So here’s an option that kills CO2 birds with one stone. Well maybe a few stones, but also maybe more than two birds.

1. Start with nuclear power plants. We need a lot of them.
2. Use the clean cheaper energy to produce and increase production of NH3 (ammonia).
3. Use NH3 to fuel current cars.

Yes, there are issues with everything, here are a few, and some answers to those issues.

1. “Nuclear power plants are risky.” Not really anymore. France’s energy is over 70% nuclear. They export energy. They plan to build six to fourteen additional reactors. In the US, nuclear power plants where pretty much stopped because of public opinion and Hollywood disaster movies. Wind and sun can not supply the amount of energy we need. Anything else (other than geothermic energy like in Iceland, which is not feasible, at least for now, in the US – other than maybe in Yellowstone and Hawaii). It also takes time to build nuclear power plants – so it needs an Operation Warp Speed like effort to cut time while maintaining safety. This can power everything.
2. NH3 production, used today mainly as agriculture fertilizer and as a refrigerant, is responsible for about 1% of global energy consumption which is huge, and by that is a huge CO2 emission contributor. Even just switching it to use clean nuclear produced electricity will reduce emission way more than any other effort. The process itself of producing NH3 is environmentally friendly.
3. Existing cars can use 10% of NH3 mixed with 90% gasoline with no modification to the car. With a conversion that will cost few thousand dollars (probably can be reduces to a couple of thousand) the mix can be 90% NH3. There can be incentives and tax breaks, and it’s way cheaper than any electric car – and the CO2 balance is better than electric cars, especially when you don’t have to manufacture new cars to replace existing ones. There is a minor exhaust issues of NOx, but it can be resolved relatively easily (gasoline produces it too), and then we get mostly water and nitrogen, clean and safe. New car design can use engines that are designed specifically for NH3.

There is already a network of NH3 distribution and filling stations, and these can be expended and incorporated into existing gas stations. Way easier than upgrading the electric grid and placing charging stations everywhere, and filling up the tank takes a fraction of the time compared to charging the batteries on an EV.

I know there is more to solve and discuss here, but there are a lot of studies already, NH3 engines were built over a hundred years ago, and NH3 production and distribution is proven and efficient through a hundred years of experience

Sounds to me like a much faster and cleaner solution than electric cars and legacy power plants. Until this is put into motion – we need energy to survive, and currently fusil fuels are the only option, so we better produce them here, and a lot of them, so we can afford to build green solutions. Without low cost energy, we won’t be able to switch to green energy.

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Our dependency on China is huge. As you read this you are probably touching, seeing and hearing dozens of items that are manufactured in China or have parts in them that are. Hypothetically speaking, if we stopped getting parts and products from China, there will be shortage in most everything. Of course that would also hurt China as they relay on the income from the US, though an authoritarian dictatorship has more “flexibility” in handling shortages, but that’s a different discussion.

But China, and you see this with everything they do, do not declare to us what they are and will do, so to squeeze us all they have to do is gradually raise prices, the Chinese government can do that by raising taxes locally, and by that causing manufacturers to raise prices, – and it seems they already do just that. You can claim that the market will adjust, if prices are too high new solutions will be found. Yes and no. Manufacturing infrastructure and know-how takes time and investment, and prices will have to get over a certain threshold in order for this to even trigger the motivation to do that. But that’s only part of the problem.

The foundation for manufacturing anything is energy. Not only the US is not increasing energy supply capabilities, under the Biden administration energy capabilities seems to be shrinking and energy price is increasing by the second. Green energy as currently viewed is a pipe dream, it can be done in parallel but can’t replace other sources fast enough, and probably will never catch up with demand. China on the other hand, is building power plants, traditional and nuclear. The US is not really investing in nuclear energy (very small budget). Nuclear energy is not defined as but actually is the most scalable green energy solution. Without energy, we can’t have manufacturing. I wrote about energy here and here.

So what should be done?

