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Trump's Tech Battle With China Roils Bill Gates Nuclear Venture (wsj.com)
Add Bill Gates to the list of executives whose businesses have been ensnared by the Trump administration's battle with China over technology and trade. From a report: The tech tycoon and philanthropist said in an essay posted late last week that a nuclear-energy project in China by a company he co-founded called TerraPower LLC is now unlikely to proceed because of recent changes in U.S. policy toward China [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source]. That leaves TerraPower, which had been working on the China project for more than three years, scrambling for a new partner and uncertain where it might be able to run a pilot of the nuclear reactor it has been developing, according to company officials.
Mr. Gates, TerraPower's chairman, helped start and fund the Bellevue, Wash., company, which incorporated in 2008, in a long-term bid to make nuclear reactors smaller, less expensive and safer than current nuclear energy sources. The company has been developing something called a traveling-wave reactor, which uses depleted uranium as fuel, something that TerraPower says can improve safety and reduce costs. Regulatory restrictions and limited federal funding made building the facility in the U.S. difficult and led TerraPower to look for partners abroad, Chief Executive Chris Levesque said in an interview.
Mr. Gates, TerraPower's chairman, helped start and fund the Bellevue, Wash., company, which incorporated in 2008, in a long-term bid to make nuclear reactors smaller, less expensive and safer than current nuclear energy sources. The company has been developing something called a traveling-wave reactor, which uses depleted uranium as fuel, something that TerraPower says can improve safety and reduce costs. Regulatory restrictions and limited federal funding made building the facility in the U.S. difficult and led TerraPower to look for partners abroad, Chief Executive Chris Levesque said in an interview.
The breeding of U-238 is exactly what you do when you make a modern bomb and PUREX (how you separate out the Pu-239 from the Uranium) isn't exactly a secret process as it was developed 70 years ago. It seems safer to just use 50% enriched Uranium (which still require enrichment) and make less waste or ever better use a Th-U fuel cycle as no Pu-239 is produced in that fuel cycle. Anti-proliferation folks often come from foreign policy or military backgrounds and often don't have the science background to understand all the subtleties of nuclear power. So they choose the "more power" approach and often force civilian operations to run in a far more nasty and waste producing way in an effort to ensure nobody ever reprocesses the waste to make a bomb. This is classic risk telescoping as the pollution from the waste is far more likely to endanger lives than this fantasy that couldn't even happen in a movie because the audience wouldn't buy it.
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
Think you will find even Canada has excessive regulation and the same issue with delusional morons who "think" they are environmentalists that would fight things like this that actually help the environment.
And you would be wrong. They actually license MSRs in Canada and there a lot more empty space to put reactors far away from where anyone would care. Also, keep in mind that Canada is OK with strip-mining huge chunks of their country for oil sands.
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
More people should appreciate Bill Gates. He brought us crippleware computers with perpetual spyware and adware and made the masses of low-IQ users love it by having his company lie about it.
But they are against pipelines to send it anywhere. Instead they load it on trains which crash and blow up small Quebec towns.
It's fundametally dangerous to transfer tech to an evil totalitarian coomunist regime that has a dictator-for-life and is trying to spread its influence globally.
These CEOs of western tech companies who have been giving China high tech as part of a trade for Chinese slave labor have been setting all the pieces in place that may eventually lead to another World War, just as businessmen both technology and materials with Japan and Germany prior to WWII provided those nations with what they needed to assert their expansionist dreams. The people who pay the price for this borderline treasonous behavior will be the middle class western workers who lost their jobs to the Chinese laborers, or the keds of the workers who paid the price.
Bill Gates got rich in America, selling products to Americans. If he had a shred of decency and loaylty, he would do his research in America with American workers.
Incidentally, if he had arisen in Canada or the UK, then I would say he should be doing his work there using those workers; my concern here is the safety and security of western civ versus fuelling the expansion of China's current evil (as opposed to a pure 'Murica! play).
Given how the chinese treat IP; isn't this a favor?
Basically they'd build the reactor in china, and within 2 weeks the plans and technical details would be 'appropriated' by the Chinese government.
Basically all that R&D wasted. Just because they aren't shooting at us (yet) doesn't make them an ally, or even a remotely-friendly country.
