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Bill Gates To Help China Build Traveling Wave Nuclear Reactor
First time accepted submitter BabaChazz writes "Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates says he is in discussions with China to jointly develop a new kind of nuclear reactor. During a talk at China's Ministry of Science & Technology Wednesday, the billionaire said: 'The idea is to be very low cost, very safe and generate very little waste.' Gates backs Washington-based TerraPower, which is developing a nuclear reactor that can run on depleted uranium."
Just wait, China !
Bill Gate will give you Blue Screen of Nuclear Death !!
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
...powered by Microsoft Bob.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Too bad he's prohibited from doing something like this in the US. If it weren't for ill-rational fears of nuclear power the R&D would be done in the US.
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me". - stolen from Dan C alt.os.linux.slackware
China is one of the largest CO2 polluters in the world. Traveling wave reactors are known to be incredibly clean and safe. If you give the Chinese abundant safe and clean energy, this is going to really help the global warming problem.
The reason traveling wave reactors were never used, even though the technology has been know for half a century, is that they produce no waste that is useful to making nuclear weapons. That is only reason why all nuclear power nations wanted the more dangerous reactors that ran on uranium and plutonium fission.
But modernizing the safer, non-weaponizable form of nuclear power is a great way to go.
Hi. Why not build a Thorium reactor. There is no problem with Thorium, it cannot be made to weapons grade anything. reg quintt
From Microsoft megastar to traveling wave salesman.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
Will the power plant's system running Linux?
'The idea is to be very low cost, very safe and generate very little waste'
the Chinese have a habit of cutting corners, lots of them. will it really be safe? also, their track record of proper waste disposal is poor. it's a good idea as long as there arent any people involved.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
How many Bill Gates does it take to make up for the damage done by the Koch brothers?
How is it desirable that lunatics like Bill Gates mess with our education system?
Why should Bill Gates decide whether or not GMO are a good thing for Africa?
I'm skeptical of the whole concept-- we've heard about next gen safe clean nuclear forever -- LONGER than we've been hearing about clean coal or Roswell Aliens.
When a Chinese reactor goes bust do you think the people responsible will LIVE or have a nice life afterwards?? In Japan they no longer have the honor they once had in their leadership so the responsible ones do not kill themselves anymore; but there may be some shame. Its worse in the USA.
China may have troubles with quality control and corruption; but they have no trouble dealing out proper punishment which should deter some of the problems.
Besides if these "safe" nukes are feasible the leaks will be no worse than the drinking water, air, and arsenic apples in China...
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
This sort of tech has been pushed and rejected by most of the western world due to fear mongering and morons that can only think of japan or chernobyl when they hear the phrase nuclear power. Sadly China get a jump to clean and safe energy because the rest of the world panda to the irrational morons in society, on the whole though at least this reduces the worlds Coal burning.
China will use it to build and charge batteries that will be sold in Wal-Marts in the US, so this is a win-win, right . . . ? An the "traveling nuclear waves" stay in China . . . ? Isn't a traveling nuclear wave called a tsunami, and caused a disaster in Japan . . . ?
Actually the title sounds like fear mongering (Bill/China/Nukes) or a bad joke:
"So, Bill Gates walks into a bar in China with a traveling nuclear wave reactor, and the bartender says . . .
[Insert Your Ask Slashdot Punchline Here]
Can you surf nuclear waves . . . ? Maybe China wants to take over the surfing travel industry . . . ?!
This topic always attracts lots of emotion, with very little substance . . . oh, and I guess I'm an offender, too . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Hopefully Bill doesn't cut too many corners and stays out of the flood zones. Maybe he can find a good sized city in western China with lots of desert around.
China mine a lot of their own coal and are planning to get more from Mongolia. Most of the Australian coal goes to Japan:
http://www.australiancoal.com.au/the-australian-coal-industry_coal-exports_coal-export-details.aspx
Also there are plans to expand a Uranium mine in Australia to make it the largest in the world.
I read somewhere sometime ago China was researching a nuclear reactor design called Pebble Bed, made to be cheap, reliable and safe. Do someone with more knowledge in that field knows if it is a continuation of this program or a completely new design? Thank you.
