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Bill Gates promises to add his own billions if Congress does nuclear power push

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Re: Bill Gates promises to add his own billions if Congress does nuclear power push

#81

Post by arduanika »

benj111 wrote: post #42
arduanika wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> much cheaper sources of green energy When people stop bragging about how many more jobs green energy creates than fossil fuels, I'll start believing that renewables are cheaper at scale . > What we need now is a good storage solution Collocate the new nuclear plants with facilities that (at high energy cost) recapture carbon into dense fuels.

Re green jobs: I think that's meant as a retort to the "what about coal miners?" Argument. I'm trying to understand your nuclear -> fuel plan. Nuclear reactors already use a storage solution, why are you adding an extra step? Why not combine it with wind/solar? Edit: Are you suggesting the green jobs would lead to high wages and costs? Don't forget theres no fuel cost with renewables.

> Nuclear reactors already use a storage solution

Hmm, not sure what storage solution you're thinking of? Is there a nuclear-specific means of storing the energy produced for later use?

What I mean to say is: nuclear power is so cheap that you could use it to power carbon recapture, even at the current cost. There are even people working on using direct air capture to create ultra-dense fuel, e.g. http://carbonengineering.com/ . This is surely very inefficient (lots of energy required to recapture a small amount of fuel), but if we powered it using a nuclear plant's off-peak energy, it's effectively a liquid battery.

Re: Bill Gates promises to add his own billions if Congress does nuclear power push

#82

Post by abootstrapper »

TomK32 wrote: post #72
abootstrapper wrote: post #35

Ya know, I feel like renewables are the future, but we’re kinda running out of runway here. I think a nuclear + renewables strategy is a great way to get us past fossil fuels quickly. Once we’re over fossil fuels we can tackle replacing nuclear with something better.

You ignore the time it takes to get a nuclear power plant online. Let alone all the permissions for it. Know what would work today? Reducing our energy consumption.

Reducing our energy consumption and building alternatives to fossil fuels are not mutually exclusive. Let’s do both.

Re: Bill Gates promises to add his own billions if Congress does nuclear power push

#83

Post by abledon »

eBombzor wrote: post #73
pjc50 wrote: post #59

Three serious problems with nuclear, globally: - too slow. Break ground now and you'll be producing energy by 2030. - political instability. Hands up who supports the switch of Iran and Saudi Arabia to nuclear? It would reduce a lot of carbon emissions. Let's not overlook Ukraine either: https://www.neimagazine.com/features/featurenuclear-plants-i... - budget instability: Wylfa has stopped https://www.independent.co.…

Also mining for radioactive materials takes a huge toll on the environment. Also, how are they going to get rid of radioactive waste? There doesn't seem to be a good solution to this at all.

Ya, USA can’t m get a handle on its aging infrastructure how will it be 30 years down the line when the holding tanks and cleanup plans are given same treatment . Throw in a random government shutdown too

Re: Bill Gates promises to add his own billions if Congress does nuclear power push

#84

Post by zokier »

foobarbazetc wrote: post #47
noobermin wrote: post #30

I'm pro-nuclear fission (full disclosure, I work on fusion related research, but I don't care about who wins more than I want society to win), but I think talking to any random person in the public who are already skeptical about fusion, to them fission has not had a great track record. Make as many arguments you want to make about fukushima facing a natural disaster, w/e, and how the field has advanced since three-m…

Isn’t there also a cost argument here? Both time to ROI and decommissioning costs are enormous? Or have things changed?

I'm pro nuclear in principle (it sure beats fossils), but I do get the feeling that the era we are in is not right for such big monolithic infrastructure projects. The costs tend to balloon and the private companies behind them have difficulties in delivering and meeting the stringent quality standards that nuclear requires (for good reasons). See for example the utter failure that has been Olkiluoto 3[1] or the recent bankruptcy of Westinghouse[2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant#...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13987046

Re: Bill Gates promises to add his own billions if Congress does nuclear power push

#85

Post by throwaway55676 »

Lol, Bill Gates will "voluntarily" contribute money to a project. That money isn't his, such enormous wealth can only be stolen from society. In any case, if congress wants to build something they can tax him, print money, or adjust various levers to change the expense. The pretentions and preening of the rich should be drowned in laughter.

