
Bill Gates’ nuclear company explores molten salt reactors, thorium - rmason
http://www.the-weinberg-foundation.org/2013/07/23/bill-gates-nuclear-company-explores-molten-salt-reactors-thorium/
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btilly
They say Bill Gates because he's famous.

This is a spinoff of Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures - which is a
patent trolling company. They may talk about plans to produce actual nuclear
power, but I'll believe it when I see it. However it is guaranteed to create a
lot of patents.

Personally, even if it does succeed, I would have a bad taste in my mouth for
anything and everything involved because I do not like Nathan Myhrvold.

~~~
DaniFong
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://daniellefong.com/2010/02/11/how-law-shapes-the-
busine...](http://daniellefong.com/2010/02/11/how-law-shapes-the-business-
landscape-and-a-patent-puzzle/)

~~~
gruseom
They make deals where they sell patents to East Texas shell companies but keep
90% of the proceeds from their shakedown lawsuits. That's what _This American
Life_ uncovered recently—they looked at just one (laughably illegitimate)
patent, and found that hundreds of millions of dollars had been extracted
using that one alone. I don't know how you could listen to that and not find
the case devastating. If the broadcast was unfair, I'd very much like to hear
the rebuttal. All TAL did was follow up on the example that IV themselves had
given as exemplary of what they do, and it turned out to be shockingly unjust.
So I do think most people here would disagree with their methods.

~~~
DaniFong
This is a good point, but far from complete. It is not like they are rolling
in the proceeds.

Word on the street is that the IV funds are not profitable yet. Also,
inventors, who they purchase patents from, are in fact getting checks in the
mail. So at least one of the following are true:

\- They are paying inventors (patent holders) too much \- Nobody should pay
inventors at all \- They should be more aggressive in acquiring settlements /
awards in court. \- They should shut down completely. \- They should cut
overhead.

Of the above, cutting overhead seems most reasonable. But there are
significant activities in their invention lab. They have the world's most
advanced malaria modeling system. They are developing a cold chain for
vaccines with an incredibly clever thermo-mechanically activated cold finger
for control. They are pushing metamaterials. They have an incredibly cool
mosquito calming project. They run invention dinners where amazingly
brilliant, cool people attack novel problems in novel ways. And TerraPower
could, if they are successful, crack the energy problem.

Cutting overhead would hurt most of the incredibly commendable activities that
they are doing. It takes big bucks to run an invention lab. This isn't the
only way, of course.

But I'm calling it when I see it: IV is making honest efforts to invent and
commercialize a series of amazing inventions, including those in the physical
world. _Almost nobody else_ is doing this today. They are funding inventors --
their own and outside inventors, through what many believe are questionable
methods exploiting legal loopholes, but are in fact often direclty in keeping
with the intent of an admittedly archaic and outdated system. And they're
being scapegoated not because they might be a patent troll, but because they
are a publicly identifiable organization with public inventions and
activities, and public advocacy.

And it's a damned shame that we are so clannish that the are ready to, without
thinking, without the requisite knowledge, damn one of the only truly
ambitious efforts in physical invention, and great hacker, simply because we
do not understand, do not approve of, or are uncomfortable with, the systems
that are being used to support invention.

~~~
gruseom
I admire a good contrarian defence. With respect, though, I think it goes off
the rails here:

 _And they 're being scapegoated not because they might be a patent troll, but
because they are a publicly identifiable organization with public inventions
and activities, and public advocacy_

From everything I've seen, they're being scapegoated precisely because they
are a patent troll. And rightly so, because the end doesn't justify the means.

~~~
DaniFong
Sorry! Good point.

What I meant to say was that if they are a patent troll, they are not the
trolliest of the trolls. They are merely the most public.

~~~
tptacek
The allegation that Planet Money is making is that while IV may not be the
trolliest of the trolls, part of its business model involves arming exactly
those trolls while concealing the relationship.

I want to find a way to rationalize what IV does (for different, dumber
reasons; I just happen to like their book _Modernist Cuisine_), but the
evidence we have from reporters looks very bad.

~~~
DaniFong
Agree that, especially, the recent uncovered Origin lawsuit stuff looks pretty
bad. It is probably worth considering the activities of customers, allies,
partners, and taking responsibility.

(e.g. for that matter, we are allied with Saudi Arabia, and rely on them for
our oil. The world is full of nasty compromises...)

But the stuff that they are actually developing, the inventors they're
supporting, the work they're doing in nuclear shouldn't be painted with the
same brush. This is supposed to be hacker news, and the top comment about a
new nuclear startup isn't about technology at all; it's about how someone
doesn't like one of the principals.

------
joshuaellinger
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 when what is really needed in low-tech nets.

So I'll go with evil for $500. Nice cuddly evil but evil nonetheless.

