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Ray Sundby's avatar

Nuclear can get permitted fast enough, safe enough, and at low enough cost. We just need a different approach than an NRC that insists that permitting must take many years and cost millions of dollars for every single reactor, an NRC that thinks in terms of ALARA and linear no threshold for acceptable levels of radiation release, rather than following the science and the data. Nuclear is already the safest energy technology we have based on mortality by energy source data compiled over many decades with Chernobyl data on future cancer deaths updated from 4000 to zero by the UN and WHO. The official death toll from Chernobyl from radiation is only 31 people. We need type approval and the best approach may be to eliminate the NRC and go to for profit underwriting to assure both adequate safety and acceptable speed and cost of implementation. This will take some legislation to limit liability to reasonable defined levels. Switching from regulation to underwriting is how we got to safe steam boilers, evolving the industry from one where many boilers exploded and killed people to the safe industry we have today. See the plan for nuclear energy underwriting proposed by Jack Devanney. There are companies like Copenhagen Atomics out there now gearing up to mass produce one nuclear energy reactor per day, per location, with one of the big road blocks being the approval process. With the current safety of nuclear energy and the millions of premature deaths caused every year by fossil fuel pollution, nuclear approval should prioritize low cost and short time first and second and safety third. Stop thinking in terms of green energy and start thinking instead about clean energy. Stop thinking in terms of how much it will cost to transition away from burning hydrocarbon fuels for energy. Instead think of how much less clean energy can cost if done right. Submillted by Ray Sundby, ray@rsundby.com

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