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Bill Gates May Build Small Nuclear Reactor
Hugh Pickens writes "TerraPower, an energy start-up backed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, is in discussions with Toshiba Corp. to develop a small-scale nuclear reactor that would represent a long-term bet to make nuclear power safer and cheaper. Toshiba confirmed it is in preliminary discussions with TerraPower, a unit of Intellectual Ventures, a patent-holding concern partially funded by Gates. Toshiba spokesman Keisuke Ohmori says the two sides are talking about how they could collaborate on nuclear technology, although discussions are still in early stages and that nothing has been decided on investment or development. TerraPower has publicly said its Traveling Wave Reactor could run for decades on depleted uranium without refueling (PDF) or removing spent fuel from the device. The reactor, the company has said, could be safer, cheaper and more socially acceptable than today's reactors. Gates's recent focus on nuclear power has been fueled by an interest in developing new power systems for developing countries where he says that new energy solutions are needed to combat climate change. Terrapower faces a lengthy, multi-year process to get its "traveling wave" reactor concept reviewed by regulators but if TerraPower succeeds in advancing its plans, it could provide an alternative blueprint for the nuclear industry at a time when new reactors may be coming online."
...finally.
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
Bill Gates invests in a company. He's not personally building a reactor like some kind of comic book super villain.
If there was ever a more appropriate time for the Bill Gates as Borg graphic, I don't know when that would be. If a nuclear-powered Bill Gates is ever developed, then resistance will be fissile! (sorry, resisting that joke was futile)
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
The blue glow of death.... Who better than Bill to distribute it?
In the movies, whenever a billionaire builds a nuclear reactor, James Bond usually has to save the world from his evil schemes.
It should be illegal to say that freedom of speech should be limited.
There's still huge potential for fission power. It's just that civilian reactor technology is basically stuck in the 1970s.
Bill gave a speech on this at last years tedtalks.
http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates.html
I'm right on it, just give me oh... say.. 20 years?
anyway, old school 1960s fission isnt all that interessting, these newer reactors which burn spent fuel from the old school reactors, is very very interesting. It reduces the amount of radioactive waste we have to store, and extracts energy in the process. Fusion, is off course the ultimate goal in nuclear technology, but optimising fission to the point where waste is kept to a minimum, and fuel cycles/reactor designs are far more efficient and safe is definitely a good thing
People, what a bunch of bastards
He's too busy building the organ while stroking the white cat.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
I still be the greens will oppose this tech under the grounds that it doesn't reduce waste ENOUGH.
It will encourage growth, the very last thing the greens want. Expect to see opposition to it.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
If one of Bill Gates' projects leads to clean and plentiful energy and saves the world from global warming, it still won't make up for IE6.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Yes, briefly.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Notwithstanding Mr. Gates ownership of TerraPower... It makes sense for Toshiba to work with them given (a) Their ownership of the Westinghouse legacy (b) Their experience building large nuclear power reactors (c) Their experience designing small, self contained, fail-safe nuclear reactors in the 100kW to 10MW size range.
"640 volts ought to be enough for anybody. . . "
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
He's building a bomb, I tell you! A bomb! Send in the troops right now to stop him.
Running a pirated copy of windows has suddenly become a lot more dangerous.
I have a working to this problem. During the winter, I heat my house by burning hippies.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
To be fair - this is a hard day for the poor average slashbot. Should he praise nukular power or damn Bill Gates to hell? Decisions, decisions...
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
He'd have more luck keeping nukes from Iran and North Korea by threatening them with Bing.
Free Martian Whores!
Poppycock. One cannot defeat Googol the Destroyer with mere bombs. This is an attempt by Gatus to deny Googol the Detroyer the power needed to run the antipodal LHC in order to create the bipolar quantum energy conundrum in which Googol will temper the world's data before using it to complete the Rite of a Million Targeted Ads.
When last we saw our heroes, Gatus and Joba continued in the diverse efforts to thwart Googol the Destroyer. But we saw a new hero rising, in the persona of T-Bone Pickings, who aims to control the world's power supply via creation of wind farms under his control, thereby making fossil-fuel energy obsolete and useless to Googol the Destroyer. It appears that Gatus and Pickings have been coordinating their efforts -- while Pickings is being thwarted by legislators who secretly serve the Dark Master, Gatus has come up with a plan to use small nuclear reactors to make fossil fuels obsolete, thereby denying Googol both the power to run the antipodal LHC and the power upon which his Webcrawling Spiders of Doom feed.
It appears that Googol the Destroyer has been partially thwarted in China -- there may be additional heroes there who we could celebrate, should we ever be able to get information out of the Great Firewall. Can Gatus have the same kind of Legislative and Bureacratic success against Googol the Destroyer here in the United States? Only time will tell.
Meanwhile, rumors circulate that Joba, contrary to popular belief, has not been ill. Rather, he underwent a series of surgeries to enhance his natural charisma, marketing abilities, and since he was under the knife anyway, a titanium-clad skeleton, actuator-enhanced musculature, and a bone-white monochromatic epidermis. Cyber-Joba is now a real force to be reckoned with -- but will his new powers be enough to thwart Googol the Destroyer?
And lest we forget, the roving Druid Stallmanx has ceased roaming for the time being, and spends his days and nights directing the efforts of his Beard Gnomes in his secret laboratory. Just what is he cooking up? Can he reconcile the anarchist developers with the money-grubbing and low-self-esteem developers that Gatus and Joba have converted to the cause of stopping Googol?
All these questions possibly answered, and more, in next week's episode of Googol the Destroyer!
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I don't see why anyone would be surprised by this. He's already a multi-billionaire business tycoon with his own custom-built fortress. Since the job of Batman is already taken, the transition to supervillain is the next logical step.
He is one of the few people in the world who have access to enormous resources and yet, he just does not do anything with it that I would qualify as fun.
Springer has his cars or maybe he used to, Woz flew airplanes, right? The Virgin guy, this dude Branson, he sounds like a kind of fella who knows how to have fun with the money he made. Airplanes, submarines, space craft! Now that's the kind of stuff I am talking about.
IIRC, Bill Gates has a 30 car collection, it's just that he doesn't really talk about his toys. His (and Paul Allen co-founder of MS) most famous car is the imported Porsche 959 which spent over a decade impounded by customs until they helped get a Federal law passed allowing for "show and display" of cars that hadn't been crash certified in the USA.
There are a lot of Bill Gates stories, they just don't get brought up when talking about his charity work.
Your UID is low enough that you should already know some of them.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Windows Genuine Advantage has detected that you are running an unregistered version of windows. Your power supply has registered itself as a Travelling Wave Reactor. Your thirty day trial period has now expired, and your Travelling Wave Reactor will begin its self destruct sequence.
Self destruct in
15 minutes...
6 days...
30 seconds...
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