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Comment by karaterobot | Hacker News Reader

Well, good. It's a shame nobody else has stepped up to do this first. Maybe China doing it first will help get the ball rolling.

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India stepped up first, as for some time now:

https://youtu.be/k-o8zYEEsik?si=ZNcl0nNQa5DVvGmq

Though looks like China might win the race.

Their ball is already rolling. They put a pair of high temperature gas cooled pebble bed reactors into operation a little more than a year ago. They're actively exploring every avenue of nuclear power without restraint, including thorium and fast breeders. It hasn't yet occurred to the Chinese that the prosperity afforded by abundant energy is a problem they're supposed to be solving.

Well, good. It's a shame nobody else has stepped up to do this first. Maybe China doing it first will help get the ball rolling. /s

In all seriousness, I think they were referring to getting everyone else's proverbial balls rolling.

"China's energy independence will threaten our national security!" -- trump, probably...

Well, at some non trivial level it’s also true.

The petrodollar and the US’s central role in protecting/enabling it is great for US national security.

I think the petrodollar has been given more weight than it deserves. The dollar's utility enabling international trade has more to do with the stability, freedom and general availability, than with the US enforcing it in any way.

The US spends more on its military than any other country, and actively gets involved in foreign affairs on this front constantly.

And has bases in every country in the Middle East except Iran - [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_military_in...]

The dollar is strong because the US military is everywhere. The US military is everywhere because the dollar is strong.

And oil is the strongest and biggest motivation for all this, but not the only one.

Though the US military burns massive amounts of oil to operate.

Not quite. You should look, for example, into the events of 1971, specifically, US policy regarding foreign exchange rates. Using dominant US dollar position, the US has achieved re-evaluation of exchange rates favoring US exports. As a concrete example, US Treasury Secretary drove the pressure to open European agriculture markets to US exports, weakening European farming industry in the process. Similar moves were made against Japan and South Korea.

Oh, they know. They've added 200GW of solar power this year.

> the prosperity afforded by abundant energy is a problem they're supposed to be solving.

What does this mean? Did you misplace a word somewhere? Why would prosperity be a problem?

> Why would prosperity be a problem?

Excellent question.

... I feel like I'm missing something here.

Western elites have been pushing degrowth policies for the last decade or so. GP’s precise intent is unclear, but is probably suggesting there is a hidden, sinister purpose to it.

The way I read it is that the amount of energy available for direct use translates directly to the quality of life. The more energy they have, the more they can do with it. Plus if it’s clean and readily available. Instead of being world’s factory for garbage, or figuring out how to invade Taiwan, figure out how to supply clean, “reasonably cheap” nuclear energy.

Any nation with effectively unlimited energy will develop directed energy weaponry.

I’m pretty sure I first heard about China doing this 15 years ago or so. I guess it just takes a long time to go from project planning to reactor?

15 yrs is not that bad from conception/design to a prototype.

You could argue the US did this first with the 1964 oak ridge experimental reactor. Still it's good China is continuing the experimental reactors. That's how science progresses.

No one's really tried producing a commercial thorium reactor because it isn't really commercial so far - the costs are much higher than uranium.

https://www.copenhagenatomics.com/

They will hopefully run their first reactor in Switzerland by 2026/2027.

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