Please consider the reliability of Windows.
Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom
31–40 of 133 posts
Re: Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom
#32I think where small nuclear might be very good chance to compete is district heating, now normally those plant run biomass or coal. https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Project-launched-to-...
Re: Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow its so easy, can't believe all those idiots trying to build nuclear plants the past few decades have never though to simply apply "better tech". Thanks hacker news/silicon valley!
The barriers, time, and cost for nuclear seem to be primarily of political origin, not technical. It's held to an unreasonable higher standard than anything else.
So certainly all the non US/EU countries with less strict regulations should have electricity "too cheap to meter" through nuclear, right? since there's no technical challenges here apparently.
Re: Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom
#34Why sodium in particular? I've seen in the past that molten sodium is often proposed as a storage medium, but is there something about it that makes it suited for that use?
I think there are few considerations when choosing storage medium, few of them: distribution of source material on Earth, chemical and nuclear stability, water solubility, production challenges. We have learned a lot by producing traditional nuclear power plant fuel for decades.
Re: Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom
#35> By 2050 “we would see hundreds of these reactors around the world, solving multiple different energy needs,” Levesque said. We can already reach 90% renewables by 2035 without these reactors [1]. If they get built, that’d be great, but they won’t be built in time to avert climate change. TerraPower has existed for 14 years and still hasn’t built a reactor. For comparison, the Kamuthi solar facility in Tamil Nadu, I…
I wish there was an option for people to run on purely renewables for a year.
Re: Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom
#36Please consider the reliability of Windows.
Windows is reliable for general public.
Re: Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is 588MW a measure of? Peak output? Average?
Intermittent sources are usually quoted as peak. That is multiplied by a typical capacity factor to determine average load. For offshore wind, 60% is a reasonable number I think.
That's a bummer. Even though the capacity is still in the same neighborhood as the reactor, the cost is greater because you either need a ton of storage capacity or some nonrenewable backups.
I think that's the problem we ran into here in California. As we've decommissioned nuclear and natty plants we've replaced much of that capacity with wind and solar. Then you end up in the situation we had a week ago: power consumption peaks around 6pm when solar is ebbing. If that happens in conjunction with a period of low winds, there's a very thin margin of error and in some cases you have blackouts.
Re: Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom
#38I remember Bill being involved in nuclear for a long time. Hope something of general use comes to fruition in our lifetime.
In today's environment only a billionaire can pull such an project. I am very optimistic that this will come through. And we stop with land polluting windmills and solar farms.
Re: Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom
#39Re: Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom
#40I watched the Bill Gates doc on Netflix. They actually had this ready to go in 2017. They were going to build it in China because US regulators wouldn’t allow it. But then we started a trade war with China and they nixed the contract. They were hoping to prove it out in China and then bring it back to the US.
The technology exists for small scale nuclear power stations, like those developed in submarines. Based on old news reports it would appear the new glass cube US Embassy in London is nuclear powered and the embassy has enough spare to power surrounding buildings, the moat has more than a medieval defensive purpose.