The problem is uranium and thorium.

Rare earth metals tend to be found in the same ore as uranium and thorium. There's rules on what happens after uranium and thorium reaches a certain concentration in tailings. So, only those that are able to find a buyer for this uranium and thorium will dare touch these ores. Because there's no real market for uranium and thorium the costs for mining rare earth elements in the USA are very high. The tailings with "too much" of naturally occurring radioactive materials, or NORM, is considered some kind of threat for nuclear weapon proliferation and so is tightly controlled in US federal law. This is in spite of the fact that ore is a very long way from an enriched uranium "Little Boy" style weapon, and any nuclear weapon using thorium in the core is still theoretical as the one or three tries to detonate a thorium core weapon were considered failures. It's not that they didn't blow up, they certainly did, it's that thorium wasn't seen as adding any power to the weapon or at least was only adding difficulty to weapon manufacture over using uranium with no benefit.

If people really want to make a nuclear weapon then there's no stopping them. There's uranium everywhere, including dissolved in the sea. There must be better ways to restrict people from building a nuclear weapon on the down low in the USA than keeping guard over ore with a wee bit too much uranium in it. There's nothing rare about rare earth metals. There's plenty in the USA, and we need it. There's no mining for it because the thorium and uranium can't be sold, and it can't be dumped back in the hole it came from. The tails have to be hauled off to some government facility and stored as if it were weapon grade plutonium. This is expensive, and so mining for rare earth metals in the USA is expensive. With more interest in nuclear power there may be some relief on the costs for some ores as that means a market for uranium, but that still leaves thorium as a problem so long as it is considered "weapon grade" when it clearly is useless for making weapons.

To show this isn't exactly new I thought I'd look for news items about this. Best I could find with a quick search is 5 years old, but this issue goes back decades.
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.kuer.org%2Fbusiness-...

This is good for the people because POTUS is not spending money that wasn't required of him to spend by Congress. If it is important for "the people" to have this data then it should be in legislation and budget from Congress. If it's not in legislation, and nothing in the budget for it, then it's "nice to have" and up to POTUS on if it happens or not.

I've seen in the comments several mentions along the line or "you get what you voted for" as if that's some kind of admonishment or warning. I'm getting the impression "the people" don't have the same concern on global warming as they had previously. This is likely because of distractions like energy costs, the price of eggs, war in Ukraine, Chinese navy vessels trying to run into Philippine boats but hitting their own boats instead, crime in DC, drugs crossing the border with Mexico, or so much else. They might like to hear about POTUS cutting back on spending, no matter where it might land. If the spending was on something important then maybe there should have been an item in the budget out of Congress to fund it explicitly.

We have had a Congress that has handed too much authority to the White House. Trump has the authority to scale back the capability of NOAA satellites because Congress didn't demand this data collection from the NOAA, or NASA, or which ever other executive entity might be tasked with collecting this data.

If Congress wants this data collected then they can put something in legislation and in the budget to require that from the executive branch. We've been living for a long time with people in the White House that believed tracking pollution, particulates, CO2, or whatever else, was important and there was enough room in the budget and legislation to allow for it. Now we have some people in the White House that want to trim back government spending, the collection of data on pollution was not required, so it was cut from the NOAA spending. This is somehow a problem we can lay on Trump? This is a problem that only one man caused? That the only fault in the system is we got the wrong man as POTUS?

This is a far deeper problem than who is elected as POTUS. If the American voters want to see data collected on pollution and greenhouse gasses then they need to elect people to Congress that will pass laws requiring it.

I'll see people complain on how Trump is changing rules on tariffs, that somehow this is a problem. Well, Congress has complete authority on taxation but they granted a part of that to the executive branch by allowing POTUS to set tariff rates. If this is a problem then maybe Congress can reverse that legislation and return that authority to themselves. Or perhaps put some constraints on how far POTUS is allowed to go in setting tariffs.

I'm a bit tired of reading how Trump did this and Trump did that. If this is a big enough problem then maybe Congress needs to do their job and set some boundaries on how far POTUS can go on setting spending and taxes.

I'm a bit pleased that we have a POTUS that is concerned enough about the federal budget to cut back something that could be considered relatively trivial. It shows he's paying attention on spending in ways that we've not seen in some time. In order to cut spending there will have to be some sacred cows led to slaughter. The fact that he's catching flak is an indication he's close to the target.

Cutting spending will hurt. We can't know if the cuts go too deep until someone speaks out. If nobody speaks out on cuts then how would we know that he's doing anything to contain spending? If this is something that has gone too far then Congress should act to reverse this. If Congress can't agree to fund this then... what? Maybe state governments should fund this, launching satellites to space is likely in reach of many state budgets given how much launch costs have come down recently.

