bill gates and warren buffet building nuclear reactor in Wyoming

[FordGT90Concept]

NASA had to procure plutonium for RTGs from Russia because the last facility producing it in the USA shutdown years ago (I believe it was at ORNL).

 

[Ferrum Master]

NASA had to procure plutonium for RTGs from Russia because the last facility producing it in the USA shutdown years ago (I believe it was at ORNL).

Basically a need? Income opportunity for Uncle Bill?

 

[Vayra86]

More that humans are fickle and weak-willed, and can't commit to shit anymore without balking at the challenges. People saw Chernobyl and Fukushima and immediately jumped to the conclusion that nuclear will be the death of humanity, instead of asking why Western PWRs are designed differently, or why plants run by other companies within the earthquake zone didn't suffer catastrophic release.

Like this "advanced" reactor in question. Immediately the counterargument is that experts "warn" that it's more dangerous because high enrichment fuels are also more suited to weapons development. Yeah, no shit Sherlock, there's also something called oversight and regulation, maybe that's where to focus attention? People not only becoming risk-averse - they're becoming paranoid. There's a potential problem, so explore solutions.

Humans are not fickle and weak-willed, our Western snowflake societies are. We are living a generation that has not seen war or true misery, except abroad. Its always 'happening over there'.

Climate change though is happening everywhere. I think we're going to rediscover the necessary spirit. Its happening already, because people are seeing wind turbines in their back yard and the noise they bring along, and they realize: shit, pollution isn't just the air we breathe, but the sky we can look at and the sound we hear, too. Green is slapping them in the face as they speak, and they begin to realize how abundant the fossil boom was. Similarly, the gas problem... oops, yeah, eheh... nuclear might be pretty warm in winter, after all.

Its a shame we never learn from history too well... its the same thing with all these nonsensical 'political' debates. Its not even about politics but about individuals trying to preserve snowflake lives. That goes from being scared of a jab (the fundamental problem rn, beyond all the bullshit people make up for themselves so we don't call them pussies), to categoric denial that we lack a sustainable way forward so we just 'blunder ahead' and blame government for it.

Western societies have become a grossly irresponsible bunch of idiots and its about time we learned what's what. Its only for that reason, too, that Putin now has 127k Russians at the Ukranian border. He smells weakness and knows history. And what's worse: we already know he'll probably succeed at taking another piece of the country as he did before, because we also know we're not going to fight someone else's war, we're too weak, and we have bread & games. A vast majority isn't even capable or willing of fighting its own war, whichever it is. Surely we paid someone to do that for us, right?

 

[Deleted member 24505]

Think about the number of reactors, and the number of "accidents" cough windscale cough. Nuclear is perfectly safe, Fukishima was unfortunate, but was their fault Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) operated the station and was warned their seawall was insufficient to withstand a powerful tsunami, but did not increase the seawall height in response. TEPCO ran other stations (such as the Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant) closer to the epicenter of the earthquake which had much more robust seawalls.

I been saying for year we need to use more nuclear power, it is clean and safe.

 

[Vayra86]

Think about the number of reactors, and the number of "accidents" cough windscale cough. Nuclear is perfectly safe, Fukishima was unfortunate, not really the Japs fault.

I been saying for year we need to use more nuclear power, it is clean and safe.

The next argument I hear when I say this around other people is 'sure, probably safe then, but omg the radioactive stuff, its unsafe for ages and you can't get rid of it'...

As if there aren't other processes that create massive toxic waste... and radioactive material:
Take aluminium, another one of those key materials we use for our transition to greener, highly recyclable

TENORM: Bauxite and Alumina Production Wastes | US EPA

Bauxite is used to produce alumina, which is then used to produce aluminum. Naturally-occurring radioactivity in bauxite ores is concentrated during the refining process, creating TENORM in bauxite refining residuals.

www.epa.gov

 

[R-T-B]

The space industry complained about that as they need small reactors for future missions too.

I thought there were treaties against use of true fission based reactors in space?

Or is that a pipe dream from a different era? (For the record, I have no issue with it as long as it does not come back. Space is radioactive in many places anyways).

NASA had to procure plutonium for RTGs from Russia because the last facility producing it in the USA shutdown years ago (I believe it was at ORNL).

