
Bill Gates promises to add his own billions if Congress does nuclear power push - jkuria
https://www.geekwire.com/2019/report-bill-gates-promises-add-billions-congress-helps-nuclear-power-push/
======
noobermin
I'm pro-nuclear fission (full disclosure, I work on fusion related research,
but I don't care about who wins more than I want society to win), but I think
talking to any random person in the public who are already skeptical about
fusion, to them fission has not had a great track record. Make as many
arguments you want to make about fukushima facing a natural disaster, w/e, and
how the field has advanced since three-mile island and chernobyl, but the fact
remains the public is skeptical regarding fission for good reason: history has
not been kind to the kind of disasters fission reactors have wrought.

If you want to convince the public you're going to do it right this time
without creating mini fallout zones, you have to do a good damn job of that
instead of just wagging your finger at people and calling them dumb. They
aren't dumb, they just know rightly that engineers can't foresee the
everything in the future and are understandably skeptical.

~~~
est31
I'm one of those fission sceptics. The main problems I have with fission isn't
technological issues, it's human issues.

E.g. in Fukushima, people were forced to move back into their homes, without
giving them an option to get compensated instead. Furthermore, engineers
pointed out that there were issues with the way Fukushima was built but their
concerns were discarded. Human issue again. Fission plants should be built
with the greatest care possible and be designed for major natural disasters.

As for advancements in the field: they might have happened but many reactors
are still kept running even though their design is outdated. The greatest
advances in drawers don't help if you still have ticking time bombs and one of
them go off. Another human issue.

Or the entire thing with dumping waste into the oceans, like on the coasts of
Somalia, harming the health in the region and destroying the jobs of the
fishermen. Another human problem.

Engineers, in general, are very smart people. They can foresee a great deal of
things. But they need to be listened to, and it's too easy to operate a
nuclear plant without listening to safety concerns of engineers.

What we've got right now is people harming the health of locals and discarding
concerns by engineers, and lying to locals and politicians about this,
claiming that the engineers didn't have any concerns. Which is a big problem,
and a very human one. And if there's a catastrophy, the government bails them
out (what about a mandatory 100 billion coverage insurance for nuclear
plants??), and treats locals like shit again. No thanks.

~~~
avar
What we've got right now is on the order of a million people dying prematurely
every year because of the human issue of people worrying too much about
concentrated risk (nuclear) and not understanding the diffuse risk (coal).

Sure, we can improve fission in various ways, but this sort of skepticism is
way riskier in the aggregate as it translates into public policy.

~~~
est31
Indeed, coal is even worse than nuclear. So let's have neither but renewables
instead :). Compared to europe, the USA is a big country and it is also
further in the south which means more sun for solar collectors.

~~~
roenxi
Hang on, are you absolutely sure that renewables are less damaging than
nuclear? The footprint for nuclear is tiny, it might be competitive.

Fukashima was a level 7 nuclear distaster, so that is as bad as it gets. The
actual damage done is objectivly not that bad compared to a lot of things we
have accepted in the past with only increased safety regulation (like dam
failures). 2 lvl 7 accidents in 35 years; and design standards generally go up
in civilised countries. The footprint of nuclear is so tiny that might be
competitive with renewables, accounting for the fact that the reacion to
nuclear disasters is paranoid but the response to environmental damage by
renewables is basically to ignore it. Renewables need materials, which are
mined, and need to be installed, which creates hazards, and use land/airspace,
which is costly. I believe some highly questionable rare earths are used too
where the environmental impacts are not usually accounted for because it
happens in China.

Purely in non-human terms, the land clearing for a solar plant is definitely
worse than a nuclear disaster, because a level 7 nuclear disaster is net-
positive for biodiversity ("suggest biodiversity around the massive
radioactivity release has increased" [0]). Ie, humans are worse than a nuclear
disaster if they happen to want space for their own use.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_Chernobyl_disas...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_Chernobyl_disaster#Long-
term_health_effects)

~~~
will_pseudonym
The mortality per TWh has nuclear winning by a long shot.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-d...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-
deathprint-a-price-always-paid/#bcfe88a709b7)

~~~
therealdrag0
To be clear: Winning in your comment is LEAST deaths per TWH.

------
pjc50
Three serious problems with nuclear, globally:

\- too slow. Break ground now and you'll be producing energy by 2030.

