Bill Gates and the future of nuclear power:
Thanks to his role funding and guiding a start-up called TerraPower LLC, where he serves as chairman, Mr. Gates has become a player in a field of inventors whose goal is to make nuclear reactors smaller, cheaper and safer than today’s nuclear energy sources. The 30-person company recently completed a basic design for a reactor that theoretically could run untouched for decades on spent nuclear fuel. Now the company is seeking a partner to help build the experimental reactor, and a country willing to host it.
Me. I’ll host it. Put the thing in my back yard and I’ll plug my whole house into the thing.
More seriously, there’s been talk for years about building tiny nuclear power plants using spent fuel rods, so it’s nice to see something like progress. Or as my high school physics teacher once said, “Don’t bury nuclear waste too deep — your children will curse you. There’s still plenty of power to be gotten out of that stuff.”
Well, that was 25 years ago and our kids need the cheap power. We need the cheap power. Bring it on.
Jerry Pournelle has been saying the same thing since the 1970s.
Maybe it’s time we started listening to the smart people for a while?
Umm, isn’t Iran about to bury over 100 rods? Mebbe we can make a deal?
I just don’t want to see my nuclear reactor monitor display a Blue Screen of Death.
Radiation Leak Detected
Abort, Retry, Ignore?
I am a nuclear engineer. There design sound great, but please use caution. In the late 60′s nuclear power, as believed then, would be too cheap to meter, it was not. Nuclear energy is cheaper today than other fuel sources and we need to encourage more new plants. Material will be the breaker in this design. Over time, a nuclear environments can stress component reliability, go Google Alloy 600, and hence are more unforgiving to repair than others energy sources. One can not just shutdown a nuclear reactor, there is still 5% residual heat, that alone is enough to cause emergency design cooling issues. Any repair will require radiation and contamination controls, all these add costs.
Just the cost of security, could make the design cost prohibited on such a small scale. Nuclear power plants are the most heavily defended sites in America. I pity the terrorist who would attempt an attack.
The design sounds just too good to believe, hence to fix such issues will be of course, more money please. This is why large 1600 megawatt load base plants are the way to go. Still, I would love to see fusion, not fission. Fusion technology cost is just that, and we need to push for this understanding in private and profit sector. If we want to go to the stars, it will be with fusion, e.g., a sun like engine. Mean while, let’s build a dozen nuclear plants, that are already proven, hence jobs, energy, and a savior of fossil fuels. Electricity as always rules.