Holy crap you post.

 

[lexluthermiester]

not really the Japs fault.

Not true. The plant was designed and built near a coastline without taking tsunami effect into account in a nation that has a history of being hit by tsunami's. It was poor planning and design.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

Not true. The plant was designed and built near a coastline without taking tsunami effect into account in a nation that has a history of being hit by tsunami's. It was poor planning and design.

They could have built the protection wall taller than the 5.7m they did. There was actually another Nuclear plant further up the coast Onagawa that was closer to the epicentre, but they built their wall higher at 14.7m iirc and suffered no damage and managed to shut down the 4 reactors safely. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onagawa_Nuclear_Power_Plant#2011_Tōhoku_earthquake

I mean not their fault as in they could not have predicted the earthquake, though japan is in a zone i guess. The thing they did wrong was not protecting the emergency generators from water.

Edit- i take it back, it was their fault-Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) operated the station and was warned their seawall was insufficient to withstand a powerful tsunami, but did not increase the seawall height in response. TEPCO ran other stations (such as the Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant) closer to the epicenter of the earthquake which had much more robust seawalls.

 

[kapone32]

if the Super Volcano ever explodes, you have more to worry about than a small nuclear reactor meltdown, I promise. if the Yellowstone Super Volcano goes, you are looking at probably half the worlds population dying. so let's just hope that doesn't happen ye?

It would be bye bye the Americas. That is a Caldera!!!

 

[Deleted member 24505]

It would be bye bye the Americas. That is a Caldera!!!

Bye bye humans, it could be an extinction eruption

 

[kapone32]

Bye bye humans, it could be an extinction eruption

Exactly the thought process (in some circles) is that those were some of the first Volcanoes on Earth. The fact that there is sustained Geyser activity speaks volumes to the amount of magma lying under the cone that is Yellowstone and beyond.

 

[lexluthermiester]

They could have built the protection wall taller than the 5.7m they did.

The thing they did wrong was not protecting the emergency generators from water.

Exactly. What they needed to do was built the emergency generators 20meters off the ground not worry about higher sea-walls.

However, in the Wyoming plant, this not going to be a problem.

 

[Space Lynx]

Exactly. What they needed to do was built the emergency generators 20meters off the ground not build higher sea-walls.

However, in the Wyoming plant, this not going to be a problem.

imo the future should be these new power plants from bill gates and use that power to get hydrogen up and going in some parts geographically that make sense, in other parts where there are tons of sun use aptera solar powered cars, and in other parts of the country use hyperloop.

variety is the spice of life baby ^^

 

[dorsetknob]

I thought there were treaties against use of true fission based reactors in space?

The Nuclear Batterys in question are not Spaceborne Reactors but a store of shielded Radioactive Plutonium which by natural decay produces heat which is converted into useful Electricty.
as these batterys age the half life of the Radioactive Plutonium gives less heat and therefore less in converted power.

Voyager 1 & 2 are a good example of Nuclear Batterys experiencing power loss over years of use.

 

[the54thvoid]

*sniffs* as thinks of V-Ger in the cold of dark space.

 

[claes]

just fyi the power plants from bill gates are a bit different, there will be one normal but updated power plant nuclear, then a smaller plant that is designed to re-use the nuclear radioactive waste from the bigger power plant.

there ends up being no waste at all this way and no radioactive stuff needs stored. its quite genius from what i understand about it. bill gates and warren buffet seem fairly confident in it anyway

(im not an expert in this stuff, so some of that info may be wrong, but thats how i understand it)

Right, but this is all theoretical. Most climate scientists that don’t see nuclear power as a solution aren’t concerned about waste, they’re concerned about the time to proof of concept and then mass adaptation taking decades.

The only reason any of those things are true (cost, time to build) is because we've made it that way. In terms of climate change, we might be slow but far from late. But it really is the only current option for a high-energy society. And energy usage is directly tied to quality of life. Low energy is a quicker death, to put it succinctly.

True, but that’s the fact of the matter, isn’t it? It takes a decade to secure funding and navigate the political landscape and then another decade to actually build.

I highly recommend reading Mike Shellenberger's book Apocalypse Never, and checking out his website.

