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Bill Gates Promises Congress $1 Billion To Build Nuclear Reactors For Fighting Climate Change (sfgate.com)
An anonymous reader quotes the Washington Post:
Bill Gates thinks he has a key part of the answer for combating climate change: a return to nuclear power... Gates, who founded TerraPower in 2006, is telling lawmakers that he personally would invest $1 billion and raise $1 billion more in private capital to go along with federal funds for a pilot of his company's never-before-used technology, according to congressional staffers. "Nuclear is ideal for dealing with climate change, because it is the only carbon-free, scalable energy source that's available 24 hours a day," Gates said in his year-end public letter. "The problems with today's reactors, such as the risk of accidents, can be solved through innovation."
Gates's latest push comes at an important turn in climate politics. Nuclear power has united both unpopular industry executives and a growing number of people -- including some prominent Democrats -- alarmed about climate change. But many nuclear experts say that Gates's company is pursuing a flawed technology and that any new nuclear design is likely to come at a prohibitive economic cost and take decades to perfect, market and construct in any significant numbers... Edwin Lyman, a nuclear expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said TerraPower is one of many companies that is raising the public's hopes for advanced nuclear reactor designs even though they're still on the drawing boards and will remain unable to combat climate change for many years.
Jonah Goldman, of Gates Ventures, stressed to The Post that Gates was not advocating for TerraPower alone, according to GeekWire.
"Gates thinks the U.S. has 'the best minds, the best lab systems and entrepreneurs willing to take risk,' Goldman told the newspaper. 'But what we don't have is a commitment on Congress' part.'"
Gates's latest push comes at an important turn in climate politics. Nuclear power has united both unpopular industry executives and a growing number of people -- including some prominent Democrats -- alarmed about climate change. But many nuclear experts say that Gates's company is pursuing a flawed technology and that any new nuclear design is likely to come at a prohibitive economic cost and take decades to perfect, market and construct in any significant numbers... Edwin Lyman, a nuclear expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said TerraPower is one of many companies that is raising the public's hopes for advanced nuclear reactor designs even though they're still on the drawing boards and will remain unable to combat climate change for many years.
Jonah Goldman, of Gates Ventures, stressed to The Post that Gates was not advocating for TerraPower alone, according to GeekWire.
"Gates thinks the U.S. has 'the best minds, the best lab systems and entrepreneurs willing to take risk,' Goldman told the newspaper. 'But what we don't have is a commitment on Congress' part.'"
As usual. These new modular reactor designs need more time than money to perfect.
There is already existing nuclear technology that is relatively cheap per kWh generated. It is just that it typically has large upfront costs.
""Nuclear is ideal for dealing with climate change, because it is the only carbon-free, scalable energy source that's available 24 hours a day,"
"Geothermal would also meet this criteria."
First let's look at the original claim, which is false. If wind is sufficiently distributed, it is also available full time. If you add battery storage to any so-called alternative power, then that is also available full time. And you can do that cheaper than nuclear, so not only was it a lie, but a blatant one.
Second we will consider geothermal. Radioactive isotopes come out of volcanic vents. If you use vent geothermal, you have to deal with that stuff on your turbine blades. America's largest geothermal plant, located in literally the most geothermally active region on the planet, is perpetually over budget and under projected production, and has produced one Superfund site and is well on its way to producing another. Heat pipe geo power works when you've got a sealed geo tap, but depending on the situation it can easily compare with the cost of a solar installation, since most of the good geo taps are in extremely rocky conditions. So really, geothermal is a bit of a boondoggle.
All this however is secondary to the real arguments. One, nuclear is prohibitively expensive on all levels. Two, one billion dollars is just enough to commission a study claiming Bill Gates can save the world by making a profit selling us nukes. Three, Bill Gates is a career criminal who is just a monocle and a Persian cat away from being a bond villain. He has proven beyond any reasonable doubt that he is not trustworthy. If he cared about saving the planet, he would do what we know works, since there is so much we can do with existing tech. That billion would better be spent on a PV array with a battery backup. It would be cheaper than nukes, and it would be online soonest, so it would be reducing co2 soonest.
We don't need nuke power, on any basis. If fusion power eventually pans out that's cool (yuk yuk) but fission power is not only stupid, but actually evil. You know, perfect for Bill Gates.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Rofl ...
So: what material do you use to pump the molten salt to the stage where the decay products are supposed to be filtered out (with what filter?) and to the stage where fresh fuel is added?
Good luck, if you get funding to build one and the patents, we all will be happy. Obviously no one figured the answer to those questions yet, has no funding and no one builds the reactors.
Not even at places where there is no paper work and you simply could bribe one to get the "permit" to build one ...
There never will be a MSR ... they are chemically basically impossible. The only thinkable way would be to have a reactor made completely of ceramics, with expansion and shrinking factors for every part in it that it: .... then we are at b) and c) and e) and f) again.
a) works
b) works as in: it is cold and needs to start up but nothing is shrunken to much to block anything
c) works as in: it is hot an nothing expanded to much to cause leaks or block anything
d) can pump the molten salt around (requires magnetic ceramics, or "magnetic engines" covered in ceramics)
e) everything needed to adjust/steer anything needs to be ceramics
f) can somehow be started from "not molten" into "now we are hot and molten" state
g) transfer the heat out so you can run a turbine, oki hat would be easy, just have another ceramics pipe that is suited for super heat at the entrance point and changes characteristics towards the point where is heating the water. But
MSRs are completely theoretical mind products ... mental masturbation, nothing else.
GOOD LUCK
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.