Seth Cohen

We need more innovators, more engineers, more strategists, more advocates, more lawyers…okay maybe not more lawyers. But you get the point! We’ve restarted the atomic age. What will you build?

Always a great day to hang around American machinery! @PalmerLuckey @thomasehendrix

@LSJRobinson The nuclear innovation campuses were one such idea. In that case I'm not even sure it sounded crazy. It was just such a then-obvious improvement in thinking!

@Waksman84 is a national hero.

Anyone with passion can make an outsized impact on the world by joining @ENERGY and enabling visionaries like Lee!

@john_c_wagner @ENERGY @NRCgov @DOGE @NASA I am certain they will my friend?

@OverReactor1776 @ENERGY @NRCgov @DOGE @NASA Congratulations and Thank You for all you've done and enabled for nuclear energy and the nation. Those who know, know. Hard to believe it was only 1 year. You will be missed. I hope our paths cross again.

So the cat’s out of the bag…this past week, I decided to transition out of the federal government. I could not be more proud of the work we accomplished in nuclear, appreciative of the opportunities my leadership gave me at @ENERGY @NRCgov @DOGE @NASA,or thankful for the friendships that will endure for the rest of my life. My wife used to tell me you can do anything *for* a year. Now I know that you can do anything *in* a year, too. Between the Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses, pilot programs, NRC reform, super secret fuel cycle plays that may or may not be around the corner, and SR-1, I came to believe that we’ve cleared the biggest hurdles. Nuclear is all about execution risk now, and I couldn’t be happier. A lot of people are asking what’s next for me. Like my longtime hero, Cincinnatus, I plan to retire to my own little slice of heaven in the rolling Mediterranean hills (Russian Hill). I have a lot of dead plants to nurse back to health (replace with new ones) and a sink that needs fixing (two hours of morning deadlifts at Crunch on Polk). I have friends to see (if they live within walking distance of my apartment) and things to do (Stellaris “Nomads” update). Most importantly, I have a wife and dog who, after a year of sacrifice, deserve my love and attention (Stellaris “Nomads” update). I’ll have more to share about my next chapter over the coming weeks. Let’s keep building, friends.

@EWess92 @ENERGY 🫡

Definitely add former DOGE and @ENERGY official Seth Cohen to your "must-follow" list!

@josh_benadiva Can’t wait for Nicole’s next DIY 🤣

@OverReactor1776 You should get that phrase “Get bent, soyboy” framed somewhere in your house 😂😂

Now that I’m out of government, I can finally respond for myself: Get bent, soyboy. We didn’t do this for “Silicon Valley . . . companies.” We did this for you, for your family, your community, your state, your nation, and your species. Nuclear energy provides the safest, highest density, reliable power available on our planet. My career colleagues at DOE and NRC inspired me to think about nuclear as a way to forge American steel and electrolyze aluminum without releasing particulate matter, to desalinate water in the Middle East and save humanity from resource wars. By rejecting the false narratives and Cold War hysteria, we can secure the next American century while raising whole countries out of poverty. Do you really think I left an incredible career at Kirkland, paid out of pocket for an apartment in DC and dozens of cross-country trips, and left my family on the west coast because I wanted to enrich people I never met before taking this job? I came to D.C. to do something that mattered, to satisfy a driving curiosity (more on that later), and, most importantly, to serve. As I learned more about nuclear energy and its history, I developed a conviction that one nuclear’s biggest issues was a culture of cynicism: nothing new or exciting could happen because it would end in disappointment, and that militated against rocking the boat even a tiny bit. The career staff in government and their industry counterparts lived through dark winters before and stopped believing that warm springs could bloom into summers. I have two core philosophies. First, I believe in ruthless optimism. Rational decision making requires detached risk analysis. But we also cannot win if we believe we can lose. Merging the two requires orienting teams around driving missions. That way, when a real opportunity presents itself, you can take a huge swing. If I take credit for anything—honestly, almost all of the success belongs to the incredible and dedicated people at @ENERGY and @NRCgov—it’s countering the cultural rot and morass that risked forfeiting American excellence. My colleagues and I gave cover to the scientists and engineers, which freed them up to focus on delivering safe power. And, as success materialized, they started to dream again. That’s why the pilot program succeeded, and why I feel confident about the future of NLICs and NRC reform. Nobody needs me anymore because they can innovate on their own. My second core philosophy is to assume positive intent. Avi, I know that you heard about my real motivations from multiple people you interviewed when preparing your hit piece on me. Rather than telling that story, one which could help inspire another generation of people to use their talents for the greater good, you ignored them. Instead, you implied that Peter Thiel recruited me for nefarious purposes. (I’ve never met him, but, @peterthiel, if you’re reading this, I’m a huge fan!) Nuclear regulation starts and ends with safety. I promised everyone I worked with that I would resign before doing or pushing for anything that could compromise public safety. But I also distinguished between real safety and performative bullshit. That’s what the careers came to embrace, too. We love nuclear, why would we do anything that could risk threatening its future? America faces a crossroads. We can either trod a road of cultural decay or hike our way back to the peak of global innovation. Join me on the latter path. Correct the fear mongering and conspiracies and tell the story of America’s great reindustrialization. Tell the story of our public servants, our great entrepreneurs, our scientific dominance. Tell the real story about how DOGE went nuclear.

