Where will it all come from?
Where will the U.S. find an additional 100 gigawatts of electricity production within the next six to seven years? Right now, that’s more than 20% of the nation’s electricity production. And it’s what will be needed to achieve artificial superintelligence (ASI).
And for that matter, where will any country committed to developing artificial general intelligence (AGI) and ASI find the necessary increase in energy to achieve their goals?
Sure, there’s enough cheap coal to solve the problem. But the pollution would be a nightmare. And natural gas, while a clean-burning fuel, still emits carbon dioxide when burned. Natural gas is the cleanest-burning fossil fuel to bridge the gap to a carbon emission-free future…
But for those who want a zero-carbon future, there is only one option capable of gigawatt-scale production 24/7/365…
Nuclear power.
A Swing in Sentiment
Ironically, the factions that have demanded clean energy to “save the planet” have been the ones opposing the cleanest energy sources for decades.
But fortunately, there has been a major swing in sentiment, and the hard logic of nuclear power is finally prevailing.
As evidence of this progress, the U.S. Senate recently passed the Fire Grants and Safety Act of 2023 – 88 votes in favor to 2 opposed.
It’s a remarkable bipartisan success at a time when we would think that wouldn’t be possible. And the Senate vote came after a similarly impressive 393-13-1 vote in the House of Representatives.
The bill is being sent for signature to the President and is expected to be enacted.
As we may have guessed, the most important part of the act is related to nuclear power. The key objective is to increase U.S. production of carbon-free electricity from nuclear power.
The bill was originally introduced last November as the Advanced Nuclear Deployment Act. And it was merged into the Fire Grants and Safety Act of 2023. It was silly to do so, but at least it’s getting done.
The key provisions of the act are centered around…
[Reducing the] barriers to entry for commercial developers of advanced nuclear reactor technology; provides regulatory certainty; and reduces bureaucratic red tape with applications for ANR development, implementation, and demonstration.
The key acronym ANR stands for advanced nuclear reactor. It represents the fourth generation of nuclear fission reactors.
Fourth-generation reactors are designed so that nuclear meltdowns are impossible. If the reactor malfunctions for whatever reason, it simply shuts down safely. The possibility of a Fukushima-like scenario is non-existent.
These fourth-generation reactors tend to be small modular reactor (SMR) designs. They’re efficient in terms of energy production and the space required for construction and operation, as well as being much lower cost to build.
And that’s the purpose of the bill.
Over the last decade or so, the problem wasn’t the SMR technology. The tech is well understood. And it wasn’t the cost to build, either. It was the cost of working through all of the environmental regulations and government permitting to build a new SMR on U.S. soil.
Case in point, just look at the story of NuScale Power.
The True Cost of Nuclear Bureaucracy
Publicly traded NuScale Power (SMR) suffered a terrible setback last November when it had to cancel a carbon-free power project with the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems.
The project had been under development for a decade with the support of the U.S. Department of Energy. And it still failed.
The problem was that the costs of getting the nuclear power plant operational skyrocketed from $5.3 billion to $9.3 billion.
Put simply, the business model wouldn’t work. There weren’t enough utility customers to justify the financing of such an incredible sum.
So the deal fell through. Instead of carbon-free energy, the area will have to fall back on increasing demand for fossil fuels.
Not surprisingly, NuScale’s stock price was destroyed. It fell from around $15 a share last September on the expectation that the project would move forward… to just $2 a share by November when the project was canceled.
But that wasn’t the end of the story, as we can see above.
Remember, November was when the Advanced Nuclear Development Act was put forth. Political and regulatory support for small modular reactors has been picking up since then.
The most recent development is an announcement that came last week from the Department of Energy (DOE).
It will fund up to $900 million in initial deployments of SMR technology in the U.S.
The DOE announced that it will begin taking funding solicitations in late summer/early fall this year.
It’s not a coincidence that Bill Gates-backed TerraPower has now entered the scene.
