Or, for another perspective, they're helping force capitalism to work: an opportunity exists to reduce prices.

This is a good way to force the (often monopolistic) providers to get their shit together, as google did with google fiber.

▲

crinkly 4 days ago | parent [-]

Ah yes a nuclear race to the bottom. Sorry but that will be a monumental fuck up if you have any historical knowledge about how we handle nuclear materials.

Capitalism fails very quickly the moment you try and push past sensible regulation and legislation. Look at the whole US situation right now.

It's expensive as hell already and we still don't handle waste or environmental issues properly. Capitalism isn't going to solve anything other than the price as it'll defer the rest until it's someone else's problem much like it does not on every single damn sector's waste.

I'm not anti-nuclear. We need it. What we don't need is tech companies getting into the market.

▲

pfdietz 3 days ago | parent [-]

We do not in fact need it.

▲

nomel 3 days ago | parent [-]

Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are interested in it enough to put money into it. That suggests there is a market need for it, or at least interest, within the current context.

We should assume they're acting rationally, so the real question is, why do they find this interesting at all? Why not dump the money into private solar farms instead?

	▲	pfdietz 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		The world will spend about a quadrillion dollars on energy in the 21st century. Piddling little billion dollar investments look like long shot bets on low probability outcomes. The big spending is on renewables now. Gates in particular seems to have been a disciple of Vaclav Smil, a person whose arguments against renewable cost reduction were wildly mistaken.