Tomorrow is another day...
Is the reactor going to use Windows? Is that a good idea? :P
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
The ultimate question for all reactors is what they leave behind.
They can't help leaving behind fission products (that's where they get their energy from), which isn't too much of a problem, as it takes only about 300 years for them to decay to levels of radiotoxicity of natural uranium in equilibrium with its decay products.They will leave behind some Uranium, but this can still be used in other reactors.
The problem is mainly residual Plutonium, Americium and other elements, with half-lives of several thousand or tens of thousands of years, which require hundreds of thousands of years to decay to such levels. (Because of the very damaging high energy alpha decay, rather than lower energy and much less damaging beta and gamma decays.)
On the one hand non-fissle transuranic elements capture neutrons and interfere with the chain reaction, on the other hand capturing neutrons either splits them or eventually transmutes them into fissle elements. This turns them into fission products, which we can handle with reasonable confidence. The question now is: does the travelling wave in the travelling wave reactor provide enough neutrons to transmute and split the transuranic elements it breeds, such that the reactor as a whole reaches a stable equilibrium before the end of its operating time? Conventional reactors don't, because the chain reaction is stopped for lack of neutrons long before a stable equilibrium is achieved. Most breeder reactors do, but it depends a lot on how tight the neutron economy of the particular reactor is. And afaik (correct me if you know better or have access to specifications), the neutron economy of the travelling wave reactor is rather tight and might well be possible, that the wave leaves ever more transuranics in its wake as it moves, without ever reaching an equilibrium over the whole of the reactor.
Why is reaching a stable equilibrium before the end of operation enough? In this case you can add some additional transuranics at the start of operation and still reach the same equilibrium at the end of operation. If the amount you can add at the start (and still reach equilibrium) is larger than the amount left at the end of operation, you effectively reduced the total amount. Given that, you effectively solved the long-term problem of transuranic waste, by limiting its amount and eventually burning it.
The question is, can the travelling wave reactor do that or not? (There are other options ex post, but it is always best to not let the problem exist in the first place rather than dealing with it later.)
Of course I know that nuclear power plants generate the material for weapons, hence why despite protests many of the current ones exist, however what we are talking about here is a type of plant that DOES NOT produce materials for such weapons. just because the current dangerous ones were created for the wrong reasons doesn't mean safer ones can't be created for the right reasons.
Wait till you see the meltdown!
First: Say it with me. Nuclear reactors ARE NOT nuclear bombs.
Unless you're dealing with highly enriched materials with proper reflectors and shape (these things REALLY matter) you're generally not going to get any sort of supercriticality, not to mention setting off a nuclear explosion isn't something that you can do just by accident. Even a simple device like 'Little Boy' requires some extreme engineering. A multistage device with a megaton yield....by accident? Not gonna happen... this pesky thing called physics will get in the way.
Second: We don't care about using unenriched uranium. That's a good thing to use as enriched uranium is incredibly dangerous to make (Bing uranium hexafloride), and dealing with weapons-grade anything is always dangerous.
Third:
Traveling wave reactors are fairly hands off deals. Most other reactors require constant attention to maintain their "balance" and if intimate knowledge of the system (along with piss poor planning and bad control rod design) is lacking then you can end up with situations like Chernobyl. If your DR plan doesn't account for a completely passive cooling system, as in Fukushima, or a dark plant... again see Fukushima.
"Chinese Amazons, power armor, laser swords.... things just meant to be." - Shampoo, A Very Scary Bet
In the new design, the reactions all take place near the reactor's center instead of starting at one end and moving to the other. To start, uranium 235 fuel rods are arranged in the center of the reactor. Surrounding these rods are ones made up of uranium 238. As the nuclear reactions proceed, the uranium 238 rods closest to the core are the first to be converted into plutonium, which is then used up in fission reactions that produce yet more plutonium in nearby fuel rods. As the innermost fuel rods are used up, they're taken out of the center using a remote-controlled mechanical device and moved to the periphery of the reactor. The remaining uranium 238 rods—including those that were close enough to the center that some of the uranium has been converted to plutonium—are then shuffled toward the center to take the place of the spent fuel.