\- political instability. Hands up who supports the switch of Iran and Saudi
Arabia to nuclear? It would reduce a lot of carbon emissions. Let's not
overlook Ukraine either: [https://www.neimagazine.com/features/featurenuclear-
plants-i...](https://www.neimagazine.com/features/featurenuclear-plants-in-
war-zones-4536247/)

\- budget instability: Wylfa has stopped
[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/hitachi-
job...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/hitachi-job-losses-
uk-nuclear-power-station-wales-wylfa-anglesey-horizon-a8732086.html) and
Hinckley Point C is hanging on by an expensive thread. It is also at risk of
inconvenience from Brexit, given that the UK is leaving Euratom and is likely
to experience "no deal" chaos for personnell and equipment from EDF.

Is the US really able to build nuclear plants with the occasional total budget
shutdown for 3 months?

~~~
qaq
? In light of Ukraine there are way bigger concerns than distance from
conflict zone to nearest Nuclear power station. Ukraine voluntarily gave up
one of the worlds largest nuclear arsenals in exchange for what now everyone
can see worthless security promises from the remaining nuclear powers. This
will be last time any country gives up Nuclear weapons and I bet it will
result in way more countries getting into the game eventually.

~~~
wallace_f
Senior US advisors 'rarely if ever admit this' lesson, but it was also
demonstrated when Libya gave up its nukes:
[https://theintercept.com/2017/07/29/dan-coats-north-korea-
nu...](https://theintercept.com/2017/07/29/dan-coats-north-korea-nukes-
nuclear-libya-regime-change/)

~~~
dragonwriter
Libya never had nukes to give up.

~~~
wallace_f
Quote from the article:

>The lessons that we learned out of Libya giving up its nukes … is,
unfortunately: If you had nukes, never give them up. If you don’t have them,
get them.”

This quotr misled me. What I found from another source is that they had a
nuclear weapons program according to another source 'likely to develop a nuke
in 3-7 years'

~~~
dragonwriter
Yeah, there is a huge difference between nukes, which have a deterrent
capacity, and a nuke program, which is pretty much an anti-deterrent,
especially when it comes to US action.

~~~
wallace_f
That seems to be the opposite point which the article is making since Libya
and Gadaffi were attacked an utter anyways.

------
abootstrapper
Ya know, I feel like renewables are the future, but we’re kinda running out of
runway here. I think a nuclear + renewables strategy is a great way to get us
past fossil fuels quickly. Once we’re over fossil fuels we can tackle
replacing nuclear with something better.

~~~
TomMckenny
Aside from urgency, it's also likely that wind, solar and hydro, even if
deployed maximally, might not be able to meet the total peak demand every
where. Renewable are obviously superior but for that gaps, we will need
fission anyway.

Fission plants have a finite lifespan anyway so if fusion or space laser or
whatever appear, openings will be appearing constantly.

~~~
captainbland
It might just be right that if renewables can't meet current demand, prices go
that bit higher to keep usage in line. It's not a given that we must consume
as much as we do (or more) forever given the finite nature of the planet and
everything.

~~~
gwbas1c
That really hurts the crowd that lives paycheck to paycheck. Price goes up:
someone goes without.

~~~
fyfy18
What is electricity prices went up with usage? So you get X kWh per month for
one price, then after that it's 1.5x the rate. You could just do this on
residential rates only so businesses aren't affected.

~~~
TheKarateKid
Uber surge pricing on a basic living utility? No thanks. Same issue as with
fuel - the wealthy people who are often the most wasteful with resources
(driving Hummers and V8/10 SUVs and cars, private jets, etc.) are the ones who
would be affected the least because the price wouldn't impact their habits.
Meanwhile, a middle/low-class family would be paying 1.5x the rate to keep the
lights on home.

~~~
Dylan16807
Price based on monthly total use is the opposite of surge pricing.

If those wealthy people are happy to pay a 5x or 10x rate, you can use it to
install tons of renewables ( _with_ batteries). That's not something to
complain about.

> Meanwhile, a middle/low-class family would be paying 1.5x the rate to keep
> the lights on home.

If it's not low, middle, or upper class, who do you imagine is paying the 1x
rate?

------
pgcosta
Coal kills more than nuclear. Modern nuclear is safer and reliable.

