Had posted this a few days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45285763
It's all related afaict
I think its more complex than that. The nimbys don't want it, along with significant parts of the eco lobby. (they scuppered the nuclear plan from EDF that would have locked in prices from 2000....)
https://www.rolls-royce-smr.com/press/rolls-royce-smr-will-b...
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/rolls-royce-smr-selected-...
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/us-uk-pact-will-boost-adv...
and the follow up press release from Thursday:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/record-breaking-150bn-inv...
So, my guess is that this is essentially, once again, a camera-focused announcement.
Especially the part about helping the UK become Russia-independent for energy.
It's specifically about nuclear fuel. The UK doesn't mine Uranium, but it does do fuel manufacture & imports from several countries. I wasn't able to find what, if any, "Russian" influence there is. Maybe the CEO at the fuel plant likes Russian vodka and now he'll be told to buy Polish instead ?
The text is about Nuclear fuel
> The TPD also commits the UK to achieve full independence from Russian nuclear fuel by the end of 2028
This whole "deal" is largely waffle and nonsense, the two countries are going to somehow work together to achieve nuclear fusion with AI, and they're going to create a quantum supply chain, and this is going to unlock breakthroughs in health care...
Stop trying to figure out what would make sense. Donald Trump has no idea what sense would be and Starmer is mostly just glad to avoid Donald deciding Farage should be Prime Minister now or whatever other nonsense he might decide on a whim.
The fossil fuel ones mostly use natural gas, I dont know why they wouldn't be from north sea oil fields ?
Even if this wasn't a capitalist country where a million pensioners dying in unheated homes so that one billionaire can charge 10% more to sell their fuel abroad might be justified as "market forces" there simply isn't enough to heat homes and make electricity.
Twenty years ago, if we had the relatively modest need we do today, it would work because the gas production was much greater than today.
But actually twenty years ago we were still burning a lot of coal. We'd stopped burning it in the middle of our biggest cities by then, but a huge percentage of UK electricity was coal fired. Makes CCGT look fucking instant in terms of responsiveness does coal, but that's what we did, very little renewable back then.
If we could magically extract gas only for our own use, and as needed rather than with limited scale, we'd run dry before 2029. We'd get this Xmas, and the next, the one after would be scary as headlines about imminent loss of heat would be on every paper and then it'd be gone by spring and we're screwed.
In reality, we're extracting much more slowly and apparently we're (well, huge foreign companies who pay scarcely any tax) are happy to keep doing that for years.
If we’re using the federal government to shut down comedians, I think we have more in common with China/Russia/N. Korea? Especially when you consider illegally using the military to murder boats full of civilians, and banishment (not deportation) to random places.
I'm british, so this should be unvarnished good news. but I just can't imagine this will survive any time past the first bad fox news headline.
This announcement itself has Vance, Sankar, and Kupor's fingerprints all over it.
For tech policy this admin is a basically A16Z and Founders Fund people, but the last admin leaned Sequoia Capital.
This is why you see a lot of crypto (A16Z) this admin and GreenTech (Sequoia) the last admin.
No, but its not based on real law either. Its just whatever the leadership thinks it can get away with.
If you can please the head of the court, then you can do what you want. if you fall out of favour, so do your plans.
I agree. We've ended up adopting the worst aspects of SpAds with none of the checks that come from a PS. DOGE lead to a large portion of the SES (our equivalent of the SCS except they don't make tea, bring biscuits, and act as bagmen for ministers) clamming their mouths.
What Trump is doing was essentially the position of Thomas Dewey, had he been elected President in 1944, but Roosevelt concealed his health problems. Dewey was very specific that Democrat New Deal agencies and programs would be eliminated.
It is the end of cooperative politics and compromise. Given the cognitive impairment, it is likely the beginning of what economists will be calling an "economic adjustment" (administration preferred language) due to AI and wasteful social programs. When cities like Denver want to take out a $1 billion loan to manage their budget, it doesn't bode well. Denver has few economic prospects, and has about $1 billion in existing debt. Los Angeles recently did the same thing.
If only the non-binding is the issue, I believe the supreme court has in the past few decades ruled treaties ratified by congress aren't binding either despite what the constitution says and that congress can undo them by not implementing them or something.
This supreme court doesn't appear to be constrained by past rulings or even constitutional amendments. And 6 of 9 are on team whatever-Trump-wants.
Goldwater v. Carter (1979) let the president unilaterally dissolve a ratified treaty
-The U.K. commits to buying over $80 billion from U.S. tech & defense companies over the next five years. -The U.K. firm GSK (a pharmaceutical company) announced a ~$30 billion investment in AI R&D and infrastructure in the U.S.
-There will be regulatory cooperation to speed up approvals/licensing in nuclear energy.
Once accomplished the US will have complete energy dominance over the UK and the EU.
These are all fine, and some things might even actually happen. (Deals like these tend to diminish as you get closer to money actually changing hands.) International cooperation is good. It's just a little weird that it had to happen between two countries who have been explicitly rejecting international cooperation.
Britain jumps into bed with Palantir in £1.5B defense pact
In contrast, they have no domestic uranium sources, right? And while an idea like "One or two nuclear plants could provide for 100% of demand" sounds good, that means there's two locations to target to bring the entire grid down, which has strategic consequences.
I'm pretty pro-nuclear and I concur that for the UK, I don't think the risk/reward chart actually pans out the way they want it to.
Gas is very expensive here, we don't buy any from Putin, we import it from the US where it is liquefied, shipped thousands of miles and then un-liquefied for end use.
Our businesses are dying trying to compete with countries that pay multiples less for energy than we do.
More nuclear would give us long-term, uninterrupted supply - especially since small modular reactors can be located where the power is needed without needing the national infrastructure to be upgraded.
They just recognized it "UK formally recognises Palestinian state"
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce800enrglzo
Related post here got flagged https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45322919
PSA, See flagged post in the "active" tab https://news.ycombinator.com/active