Currently there is no known material that could be used to encase the fuel rods in -- they need to survive radiation exposure for decades without expanding.
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Makes sense. That's where the word "ugly" comes from, after all... "looks like an ugg"...
Just as long as noone squirts me with nuclear waste, I'm fine.
Is jumping up and down in front of you, with some "nuclear waste" showing under the armpits ok though?
Ooops, sorry, wrong Microsoftie...
The travelling wave reactor concept appears to be basically a sodium cooled reactor that has a lot of extra U-238 , allowing it to go very long without refuelling as the enriched portion of the core "travels" along the U-238 ( this image explains the concept: http://evworld.com/press/IV_twr_concept.jpg ).
I have to say I am sceptical. The main economic issue with sodium cooled fast breeders is that they are very capital intensive due to the challenges of handling flammable sodium. Thus trading even more capital investment ( in the form of a larger core ) for less frequent refuelling seems like a bad idea. Furthermore, any design that is to see widespread deployment should make use of economics of scale. Fuel fabrication, reprocessing and so on can be centralised, with a few facilities potentially serving many reactors, or even multiple nations. It thus makes little sense to move capital costs towards the power plant and reactor, away from facilities that can be centralised. This is why I doubt all the talk about "Integral" facilities or on-line reprocessing ( as suggested for molten salt reactors ).
It's not very hard to build a breeder with a 2-3 year core lifetime anyway, and you probably don't want to run it much longer than that without shutting it down for servicing, repairs, inspection and so on.
Don't get me wrong. It's a cool idea technologically. I just don't think it will be economically competitive with other Gen-IV designs. The focus for breeders today should be on reducing capital up-front investment, improved safety and reliability. No utility is going to invest billions up-front in an experimental design that is unlikely to be economically competitive with other alternatives.
>> First: Say it with me. Nuclear reactors ARE NOT nuclear bombs.
Yep. There is a different goal. But a nuclear reactor can go prompt critical, and this means an explosion, exactly what happened at Tchernobyl.
There is a conceptual difference, i agree. But it's a bomb.
Furthermore, grouping together 10's of time a critcal mass IS dangerous. The excess reactivity will make an eventual prompt critical runaway much more rapid and powerful than SL-1 or Tchernobyl. Could come in the kilotons range, eventually. This is why this change of scale is dangerous.
Of course you have first to have a prompt criticality. I cannot rule such a possibility out, but i'm not an expert of this type of reactors.
aaaaaaa
>> a completely passive cooling system
There is no such thing as a "completely passive cooling system" for a system that gives out a few GWth in a few cubic meters.
Perhaps by dropping it into the pacific, even then it will quickly sink into the ocean floor, stopping convection.
aaaaaaa
I start: 640 mSv ought to be enough for anybody.
of actual decommissioned nuclear power plants. If such a list exists, it would be microscopic in comparison to the list of aging plants given a rubber stamp extension on life just so the owners never have to foot the bill or more accurately not until they bailout with their golden parachutes. This may be more of a US problem, given that corporations are firmly in control of government.
Why Bill?
Gates isn't a nuclear engineer, nor does his company have related expertise. China has plenty of money of its own, they don't need him to put up funds.
Bill Gates invests in more nuclear power. Google invests in solar power plants.
I don't think bill gates will like being tied to the next chernobyl or Fukushima.
Now both disasters could of been not as bad with they would put more in to safety and makeing so that the backup's where not so easy to take out.
If this works as planned, Nevadans will be kicking themselves for the next century over their protests over Yucca Mountain. They were almost in the position of having tons of FREE nuclear fuel sitting in nice caves, ready to be hauled up for cheap power. Whoops!
/// Not a super-genius . . . yet. ///
We do things the American way when we don't really realize why.
I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a factory still churning out bullets for weapons our military (snicker) doesn't even use
That is not true. Gates can build it here without any issues. He has to have a license, but those are NOT that expensive to get. Now, EU and Japan are wigged out over nukes, but I do not see America, Canada, or even UK heading towards insanity.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Here's Bill Gates' TED presentation on this project from almost 2 years ago:
http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates.html
Even if half of this design works out as advertised, i think this would be awesome! Pity that the 'western world' wasn't interested in investing in it and trying it out....