Do a web search on "death valley bloom" with your favored search engine, take a look at a few photos taken of Death Valley, then get back to me on how nothing would be lost on paving over desert with solar panels.

If you want shade for cattle then plant some oak trees or something. Not only is that shade but it's more "green" than any solar panels. We had an apple tree on the farm that produced some really tart apples but the cattle would eat them up like candy, so perhaps apple trees would be preferred. Oak trees will produce acorns and apparently acorn fed pork is something people will pay good money to feast on. Are we to deny ourselves this little luxury of free range pork so we can put up solar panels for some intermittent energy supply?

I'm not a fan of solar power, as you may have guessed, and I learned the limits of solar power at university as a member of the solar car competition team on campus. Wind power is cheaper and doesn't shade grazing areas like solar. Claims of putting solar power on livestock sheds and getting any meaningful amount of power is an indication of knowing little of raising livestock.

That reads like a stoner that watched too much of The X-Files, or whatever it is that kids-these-days watch that's full of conspiracy theories as they get high.

The global average build time for a nuclear power plant is between 7 and 8 years, UAE took a wee bit longer than that as I recall. A natural gas power plant can take as long as 6 years to build. I don't know how long solar power takes on average but a quick look at Ivanpah tells me it was a few months shy of 4 years for that to come online. We've seen nuclear power plants built in five years before, and a few outliers shorter than that, when construction was properly managed and the builders properly trained and motivated.

Then once built we can expect a nuclear power reactor to produce income on that initial investment for more than 80 years. That's enough time to get a return on investment before retirement, and leave an income for grandchildren. No doubt that nuclear power will take longer term thinking than a wind or solar power project that will have an expected operational life between 20 and 30 years, but those with patience and an eye on investing for their family, nuclear power is certainly the better option.

That's not saying we should build nuclear power to the exclusion of wind and solar power. What I'm seeing is a White House that wants out of wind and solar power as they see it as a poor investment and something of a distraction from better options. There's not likely to be any new restrictions for wind and solar for private investors or state governments.

By that logic any energy is "completely free" energy. You see we can get this free energy by building power plants, opening mines, then dig for the "free" energy stored up in coal, uranium, and thorium. It's complete nonsense to call solar power "free" as there's a lot of money that needs to be put up front to collect that energy and turn it into something useful. There's no free lunch in energy.

Right, because being vindictive and petty is the best way to win over voters.

I'm sorry, is my sarcasm dripping on your shoes?

Who is going to invest billions of dollars into a new nuclear power plant, using substandard materials, lacking in basic safety features, only to hand it over to poorly trained drunkards, to see it blow up in their face and spread radioactive debris for miles around? I mean, other than the Soviets?

Reduction in the red tape does not equate to eliminating it. Someone is going to have to write some big checks to fund any nuclear power plant, and they have a clear interest in keeping it operational and safe until they get their money back and then some. The people operating the plant have an interest in keeping it safe, and many of them will likely have considerable influence on safety with the backing of national labor unions.

I'm thinking that you've been watching too many disaster films from the 1970s and 1980s. It's as if there's an expectation that nothing was learned from prior failures in nuclear power. TMI was a relative non-event. Sure, it melted down and left the reactor no longer operable. The real disaster was poorly managed public relations, and a coincidental release of The China Syndrome that got people worried about nuclear power safety. Fukushima was another meltdown that did little to cause public harm. More people died in the unnecessary evacuations than died from any radiation from the power plant. There's one, two, maybe three cancer deaths since of those that worked at the plant at the time but linking that definitively to radiation exposure is impossible. I hear the families got compensation from TEPCO as if it was related, which is an admirable move on their part, but that almost certainly came with a statement on how it was no admission of cause and effect which is common in cases like this.

Consider that a meltdown doesn't mean a Chernobyl level event. There's going to be engineered safety and operator protocols to keep any meltdown contained. Failure to do so would be far more expensive in paying out life insurance policies than keeping the plant operational with a robust and safety conscious design. There's not likely to be profit in a nuclear power plant that self destructs, it doesn't follow that any private entity will sacrifice safety for profits as a lack of safety will almost certainly destroy profits. Then is the matter that the people working there could ever be paid enough to keep quiet on safety violations, they have to work at that plant and their families have to live nearby. I suspect the implications of a lack of safety at nuclear power plants hasn't been thought through.

The worst of nuclear power accidents have been at government owned and operated nuclear power plants, or so it appears to me. If there's evidence of some serious shortfalls in privately owned and operated nuclear power plants then I'd like to have some examples to prove the point.