On the other hand... Nuclear power isn't really something that the Chinese can build cheaper there for sale in the US; it will be used locally. Their use won't undermine use in the US. Wouldn't better, safer nuclear power be better where ever it's used than older, less-safe designs? In this case, sharing the IP doesn't really sound like a bad idea. Perhaps R&D can be shared for the benefit of everyone rather than hoarded for extra profit by some.
We all live on this planet together.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Before Trump: Slashdot and Media: We're worried about China, they don't play fair , steal our tech, and they have horrible human rights and they destroy our jobs in exchange for cheap trinkets. We should restrict ties with them. After Trump: Slashdot and Media: I LOVE CHINA: UNLIMITED OPENNESS OF ALL OUR SECRETS AND EXCHANGE OF EVERYTHING 4EVA!
With Canada the US gets to keep an eye on the full nuclear cycle.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Of course they do.
That's what a President largely is: an excuse. I don't know anyone who doesn't bitch about executive orders depending on whether or not their guy is in office, but they rarely know why and certainly don't understand how limited those are in power. Those aside, what's left? Not much. Appointments? Anything important already has to go through Congress. Treaties? Same. Spending and budget? All and entirely on Congress. Choosing what's on the White House dinner menu? Such power.
The Office of President is a convenient dumpster fire to distract you from the fact that the assholes you elect to Congress for life in many cases are fucking you in the ass without even the courtesy of lube.
You're assuming his goal is profit rather than maximizing usage. This might be comparable to putting a dresser on the curb with a sign that says 'Free' and noone taking it, and then putting a sign that says '$5' and it's gone in minutes.
"If you have a good idea, noone will steal it from you; you'll have to shout it from the rooftops to get anyone to listen."
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
The issue isn't as much regulation (which allows nuclear power) as anti-science, ignorant, anti-nuclear NIMBYs. Basically anti-vaxxers protesting against a form of energy they know nothing about.
Wait - You did read hte REASON it was being done in China was because that country has lax regulations.
Honestly, this article is quite disengenuous. What is really happening is that China was not Bill Gates' first choice. Now, because of Trump, Gates has a chance to build his reactors here - because regulations are more sane now than they were just two years ago.
They were less than 10% in 2016, I don't think we've more than tripled our generation in California. And yes, I live in California. For the US, it's closer to 5%, not 18%.
The GP and you are confusing two different numbers. The GP is talking about total deployment. You are taking about how much power was actually produced. Which illustrates a great point. A 200MW wind farm doesn't equal a 200MW reactor. Solar and wind load factors are in the single digit percents. Nuclear's is north of 90%. So our 5% deployed nuclear generates 9% of our energy, but 18% of deployed renewables generates 5% of the power. Either way the real problem is the batteries needed to handle renewable deployments of more than about 20% energy generation. Without those batteries, its nuclear or natural gas.
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
And someone needed a PC excuse to cut and run. Good business acumen. Laughs about it over drinks later. Amazing how many here don't have a clue how the world works for real. Downvoting begins now.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
Perhaps the biggest advantages of wind and solar are that you can build them at whatever pace you like (solar even more than wind, of course). Companies don't have to take on so much risk or come up with all the money at once, they can adjust to market conditions and changing tech.
With nuclear, you have to invest a fortune now and pray that that you've correctly predicted what will be needed when it comes online in 5 or 10 years and that it will remain profitable long enough to pay for decommissioning. That's a hard sell when nobody knows what the future holds. By the time that nuclear fission plant is about to recoup all the up front costs and start to turn a profit, fusion power might undercut it.
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Statistics show that trains spill oil 34 times more than pipelines, resulting in 7 times the amount of oil spilled. Pipelines are safer you twit. All it will take is one train in the Thompson or Fraser Rivers and goodbye one big salmon ecosystem. Bitumen in trains is still diluted too, just not quite as much as for pipelines.
https://www.theglobeandmail.co...
There are too many idiots who are know it all environmentalists because they watch a radical Suzuki who only cries about the sky falling (so get rid of people's jobs) with no solutions. And if it's not them, it's paid American 'environmentalists' who come up to protest Canadian pipelines. Sometimes I wonder if the Koch brothers pay them to keep their American interests in front of the Canadian oil interests. The irony is that Canada won't be able to afford to develop green alternatives if it isn't making any money (selling oil).
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Why the fuck is US tech going to benefit China?
We're not building any here.
China are pursuing nuclear technology. They will do it with our without American tech.
Without China, this American tech will just be whitepapers and simulations.
Why the fuck is US tech going to benefit China?