And why is it not as good as plutonium or depleted uranium?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
An excursion event in a reactor isn't even close to the kiloton range (the one in reactor 4 at Chernobyl was only 33GW). The explosion you mentioned at Chernobyl was enough to toss a 2200 ton slab... but guess what... it was just steam radioactive as hell due to contamination from damaged rods (normally water in reactors when irradiated creates N-16 which is a short -lived (as in a few minutes) alpha emitter) ... but still just steam. The amount of force in the explosion at Chernobyl was only about 10 tons. Enough to totally jack up the core and it's fuel/control rods but not vaporize the plant which is what would happen if you got into the kiloton range.
Second:
Critical mass only means you've got enough neutrons to maintain a fission reaction, that's it, scale has nothing to do with it. The neutron flux between rods is moderated by steam, water, and other neutron absorbers, adding more fissile material into the equation doens't equal more energy. In fact it can STOP your reaction as enough material will absorb neutrons but not emit them with enough energy to really do anything.
Third:
Yes there is such a thing as passive cooling systems that require no moving parts. Most nuclear subs use molton sodium as a coolant and natural convection moves the sodium in a loop. Fukushima had such a thing but it the command lines to that value were cut and power to open the valve wasn't there anyway. That still didn't matter as the valve could be opened by hand except that the radiation in that part of the plant was too high. Some estimates but it at almost 30Sv MINUTE and no matter how fast you ran or with how much protection you'd still be dead before you could open the valve.
Fourth:
Dumping cold water into a reactor, especially sea water, is a big no-no as that'll immediately cause an excursion in 99% of situations, passive cooling or not. The water would stop the reaction immediately but the excess neutrons would have no place to go, as the water attenuated the neutron flux, and would MELT the fuel rods in a few minutes. If it's sea water you also get corrosion. When ordinary water is irradiated with strong alpha it becomes corrosive, reactor piping is designed to deal with the chemical reaction (peroxide) and so isn't in any danger as long as procedures are followed. Sea water on the other hand is corrosive against the same materials that are generally inert against irradiated water.
Fifth:
Fukushima had a N+2 failure system, you'd need two completely isolated systems to fail before things got ugly and the odds of that happening were extremely unlikely.
Um... what type of reactor are you an expert in as doing what you said in that last post would be a very stupid thing to do?
"Chinese Amazons, power armor, laser swords.... things just meant to be." - Shampoo, A Very Scary Bet
Google is investing in a number of tech. That includes Solar power, but also wind, geo-thermal, and they continue to look at nuke.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Quit trying to give China the moral high ground!
Nearly every industrial process has has something toxic involved. The above poster could have just as easily used margerine and the nickel catylst used to make that as their strawman.
There are far worse things used to make the fuel that goes into your vehicle (eg. HF) than arsenic and phosphorus but we just accept it as part of life and deal with the dangerous materials appropriately. The nuclear fanboys stuck in the 1970s like to pretend that everything they blindly cheer for but do not understand is "clean" and that no progress is necessary. Of course that is insane, dishonest, an insult to everyone's intelligence and counterproductive.
ALL nuclear reactors DO have a proliferation risk in them. The main driver of the proliferation risk is they create and spread knowledge about how to safely and effectively work with highly radioactive materials. Some designs are worse than others in that the materials and of processing equipment can be directly re-purposed for weapons. With that said, the main reasons nuclear is dead in the US is, #1 Given its history, who is dumb enough to trust a multi-billion dollar investment to the regulatory whims of the NRC? Answer: No one with a billion dollars. #2, There are too many people who earn a living scaring people about nuclear power. Ralph Nader essentially retired on it. NIMBY is just a tactic they use.
I hope solar and wind eventually pay-off because Hydro and Nuke are dead in the U.S.
Somebody tell Bill that nukes are over. So is Windows. And "Bing" is not a verb, like "google".