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Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom

reuters.com

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Re: Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom

#51

Post by legulere »

wahern wrote: post #21
spenrose wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China had ambitious plans for nuclear and didn't follow through: https://twitter.com/sampenrose/status/1162772916125126656

That assessment is a little out of date. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_reactors#China They had several construction starts in 2015 (some are coming online now), and after a 3 year hiatus began several more in 2019. BTW, I'm not just trusting that Wikipedia table. I've confirmed construction and [near] completion of some of those listed (but haven't bothered with all, my doubts assuaged). China's n…

If you have sources, then why not correct Wikipedia?

Re: Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom

#52

Post by mayama »

iamgopal wrote: post #47
jedberg wrote: post #9

I 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.

What about India?

India's new design PHWR-700 was a few years late to come online. Plant at Kakrapar came online in July and another plant at same site should come online next year. Plan for 10 new PHWR-700 is still in progress, but original goal of 2022 will be pushed by a few years now.

https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/other/india-e2-80-99s-first-7...

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/science/india-to-b...

Re: Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom

#53

Post by evgen »

de_watcher wrote: post #49

He's swimming in money and connections, why don't he try to solve fusion? Yes, we have ITER going, but it's not really built efficiently: exact same parts are manufactured on the opposite sides of the world.

Because you do not get to be a billionaire by pissing away all of your money on a fool's errand. Fusion is a black hole of broken promises that will not delivery a single watt of useful energy to consumers in your lifetime and additional funding from Gates won't change this. Fission works. Fission delivers today. Fission gets the job done. Making fission cheaper, easier to deploy, and safer will have a much bigger impact than chasing fusion dreams.

Re: Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom

#54

Post by TeMPOraL »

bob29 wrote: post #33
thomasrognon wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There are technical challenges, but arguably the primary challenges are a) capital costs, and b) nonproliferation treaties.

Re: Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom

#55

Post by wahern »

legulere wrote: post #51
wahern wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That assessment is a little out of date. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_reactors#China They had several construction starts in 2015 (some are coming online now), and after a 3 year hiatus began several more in 2019. BTW, I'm not just trusting that Wikipedia table. I've confirmed construction and [near] completion of some of those listed (but haven't bothered with all, my doubts assuaged). China's n…

If you have sources, then why not correct Wikipedia?

Because the table wasn't wrong as far as I could tell. And on some of the plant-specific articles there were newer citations. But, point taken--it would have been useful to have added more recent citations to that table.

Re: Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom

#56

Post by oblio »

andbberger wrote: post #45
autisticcurio wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This would be more believable if you had said that... I don't know.. the US Antarctic embassy was nuclear powered. But in a city with excellent existing energy infrastructure in a country that, rocky start notwithstanding, the US has been allied with for almost 250 years? Get outta here

Small adjustment: a bit more than 200 years. The Brits burned down Washington in 1812.

Re: Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom

#57

Post by oblio »

switchb4 wrote: post #36
fourthark wrote: post #31

Please consider the reliability of Windows.

Windows is reliable for general public.

People don't want to hear this but Windows in 2020 is probably more reliable than desktop Linux.

Windows isn't what it used to be in 1999. And desktop Linux QA standards are nothing to write home about, unfortunately.

Re: Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom

#58

Post by de_watcher »

evgen wrote: post #53
de_watcher wrote: post #49

He's swimming in money and connections, why don't he try to solve fusion? Yes, we have ITER going, but it's not really built efficiently: exact same parts are manufactured on the opposite sides of the world.

Because you do not get to be a billionaire by pissing away all of your money on a fool's errand. Fusion is a black hole of broken promises that will not delivery a single watt of useful energy to consumers in your lifetime and additional funding from Gates won't change this. Fission works. Fission delivers today. Fission gets the job done. Making fission cheaper, easier to deploy, and safer will have a much bigger im…

Becoming a billionaire and trying to push the envelope are different activities, although sometimes they align. And as you describe, when a guy catches some important near term thing that nobody sees - that's where he finds billions.

But the unreachable areas are sometimes not that unreachable. Look at the space industry companies. If you ignore the flagship ones that popped up in a scale of mere years then moving out in your lifetime looks like a pipe dream too.

Re: Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom

#59

Post by baybal2 »

yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #50
baybal2 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I remember Bill being involved in nuclear for a long time. Hope something of general use comes to fruition in our lifetime. Yes, for a very long time, and to very little result. He chases too risky, and unrealistic prospects.

This is a pretty horrible attitude to have, but to try to make something positive from this, which problems do you think Gates or someone in his position would be better suited to solving?

Let's take his toilet program. For the amount of money he spent, he could've build enough sewage treatment plant for a few African countries.

Similarly, the "affordable" nuclear powerplant programs are not suitable for developing countries. It unequivocal that a cheapest fossil fuel station is the best option for places that never had an industrial economy. Once it has been kickstarted, you can think of more exotic options.

Re: Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom

#60

Post by Swenrekcah »

oblio wrote: post #57
switchb4 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows is reliable for general public.

People don't want to hear this but Windows in 2020 is probably more reliable than desktop Linux. Windows isn't what it used to be in 1999. And desktop Linux QA standards are nothing to write home about, unfortunately.

They have improved a lot, but there are still the forced restarts, as well as the poor document recovery of the office suite. Together this is a bad combo as I'm constantly worried I might have lost some data in the documents I work on.

They have improved the document recovery quite a lot in the last two years, but they still manage to make the process rather confusing, so sometimes I accidentally save the version with the lost data instead of the other.

OpenOffice had this figured out some 15 years ago. I never lost data to OpenOffice, and I was running it on a laptop (essentially) without a battery.

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