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Bill Gates To Develop a Revolutionary Nuclear Reactor With Korea

Posted by samzenpus on from the power-to-the-people dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft founder Bill Gates has pledged to develop with Korea a revolutionary nuclear reactor that will leave far less radioactive waste than existing ones. Gates invested US$35 million in a nuclear-power venture company TerraPower in 2010. TerraPower is led by John Gilleland. It was formed from an effort initiated in 2007 by Nathan Myhrvold's company, Intellectual Ventures. The company includes expert staff and individual consultants who have worked for some of the most prestigious nuclear laboratories and engineering companies in the world." You may remember that Gates worked with China to build a reactor late last year.

6 of 413 comments (clear)

  1. Thorium by dicobalt · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That's all I have to say about that.

  2. Nuclear Power is unnecessary. by DMJC · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Why does anyone need nuclear power? Solar salt thermal plants can do baseload electricity already. There's a proposal to convert Australia to 100% solar thermal/0 carbon emissions in a 10 year time frame and it only costs $400 Billion. That completely eliminates our greenhouse gas issues. http://www.http//beyondzeroemissions.org Nuclear/Oil/Gas really are dead end Technologies. We should be conserving nuclear resources for long-haul space travel instead of burning our only real means off this rock.

  3. Traveling Wave Reactor by trout007 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's a really cool idea if you can get it to work. It breeds fuel right before it burns it. So you can load the thing once and have it run for 50 years without refueling. It's nice because you don't have to have move large amounts of enriched uranium or plutonium around.

    --
    I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
  4. Cost is a factor by Firethorn · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Indeed; I've had people point out 'Japan's running just fine having shut down ALL their nuclear plants!'. Just recently I read an article* that pointed out that the cost of the oil and natural gas to replace their nuclear plants pushed Japan into a trade deficit for the first time in decades. Now, it didn't have a mention of cost, and the global downturn probably plays a factor, but I found an estimate of $100M/day, 4.5M barrels of oil. Since Oil is pretty price-inflexible, that 4.5M barrels of oil is coming out of the rest of the world - raising the price of our gasoline, diesel, and other petroleum products.

    LNG imports: increased 18% in volume, 52% in value, to $67B. Cost to the Japanese: $23B USD equivalent.

    Not the most impartial site, but it quotes $55B in additional fossil fuel imports. It actually says the shutdowns were a bigger cause than all the damage from the Earthquake & Tsunami.

    For those worried about global warming - Green energy isn't ramping up to replace the nuclear power lost anytime soon, and it's led to a substantial increase in Japan's CO2 emissions. Right now Japanese consumers oppose turning the plants back on; but last I heard they're also not seeing an increase in their electric bill yet.

    Finally, to DMJC - How well do you think SST Plants will do during an Alaskan Winter? Beware the 'one true power' fallacy. My goal is 40% nuclear, 20% solar, 20% wind, 20% other(hydro, geothermal, tidal, biomass, etc...)

    *Dead tree publication, Stars & Stripes, Aug 13,2012, 'Fukushima disaster studies call for regulatory reform'.

    --
    I don't read AC A human right
    1. Re:Cost is a factor by nojayuk · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Last report I saw said that Japan's carbon emissions are up 17% over last year and that includes a period when many of their nuclear reactors were still running. TEPCO has announced a 9% increase in domestic electricity prices starting in September this year, to cover the cost of the coal and oil imports needed to generate electricity that was previously produced by the nuclear stations.

      Two Japanese reactors at Ohi restarted recently, generating about 2.4GW baseload, that is day and night. Another reactor in Shikoku might restart before winter but the rest are still shut down and will be until the panic is over.

      My "one true power" goal would be 150% nuclear with the extra power being used to produce liquid fuels from atmospheric CO2 for mobile and transport needs.

  5. Re:My God by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Communist? North Korea? Not at all. They,re a jingoistic Autocracy built around a national cult of personality.

    So here's another truism, countries that pretend to be Communist generally aren't.

    FWIW, USSR was generally false too, and some people have various problems with USA.