The U.S. government is shelling out a whopping $2.7 billion to three companies in an effort to strengthen domestic uranium enrichment, amid surging electricity demand from AI data centers.

The Department of Energy announced on Monday that it will award $900 million each to American Centrifuge Operating and Orano Federal Services, as well as General Matter, a nuclear startup backed by billionaire investor Peter Thiel.

The funding will be distributed through task orders over the next 10 years, under what the department described as a “strict milestone approach.”

  • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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    2 days ago

    We need to reframe the concept of billionaires among the public. In reality, they are seriously mentally-ill people with uncontrolled OCD that manifests itself as Financial Hoarding.

    If a neighbor was hoarding animals, or rusty cars, or old newspapers, etc., the authorities would step in, get them mental health assistance, and clean up the mess.

    But that’s not how we handle people that hoard money. Instead, we worship them, excuse them, laud them as great businesspeople, and give them MORE money. Can you imagine if the government responded to the lady with 100+ cats, who is making the entire neighborhood miserable, by giving her 100 more cats, making the situation even worse?

    That’s what we’re doing with Sociopathic Oligarchs, and making a bad problem even worse. Now they are battling for Trillionaire status, and we are already seeing people like Musk using his money to act like a nation, cutting personal deals at the expense of entire nations. He has already shown his willingness to control Starlink over battlefields.

    What will happen when they start becoming trillionaires, and can fund their own military? What if multiple trillionaires decide to form an alliance, and form their own Military-Industrial complex, and start manufacturing their own armaments, including nuclear?

    None of that is far-fetched, and is easily predictable. With that much money, at some point, some psychopath is going to go rogue, and then we’ll all be wondering why we didn’t stop them when we had the opportunity.

    They are mentally ill, let’s treat them as such.