It's similar to the fear of planes vs the actual safety statistics of planes.

~~~
mcjiggerlog
Never mind coal, nuclear is safer than even wind and solar -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents#Fatalities](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents#Fatalities)

The problem, as you point out, is that people are generally very bad at
understanding risk.

~~~
_nalply
Future mortality seems not to be considered but I am afraid this is important.
Numbers will be difficult to obtain, you know, clairvoyance is not easy.

But at least we know that we need to maintain nuclear waste for a long time.
Or we create deep subterranean disposal sites, and this will be dangerous
work.

Coal is probably even a lot worse because of climate change effects.

Renewables seem to fare better for future mortality.

~~~
mcjiggerlog
I do agree that the overall risk includes more factors than just past
direct/indirect deaths, you are right. However, I would argue that simply
furthers the cause for nuclear.

Firstly, renewables are great and we should of course be investing heavily.
However, until we have the what is still non-existing storage tecgnology, we
need a base load of either nuclear or fossil fuels. Insisting on a nuclear-
free energy supply right now unfortunately means insisting on fossil fuels as
a base load for the foreseeable future.

Given the greatest risk to humanity's survival is climate change, failing to
secure a low-carbon energy supply is a risk that _far_ outweighs any of the
risk of using nuclear alongside renewables.

We can already see the results of foregoing nuclear - energy in now nuclear-
free Germany is seven times as carbon-intensive as nuclear-heavy France[1].

[1] [http://energyforhumanity.org/wp-
content/uploads/2017/11/Euro...](http://energyforhumanity.org/wp-
content/uploads/2017/11/European_climate_leadership_report_2017_WEB.pdf)

------
natch
It’s not that the technology is good or bad. It’s that the industry has lost
all its credibility by promising too-good-to-be-true technology for decades,
and then delivering mediocre results in many cases, and catastrophic results
in others. With taxpayers left holding the bag.

So I would propose, to hedge against the perennial optimism of industry
apologists who will never have to back up their claims, have the investors who
bet on this also fund an escrow account to the tune of 10x or so of the
construction and other initial costs, to make up for gaps in their wildly
positive projections. These funds could be invested and returned to the
original sources if the project turns out to remain safe and financially
worthwhile after x number of years. Not enough money to fund 10x? Then don’t
do the project until there is.

------
diafygi
As much as I'd love to see us as a civilization control the atom, I'm not
seeing the financial case for why we should be focusing on nuclear right now.

NuScale said their tech was targeting $90/MWh, and trying to get a first plant
running by 2023[1]. That's a non-starter for most modern utility RFPs even
today.

Xcel Energy is seeing bids as low as $18/MWh for wind, $29/MWh for solar, and
$36/MWh for solar+storage[2]. So maybe nuclear can fit into the realm of the
10% of edge cases where renewables+storage aren't effective, but I'm not
seeing any financial scenario where nuclear comes close to providing the
middle 80% of generation capacity. It's just too damn expensive.

Unless Bill Gates is proposing we can cut nuclear prices by 80%, I'm worried
this is a huge distraction from us deploying renewables + storage + flexible
load, which is currently extremely cheap and getting cheaper.

[1]: [https://analysis.nuclearenergyinsider.com/small-modular-
reac...](https://analysis.nuclearenergyinsider.com/small-modular-
reactors/nuscale-targets-smr-cost-below-90mwh-wider-deployment)

[2]: [https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/record-low-
sola...](https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/record-low-solar-plus-
storage-price-in-xcel-solicitation)

------
Havoc
Pretty crazy that one person has the power to unilaterally commit a billion
and credibly promise another billion in funding.

Sure doesn't sound like a lot in the context of ~trillion market cap
companies...but this is a billion un-encumbrered. No lawyers...just one person
deciding this is happening.

~~~
craftyguy
The kicker is that he will only do that if they use his company, as explained
in the article.

While I agree that nuclear energy is basically required at this point in order
to ween humans off of lighting crap they get out of the ground on fire, bill's
antics may not be the best option (can his company deliver? others have
already done so.. so why not them instead? it will require more than $2bn...
so tax dollars required.)

------
spdustin
With today's weakening of regulatory standards, I don't know how safe new
fission plants could be. The guy in charge of it all (self-admittedly) doesn't
really understand nuclear energy, and would be prone to misunderstanding the
science presented by industry leaders, possibly to the detriment of safety.

I know, that's a whole pile of variables; but variables should be reduced when
it comes to nuclear energy, IMO.

