Realizing the cost advantage of fission will change minds pretty quick. Of course there's the catch-22 of being able to do it before their minds are changed. uPower's plan of trying offgrid first may be worth a shot. A little understanding of FUD psychology can help too. Today's nuclear industry flunks on that. Telling people nuclear is safe is a classic mistake. Safety is a feeling, and it's hard to feel safe about things you've never touched and can't even picture. There's virtuous feedback here too -- more reactors around, more people who see them and stop fearing them. A charismatic CEO who can stand on top of a reactor on YouTube can't hurt either.

You're absolutely right that safety is a feeling, and we are thinking like you that having a full scale prototype that people and regulators could see, hug, feel, and basically test drive will help. It's just not big and scary. In fact, the amount of heat produced by the reactor a day after shutdown would be on the order of a hundred hair dryers. Sounds cozy :) loud but cozy.

Where the industry has failed in engaging new types of social media (HN, YouTube, reddit, quora, etc) people are stepping up. And honestly it's probably better this way.

On a side note, people don't realize but there's no big nuclear industry really. Our founders have met and spent time with executives from nearly every domestic utility company and all of them have different types of power in their portfolio. They have no real interest in promoting nuclear over coal. The uranium miners make no money compared to coal mines because, think of it, one two-millionth of the volume of nuclear materials is needed compared to the volume of coal. You've never seen a uranium train car, because reactors don't need to burn hundreds of train cars a day and put that in our air.

Compound that with the fact that anything nuclear is like sex and plane crashes for news media. :)

So it's a battle to get education out, but smart people like you on HN will win the day. I really believe it.

Also our charismatic CEO will do his best to stand on a reactor for you ASAP.

:)

"cost advantage of fission" -- you state this like a fact, but it is actually a subject of much discussion.

I would very much enjoy seeing CEOs stand on top of reactors on YouTube. There doesn't even need to be shielding.

Great point. It's so true. It's exciting that having nuclear backing from groups like YC help people be less terrified (another nuclear group in YC is Helion!). Some great documentaries like Pandora's Box (on netflix) are helping. And generally, i think people are sometimes just relatively growing "less terrified" of nuclear than global pollution, climate change, ocean acidification etc.

I think it's very important that businesses engaged in development and application of nuclear technology pursue public education more vigorously.

Public level of understanding of nuclear technology is depressing. The past fear campaigns and decades of life in fear of nuclear annihilation during the cold war have spread the knowledge of fear-inducing properties of nuclear materials like very long half-life of the waste, but kept people largely unaware of other important facts like means to reduce half-life of the waste, natural existence of background radiation, our consequent evolutionary adaptations to it or the inverse square law. This creates the perception that even properly regulated nuclear technology is a lot more dangerous than it actually is.