Re: Bill Gates promises to add his own billions if Congress does nuclear power push

#86

Post by philsnow »

pjc50 wrote: post #59

Three serious problems with nuclear, globally: - too slow. Break ground now and you'll be producing energy by 2030. - political instability. Hands up who supports the switch of Iran and Saudi Arabia to nuclear? It would reduce a lot of carbon emissions. Let's not overlook Ukraine either: https://www.neimagazine.com/features/featurenuclear-plants-i... - budget instability: Wylfa has stopped https://www.independent.co.…

> budget instability

California recently voted to shut down the last remaining nuclear power facility in California, Diablo Canyon: https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-diablo-canyon-nuclear...

but I don't think it has anything to do with budgets and more to do with the public's perception of safety of fission and officials not wanting to have a meltdown event happen while they're in office.

Re: Bill Gates promises to add his own billions if Congress does nuclear power push

#87

Post by qaq »

pjc50 wrote: post #59

Three serious problems with nuclear, globally: - too slow. Break ground now and you'll be producing energy by 2030. - political instability. Hands up who supports the switch of Iran and Saudi Arabia to nuclear? It would reduce a lot of carbon emissions. Let's not overlook Ukraine either: https://www.neimagazine.com/features/featurenuclear-plants-i... - budget instability: Wylfa has stopped https://www.independent.co.…

? In light of Ukraine there are way bigger concerns than distance from conflict zone to nearest Nuclear power station. Ukraine voluntarily gave up one of the worlds largest nuclear arsenals in exchange for what now everyone can see worthless security promises from the remaining nuclear powers. This will be last time any country gives up Nuclear weapons and I bet it will result in way more countries getting into the game eventually.

Re: Bill Gates promises to add his own billions if Congress does nuclear power push

#88

Post by lsc »

vowelless wrote: post #22
Retric wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to be about fission not fusion. Spending billions on fission research seems wasteful when you could leverage that into wind solar projects whose profits could then be reinvested into even more clean energy. Add in leverage and say 2 billion in research could represent 10-20+ billion worth of clean energy investments before the fruits of this research could come online. And even then you would need to spend…

Seriously, if I see another push for wind (!) on here, I might just loose it. It’s like saying let’s use sail boats in the era of supersonic travel.

>It’s like saying let’s use sail boats in the era of supersonic travel.

the era of supersonic travel?

I mean, sure, supersonic flight is /technically possible/ but it is exceedingly rare that the sound barrier is broken by traveling civilians.

My understanding is that the problem mostly has to do with air resistance increasing with the cube of speed; this could be overcome by going higher, above the atmosphere, but nobody has figured out how to do that at subsonic flight costs, either.

I mean, it is kind of sad; one of those technologies that we created, but that then turned out to not be as practical as the older stuff for everyday use.

Re: Bill Gates promises to add his own billions if Congress does nuclear power push

#89

Post by philsnow »

simplecomplex wrote: post #75

We already have enough land to power the entire US with solar. The future is renewables not pushing the can down the road with Nuclear, ignoring all of its negative externalities. Bill Gates doesn’t need government to build solar either.

Can the united states procure enough gallium, cadmium, selenium, indium, and whatever else to build enough solar panels ?

Re: Bill Gates promises to add his own billions if Congress does nuclear power push

#90

Post by microcolonel »

m0zg wrote: post #50
microcolonel wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but it enjoyed broad support, and was progressive in substance. The assumption that the Trump administration would be futile to engage with on what could be construed as a "green" cause seems to stem from a broader assumption that they are incapable of, or resistant to, progressive policy. My point is that if you couch it in the same balanced terms, there's no reason why an equally progressive initiative in ener…

But it was the other way around: _the Trump administration_ (of which Kushner is perhaps the sharpest instrument; I had a media-distorted view of him until I watched some interviews -- dude is super smart) engaged with others in a bipartisan way to make this happen.

Certainly, I get that; but I don't see why a similar effort couldn't be conducted from the outside in. Clearly it would work better to convince somebody effective within the administration to champion it, but my point was mainly that they're not inherently that resistant to it.
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