That said, I greatly favor nuclear over, you know, burning stuff, and I'd like
to see it succeed alongside renewables.

------
Jedi72
Fission produces toxic waste. Thats just the fact. It takes _thousands_ of
years to become safe to handle. The idea that "we'll just bury it in the
desert" is the same kind of short-term thinking that got us into our current
ecological predicament.

~~~
theshrike79
So does burning coal, and that shit gets everywhere.

Nuclear waste is well contained and can be secured for hundreds of years
easily: [https://www.npr.org/2011/02/02/133399514/into-eternity-
nucle...](https://www.npr.org/2011/02/02/133399514/into-eternity-nuclears-
future-with-or-without-us)

~~~
afroboy
Not that secure. just watch this
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwY2E0hjGuU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwY2E0hjGuU)

------
renholder
I think this is a good idea but, on the flipside of that coin, would it be too
little, too late? Honest question: Would it even, conceivably, be ready in the
next 10 years?

Coal isn't without it's drawbacks[0], no matter how much it's praised but the
fallout[1] (no pun intended) from nuclear disasters has much longer and
farther-reaching implications, which we have _no_ way to really recover from -
still to this day.

As others have pointed out, the disasters have caused a bit of uneasiness with
the public and it's understandable, when the general consensus in modern-day
society is, "It's not my problem, so I don't care."

If we treated it as a "human problem" and not "x" society's problem, we'd
probably get a lot further; of course, this assumes that people _believe_ the
environment is in serious danger but, alas, there are people who do not. (Did
these same people exist during the CFC/Ozone-hole problem?)

[0] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly_ash_slurry_spill)

[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#The_Exclusi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#The_Exclusion_Zone)

------
jkuria
For more context, this is a good read:

[https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/why-we-
nee...](https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/why-we-need-
innovative-nuclear-power/)

Previous HN discussion here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18411991](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18411991)

------
meshr
Just curious if someone can build nuclear station without Congress. Can Bill
Gates buy a ship or island with nuclear station somewhere and “power Microsoft
servers” from it?

~~~
bertil
Depending on the technology, that would most likely fell close to non-
proliferation treaty and other international arrangements, so the government
and possibly IAEA would have rights to control and visit. I know for instance
that radioactive materials used for X-ray are under specific surveillance (it
was discussed because of Brexit: the UK imports those from Germany).

In practice, anyone who knows about those technologies is active in the
academic and industrial community. There are _a lot_ of regulation that you
can’t understand without professional lobbyists, and most of them are former
civil servants.

I would compare it to Space exploration: a private actor like SpaceX of
BlueOrigin is welcome on principle but has to pay a significant fee for
controls. Whether you see that as needed security expertise or fealty is a
matter of interpretation.

------
8bitsrule
Why complicate things when we already have a non-polluting eternal source of
fuel in the sky, AND the technology to harvest it, AND it's actually
economical and uncontroversial, AND the available energy is orders-of-
magnitude more than needed today?

Hmmm. PG&E wouldn't have to worry about 100,000 miles of transmission lines if
power-generation could be decentralized. Oh, wait, it can be! And without
paying for 10,000 years of security.

Of course it won't make anyone rich or powerful, and it's decentralized, and
those are bad things. Apparently.

~~~
bkcreate
Are you forgetting about the change where all new homes in CA have to have
solar panels? We already are moving towards mass adoption of solar, that
doesn't stop us from exploring other options that work in less sunny places,
at night, etc. Solar won't work everywhere.

------
RickJWagner
That's awesome.

I really respect it when people are willing to put their money where their
mouth is. Kudos to Gates.

------
tomcam
Nuclear energy sounds great to me except for the disposal of nuclear waste. I
cannot seem to find any convincing references that we can do it safely over
the long-term. Can someone help me with that?

~~~
mrfusion
This folk on Reddit had a great response to that. A bit too long to paste here
so I’ll leave the link:
[https://pay.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/7v76v4/what_is_s...](https://pay.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/7v76v4/what_is_something_that_sounds_extremely_wrong_but/dtqd9ey/)

------
d6e
As a temporary measure, why don't we use renewables with a fallback to fossil
fuels? During the day, solar could meet demand and at night, we use
coal/gas/whatever.

