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Bill Gates’ nuclear company explores molten salt reactors, thorium

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Re: Bill Gates’ nuclear company explores molten salt reactors, thorium

#31

Post by psbp »

joshuaellinger wrote: post #15

Nathan Myhrvold He did this cool TED talk about shooting mosquitos out of the air with lasers salvaged from commodity electronics. Since that was years ago, it appears that it is doesn't work in the real world. Par for the course with TED. A prominent malaria expert tore into him for exploiting a real crisis that kills millions to make his company actually does something good for the world. Going all hi-tech hero whe…

We don't need solutions. We need big corporations to accrue patents and public approval so that they can steamroll the rest of the industry many years down the line. It's called charity™

Re: Bill Gates’ nuclear company explores molten salt reactors, thorium

#32

Post by zmic2 »

acchow wrote: post #3

Why is it so obvious to the internet and no one else that thorium is the future of power? What do they (the experts) know that we don't?

Never forget that the buzz around thorium reactors is created by the people who want to sell thorium reactors.

Re: Bill Gates’ nuclear company explores molten salt reactors, thorium

#33

Post by redthrowaway »

dragonshed wrote: post #25
InclinedPlane wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who talk about the awesomeness of Thorium reactors rarely mention the very real downsides and technical hurdles. Such as the gamma radiation issue, or the fuel processing difficulties, and so forth. Moreover, aside from overcoming those issues building a suitable commercial power reactor will take a lot of time and investment. We're on the cusp of the 4th generation of Uranium/Plutonium fueled fission power re…

Two nitpicks: LFTR would be much much further along if it had the interest and research that fusion has had. Plus, LFTR went undeveloped for 25 years for some very stupid reasons.

Fusion has the interest and research it does because solving it would solve our energy needs almost permanently. It has a far higher payoff than thorium. And it doesn't matter that thorium research was abandoned because we couldn't vaporize commies with it. It was abandoned, and is decades away from commercial use.

Re: Bill Gates’ nuclear company explores molten salt reactors, thorium

#34

Post by sambeau »

anigbrowl wrote: post #17
cabalamat wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you know him? I didn't know Adolf Hitler, but I know enough of him to know that he wasn't a nice person. Patent trolling is a legal form of extortion. It is evil. Myhrvold is an evil man.

Calling Myhrvold 'evil' and putting himself in the same context as Hitler is absurd. One is a businessman whose tactics you disapprove of and consider to be unethical, the other instigated the murder of millions of people, over and above the casualties of the numerous wars that he started.

cabalamat didn't put Myhrvold in the same context as Hitler, you did. He made two distinct statements that you somehow connected.

1) I have not met Hitler but I know him to have been not a nice man

2) I believe Patent Trolling to be evil and therefore those that perpetrate it to also be evil.

Personally I cannot disagree with either statement. Excusing any evil practice as 'a businessman whose tactics you disapprove of and consider to be unethical' is also wrong in my opinion.

The world of business hides too many organisations (and therefore people) guilty of profound immorality. It has become an unfortunate part of our culture that we so often forgive them as 'just business'. Capitalism, as a whole, rarely scrapes above amoral.

The word 'evil' has an ancient meaning that doesn't only include mass murder and it certainly includes extortion.

Re: Bill Gates’ nuclear company explores molten salt reactors, thorium

#35

Post by welterde »

cma wrote: post #12
acchow wrote: post #3

Why is it so obvious to the internet and no one else that thorium is the future of power? What do they (the experts) know that we don't?

Because nuclear power plants have always been about producing weapons grade plutonium at least in the US; power generation is ancillary. Why else would we cap plant liability at $1billion? A big meltdown will cost way more than that, Fukushima cleanup is now looking to be about $80 billion. Since plants couldn't make the economics work if they had the liability, we had to entice them so we could participate in the ar…

That argument doesn't fly for reactor research in germany, where Thorium was pursued for the exactly same reason, namely not being able to make weapons grade plutonium.

However all thorium based reactor designs tried here were seriously flawed (for example the AVR reactor went almost the way of Chernobyl when water leaked into the primary cooling cycle.. but luckily the reactor was running at an lower temperature at that point in time, so they only had to run the reactor for a year in reduced capacity to get the water out again).

As for liability here.. it seems like it's unlimited liability here and at least one reactor operator company is owned by another state (Vattenfall iirc)

Re: Bill Gates’ nuclear company explores molten salt reactors, thorium

#37

Post by ahaefner »

To everyone bashing Intellectual Ventures, the key here is that TerraPower is a spinoff. They are becoming independent of IV precisely because they don't want to be a patent troll.

Also one LOL of having Bill Gates fund your nuclear company is you end up with the biggest Windows cluster for simulations.

Source: I'm a PhD student in nuclear engineering with friends working at TerraPower.

Re: Bill Gates’ nuclear company explores molten salt reactors, thorium

#39

Post by PavlovsCat »

anigbrowl wrote: post #17
cabalamat wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you know him? I didn't know Adolf Hitler, but I know enough of him to know that he wasn't a nice person. Patent trolling is a legal form of extortion. It is evil. Myhrvold is an evil man.

Calling Myhrvold 'evil' and putting himself in the same context as Hitler is absurd. One is a businessman whose tactics you disapprove of and consider to be unethical, the other instigated the murder of millions of people, over and above the casualties of the numerous wars that he started.

The point of a comparison matters. "I didn't know Aaron Swartz personally, but I know enough of him to think he was a good guy." is making exactly same point.

Also, "One is a businessman whose tactics you disapprove of and consider to be unethical," the other was a politician whose tactics I disapprove of and consider to be unethical. Gotta love euphemisms that turn everything into nothing, and applying them selectively.

Re: Bill Gates’ nuclear company explores molten salt reactors, thorium

#40

Post by tlrobinson »

cabalamat wrote: post #9
DaniFong wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know him? Honesty I don't have a huge amount of information about his other dealings, but I think there is a genuine case for what he is trying to do with IV, even if you disagree with with methods. With me and my company, he has been a man of tremendous character and generosity. I daresay you and most others are prejudging the situation. In error. Keep in mind, I am no fan of the patent system either. http://…

> Do you know him? I didn't know Adolf Hitler, but I know enough of him to know that he wasn't a nice person. Patent trolling is a legal form of extortion. It is evil. Myhrvold is an evil man.

Godwin's Law strikes again.
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