Welcome to Open Nuclear
Although there is something of a nuclear renaissance happening now, it's extraordinarily time consuming and costly to bring a nuclear plant online. The global average construction time is about [10 years](https://twitter.com/GrantChalmers/status/1443501885948776452). The most recent US reactor, Vogtle Reactor #3 in Georgia, took 10 years, and cost ~$15 billion in 2021 dollars.
IMO, much of this cost in time and money is due to a nuclear regulatory regime designed to strangle the industry. For example, the Vogle plant was the first new nuclear plant to be approved for construction by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in 30 years. [Bret Kudelmass, CEO of Last Energy](https://niklasanzinger.substack.com/p/the-story-behind-the-most-stranded) goes into the reasons why nuclear industry has become so stagnant.
The philosophy of the Open Nuclear project is the same as that of the 3d-printed gun community -- make draconian nuclear regulations moot by making the construction and fueling of a nuclear reactor so simple that an individual or small group could safely construct and fuel one with or without state approval.
Aimed at household / small apartment building energy needs, it would be based on ~50 kW designs intended originally for spacecraft, the Kilopower project. With a Kilopower-like design, it should be possible build a reactor in any shop capable of welding 1" stainless steel.
As it is intended for long space missions, the Kilopower design is designed to be simple and robust. The only moving part is the control rod. A 10 kW reactor core only weighs about 100 lb (98 kg), and would only need to be replaced every 15 years or so. The entire apparatus is expected to weigh ~3300 lb (1500 kg).
The 5 kW KRUSTY Kilopower prototype was designed and constructed with a budget under $20 million. While well beyond the budget of most individuals, this figure is no doubt greatly inflated by the project's requirements to work within the existing nuclear regulatory apparatus.
Given the quality of modern CAD / modeling software, it should be possible to design most of the components inexpensively in software before attempting physical construction.
The hardest part is likely to be sourcing the uranium, so the first priority would be to design the uranium brine mining system. If brine mining uranium can be made cost effective, it will become increasingly difficult for state actors to control the supply of uranium:
There are a number of other valuble minerals extractable from salt water as described here:
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2017/ew/c6ew00268d
A household nuclear generator could make underwater seasteads more practical, as nuclear power does not require access to oxygen or sunlight in order to work. Brine mining and seabed mining could also be a lucrative source of income for seastead based communities.
There is already an effort to create an open source, open hardware large reactor design, the Open100. Bret Kugelmass introduces the Open100 project here:
Can we 3D print the concrete components? What would a 10MW system look like? I am a bitcoin miner and can easily monetize 10MW, etc.
+1 Synology + 1 big drive to back up the synology. Bonus if you have second home or office, you can sync/mirror them.
This.
I think at best, intel agencies get metadata off of the SGX enclosures on the contacts connecting algos. From there, with a #, they can target for full remote exploitation (via 0 clicks). Then simply collect while unencrypted.
I doubt Signal encryption is compromised.
For more secure comms, there's a new option around: https://www.numbersstation.app/
Colin's blog posts are right on spot.
Yes. Good blog.
General intelligence, yes, at least the part that hallucinates answers to queries or prompts. It does not appear that any higher order stuff has been achieved. For example, after you say something to it and it completes its response, does it continue "wondering" about what you said? No. Can it correct itself autonomously? Does it free associate and come up with new ideas? Does it decide to do anything on its own? No. Can you give it a high level task or goal and have it pursue it on your behalf? Not as currently offered. Some tooling attempts to support this through memory and repeated interactions via API but it was primitive as of a few months back. Does it know when to give up on a particular avenue or when it has become stuck? No. Can it anticipate your needs and offer to do something for you? No. It doesn't have a lot of higher order functions. But the generative thing alone is still impressive and likely even better internally over there. This is where I think words will deceive. People will look at the words coming out of the thing, and attribute too much to it. "Amazing, such wisdom!" Interesting to see how well both language and image generation developed at the same time.
I marched under his banner for Ron Paul '08. Literally. On constitution ave.
If you're going to accept a corrupt bribe, do it in style. Get it in gold.
All things being equal, is far better for humans and lots of plant and animal life for Earth to be getting warmer than it would be if we were getting colder. Warmer is even likely better than present. The idea that we can hold Earth in stasis is silly. What is the "right" temperature? CO2 is a factor but in my estimation somewhere between the 6th and 20th most significant driver. To focus on it in exclusion is irrational. This all said, yes, I tend to leave nuance aside because no one cares. Joke about global government socialism -- ha ha only serious -- it gets to the point and makes the story human. Yes the only proposed "solutions" to this "problem" involve massive coordinated policies that in just 20 years have gone from "let's recycle and be more efficient" to "you must emit zero carbon by 2030/50/whatever". Yes, you are the carbon they want to reduce.
He went on to take his own life after briefly becoming famous for making catchy but depressing and angst filled music that affected millions.
What state is this? Seems like West. Trying to reconcile the sand and the vegetation.
I have been a forced seller twice and a reluctant seller more often than I would like to admit. To avoid this situation, be debt free, do not encumber your coin, have multiple fiat income sources, live well below your means, and replace any lost income quickly. Living well below your means requires active cooperation and support of your family if you have one.
I'm on the fence about going real name with this account or starting a separate one.
Checking out the posting experience on satellite.earth. This is really neat app. Communities would aid discovery if widely used.