We're not building any here.
China are pursuing nuclear technology. They will do it with our without American tech.
Without China, this American tech will just be whitepapers and simulations.
No, we built a MSR in the late 60's called the MSRE. Then we abandoned it for the fast breeder because of politics (clearly not of engineering because fast breeders have failed to deliver). That's the crown jewel we are giving to the Chinese. It worked, it was ready to be scaled up, and it was abandoned and only resurrected purely by accident and given to the Chinese because we can't get the US to license one.
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
Nuclear's is north of 90%. So our 5% deployed nuclear generates 9% of our energy, but 18% of deployed renewables generates 5% of the power. Either way the real problem is the batteries needed to handle renewable deployments of more than about 20% energy generation. Without those batteries, its nuclear or natural gas.
And from what would you charge the batteries?
Obviously as long as your renewable contribution to the grid is below base load, "batteries" only make sense in "strange market situations" as in mid day time, all power plants are close to the maximum, pumped storages are full, suddenly you have excess unpredicted wind power (that actually never happens) then you had use for a battery.
Sure, as Elons project in Australia shows: batteries can be used efficiently in a grid. However that project is not because of renewables ... they store excess conventional power in the batteries.
Then again, in Germany e.g., the push is towards self sustaining houses, with enough solar power and a battery. So on a small scale, independent from looking at the big scale of a grid, batteries already make sense. However for accompanying a wind farm, batteries only very rarely make sense. At the moment. But when renewable contribution to the grid reaches 50% (or what ever your base load is) it makes more and more sense.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
The problem is that grid stability is compromised [powerengineeringint.com] by renewables.
No, it is not.
For the grid there is no difference when during super bowl at the first add pause a million people walk to the fridge, take something, close it, the fridge starts cooling a minute later versus a sudden cloud over a solar plant or a drop of wind over a wind plant. Except: there is no sudden cloud over a solar plant or a sudden drop in wind. Power plants like that are run on weather/wind/sun/cloud prognosis. The margin of error for the next 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 60 minutes in prediction of your yield is not even 1%. You can easily prepare your pumped storage or gas turbines ahead of time. Actually you prepare the whole grid ahead of time.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
No, you did not get it. ... 1 million times 1 thousand ... that is 1GW.
A fridge uses about 1kW when switched on and actually cooling.
1 million fridges is
1GW is 10 times your 100+ MW generation sources.
Get it now?
America has about 400 million inhabitants. No idea how many fridges you are running and how many people are actually watching the super bowl and running to the fridge at the first add ... idiot.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Load factors for Wind, Solar and Hydro in the UK in 2017 according to the Digest of UK Energy Statistics published by the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy: Onshore wind: 28.0% Solar photovoltaics: 10.7% Offshore wind: 38.9% Hydro: 36.5% The load factor for UK nuclear plants hovered betweeen 65 and 77% and onshore wind in particular beats UK Nuclear on energy prices quite handily, onshore wind even managed to beat Combined Cycle Gas Turbines. Now please start talking about 'breeder reactors' I have some choice quotes from the US navy and some scientific publications on those things.
I said capacity factor. You responded with load factor. Capacity factor is when the power is needed, how much is available. Load factor is when the power is available (ie wind is blowing, sun is shining), how much of it do you get...in other words, efficiency. Load factor ignores all the time when solar and wind are not available which is most of the time. Also, I don't like fast spectrum breeder reactors but I do like thermal spectrum breeder reactors. I doubt you know the different between those concepts either.
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
Who is better? a) An anti nuclear nimby who nows nothing about it b) A pro nuclear idiot who knows nothing about it ???
Both vote. Some guys in the b) bracket even get hired ... and there is the problem.
From a risk management point of view: b) is the bigger risk.
Obviously there are two other groups: c) Anti nuclear protagonists who actually know their stuff, like Merkel d) Pro nuclear protagonists who know their stuff (don't know/remember one in that bracket ... if you would not write so much nonsense about nuclear, I perhaps had put you here)
Nice false dichotomy there. I would rather decisions on nuclear power be made by those that understand nuclear power. Since those folks are overwhelmingly pro-nuclear that pretty much says it all.
And Merkel doesn't qualify given the fact that both Germany's energy prices and CO2 outputs have rocketed up under her direction. Her closing of the nuclear plants will probably (indirectly) result in ending her political career. Artificially raising energy prices has all sorts of negative unintended consequences.
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."