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Bob Sack's avatar

You convinced me. I wrote my senator Merkley who is one the committee urging him to voted against confirmation of Marzano.

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Ruth Sponsler's avatar

The NRC needs a commissioner who has broad and expansive familiarity both with light water reactors and also with new designs. The new commissioner should understand light water SMR, molten salt, thorium, and liquid sodium based fuel cycles, and anything else that I might have forgotten. .

The new commissioner should also have some understanding of utility-scale distribution infrastructure, which is key to a coal-to-nuclear transition.

The new commissioner should have a willingness and enthusiasm to implement the NRC's revised mission statement which considers not only risks but also _benefits_ of nuclear energy.

A new commissioner should have some understanding of rising baseload demand from artificial intelligence and electric car charging.

An ideal new commissioner would at least be aware of the literature that shows threshold biological responses to low-dose radiation.

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C Bergan's avatar

At worst Marzano seems reservedly pro nuclear, opposite of MacFarlane. I have no problems with him, he'll learn a lot in the first months and still have +4 years as an effective commission member.

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smopecakes's avatar

Advanced reactors need an exit ramp. Congress should hold a submission for bids for unique advanced reactor regulation frameworks from third parties, such as Devanney's Underwriter's Certification

Even if not chosen the NRC will experience the new incentive of the possibility of losing jurisdiction over designs deemed passively safe

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Sep 13
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David Phillips's avatar

Then do it! At that cost you should easily find an investor.

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Sep 13
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Barry Butterfield's avatar

A lengthy response; thank you.

But it still begs the question: if it is so easy, why isn't it in widespread use?

Personally, I don't buy the global warming alarmist. Yes, it's real, but not human driven or even carbon driven. Am happy to exchange email, but not right now. I will reach out to you in 10 days.

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Sep 13
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Barry Butterfield's avatar

So if this is so good, why aren't there 23,000 being built right now?

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SmithFS's avatar

Yeah, that's just another version of Rossi's E-Cat and a thousand other scams that grifters put out to sucker in dimwit investors with money to burn. Maybe they get a tax deduction or something, who knows maybe you can even earn IRA green credits for it.

Nobody has succeeded in >400yrs in trying to break energy conservation, within measurement error range.

This guy doesn't need to make a marketable "POD MOD" producing prestigious amounts of electrical energy. All he has to do is show he can produce more output energy than input energy by a fraction of 1%. And then he can phone up the Nobel committee and tell them, "ok fellows, just wrap up my Nobel Prize and send it to me, I'm a little short of cash right now, so send in advance, since me winning next year is a just a rubber stamp".

And with that the entire foundation of modern physics will be broken, a revolution in physics much greater than the discovery of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.

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Barry Butterfield's avatar

The urge to harvest Bernie's Free Shit Tree has been growing since Harris got herself appointed fearless leader.

The bill will come due next January.

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David Phillips's avatar

You confuse the difference between generating power and moving it.

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