> Why would you even invest in anything that looks like that? You'll have to ask Peter Thiel, Bill Gates, Sam Altman, and some others why they invested in adva

> Why would you even invest in anything that looks like that? You'll have to ask Peter Thiel, Bill Gates, Sam Altman, and some others why they invested in advanced nuclear. I suspect you'll hear something about how nuclear can produce low-footprint 24/7 carbon-free energy in sites all over the world. Certainly I wouldn't expect a traditional investor to invest in nuclear to make a buck. It's mostly people who are trying to build a safe and prosperous world and believe nuclear can help us get there. > you can't assume that a billion dollar industry in decline has no lobby and is "grassroots". Sure I can. This industry has no pure-nuclear stakeholders. All the owner/operators are utilities, which have vast fossil, wind, solar resources to operate. The utility executives don't give two shoots about nuclear, they only see bottom lines in current markets. Among the vendors, GE is largely divesting from nuclear to make gas and wind turbines. I've seen pro-nuclear advertising, but only in France. I've never seen pro-nuclear advertising in the USA. You see wind and natural gas ads all over the damn place. If there were a functional nuclear lobby, you could probably point me to at least one pro-nuclear advertisement on TV. Can you? I personally know a lot of grassroots nuclear advocates: * https://mothersfornuclear.org/ https://mothersfornuclear.org/ -- a bunch of moms who worked at nuclear plants and wanted to tell people that they were actually good * Seattle Friends of Fission: https://seattlefof.org/ https://seattlefof.org/ -- a couple local grandparents who heard about nuclear wanted to spread the news of its low-carbon capabilities to other Seattle environmentalists. * https://whatisnuclear.com https://whatisnuclear.com -- a bunch of ~2006-era nuclear graduates who were trying to spread information about nuclear to help with climate change. Disclaimer: I founded this one so I know the story very well. * https://www.generationatomic.org/ https://www.generationatomic.org/ -- a few Minnesota folks who learned about nuclear and dedicated their efforts to it * https://energyfromthorium.com/ https://energyfromthorium.com/ -- a NASA tech named Kirk in Alabama who read an old book, got crazy excited, single-handedly rallied thousands of people with excitement about thorium, started a company, and recently got awarded a DOE voucher to develop his tech. If you've heard of Thorium, it's because of this guy, and it's about as grassroots as it gets. The actual nuclear lobby group (NEI) is funded almost entirely by utilities who will rarely allow them to explain nuclear advantages over either fossil or renewables (because all the stakeholders have interests in those). They do good work, but it's not as targeted or hard-hitting as you might expect from a typical lobby group.