~~~
psbp
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™

------
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.

~~~
Roboprog
And we get some idea of the power requirements for Windows 10???

:-)

------
acchow
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?

~~~
tehabe
Because Thorium isn't the answer. What I don't get, that people who care about
technology and about freedom prefer a centralised technology like fission
power over a decentralised technology like solar or wind, in combination with
electricity storage.

So far nobody has developed a reactor design which is really better or cleaner
than what it is currently available. No "new" design could deliver what it has
promised. Not even nuclear power was able to deliver what it has promised to
begin with.

Well, I guess, we both don't get the other side.

~~~
dragonshed
Wind and solar aren't the answer either, or you wouldn't be having this
discussion because it would already have been deployed. The economics of all
intermittent power sources make it unfeasible; Installing the necessary
transmission lines to all those decentralized sites, the energy lost during
transmission to and from storage, the costs of storing that much power, and
the other inefficiencies of generating the power, make what you propose very
unrealistic.

Nuclear power is millions of times more energy dense than solar, wind, and
fossil fuels. Though the current generation of nuclear reactors have some
significant drawbacks, not the least of which is the inefficient use of fuels
leading to nuclear wastes, they still generate much cleaner power than the
alternatives.

Liquid Salt reactor designs based on Thorium take aim specifically at the
nuclear fuel and waste problems. Rather than using 1% of the solid fuel like
today's reactors, it's possible for liquid salt reactors to use up nearly 99%
of the fuel, reducing the waste problem by many orders of magnitude, and would
not contain the transuranics that take 10s of thousands of years to decay.

It's a good thing that serious people are looking into radically different
forms of nuclear power. The current conventional reactors were based off of
designs for producing materials for weapons, and it's high time we set that
garbage aside and consider other options.

~~~
tehabe
Actually, decentralised power sources would make high voltage lines obsolet
because you can build them where you need the electricity. Centralised systems
need high voltage lines around the country.

Energy density is not a good measurement I think. In theory the sun sends more
energy per day than we might ever need but we can only make use of parts of
that. This is improving but still, just a tiny part of it. The same with
Thorium or Uranium or even fossil fuels. Usually the efficiency of those power
plants is well below 50%, nuclear power below 40%, coal even less, especially
those "clean coal" CSS plants.

The problem with molten salt reactor will be the same with fast breeders,
where the liquid sodium was/is causing corrosion and problem when mixing with
water. IIRC most accidents in FBRs were sodium related. And even if MSRs are
cheaper in one way than current designs, it doesn't say they are not more
expensive in other ways.

But currently none of those reactor designs is ready for commercial use. None!
With the time you need to get such a design up and running, you can also
deploy renewable energy. Much more reliable and stable.

In 2012 about 7.5 GW of renewable energy were deployed in Germany. Even if you
calculate that not all of that is available around the clock, you would have
build more than 2 EPRs with 1.6 GW electrical power to get the same amount of
energy, which you just can't do within one year.

Maybe MSR solve a lot of problems with nuclear energy but it won't come free,
it won't come w/o other problems. All forms of energy have drawbacks.
Photovoltaik uses rare earth, wind has huge towers which are not really
popular with locals, water has a huge impact on rivers and the environment.
Biomass has the problem with using food for energy, and usage of land. I could
continue the entire night.

The important question is a different one, do you want to solve the energy
problem or just ask the next generation to solve it for you?

~~~
peterpathname
thats it. if all the nuclear promises come true, its still just offering to
delay the inevitable

------
jingo
The title has now been changed to remove the reference to Intellectual
Ventures. A well-known philanthropist has taken its place.

Maybe it's not true that "all publicity is good publicity". At least not for
Intellectual Ventures.

------
haekuh
My god it is about time that someone started looking into this technology. I
understand the tech hurdles and the even cleaner tech etc. but think about how
much safer LFTRs are. Even just to replace all the running reactors if not
build more.
[http://www.ted.com/talks/kirk_sorensen_thorium_an_alternativ...](http://www.ted.com/talks/kirk_sorensen_thorium_an_alternative_nuclear_fuel.html)

------
jbverschoor
Too bad that kirk sorensen is never mentioned, as he and his company flibe
energy are a big advocate of all this

~~~
rbanffy
He'll probably get sued by IV in the near future.

------
andyl
I want a thorium-powered car.

[http://www.geekosystem.com/thorium-powered-
car/](http://www.geekosystem.com/thorium-powered-car/)

~~~
InclinedPlane
No you don't. Thorium reactors are actually breeder reactors which run off of
U-233, one of the byproducts of breeding U-233 is U-232, which emits gamma
rays like nobody's business. The only way to stop gamma rays is with lots of
shielding made out of high-Z materials, like lead, which is inevitably super
heavy. So you'll either get a multi-ton car that crawls or a light-weight car
that gives you cancer or a lethal dose of radiation if you drive it more than
a few hours.

