The Briefing Room
General Category => Science, Technology and Knowledge => Energy => Topic started by: rangerrebew on January 21, 2019, 04:47:57 pm
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Bill Gates's Experimental Nuclear Power Plant Halts Construction in China
Gates cites the Trump Administration's aggressive stance for having to pull out.
By David Grossman
Jan 2, 2019
At least for now, Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates is pulling back on nuclear power. He hasn't changed his mind on the science—he puts his blame on the Trump Administration's bitter relationship with China.
Gates invested in TerraPower in 2011 with the hope of helping to prove the company's core concept: a so-called traveling-wave reactor (TWR) which would run on depleted uranium, as opposed to the enriched uranium commonly used in nuclear plants. The concept is appealing on several levels—not only would its small design lower the currently rising price of nuclear energy, it would actually consume the trash pumped out by today's modern reactors.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a25728221/terrapower-china-bill-gates-trump/ (https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a25728221/terrapower-china-bill-gates-trump/)
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I would imagine madams Feinstein and Clinton were responsible for getting him permission to build in China. The three of them should be investigated for collusion. :whistle:
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Very unfortunate.
For a prominent, influential leftist such as Gates, to support nuclear power, is a big deal.
Nuclear power is a great hope, to replace fossil fuels, on the premise they "might" impact climate.
While the US has vast reserves, top notch technology, China and India do not. Nukes could clean their acts up, clean environment-wise.
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More than likely, the project is being shelved because no one wants to pursue commercial size TW nuke power plants because of the long timeline. You need to build a small demonstrator, say 15-30 MWth, run it a few years to iron out the bugs, then build another an order of magnitude bugger, run it for several years to make sure everything works properly, then go full bore commercial.
This means you are looking at least 15-20 years before you can start building them commercially, if everything goes right the first time around. Gates won't be alive to see that. Lax Chinese quality control also may be playing a role here too.