Complete Case for Nuclear Energy — Environmental Progress

Complete Case for Nuclear Energy

environmentalprogress.org

No offense but this guy doesn’t sound interesting to me at all. Does promoting catastrophe make concrete action more difficult? Yes. Can technology and investment help curb emissions? Duh. But if the intro to your wiki page reads like this and you call yourself the “bad boy” of environmentalism… hard pass.

A controversial and polarizing figure, Shellenberger sharply disagrees with other environmentalists over the impacts of environmental threats and policies for addressing them.[9] Shellenberger's positions have been called "bad science" and "inaccurate" by environmental scientists and academics.[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]

Ten citations questioning your legitimacy in the intro? Yikes.

I don’t mean to dismiss him outright — some of his ideas seem worthwhile. But it’s not really a response to “nuclear takes too long and is unsustainable,” especially if his timeline for irreparable damage is inconsistent with scientific consensus and depends on technologies that don’t exist yet to curb those ramifications. Throwing rocks at straw men sells books, but there’s a much more practical middle that deals in realities rather than ideology.

The main force behind this natrium reactor is that it can respond to renewables. The liquid sodium acts as a thermal battery so the electric generation loop can be hours divorced from thermal (reactor) loop. At night, it can put 100% of thermal capacity into the electric loop. If wind picks up, that number drops. If the sun starts rising and there's too much solar in the grid, some of the electricity may be used to heat the sodium (instead of nuclear) to be expended later. Molten sodium reactors are industrial thermal batteries in addition to being nuclear power plants. That's what makes this design so attractive, even though it can't hold a light to boiling water reactors in terms of pure electric generation (often have nameplate generation capacity 3x higher).

The really exciting thing about these reactors is that they can replace natural gas in the grid. It has similar performance/capability as gas turbines but without the emissions and market pricing risks.



Fast breeder reactor. The problem with breeders is that nobody trusts anybody with them because they can weaponize uranium. They need to be among the most secure facilities in the world.

Nice to see you!

I've read actually there is shortage of really highly enriched and pure uranium in US. The space industry complained about that as they need small reactors for future missions too.

This is another reason climate scientists aren’t excited about nuclear — at current use rates they expect us to be out of uranium by the end of the century and sooner if we are to build more nuclear power plants.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

*sniffs* as thinks of V-Ger in the cold of dark space.

My fave trek film

 

[Voodoo Rufus]

No offense but this guy doesn’t sound interesting to me at all. Does promoting catastrophe make concrete action more difficult? Yes. Can technology and investment help curb emissions? Duh. But if the intro to your wiki page reads like this and you call yourself the “bad boy” of environmentalism… hard pass.

Ten citations questioning your legitimacy in the intro? Yikes.

I don’t mean to dismiss him outright — some of his ideas seem worthwhile. But it’s not really a response to “nuclear takes too long and is unsustainable,” especially if his timeline for irreparable damage is inconsistent with scientific consensus and depends on technologies that don’t exist yet to curb those ramifications. Throwing rocks at straw men sells books, but there’s a much more practical middle that deals in realities rather than ideology.

This is another reason climate scientists aren’t excited about nuclear — at current use rates they expect us to be out of uranium by the end of the century and sooner if we are to build more nuclear power plants.

There's more like 800 years of known Uranium reserves if we ran all power production off of it with current reactor tech last I read. And I'm not even sure that factors in fuel recycling like the advanced reactor designs do, to say nothing of the French style reactors which generate like 1% of the waste that US reactors do.

If you want to bash Shellenberger just based off the Wiki page criticisms instead of reading his book, go for it. No skin off my back. He's got other pages countering the attacks on him. I find his arguments compelling from a pro-human standpoint.

I've said this for a while amongst my real life friends: The biggest detriment to environmentalism is environmentalists. They're never held to account for bad policies.

Nothing can scale for humanity's future power needs like nuclear.

I get a weekly nuclear news summary from this site: https://www.ans.org/news/article-3593/predictions-what-lies-ahead-for-nuclear-in-2022/

Both India and China are building reactors as fast as they can pretty much. China just went critical on their first pebble bed reactor, and it seems like they're turning on a new AP1400 every month. Pretty incredible progress. Pretty sad that the US doesn't own this space as we invented a lot of the tech over half a century ago. We could be exporting nuclear tech to the world and profiting handsomely off it.

