alt Hacker NewsBPA is a federal agency. The Trump administration has been very supportive of zero carbon nuclear i believe they have promised $80 billion dollars to build new nuclear plants. Staff cuts dont mean they oppose using those energy sources.
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on the nuclear front, the administration has cut investment and reduced action in exchange for cheap promises. judge actions, not words.
Promises are cheap with this admin, don't count any money until it's actually being paid out. Used to be I'd say until it's in a bill but this administration claims the unilateral right to cut any funded program.
So why make the cuts in the first place? There are so many things that could have been changed like getting rid of ALARPA for actual scientifically backed methods other than pointless gratitude's of X dollars for X industry. If the Trump admin truly believed in move fast and break things why is nothing moving
More power is always good (see china being 1# in solar, nuclear and wind lol), and it's known that the cost of energy directly correlates with growth right now there is no excuse for cutting any federal workers in the energy industry.
US deploys nuclear energy at over $10/watt meanwhile solar and wind are deployed around $2/watt (for levelized cost of electricity) including battery storage which means they are deployed for roughly the same cost as natural gas (so, direct competitors).
Don't let comments like this fool you, nuclear is far from being competitive with natural gas. Even in countries like south korea that can deploy nuclear the cheapest it's still $3/watt roughly.
Good news? Net new solar and wind plants can come "online" in less than two years. Net new natural gas takes four years. Part of why 95% of new energy deployed last year were renewables in the US, not just the subsidies.