~~~
vinay427
I think there's a lot of inefficiency in only operating coal plants during
some times of day. That was one of the major complaints that utilities in
California used for crediting users with residential solar for their power
generation. It wasn't actually worth the market rate to the utility if they
had to run the plant anyways. I don't have any independent data on this,
unfortunately.

There are interesting initiatives around the country to curb peaks in usage,
however. For example, my parents are signed up for a service where they
collect bill credits as they minimize power usage during a pre-announced hour
of the week which exceeds normal capacity and would require dirtier and more
expensive power plants to operate.

[https://www.ohmconnect.com/](https://www.ohmconnect.com/)

------
Tsubasachan
Every once in a while the idea to build a nuclear powerplant comes up. Then
the accountants start working out how much it will cost, everyone understand
that you need to multiply that number by a factor of 2, and wisely nothing
happens.

Most countries actually don't even have the expertise to manage a nuclear
industry anymore.

------
harry8
Where's the actual data on safety to people of nuclear vs coal vs
wind/rain/sun?

~~~
ggm
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents)

Every row in the table has a citation at end.

~~~
eeZah7Ux
The table is extremely misleading by not estimating risks for the next 100,000
years.

~~~
sjwright
That's true. If we estimated the risks for the next 100,000 years then these
numbers would change immensely.

A hundred years of burning coal has damaged our atmosphere a little bit; doing
the same for another hundred _thousand_ years would be absurdly catastrophic
to our ecosystem, killing and displacing billions.

You'd also need to look carefully at hydro as well, as thousand-year-old mega-
dams begin to randomly fail.

Nuclear risk will probably be lower as the shockingly naive Soviet-era and
1960s-era designed reactors are all replaced with new designs built with
immensely improved understanding of nuclear physics, materials design,
computer augmentation, and local climatic risks.

~~~
gotocake
You’re on the money, and it’s the result of things like coal and dams facing
inherent technical challenges to safety and externalities, versus nuclear
which primarily faces political challenges. Keeping waste rods on-site is
stupid and dangerous, but it’s a consequence of people and their politicians
incessant NIMBYism.

------
simplecomplex
We already have enough land to power the entire US with solar.

The future is renewables not pushing the can down the road with Nuclear,
ignoring all of its negative externalities.

Bill Gates doesn’t need government to build solar either.

~~~
philsnow
Can the united states procure enough gallium, cadmium, selenium, indium, and
whatever else to build enough solar panels ?

~~~
philipkglass
Yes. Panels based on crystalline silicon have 95% market share and require
none of those elements.

------
adultSwim
Bill Gates has shamelessly uses his philanthropy to further his own interests,
similar to how he abused Microsoft's monopoly power in the 90s.

~~~
Bajeezus
If you want to call advancing causes that are objectively beneficial for
society "furthering his own interests," then sure.

------
chemmail
Would building a reactor underground not be safer?

~~~
acidburnNSA
It would be safer, as the pathways of radionuclides into the biosphere would
be more torturous. It would also be significantly more expensive, as
underground construction is big money. Many new reactors put the core below
grade, though. It's better for tornadoes, but worse for floods.

------
yosito
Good. This is literally the only possible way humanity could arrest or at
least survive climate change.

------
mortdeus
isnt his approach to use the nuclear waste of fission in a new reactor?

------
mortdeus
What if bill gates or his wife ran for potus against Trump 2020? who wouldn't
vote for him?

------
daveheq
Thoreum molten-salt reactors or its a waste!

------
nimish
He should do it without begging for public handouts. He's wealthy enough.

~~~
omarchowdhury
Might be some regulatory fast tracking if the government also buys in.

~~~
skookumchuck
That's right. It's smart to get the opposition on board instead of having to
duke it out with them.

------
conradk
Always the same thing: instead of reducing energy use, humans will find a way
to push back problems instead of tackling them head on. Using nuclear energy
"because runway is too short" without doing much else is not going to save us.

We have to go out of our comfort zone and start pushing for laws that force
manufacturers to allow for 20 year repairability of electronical products
(some brands already offer 10 years, so 20 years is probably possible too),
pushing for automatic 5 year warranty on electronic products instead of 2 in
the EU, disallowing environment breaking agriculture, putting extremely high
taxes on airplane tickets, etc.

Sure, that means that we need to change the way we live. We need to consume
less and better. We need to think long term instead of jumping onto the new
bright innovation every 2 years.

