> He is now co-founder of fission energy company ThorCon, which is developing liquid fuel fission power plants to generate electricity cheaper than coal, to solve the world climate/energy/poverty crises.

I think nuclear will have an important part of dealing with climate change but he has a massive financial stake in this. I wouldn’t trust that more than I’d trust the Exxon guys who told us climate change was a liberal myth for half a century.

The problem is that in government, you are rarely if ever punished for being top strict with your regulation. You are only ever chastised if you are too lenient (or the appearance of it). People like scapegoats and will use lax regulations anytime they can.

The problem is, a regulator never gets in trouble for being top strict. The incentives are totally wrong here and lead to bad regulations.

I trust this guy more than the bureaucrat covering their butt.

Given that misjudgments would have such long half-lives, I’m pretty sure that’s not the only possible interpretation.

Do you know we could keep people safer if we set car speed limits to 10 mph everywhere. We can make everybody wear safety helmets all the time. Maybe we could just prevent everyone from interacting with others, and we can just shut down all public spaces, and then disease would not spread.

Guess what, there's risk to everything we do. The science for radiation seems to contradict with the US government has dictated. But keeping the policy strict and in contradiction to what we know about radiation doesn't get people fired.

Yes, I am familiar with the concept but confabulating more analogies isn’t useful. What you’ve failed to establish is that this is in fact an unnecessary overreaction. I do find your mention of speed limits and helmets interesting, however, because I remember people using your argument against antilock brakes, seatbelts, and airbags to claim they were unnecessary and government overreach, but nobody looking at the data now would be able to say they didn’t have a substantial benefit.

I can't think of a worse way to make money than a thorium energy start up. The people that are into Thorium are zealots, they're not in it for the money. The author of that article founded and sold a software company, worked as a VP for Boston Scientific, and is a professor at Dartmouth. He has easier ways of making money.

That said, Thorcon has one of the more practical Th reactor designs and has government backing already: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsi7lzbiq5k