The Trump administration just finalized a deal to purchase some $80 billion worth of nuclear reactors, as part of an ongoing effort to prop up the AI industry\u2014a business that, according to insiders and critics alike, increasingly looks like a financially dubious effort to outrun reality.<\/p>\n
Yes, the AI industry continues to roar ahead with a virile gusto that, as many observers have noted, doesn\u2019t seem to match its moneymaking operations. Companies are pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into AI, and so far, they aren\u2019t seeing any sort of return<\/a> on their investment. Thus, all the \u201cbubble\u201d talk<\/a>. To keep this quixotic dream afloat, Silicon Valley insists that it needs more and more power (literally and figuratively) and, as it turns out, the quickest way to secure that power is by resurrecting America\u2019s dying nuclear industry<\/a>.<\/p>\n Thus, the White House\u2019s new deal, which, according to a press release<\/a>, will involve a new strategic partnership that will involve \u201cat least $80 billion of new reactors\u201d that will be constructed throughout the U.S. The press release, published by a participating company\u2014the Camceo Corporation\u2014adds: \u201cThese new reactors will reinvigorate the nuclear power industrial base.\u201d Other participants in the deal include the Westinghouse Electric Company and Brookfield Asset Management.<\/p>\n The press release also includes a statement from Howard Lutnick, Trump\u2019s billionaire Commerce Secretary: \u201cOur administration is focused on ensuring the rapid development, deployment, and use of advanced nuclear technologies. This historic partnership supports our national security objectives and enhances our critical infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n In a separate statement, Trump Energy Secretary Chris Wright said that the \u201chistoric partnership\u201d would \u201chelp unleash President Trump\u2019s grand vision to fully energize America and win the global AI race.\u201d<\/p>\n Lots of people have concerns<\/a> about the potential health impacts of a second Nuclear Age\u2014including people within Trump\u2019s own administration. Indeed, the deal speaks to a broader fissure in the Trump White House between two distinct camps: MAGA and MAHA. These camps, which are supposedly simpatico, have nevertheless always seemed to suffer from seemingly unresolvable ideological tensions. The MAGA camp obviously wants to Make America Great Again and, according to its chief policy technicians (folks like the pencil-headed libertarian Russell Vought<\/a>), that means castrating the administrative state and giving all of its meddlesome regulators the boot. As far as I can discern, making America \u201cgreat\u201d again is all about allowing America\u2019s oligarchic titans of industry the freedom to remake the nation in their own image, unrestrained from cumbersome restrictions like laws or concern for public welfare. At the same time, the MAHA camp is on a valiant crusade to Make America Healthy Again and, you might assume, that involves regulations\u2014new health policies to restrict private enterprise from harming Americans with dangerous chemicals and toxins.<\/p>\n In particular, MAHA\u2019s leader, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has spoken out about what he believes are the dangerous effects of radiation, albeit the kinds emitted by cell phones, 5G, and other smart devices. Such a stance would seem to put him and his movement at odds with the Trump administration, which wants to unleash a new generation of nuclear reactors upon America.<\/p>\n Luckily for MAGA, MAHA has never seemed all that interested in creating new policies designed to protect Americans. In fact, it has instead actually pursued its own deregulatory effort at the agencies in which it\u2019s active, to the point where America\u2019s health professionals are now in open revolt. Yes, instead of instituting new regulatory regimes meant to protect Americans, Kennedy has instead opted to gut many parts of the Department of Health and Human Services, which he oversees.<\/p>\n When it comes to radiation, it doesn\u2019t seem like the HHS is destined to stand in the White House\u2019s way. In a new story<\/a> about the policy conflicts between the MAGA and MAHA camps, the New York Times notes that, as per usual, this government\u2019s policies don\u2019t seem to add up:<\/p>\n Mr. Kennedy may preside over the nation\u2019s public health policies, but other parts of the Trump administration want to loosen federal restrictions on another type of radiation that is notorious for its powers to sicken and kill. President Trump has backed both agendas. He\u00a0supports Mr. Kennedy\u00a0while also backing moves to\u00a0ease regulations\u00a0on the nuclear industry, which the administration\u00a0seeks to revive\u00a0after decades of decline. It wants power reactors big and small to electrify his MAGA vision of spurring American industry to greater success.<\/p>\n In the battle over radiation, it seems likely that MAGA will continue to win and MAHA will simply look the other way and go back to whining about chemtrails or something<\/a>. Indeed, so far, it isn\u2019t as if MAHA has really succeeded in any tangible way when it comes to its supposed mission. Kennedy, a man whose many ideological positions have always seemed at odds with one another, recently dunked his own head<\/a> in a toxic woodland stream. Perhaps he was trying to get Americans ready for a much more polluted future? It\u2019s hard to say. It\u2019s also possible that he just has no idea what he\u2019s talking about<\/a>\u2014which, you know, isn\u2019t comforting, either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Trump administration just finalized a deal to purchase some $80 billion worth of nuclear reactors, as part…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257449,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,12,44528,74],"class_list":["post-257448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-donald-trump","tag-nuclear-power","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}