[arjie]

The national security and defense arguments are fortunately the only things that protect any forward progress. Without DoD cover, every Starlink launch would be governed by the California Coastal Commission and friends. Frankly, living in the Bay Area, where people use anti-pollution laws to prevent student housing, I think I understand a little the law structure of the United States. It is perhaps analogous to the way Jewish people treat the halakha. The idea being that if you can find a way around the law, it is meant to be operated that way. So students are noise pollution, bike lanes need environmental impact reports while highways don't, solar power is polluting while gas isn't, endangered species genetically identical to common species are discovered when they would block dams, and 50 years of having a Nuclear Regulatory Commission means exactly one reactor approved by them built.

So there's outrage and all that, but this is the fundamental law of the USA: the law is the Word; and all bugs in it are features.

For the most part, I get why this helps the USA. But boy does it feel like there's going to be a reckoning one day.

[bxk76]

Also the law is not static. Things can go back and forth. Out of phase with whatever trends in news cycles. Watch the Germans debating Nuclear phase out over 30 years.

[leonidasrup]

The problem with large scale industry investments like nuclear power plants is that they don't follow easily whatever trends in news cycles. It takes years to build a nuclear power plant, but it takes just a single vote in the parliament to stop it. Or a referendum like in Austria.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwentendorf_Nuclear_Power_Plan...

So even through some German politicians are currently discussing nuclear phase-in, no investor will invest in nuclear power in Germany, because no investor could be sure that the next or over-next government with participation of German Greens would not again vote for nuclear phase-out.

As much I like some political ideas of German Greens, I understand that for the older generation of Greens, nuclear power is the prime evil which has to banished from face of the Earth and the reason for existence of the German Green party.