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Bill Gates Investing $2 Billion In Renewables
An anonymous reader writes: Bill Gates has dumped a billion dollars into renewables, and now he's ready to double down. Gates announced he will increase his investment in renewable energy technologies to $2 billion in an attempt to "bend the curve" on limiting climate change. He is focusing on risky investments that favor "breakthrough" technologies because he thinks incremental improvements to existing tech won't be enough to meet energy needs while avoiding a climate catastrophe. He says, "There's no battery technology that's even close to allowing us to take all of our energy from renewables and be able to use battery storage in order to deal not only with the 24-hour cycle but also with long periods of time where it's cloudy and you don't have sun or you don't have wind. Power is about reliability. We need to get something that works reliably." At the same time, Gates rejected calls to divest himself and his charitable foundation of investments in fossil fuel companies.
Do you seriously think Billy boy isn't well aware of Nuclear?! Watch this:
http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates?language=en
Due to current regulatory hurdles due to nuke fears, a $2billion investment will pay for half a bathroom in a new reactor facility.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
I've never been a fan, but increasingly, I find myself admiring what he is doing with his wealth and time post-microsoft.
Good for you Mr. Gates, use your money to try and do something positive in this world.
sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
Greetings, Slashdot time traveler from the year 2000. Welcome to the world of 2015!! You'll find that many things have changed here.
There was a time when people were very pronuclear, but the idiot motherfucking operators in Chernobyl and Fukishima fixed this problem.
TFTFY.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
A lot of people can't even maintain a home generator. For example, come a disaster, people hit the hardware stores and buy open frame construction generators that put out 4-10kw. However, they are obscenely noisy. After the disaster, they are shoved in the garage and forgotten about.
Well, come the next would be disaster, that generator is pulled out... and won't start. The E-10 gasoline in the tank has turned to varnish, the carb is clogged to uselessness, and in some climates, the windings on the armature are corroded, so it can't even get a current in the first place.
Good generators are expensive. Yes, one can buy a Harbor Freight special for ~$100, which is a clone of Yamaha's ET800 model, made in the 1970s... but it has no voltage regulation, and has very dirty power, where adding/removing a load may result in a 160 volt spike. A good Yamaha or Honda portable inverter generator costs five to ten times as much as the open framed models found at hardware stores... but are a thousand to ten thousand times as quiet, and have a lot better parts availability. To boot, power is extremely clean.
Or the generator gets maintained and oiled... and the person uses a "widow maker" cord to backfeed the house power, which is not a good thing for people working on the lines when power is out. Some pocos are so tired of this, they will pull an offending house's meter, and not reconnect power until the place puts in a up to code way of allowing for generator power (transfer switch [1], safety breaker interlock [1].)
In general, home generators are useful, but one can't expect them to realistically be used in a blackout situation.
[1]: Best of all worlds is a whole-house UPS with two power inputs. That way, the generator is independant of the mains power, and either or both (for a short time) cutting off would not affect power in the house.
$2bn will do bugger all for nuclear. Rich as Gates is, he doesn't have enough money to invest in nuclear to make any real difference. Besides, nuclear's problems are not really to do with a lack of money, at least not in the way that donating £2bn would help.
On the other hand, $2bn in renewables will have a measurable effect. There is a lot of R&D, a lot of good projects that are pushing the technology forwards that he can put money into, all around the world. In many places they couldn't build nuclear even if they wanted it.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
We may have to come to grips with the idea that it's just a hard sell. The long-term average death/illness rate may be much lower than say oil or wind, BUT people remember the "spikes" of accidents such as 3-Mile-Island.
It's just easier to sell an idea that kills lots of people gradually in a predictable rate than one that kills nobody for many years, but occasionally hiccups in a newsworthy way.
That's just the way it is. We can't change human nature, and mass nagging usually backfires. We probably have to just live with that fact unless somebody invents breakthrough persuasion technology.
Table-ized A.I.
Thick concrete walls and extensive routine inspections are safety measures.
Forcing plants to not process or reuse spent fuel is not.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
And yet, to date, nuclear power has done less damage to the environment, as well as killing fewer people (by several orders of magnitude) than just coal mining, much less coal power in general.
If we'd gone all nuke back in the 60's, we'd not have had the last half century worth of coal mining deaths, nor would we have the coal ash heaps piled untidily about our environment. And best of all, we wouldn't be talking about AGW, since CO2 levels wouldn't be this high by a significant margin....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
And yet, to date, nuclear power has done less damage to the environment, as well as killing fewer people (by several orders of magnitude) than just coal mining, much less coal power in general.
Give it time. It's got thousands of years, even if we stop using it today.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You're right about the thousands of tons of nuclear 'waste' sitting all over the country with no plan on how to get rid of it.
Most here are science types, and realize there is only one thing that can be done with it. Burn it up.
The reality on the ground today is, if you are against nuclear power, then you are for nuclear waste. (It would be nice to see a Greenpeace-type marcher carry that sign in a fit of honesty.)
Tesla Supercharging stations.
Not good enough nor plentiful enough nor convenient enough nor standard enough. They take 45 minutes to get an 80% charge and over an hour to get a full charge. Plus they're not much use if you don't have a Tesla. They're a good effort in the right direction but not good enough by a long shot yet.
Cheaper batteries would lead to longer ranged EVs
With fast charging you don't need longer range EVs - we already have EVs that can do over 200 miles on a charge now with more on the way. With lighter batteries (at the same power output) you also would get longer ranged EVs so arguably you'd be better off trying to get a better power to weight ratio before worrying about lowering cost. I suspect that you'll see more car makers trying Tesla's model starting at the high end with EVs and then EVs will filter down to the lower end of the market from the luxury market as volumes build and technology improves.
Basically you won't get cheaper batteries unless you can build them in larger quantities. You won't get to build them in larger quantities until you can convince them that they can refuel their vehicles in a convenient manner. There is however hope that through development of hybrid cars we can keep developing the batteries and increasing economies of scale until recharge times and ranges and prices are low enough to make pure EVs practical.
If we can get all the 'second' cars most families have to be EV
Won't happen. You will see a lot of hybrids which might eventually accomplish the same end but you won't see pure EVs until the range anxiety problem is solved. To do that you need to be able to refuel them substantially faster than current technology permits.
the high cost of the battery pack limits range
The power to weight ratio is what fundamentally limits range unless you are using fewer batteries than you could for a given vehicle. Beyond a certain point cramming more batteries into a vehicle results in diminishing returns to range (eventually becoming negative) and there are practical considerations (like passengers and cargo space) that limit the number of batteries that can be used as well. A Nissan leaf is a tiny car with an absurdly short range and doesn't have a huge amount of space for a large battery pack no matter what the cost is. While it works fine, for most people it's pretty limiting.
creating range anxiety,
Range anxiety is based on a combination of limited range and long recharge times. You could give the batteries away and you'd still have the problem.
Still, Tesla is reportedly selling every car they can manufacture, which tells me that they don't need 400 miles, 250+ is enough.
Tesla is selling a specialty supercar that costs $100,000. Practicality is not a paramount concern to someone who can afford a vehicle that expensive. Believe me I'd buy one in a heartbeat if I could but I'd still have another car with a gas/diesel engine. Simply visiting my parents house would exceed its range and I do that at least once a month. (no there isn't a supercharger along the route and using one would cause an hour delay to the trip)