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."

Comments

Blue Screen of Nuclear Death ?

[Taco Cowboy]

Just wait, China !

Bill Gate will give you Blue Screen of Nuclear Death !!

Re:Blue Screen of Nuclear Death ?

[Joce640k]

Joking aside, If Bill can manage to kickstart this it might be the greatest thing anybody ever did for humanity. Future generations will look back on this as The Turning Point.

(assuming that it works anywhere near as well as it works on paper)

Re:Blue Screen of Nuclear Death ?

[Vectormatic]

Adding "Microsoft" to already crazy picture doesn't improve things either.

This is Bill Gates as a private person backing a company which does new nuclear stuff, dragging microsoft into this makes no sense at all.

Re:Blue Screen of Nuclear Death ?

[AmigaMMC]

That's because Bill Gates DID great things for humanity. He has given over a billion dollars to humanitarian causes including organizations to help children with HIV/AIDS. Sorry guys, I'm out of the hate game. The days when I thought Bill Gates was evil are long gone.

Too bad

[wmbetts]

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.

Re:Too bad

[Anonymous Coward]

It can be done cheaply enough in the U.S. RIGHT NOW. The problem is NIMBY and anti-nuclear activist groups have literally made it impossible.

Re:Too bad

[aztektum]

nuclear.

i just made windows safe for use.

Re:Too bad

[Anonymous Coward]

How is it irrational? Ever heard of Fukushima? Go back and follow the timeline of events. At *every* stage of the disaster experts were reassuring the public that according well accepted nuclear community engineering standards--which the plant adhere too--the next event in the timeline wouldn't happen. It became almost comical after awhile. The news about Fukushima continues to get worse to this day.

No. It's very rational to fear nuclear power, just like it's rational to fear driving on a highway. Coal plants might spew out more radiation, but they're an extremely simple, stable, and well-known quantity. You can probably predict with a high degree of accuracy exactly how many people will die of cancer from a coal plant. But nuclear plants very clearly have many unknown and unpredictable characteristics. Nuclear engineers earned a giant *FAIL* on Fukushima.

I'm still very pro-nuclear. But after Fukushima nuclear engineers really should learn some humility, as well as nuclear fan boys.

Re:Too bad

[Billly Gates]

Except in the US businessmen are cheap and have more interest in cutting costs than following safety rules. Fukashima had the same attitude of costs and could have avoided the meltdown. I would feel better if governments ran them rather than for profit deregulated corporations who have brainwashed the populace that anything else is evil socialism.

Re:Too bad

[mister_playboy]

And the L and - keys are pretty far from R... o.O

L and R are adjacent on my Dvorak keyboard, you insensitive clod!

Re:Too bad

[inasity_rules]

Unless you were as thick as two short planks(and many sadly are), you would never ever ever ever run a nuclear plant on windows. Or even linux. Or even siemens hardware in general. You would use a robust PLC from someone like Omron and some dedicated HMIs to backup your SCADA, which will sadly run windows. The PLC program should be properly interlocked and fail safe. The plant runs on the PLC not the SCADA.

Re:Too bad

[Joce640k]

Thing is... there are SAFE reactor designs.

No, really. The fact that everybody is still using those old 1950s reactors is ludicrous.

Re:Too bad

[BlueParrot]

I would feel better if governments ran them

You mean like Chernobyl?

The problem is lack of effective regulations and oversight. Making something government owned doesn't stop that. You need the people who inspect the stuff to be independent from those who profit from it. If the government wasn't full of industry lobbyists then private run - government inspected , would probably do the job pretty well.

Re:Too bad

[angel'o'sphere]

If you want to educate people with "facts" you should get your facts right:

1. it was a 30 year old plant 1 month away from being decommissioned;

The site had 6 reactors, only the three oldest ones where planned to be decommissioned. Also switching the reactors of would not have helped the stored fuel there ... so I don't get your point.

2. it was hit by an unprecedented earthquake that damaged the walls of the plant -- immediately after which the plant was shut down (the fuel rods removed);

The earth quake was 450km away! So the plant was certainly not hit by a magnitude 9 "shake".

3. it was then hit by an unprecedented tsunami and is close to the sea -- this knocked out the diesel power generators and flooded the plant.

Neither the tsunami nor the quake was unprecedented. Japan was hit by similar and even worth tsunamis in history often enough.

It was an extremely unlucky sequence of events -- the reactor was designed to withstand something like a magnitude 7 earthquake (and was hit with a magnitude 9 one), and survive a 7 ft tsunami (but was hit by a 10 ft one).

You know the difference between yards/meters and ft? The tsunami wave was over 14m high. Not 10 ft wich is roughly 3 yards or 3 meters.

Yes, there are now better and safer reactor designs, but they were not available 30 years ago.

How hard can it be to have some mobile power generators available and palce them at the plant in case of emergency? That has nothing to do with "reactor design". Putting the diesel engines in a water tight envirnoment is not that hard either. Or simply making a damm like wall around the plant which is high enough ...

Re:Too bad

[y86]

I work at a nuclear plant, we use NT4 for our Plant Process Computer. Service pack 5 btw.

Re:Actually, this is good news.

[mug funky]

wasn't criticism. was a statement that lots of CO2 comes from China, and reducing that is a good thing.

reducing it anywhere is a good thing. it's not a race or culture statement, just a numbers game.

Re:Actually, this is good news.

[unkiereamus]

China's government got the brilliant idea that overpopulation would be a great economic boon.

I'm sorry, what?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy

[Citation needed]

Re:Nuclear reactor...

[BlueParrot]

Thorium itself is not a nuclear fuel, it's what is called a fertile material. When bombarded with neutrons it produces Uranium-233 , which is an excellent nuclear fuel, and most certainly usable in a nuclear weapon. The process is very similar to how Plutonium-239 can be made by bombarding Uranium-238 with neutrons.

The main reason people don't use Thorium and U-233 for making bombs is that the U-233 tends to become contaminated with highly radioactive isotopes, making it difficult to handle. In principle you can avoid this by using a more elaborate irradiation and separation technique, but it's just easier to use Uranium-bred Plutonium instead.

To summarise:
Thorium-232 and Uranium-238 are not on their own useful for nuclear fuel or weapons. However, they can be turned into fissile material by bombarding them with neutrons.

In this way Th-232 can be turned into U-233
Whereas U-238 can be turned into Pu-239.

Both U-233 and Pu-239 can be used for weapons, but it is easier to keep the radioactivity of the Pu-239 low.
Hence it is easier ( and cheaper ), to use Uranium fuelled reactors to make a bomb than to use Thorium.