Well, first, energy infrastructure investment must be huge. Until we have A LOT of nuclear powerplants, we need to use gas and oil, otherwise everything will slow down. That can be achieved by the government directly investing in building nuclear powerplants, but probably even better would be to give incentives to private investors to do it – Elon Musk is the first that comes to mind, as he can benefit across the board from low electricity prices (manufacturing and selling more EVs), but many others can as well, even current oil companies, as we used to say, if anyone is going to cannibalize out business, it better be us. Let’s for a second think that energy in this country was free. We pay a flat fee as part of our taxes, and nuclear energy is scaled up to a level that we can export energy (ignore the how) and make it virtually free in the US. This has impact on everything – from prices to innovation to every item you can think of. But even we go half way, decrease energy cost by 50%, it is already a huge enabler for everything.

Second, we need to get manufacturing to the US. Since labor in the US is expensive and will never be a bowl of rice a day, we need to invest in automation. Most manufacturing can be automated with minimize labor. The reason it is not done as much as we need in the US, is that we had China as a cheap alternative, it started just because of cheap labor, lack of regulation and them cutting coroners (not just with quality of the products, but you can be sure the material used and the specifications of products are not what they claim – I know this from first hand experience manufacturing in China). But Chinese factories started gaining automation and manufacturing knowhow that we are now lacking in the US. Again, the government should give huge incentives for that, injecting money specifically to manufacturing automation and infrastructure. And don’t let anyone say automation will kill jobs – currently all these jobs are in China and we pay for them dearly.

There is an issue of raw materials. but if the US gets energy and manufacturing right, agreements can be made where needed, giving preferred tariffs on US made products to countries that supply us with raw materials we need. I’m sure there are other ways to secure raw materials, and find alternatives to anything that is in shortage.

Yes, I’m sure I’m oversimplifying things, but I think that the concepts are solid. This should be treated as a war. It is a war. China will crush the US if they could, just because they can. The US became spoiled and by that vulnerable. That’s how empires collapse. We don’t want that. We need to set energy and manufacturing as a mission, incentivize innovation and define a very clear goal of not only reducing offshore manufacturing and import, but becoming again energy independent and becoming an exported of manufactured goods and not an importer. It might even unite Americans and push the political BS aside. My two (and a half) cents.

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So unfortunately not much improved. Actually I believe things got worse from the global view, but maybe not in an obvious way.

What I’m worried about is that a combination of the US not building nuclear power plants, which currently seem like the only viable solution for green energy, and the rapid increase in demand for energy. So nuclear energy is probably the only viable solution period.

On the flip side, China keeps building new nuclear power plants, and adds more and more nuclear power capacity, setting for itself new annual goals.

Power plants take a long time to build, and need substantial initial investment, The Biden infrastructure bill at $3.5 trillion, budgets a total of only $12 billion for nuclear energy – $6b for maintenance of existing plants and $6b for new micro nuclear power plants.

My opinion? The budget for nuclear energy is way too low. Energy drives everything. We need to get manufacturing back to the US. We have to reduce dependency on import of products and energy (oil). The cost of energy drives pricing of everything – from direct cost of manufacturing, to transportation, the money people spend on consumer goods (if people spend more money on energy – transportation, heating and cooling and house power – they have less to spend on other stuff), so the economy suffer. It doesn’t matter if you drive an electric car, you need energy to run and produce everything,

Take a hypothetical situation where energy is practically free in the US. This will make the US unbeatable in every aspect. On the other hand, if we don’t accelerate nuclear power production, and other countries, mainly China, will, this will be a double whammy, US will be short in energy, and China will have plenty. This will be really bad, any way you see it.

I don’t trust the government (definitely not the current one) to get this done unless we are at war (I hope not). So I’d say, Musk, Bezos, Buffet, Gates, Zuckerberg, Brin, Ellison, Balmer, Bloomberg – start working together if you want to keep the US as a place you want to live in. Break the oil dependency, reduce carbon footprint, get nuclear energy the US main power source within the next two decades. And whomever is in the government – give the incentives for everyone to get behind this, match investments, tax breaks, land, whatever is needed to accelerate the process. Oh, and it will also create a huge amount of jobs, that won’t be a bad thing either.

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