>>10070926It looks like we will start building thermal spectrum molten salt reactors here in the US. We are currently in the fuel certification and code-writing phase (big deal). Each of the national labs are developing different attributes with private sector cooperation.
If all goes well and we go full nuclear (with whatever hydro/etc we already have) we could see two-tenth of a cent per kwh electric power. This would mean domestic production of all materials (even reprocessing tailings piles at mines for things like copper, iron, rare earths, etc). We could also have full domestic production and full recycling of materials, too (90% of cost is energy in recycling - especially aluminum). We would essentially be near post-scarcity if we wanted to not fuck with anything. This is, of course, if the the "nuclear bad" people do not get in the way and they don't keep pushing pipe dreams of jumping to fusion. Literally any feasible fusion reactor has a fission fuel salt blanket that produces the neutrons and tritium needed for a sustained fusion cycle. People outside of the professions (which is on a few thousand engineers) constantly spout misinformation and misunderstand what things are. This makes it difficult to convince politicians who are the often the dumbest people when it comes to actual science (physics, math). We shall see. I am hopeful. We could be producing power with load following that uses waste heat that desalinates water and cracks it for hydrogen used for fuel cells in all modes of transportation. But losers and haters will continue to want to dig up materials for batteries from sources all over the planet and subsidize idiotic solar projects (you cannot run any industrial activity on solar, sorry). The hubristic hump will be difficult to get over. We have already demostrated the capability of fusion and liquid fuels - the government and activists and other energy interests just need to get out of the way.