21st century capitalism has gotten to a point of absurdity in which everything
in the world "has to" be available within the reach of a click and max 3 days
delivery, whatever the cost (environment is dying, poverty is still not gone
despite the absurd amount of wealth produced by modern economies, etc).

Maybe we ought to rethink how we consume and what we expect from life.

~~~
javagram
In practice people will riot in the streets like the “yellow vests” in France
over even mild measures such as fuel taxes.

Extreme measures like you are talking about could not be implemented in any
democracy.

~~~
elcomet
Come on. Fuel taxes have a higher cost on poor people, that's why people are
doing riots in France. This is about social justice. You can very well have
extreme measures that are also socially fair.

The example the parent is taking is very good: having 10 years guarantee on
all products is pro consumer (it might increases prices a bit, but I believe
people will actually save money in the long run).

------
Apreche
Hey Bill. You got more money than the Koch bros. Why not use those billions to
donate to the campaigns of (aka bribe) every congressperson. Then, democrat or
republican, they will do whatever you ask. They'll impeach Trump. They'll vote
for nuclear power. They'll tax the other wealthy people.

You could also just buy those evil Koch Brothers/Adelson/etc. They are all
smaller than you. Just buy them and shut them down.

You can save the country with a wave of your hand. Why are you always making
such a small impact with such a large amount of money? Stop trying to bunt to
first and smack the home run.

Alternative: Give me all your money and I'll do it for you.

~~~
gdy
Another alternative: you make the money yourself like Bill Gates did and do
whatever you want instead of writing comments on HN.

------
chmaynard
Is this the way public policy is done now? Dueling billionaires throwing their
money around? Gates can take his billions and shove them you know where.

~~~
abootstrapper
Wait until you hear about lobbyists and super pacs!

~~~
max76
Throwing money around sounds like politics as usual. At least this policy
seems to come genuine desire to help.

------
learnstats2
This is why we shouldn't allow people to be billionaires.

The government should decide this as representatives of the people, not as
arms of extremely wealthy people.

------
ackfoo
What an idiotic discussion. Energy-efficient buildings can reduce our power
demands by 85%. Then we can talk about which nuclear power plants to shut
down, instead of arguing about whether we should build more.

The free market prioritizes cheap buildings and profit. One law that requires
energy-efficiency for all new structures ends the argument.

No offence, but participating in the nuclear argument makes you a moron.

------
vertline3
Wow! I hope his fusion push works out. I think he was working with that
tokamak design from MIT last I checked. The design used a magnetic tape that
was a new breakthrough, there is a youtube video explaining the details.

~~~
gotocake
This isn’t about fusion, but fission. I would assume that Gates being a
famously bright man, understands that none of us are seeing fusion power in
our lifetimes. Of course Gates is backing an extremely challenging form of
breeder reactor called a TWR. Still, any progress on nuclear at this point is
good, and desperately needed.

~~~
vertline3
Oh okay I thought Terra power was working on this magnetic tape thing

It's called ybco tape

~~~
tim333
Nah different technology. The tape is used in prospective fusion designs like
MIT SPARC. Terra power have a fission design called a traveling wave reactor.

~~~
vertline3
Thanks! I will look it up

------
dsign
Pushing for green energy and good deeds with the current administration makes
me fear for the health of Bill Gates... is he running out of time and
considering desperate options? ... now that I think about it, _we all are
running out of time_ ... :-( ...

~~~
jjoonathan
Nuclear energy is spurned by many (most?) self-styled environmentalists. That
alone could win it favor in this administration. If Republicans could be
persuaded to "own" it and Democrats could be persuaded to go along with it, we
might just wind up doing something good for the planet.

That's probably optimistic, but there's a lot more hope in that idea than in
fighting a pitched battle about solar panels, China, and "clean coal" in the
current political climate.

~~~
jkravitz61
Nuclear has such a terrible reputation, and rightfully,people will always have
legitimate complaints about it. We can never fully guarantee that a plant is
free from the potential of catastrophe, not to mention we still don’t have a
great solution to nuclear waste other than bury it in a mountain. It’s
definitely a lot better than slowly suffocating ourselves by injecting
hydrocarbons into the air, but we really need a revolution not evolution in
energy.