Protecting His Investment
TerraPower, another major player in SMR technology, just broke ground on construction for its first SMR in Kemmerer, Wyoming.
It’s an interesting project. It is co-located next to an old operational coal-fired power plant, which will be decommissioned as TerraPower’s SMR comes online.
TerraPower is developing a fourth-generation nuclear fission technology.
Its technology is one of the major categories of “Advanced Reactor Systems,” as defined by the Office of Nuclear Energy, which is part of the Department of Energy in the U.S.
TerraPower is based on sodium-cooled fast reactor technology, which is combined with a molten salt-based energy storage technology. A sodium-cooled fast reactor looks like this:
Source: Idaho National Laboratory, Department of Energy
This kind of reactor uses liquid sodium as a coolant for the fission reactions instead of water. Doing so enables the reactor to run at higher temperatures and lower pressures than the second or third generation of nuclear fission reactor technology.
This results in more efficient production of clean electricity. And more importantly, it is a drastically safer reactor than previous generations of nuclear reactors. That’s why this technology is so promising.
And another added benefit is that these sodium-cooled reactors can use fissile material and spent fuel from older-generation reactors to produce electricity. Essentially, they can reuse radioactive waste from prior generations of fission reactors.
TerraPower is the first small modular reactor company to have submitted its construction permit application with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for an SMR reactor. Its current construction is non-nuclear. And, once permitted, it will complete the nuclear technology-related construction.
My bet, given the bill that is up for final signature, is that TerraPower will get its permit.
The skeptics amongst us might think that Bill Gates, being so closely linked to the Deep State apparatus, has been pressing the right buttons in the background to get his personal project off the ground and protect his massive investment.
In truth, that’s almost certainly correct. He’s been lobbying very hard for nuclear power and his project. And he’s right to do so.
Because there is something much larger happening responsible for this massive shift towards support for nuclear power…
The Threat From the Far East
The force behind this massive shift toward nuclear can be summed up in one chart:
Source: World Nuclear Association
China is absolutely dominating in advanced nuclear power projects. No other country comes even close.
China is expected to build 150 new nuclear reactors between 2020 and 2035, and it is already the first country to both build and operate a fourth-generation nuclear reactor.
Arguably, China is at least a decade ahead of the U.S. in advanced nuclear power technology.
The U.S. has a significant lead in nuclear fusion technology – my favorite technology for clean energy. But in terms of currently available technology – for emission-free clean energy with nuclear fission – China is way ahead and can scale quickly.
[Readers may find a quick refresher on the differences between fusion and fission here in Outer Limits – What An Exciting Year for Nuclear Fusion. Next Year is Even Better.]
And that’s the rub. That’s what almost no one is talking about.
China has a path towards overtaking the U.S. in clean energy production. But more importantly, building the power plants to fuel the development of artificial general intelligence (AGI) and, ultimately, artificial superintelligence (ASI).
The adversary has a stated national plan – that it launched last decade – to become the world’s AI superpower by 2030… That’s just six years away!
And it’s backed by incredible government support. Some $6 billion is being pumped into universities by China’s Ministry of Education to support 400 major new degree programs focused on AI and robotics. Is the U.S. doing that? How about the U.K.?
Again, this has been underway for years. China’s education system has been pumping out AI graduates for years to quickly increase its related workforce… all the while feeding mindless and manipulating content to the Western world using TikTok as a medium for distribution.
Think this is a joke? Think again. This is systemic, centralized planning with one simple goal in mind…
Beat the West in artificial intelligence. At all costs.
And China is providing the industry with the energy and money it needs to get there.
Which is why the U.S. government has just woken up.
In order to have a carbon emission-free future, and be the world leader in artificial intelligence, it has no choice but to adopt nuclear power.
It’s a matter of national security. Not only would it be an economic disadvantage to not develop AI… It would put the country at a grave security risk against an adversary empowered with AGI or ASI.
And that’s what’s making things move in Washington.
Like what you’re reading? Send your thoughts to [email protected].