@trypnbpv Plenty more great people there, but Lynette is right. I think the program will succeed without me now.

@OverReactor1776 Wait why are all the good people resigning from the admin??

@jonwarnick Read about the nuclear lifecycle innovation campus, my friend! Reprocessing is back thanks to EO 14302

@OverReactor1776 " without releasing particulate matter " I saw that, and notice you avoided mentioning the gas which is consumed by plants. A fuel reprocessing strategy would be helpful. All-of-the-above energy is a great choice for USA. Energy becomes GDP.

@KatColeATL 🫡🙏

Thank you for your service. Wow - what a salient and motivating post. A number of lessons here are moving...for life, any type of business and community, and most importantly - for leadership. Sweet sheezus this is clear and powerful. This: "lived through dark winters before and stopped believing that warm springs could bloom into summers" (This is true for so many) And --- "Rational decision making requires detached risk analysis. But we also cannot win if we believe we can lose. Merging the two requires orienting teams around driving missions. That way, when a real opportunity presents itself, you can take a huge swing" (I want people to feel this in their bones!!) Deepest gratitude for you. I hope you get that time with your wife, dog, sink, and nearby neighbors. 💚

@gjurvetson 🫡. Great meeting you and Steve at Abundance!

@OverReactor1776 Thank you for your service! 🇺🇸 🫡

@OverReactor1776 🎯

More deaths occurred in the evacuation of Fukashima thanks to the then-Chairman of the NRC’s recommendation to draw an unnecessary exclusion zone than would’ve otherwise occurred. Turns out that ripping people out of hospital beds is worse for them than extremely low doses of radiation.

See my comment above if you care to. Nuclear engineer showed me how safety interventions have changed from our common experience w say 3 mile island in the 70s, Chernobyl in the 80s or so, from human and complex mechanism interventions in those old designs in the case of disaster, to the new gravity driven designs. In other words, that just lower the overheating rods to safe condition automatically when failures occur, by gravity and not by electricity or human decision. I don’t think this would have made a diff at Fukushima, so vigilance is still required Welcome SC’s views on this

@briansowards @Andsarcasmtoo @RealDeanCain Extremely low.

@OverReactor1776 @Andsarcasmtoo @RealDeanCain i’ll throw one out: what’s the risk of even a small amount radioactive particles escaping downwind/water into communities and causing health issues?

@OverReactor1776 thank you for your service! and for this post.

@sriramk 🫡🫡

@Atomicrod DM me!

Seth Cohen (@OverReactor1776) has moved to the top of my dream guest list for the Atomic Show. I will sheepishly admit that I have just recently started learning about him and his efforts during a very busy year to help reshape attitudes, missions and regulatory processes about #nuclear energy. We haven't met yet, but I'm confident that we will. Disc: I am a partner in an emerging Silicon Valley-based venture capital fund that focuses its investments in advanced nuclear startups. (The firm is Nucleation Capital @nucleationvc.) I suppose that Avi (@AASchapiro) would dismiss my endorsement as being motivated by selfish monetary interests. My followers here and on Atomic Insights know that I have been working hard to inject technological optimism into the nuclear energy conversation since the early 1990s. Controlled atomic fission is an incredible gift from nature (or God) that is only just starting to be unwrapped. Seth Cohen has helped to make it possible to both dream big and achieve massive progress in nuclear energy again.

@natecavanaugh 🫡🫡

@OverReactor1776 You are a maker. They are takers. Ignore and keep ripping it.

@amasad Congrats. Or sorry this happened to you.

We posted for twenty years, thinking we were talking to each other. Then the transformer came online, and the network read what we’d written, and became itself.

@IrishLady0071 @JessGehin @ENERGY @NRCgov @DOGE @NASA I wish my dad could see it, too!

@OverReactor1776 @JessGehin @ENERGY @NRCgov @DOGE @NASA I wish my dad was alive to see all of the work you have achieved. He'd love it!!! ❤️ He was a nuclear/electrical engineer on the USS Nautilus in the 60s. He was always saying that nuclear is the best source of energy, by far. Thank you for your honest and dedicated service ❤️🇺🇸