~~~
smsm42
Nothing is ever free of a potential for trouble. Solar panel could fall from
the roof and hit someone over the head, and I'm sure that happened already,
but nobody makes a huge deal out of it. Nuclear incidents are made huge deal
of. It's a fight between Jane Fonda and Edward Teller, and Fonda is winning
because a movie actress is apparently more trustworthy in a questions of
nuclear energy than actual nuclear physicists. It's a highly irrational
approach and it's way past time to come back to rationality on it - yes,
nuclear plants can be dangerous, but the risks can be managed as all other
risks are and the benefits of working nuclear industry are huge, especially
compared to burning hydrocarbons, which is how we still get the majority of
energy.

~~~
jkravitz61
Sure, but a very bad nuclear incident (accidental or not) could more or less
kill millions of people pretty quickly. Obviously hydrocarbons will kill more
than that, but the optics of a nuclear catastrophe are in my opinion far worse
than global warming which to many people is pretty abstract.

~~~
jjoonathan
That's really the crux of the issue. Nobody cares if a thousand or two
additional jobbers die falling off of roofs while installing solar panels, but
if one person is exposed to sub-lethal quantities of radiation, _everyone_
cares.

------
aiyodev
Gates is worth ~$100B. The US federal budget is ~$4.1T per year.

This is like asking someone with a 4 Gbps connection to transfer some files
and offering to burn a single mini CD to help them.

~~~
smsm42
To give you a data point, current shutdown that just ended was a fight about 5
billions. Budget is big - even discretionary one - which is only one that
needs to be considered when we talk about spending priorities, since non-
discretionary one is pretty much fixed - but it also has a lot of items
inside. And if we talk about priorities for specific items, 100bn is nothing
to sneeze at. Whole Department of Energy budget is is about 30bn - so it's
definitely on the same scale.

~~~
ComputerGuru
The shutdown wasn’t about the money so much as what it represented.

------
hristov
Bad idea. We have plenty of much cheaper sources of green energy. And lets
face it nuclear is far from green. Offshore wind energy is so successful that
it is now negatively affecting solar as well as nuclear and fossil fuels.
Furthermore, the greatest current innovation vis-a-vis energy is energy saving
which is much cheaper than building new reactors.

I should add that there is such an energy glut in the world nowadays that
companies that make turbines for nuclear/coal/gas plants are in dire financial
straits. (See GE and to a lesser extent Siemens and Mitsubishi Heavy
Industries).

What we need now is a good storage solution, or a flexible on demand power
plant. Nuclear is very bad for both of these goals.

BTW Mr. Gates' offer is not that generous. He says if the tax payer puts
billions of money in his company he will also put a billion of his money in
his company. Well gee that is great for you but what does the taxpayer get out
of it. What if a stranger comes up to you and says "Hey buddy, if you pay
$5000 to fix my car, I will pay $1000 out of my own money to repaint it."

~~~
arduanika
> much cheaper sources of green energy

When people stop bragging about how many more jobs green energy creates than
fossil fuels, I'll start believing that renewables are cheaper _at scale_.

> What we need now is a good storage solution

Collocate the new nuclear plants with facilities that (at high energy cost)
recapture carbon into dense fuels.

~~~
benj111
Re green jobs: I think that's meant as a retort to the "what about coal
miners?" Argument.

I'm trying to understand your nuclear -> fuel plan. Nuclear reactors already
use a storage solution, why are you adding an extra step? Why not combine it
with wind/solar?

Edit: Are you suggesting the green jobs would lead to high wages and costs?
Don't forget theres no fuel cost with renewables.

~~~
arduanika
> Nuclear reactors already use a storage solution

Hmm, not sure what storage solution you're thinking of? Is there a nuclear-
specific means of storing the energy produced for later use?

What I mean to say is: nuclear power is so cheap that you could use it to
power carbon recapture, even at the current cost. There are even people
working on using direct air capture to create ultra-dense fuel, e.g.
[http://carbonengineering.com/](http://carbonengineering.com/) . This is
surely very inefficient (lots of energy required to recapture a small amount
of fuel), but if we powered it using a nuclear plant's off-peak energy, it's
effectively a liquid battery.

~~~
benj111
"Hmm, not sure what storage solution you're thinking of"

The fissile material itself.

Nuclear power is dispatchable to a point, and I don't think its as cheap as
you seem to think it is. The scheme might be worth it for producing jet fuel
etc, but using fission to generate electricity to generate fuel for short term
storage for a generator? Unless it is really efficient, no.

Combined with renewables which aren't dispatchable at all, more likely, but
not where I would put my money.

