Your broad discussion and ability to tie, religion, culture, modernity is really thoughtful. I'm impressed. I loved Emmett's honesty with discussion of past racial politics, current implications, cohesion, tying change-tradition.
I'm not prone to enjoying poetic language when talking industry but the reference to nuclear as the pinnacle to American/human industrial thought was quite cool. Because of the framing not just because of the technology with historical context.
Thanks. Yes, Emmet's thinking about US technology and the nuclear power plant as the acme of that achievement is spot on.
My Energy Analysis go to person on current issues (and with context added... the icing on a great cake). Tom Drolet
What really matters is when we open a FACTORY that MANUFACTURES nuclear modules, preferrably dry ones (no H2O), that are close enough to container sized parts to be shipped to customer using the freight infrastructure. Lots of companies are working on this. Terrestrial Energy, Last Energy etc. Also Thorcon using shipyards to make nuclear barges in SoKorea is brilliant. Any auto plant that can make heavy diesel can make nuclear modules- they are much simpler.
Now we have suffered from 50 years of stalemate due to hostile regulators. The Grand Oil Party and the Dems against the Arms Race conspired to zero out innovation. Now that's over! The Senate voted 88-2 and Biden signed the Atomic Energy ADVANCE adct that gives a budget for innovation!
Remember Manufactured products are 50x cheaper and 50x higher quality that stuff built by the worlds best craftsmen, as the nuclear cathedrals were. No one can predict the cost or quality of a modern thing until the factory that makes it has 10 years to streamline. But we can anticipate that nuclear should be at least 10x cheaper than coal. So we don't need the North to sacrifice Trilions to the Global South for a just transition. Just make commercial loans for productive assets, like the World Bank has refused to do for nuclear. Everybody makes money and abject poverty is ended. Bangladesh almost completed their nuke- everybody should. But When the Russians are winning, no one else is trying.