Um, I'm pretty sure a natural gas power plant can go from breaking ground to supplying power to the grid in 18 months.

I understand that there's a desire to move away from fossil fuels but the intermittent power from wind and sun isn't all that attractive to those that are opening new data centers. There's been a few articles highlighted on Slashdot about Google, Microsoft, and others are looking to get more nuclear power online. Some is restarting recently shuttered nuclear power reactors, and some is in newly built reactors. The claim is that they can get capacity online in five years. That's believable so long as there isn't some interruption from "lawfare" where people bring up lawsuits to cause delays, cost the contractors more money, and intentionally bankrupt them to cause an abandonment of the project. I'm seeing new nuclear power reactors on federal land, such as that administered by the TVA, which seems to be a means to insulate the project from such interference.

I expect AI investments will do well enough. They have a lot of money on the line to incentivize them to fight off frivolous lawsuits with vigor, and a White House willing to back them up, on any new electricity generating capacity projects. If the matter is about state governments somehow getting in the way I'm seeing movements on that to get more electricity produced quickly, such as Illinois lifting a ban on large scale nuclear power projects. Illinois did a half-step back on that a few years ago, if I recall correctly, by allowing small modular reactors in the state. I guess that wasn't good enough so they took another half-step back recently.

POTUS has quite limited authority on what happens on state and private land. If people want to put up windmills then they still can, just not on federal land. That is unless I'm missing something.

I can expect some authority still remains in federal control. One example might be windmills tall enough to interfere with FAA recognized airports. There's some altitude in which the FAA has considerable authority for structures even on private land, but would any windmill get that high? If there's glare from solar panels that could impact aircraft then there could be some similar FAA regulation restricting solar power.

There's been considerable debate on offshore wind power for a long time so this is just the latest move on that front. Offshore wind power costs are quite high, unless the water is so shallow that the windmill can be anchored to bedrock, and that's not likely in federal controlled water anyway. Even if there's no issues on costs then is the concern on windmills killing rare fish eating eagles like the bald eagle. I suspect someone will try to argue that domestic cats are a greater threat to birds than windmills but domestic cats don't hunt eagles, eagles hunt the domestic cats.

All too often solar PV panels are put over fertile croplands, and POTUS wants to put a stop to that. Solar power may be more profitable for some farmer leasing federal land but the solar panels could damage the land by not providing enough sunlight for grasses or something to hold the soil from erosion by wind and rain. There's exceptions, as in people intentionally spacing the panels out so this erosion doesn't happen. Maybe there can be rules on solar panels to prevent erosion than a flat out ban but this may be a distinction without a difference as such requirements may make solar power no longer profitable as that means more costs to the energy produced.

If you want a small government getting out of the way of business then we can get that with removing wind and solar subsidies. At some point wind and solar should be expected to sink or swim on its own. I don't see this as inhibiting rooftop solar. This should not impact wind power on private land. I see plenty of windmills out here in the "wind corridor" and I expect this rule to change nothing on that. I believe this impacts offshore wind the most as those projects apparently got quick and easy approvals in the past. How much solar power was on federal land to begin with? There's plenty on TVA land as I recall, anywhere else? There were attempts to put wind and solar power projects on military bases until they discovered the windmills interfered with radar, and solar panels introduced glare to pilots of low flying aircraft.

That's a long way to say I have doubts this will impact growth of wind and solar power. Oh, except for offshore which was already contentious before this, and even then I recall something from the White House earlier that put in restrictions on any new offshore wind power project.

I read that at 50 MW, fifty megawatts, from this first reactor by 2030. The 500, five hundred, megawatts was the total Google wants from Kairos by 2035.

I doubt they'd be building the same kind of "very old technology with many known problems" that was seen in the 1960s before Nixon and Carter effectively killed any means for new deployments until recently. Since then there's been developments in materials using operating prototypes that used electric heaters and non-fissile stand-ins for fuel such as depleted uranium than enriched uranium. There's also been experiments using molten salts in concentrated solar power to develop the technologies needed to resolve the issues seen from early molten salt cooled reactors.

Maybe this does end up as nothing, but it is still good news for low CO2 emitting energy as it shows there's interest in making it happen from private corporations, like Google and Kairos Power, as well as government entities being supportive such as TVA, DOE, NRC, and the White House.

Any implication that so little has been learned since the technology was first developed that they'd be repeating past mistakes is beyond belief.

