Friedberg

The fallout from those events has been that we shut down energy production, we shut down nuclear reactor technology, and we fearmongered our way into losing the most abundant, available, low-cost source of energy. Can I just ask a question?

At Chernobyl, there were 15 people who got thyroid cancer, 35... operators and first responders who got radiation sickness. And then the background radiation effects, there's a lot of kind of noise around this, but it's not a significant number as you may otherwise think. Same with Fukushima.

At Chernobyl, there were 15 people who got thyroid cancer, 35... operators and first responders who got radiation sickness. And then the background radiation effects, there's a lot of kind of noise around this, but it's not a significant number as you may otherwise think. Same with Fukushima.

They had a radiation event. There's radioactive material that has covered that area that will be radioactive for a long period of time. Now, to understand what happened there and why that won't happen again requires talking about the difference in the technology between Gen 1, Gen 2, Gen 3, and Gen 4 systems. A lot of what's being rolled out now are these Gen 3 nuclear reactors.

They had a radiation event. There's radioactive material that has covered that area that will be radioactive for a long period of time. Now, to understand what happened there and why that won't happen again requires talking about the difference in the technology between Gen 1, Gen 2, Gen 3, and Gen 4 systems. A lot of what's being rolled out now are these Gen 3 nuclear reactors.

And the Gen 4 systems, which we highlighted a little while ago, do not have a meltdown possibility. We talked about this, the one that went online in China in December. Those new systems, the Gen 4 reactors, cannot melt down. You cannot have an incident like you did with the Gen 1 and Gen 2 systems. And the Gen 3 systems are abundantly safe. China is building hundreds of them.

And the Gen 4 systems, which we highlighted a little while ago, do not have a meltdown possibility. We talked about this, the one that went online in China in December. Those new systems, the Gen 4 reactors, cannot melt down. You cannot have an incident like you did with the Gen 1 and Gen 2 systems. And the Gen 3 systems are abundantly safe. China is building hundreds of them.

It is a totally understandable science. If we want to spend the time looking at the data and understanding the engineering and the material science work and all the effort that's gone in, billions of dollars over decades, the biggest stumbling block and the biggest wall has been the fact that people have this fear-mongering activity that they tell people, just dismiss it. It's too scary.

It is a totally understandable science. If we want to spend the time looking at the data and understanding the engineering and the material science work and all the effort that's gone in, billions of dollars over decades, the biggest stumbling block and the biggest wall has been the fact that people have this fear-mongering activity that they tell people, just dismiss it. It's too scary.

We don't want it in our backyard. Let's move on to the next opportunity. That's what's killed it.

We don't want it in our backyard. Let's move on to the next opportunity. That's what's killed it.

There are SMRs operating in China, Russia, and India today, and there's about 65 being built at this moment. And that's outside the U.S. So that's why the U.S. is kind of observing and trying to catch up and adopt these technologies that are being used by, call it, economic competitors and economic partners around the world. It's important for economic prosperity in the U.S.

There are SMRs operating in China, Russia, and India today, and there's about 65 being built at this moment. And that's outside the U.S. So that's why the U.S. is kind of observing and trying to catch up and adopt these technologies that are being used by, call it, economic competitors and economic partners around the world. It's important for economic prosperity in the U.S.

for us to have a degree of competitiveness in electricity prices. If China races towards 5 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity, and we're sitting here at 20 cents a kilowatt hour for electricity, what's that going to do to our economic competitiveness?

for us to have a degree of competitiveness in electricity prices. If China races towards 5 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity, and we're sitting here at 20 cents a kilowatt hour for electricity, what's that going to do to our economic competitiveness?

And you're saying solar, right?

And you're saying solar, right?

Yeah, the scalability of solar in terms of getting us to a terawatt of production capacity is the limiting block, Chamath, that in order to get to a terawatt of additional... I think that's a material science problem.

Yeah, the scalability of solar in terms of getting us to a terawatt of production capacity is the limiting block, Chamath, that in order to get to a terawatt of additional... I think that's a material science problem.

I don't think power is the limiting... Every Navy submarine's got a nuclear reactor on board.