 

[claes]

There's more like 800 years of known Uranium reserves if we ran all power production off of it with current reactor tech last I read. And I'm not even sure that factors in fuel recycling like the advanced reactor designs do, to say nothing of the French style reactors which generate like 1% of the waste that US reactors do.

Where’d you read that? From the horse’s mouth, if we don’t build any more nuclear power plants, uranium supplies at current usage would last 135 years, 250 if we account for uranium we know about but don’t know how to extract yet:

https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2020-12/7555_uranium_-_resources_production_and_demand_2020__web.pdf#page109

As documented in this volume, sufficient uranium resources exist to support continued use of nuclear power and significant growth in nuclear capacity for electricity generation and other uses in the long term. Identified recoverable resources,3 including reasonably assured resources and inferred resources, are sufficient for over 135 years, considering uranium requirements of about 59 200 tU (data as of 1 January 2019). Exploitation of the entire conventional resource4 base would increase this to well over 250 years. Nevertheless, the rapid growth of nuclear power in the coming decades would significantly change this picture. Furthermore, uranium exploration and development, motivated by significantly increased demand and market prices, would be required to move these resources into more definitive categories.

I've said this for a while amongst my real life friends: The biggest detriment to environmentalism is environmentalists. They're never held to account for bad policies.

Nothing can scale for humanity's future power needs like nuclear.

This is exactly the sort of straw man I am referring to. Any climate scientist or policy analyst worth their salt sees nuclear as an important part of combating emissions and preventing damage from climate change. The “environmentalists” you’re talking about are just red herrings. Here’s how actual environmentalists talk about nuclear:

We've been having the wrong debate about nuclear energy » Yale Climate Connections

What advocates on both sides may be overlooking.

yaleclimateconnections.org

The reality is that the biggest advocates of nuclear energy, like the IAEA, acknowledge that nuclear is not enough to even meet the Paris accords, let alone the more substantial emission reductions climate scientists and policy analysts are calling for.

https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/TE-1984web.pdf

In summary, while not a panacea for all energy and climate related challenges, the studies in this CRP confirm that nuclear energy can be an important part of the solution depending on specific national circumstances and priorities, fostering not only GHG emissions reduction but also other aspects of sustainable energy development (some which were not analysed in detail in this project).

Nuclear energy - The solution to climate change?

With increased awareness of climate change in recent years nuclear energy has received renewed attention. Positions that attribute nuclear energy an i…

www.sciencedirect.com

Nuclear Power in a Clean Energy System – Analysis - IEA

Nuclear Power in a Clean Energy System - Analysis and key findings. A report by the International Energy Agency.

www.iea.org

 

[Deleted member 24505]

Could they not blast nuclear waste into the sun in a big rocket? the sun is so vast i'm sure the tiny amount of waste we fire into it would have a minute if any effect on it.

 

[AlwaysHope]

Could they not blast nuclear waste into the sun in a big rocket? the sun is so vast i'm sure the tiny amount of waste we fire into it would have a minute if any effect on it.

Don't have to send it to the sun , just send it far enough away from earth is all that's required. Space is already highly radioactive by nature. The miniscule amounts humans could send up there would be like a grain of sand on a beach compared to the rest of it up there.
The problem I see is IF & its a rather big IF, the rocket explodes or breaks up prematurely inside the earth's atmosphere, consequences would be like something out of a science fiction horror movie.

 

[lexluthermiester]

the sun is so vast i'm sure the tiny amount of waste we fire into it would have a minute if any effect on it.