From what I gathered from the fine article the bacteria already existed in nature, they simply got it concentrated to where the mealworms could live on a diet consisting mostly of polystyrene. In the aftermath of the oil spill from the Deepwater Horizon explosion there was something of a discovery on naturally occurring bacteria that would feed off petroleum, and so a lot of work cleaning up that mess was from natural processes. In hindsight this should not have been all that surprising, it's been known for some time that bacteria could contaminate diesel fuel, jet fuel, and similar petroleum based products. Polystyrene has many chemical similarities to the hydrocarbons we extract from petroleum and use for fuel, it should not be too much of a surprise that the same or similar bacteria can feed off polystyrene.

This can be done, but nobody should try this at home. It might not produce the same kind of fire and fume hazard as polysytrene and gasoline separately but by being a flammable sticky mess it can cause all kinds of new hazards when mixed together.

Just to be clear on what that means this is not a new process. There's been syngas used for industrial chemicals, and to provide heat and light for homes and businesses, going back to around the year 1800. Consider that George Washington might have been alive to see this technology in use. If not Washington then almost certainly Presidents John Adams or Thomas Jefferson would have seen this technology in use. Variations on the theme would have different names like coal gas, illuminating gas, town gas, wood gas, water gas, and producer gas. I likely missed one or three in that list, but the point is they were all taking solid material rich in carbon and hydrogen to make a useful gaseous fuel. And this process has been rediscovered, adapted, and optimized many times since.

Here's a couple places to start for some background on this for those that hadn't seen this before:
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F...
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F...

Indeed. It is the incomplete combustion that creates syngas, and that can produce carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide released to the environment isn't all that bad as it would be quickly dissipated and eventually oxidize into CO2, but that CO is effectively energy lost from a waste-to-energy process and so would be something to avoid. I expect some kind of catalytic converter could be used to consume any soot and CO and the energy extracted to boil water for running a turbine or whatever.

That's not quite the only way. There's been many efforts to close that carbon loop by extracting carbon from CO2 in the air or dissolved in water. Any water exposed to the air will dissolve some of the CO2, it's how a lot of marine plant life will "breathe" in the CO2 it needs to live.

Once the CO2 is collected then it can be run through a chemical process where hydrogen from water can be linked up with carbon to make the same kinds of hydrocarbons used to produce plastics. It's the same processes used to synthesize hydrocarbon fuels and lubricants. Waste plastic could be used as fuel in municipal waste-to-energy plants to avoid the hassles (and energy consumed) to have it shipped to some recycling facility. If there's a desire to recycle the plastic than burn it then it can be broken down by varied means to use as raw material for new fuels, lubricants, and plastics. For something like polystyrene the process of breaking it down could be as simple as dissolving it in acetone, which apparently produces some "goo" similar to crude petroleum that can be used to make new plastics.

I've seen many promising advancements in hydrocarbon synthesis technology, such as a process being experimented on by the US Navy to produce jet fuel on nuclear powered aircraft carriers.

Perhaps mealworms can be incorporated in some process to close the loop on the carbon involved. The complaint with plastics adding to the carbon in the natural carbon loop remains so long as the carbon is coming from petroleum and natural gas. The claim with the mealworms not emitting carbon dioxide doesn't quite sound right. The CO2 might not be emitted as the mealworms consume it but if the mealworms are used as animal feed then it's still being emitted eventually as the animals break that "meal" down and exhale the carbon the worms contain as CO2. If the point is to sequester the carbon in the plastic then the mealworms would have to be buried in a way that they'd not break down, or at least break down so slowly that some other processes are locking up that carbon such as bedrock being slowly weathered into carbonates and adding to sedimentary rock somewhere.

That could solve the issues of plastic waste ending up as "micro-plastics" in the environment but it's not solving the issue of CO2 into the air as claimed. That is unless I missed an important step in the process. Matter must be conserved in any chemical process, including digestion by larvae and bacteria. That carbon still ends up in the natural carbon loop, the same as if it were burned, unless again they bury the mealworms in a manner that inhibits decomposition. But then if the goal is burial then why bother with the mealworms? Once the plastics are collected then just bury the plastics.

If the larvae are merely the hosts to bacteria that is breaking down the plastic, which it what I'm picking up from the fine article, then it would appear to me that the issue of plastic waste in the environment will eventually solve itself. By that I mean they worked on a selection process to get the right kind of bacteria in the mealworms to digest the polystyrene, this was something that existed naturally and they worked to concentrate this bacteria. If this is bacteria already "in the wild" then the bacteria can be expected to naturally spread through the food web to allow other insects, possibly also animals, to be a host to this bacteria and breakdown the plastics until there's some equilibrium. We'd not likely rid the world of micro-plastics, but we could see where the problem is not getting any worse.