> wouldn't consider what the US navy does scifi.

Military small reactor designs use fuel enriched to levels higher than what we want to be standard in civillian reactors. Second, military nuclear reactors are expensive as hell, and we wouldn't want to power our society with them.

We build nuclear submarines because operationally they are unsurpassed, there's no alternative, and the operational benefits are worth sky-high costs. When it comes to the grid, we have cheaper, more flexible, and faster to deploy options.

> Look at how much pushback, red tape, and cost there is to building a solar farm, road, datacenter or yes, nuclear plant compared to China

That's quite a comparison given China's governance and environmental record. China will take your land, poison you, imprison you if you protest and suppress any mention of it on social media or in the press. Of course a business can get a lot done in that environment, is that really something to aspire to?

Some level of permitting reform is warranted but I would think hard about whether you want to adopt China's policies.

china is a single party state. they can order whatever plants they want and they'll get built - regardless of how much they cost, regardless of if the power is economically competitive, with no need for insurance (the state will clean anything up if it comes to that), and with no need to factor in disposal or decommissioning costs. They can do all this and need not worry if the math pencils out long term, or if the bet was wrong vs renewables. They cant get voted out. Yes their buildout is impressive, but its just not a comparable situation in any way to the mostly free market driven west.

Similarly the US navy does not have to produce commercially viable nuclear power on an all in cost basis. Different goals, different situation.