First New Nuclear Reactor Constructed at Idaho National Lab in 50 Years to Go Critical.

[thought crime]

6. Will regulations be relaxed to accommodate these very small reactors?

If the new nuclear architecture is more distributed with many small reactors like the one shown in the post, there is a natural and valid concern about both overall operational safety and about management of waste at many more sites than now exist.

Valid safety concerns have been raised about the use of hydrogen. But an accident with hydrogen would be over quickly (Bang!). An incident or accident with radioactive material could mean radioactive contamination that is very difficult and expensive to deal with. I don't really trust the current DOE or the AI tech-bros to make the proper investments to safely manage these small and soon-to-be numerous reactors. I hope we don't have to learn hard lessons all over again.