It would have no effect at all on the Sun. The surface of the Sun is far more intense than anything we could throw at it. The problem is getting the stuff there. It's not as easy a shooting a rocket into space. It's actually very difficult to get things to the Sun from as far out in the planetary system as Earth is. Compared to the gas giants we're in close, but close is relative. We're 150million KM from the Sun. That's a big distance.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Where’d you read that? From the horse’s mouth, if we don’t build any more nuclear power plants, uranium supplies at current usage would last 135 years, 250 if we account for uranium we know about but don’t know how to extract yet:

https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2020-12/7555_uranium_-_resources_production_and_demand_2020__web.pdf#page109

This is exactly the sort of straw man I am referring to. Any climate scientist or policy analyst worth their salt sees nuclear as an important part of combating emissions and preventing damage from climate change. The “environmentalists” you’re talking about are just red herrings. Here’s how actual environmentalists talk about nuclear:

We've been having the wrong debate about nuclear energy » Yale Climate Connections

What advocates on both sides may be overlooking.

yaleclimateconnections.org

The reality is that the biggest advocates of nuclear energy, like the IAEA, acknowledge that nuclear is not enough to even meet the Paris accords, let alone the more substantial emission reductions climate scientists and policy analysts are calling for.

https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/TE-1984web.pdf

Nuclear energy - The solution to climate change?

With increased awareness of climate change in recent years nuclear energy has received renewed attention. Positions that attribute nuclear energy an i…

www.sciencedirect.com

Nuclear Power in a Clean Energy System – Analysis - IEA

Nuclear Power in a Clean Energy System - Analysis and key findings. A report by the International Energy Agency.

www.iea.org

Pretty sure they aren't taking into consideration the fact that spent uranium can be reused in breeder reactors or that other heavy metals can be used like thorium. U-235/U-238 is the preferred fuel because, sadly, it's the only thing that will make it through the mountain of government regulations when commissioning a new reactor.

This is yet another reason why the natrium reactor is a milestone: it's the first new, commercial reactor design (but still using U-235/U-238) in the United States since their inception. Even Vogtle that they're building now is just a new twist (Gen 3+) on 1960s designs (Gen 2). To shovel all of the regulatory paperwork to fundamentally just change the cooling loop costs $100s of millions of dollars.

Again, I reiterate that the reason why all this money is being thrown at this particular reactor is because it can replace natural gas which is currently producing >50% of US power. Hundreds of these reactors could be built replacing natural gas as long as the government doesn't get in the way to stop it (like it did in the 1980s after Three Mile Island). It could become a trillion dollar industry over the next few decades.

 

[Totally]

Depleted Uranium? So this is a breeder reactor? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor#/media/File:Sasahara.svg. At least, breeder reactors are the only kind that use depleted Uranium to my knowledge.

The "Pu" elements in the cycle are always a political football. There usually needs to be some kind of discussion on why, or why not, those Plutonium atoms are inaccessible to attackers and/or unsavory countries.



Nuclear definitely is (part of) the answer, and any environmentalist who disparages nuclear is just one of those idiots who follow the "hype culture" without thinking deeper about the problem. Which... most people fall into this hype trap so whatever. I'm not going to assume an agenda when simple idiocy answers the question, lol.

That being said: the problem with Nuclear is and always be, its a taboo technology. People don't like nuclear because people don't like nuclear. Even if a fast-breeder reactor is of a completely different design than Chernobyl or Fukushima, people will make ignorant comparisons. Still though, for something to get done in this country, it needs to have enough support of the people, so a savvy political game needs to be part of the picture.

----------

This "TeraPower" thing, is it a fast breeder reactor? Or is it some other technology? Its not exactly clear what it is... but that could be just savvy politics in this day and age (The less is known about the tech, the less the idiots have to complain about...).

I think the Depleted Uranium cycle, with the Plutonium, is always going to just be a hard thing to push for politically. A Thorium breeder reactor has no Pu in its cycle, but far fewer Thorium reactors have been built. Any kind of nuclear is a win for me, but too many breeder-reactors have been defeated in the political discussion that its hard for me to drum up optimism.

My only issue with this is the location, the biggest real issue with Nuke plants is the significant amounts of water they use, I'm not that familiar with it's water situation but I do know that it depends on snow melt and the Colorado River to make up the shortfall. So, I'm curious as to how their handling that especially since every state that gets water from the river never seem to get enough.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Again, I reiterate that the reason why all this money is being thrown at this particular reactor is because it can replace natural gas which is currently producing >50% of US power. Hundreds of these reactors could be built replacing them as long as the government doesn't get in the way to stop it (like they did in the 1980s after Three Mile Island). It could become a trillion dollar industry over the next few decades.

This. Done right it's perfectly safe and with no waste to store.