Bill Gates on Nuclear Energy
Today Bill Gates talked about our nuclear reactor project, TerraPower, at TED 2010. As an investor in several promising energy projects, Gates said it is our responsibility to pursue technologies that achieve cheap energy with “zero carbon” emissions.
TerraPower determined a new type of traveling-wave reactor would be the best approach to meeting the world’s energy demand. Our team decided to pursue nuclear energy after investigating many different technologies and solutions. With advances in computing power in just the past few years, we are able to make radical contributions to science that weren’t possible a few years ago. We believe the traveling-wave reactor concept provides the kind of innovation that society needs.
This video explains the traveling-wave reactor and how it works.
I can’t wait to see this technogy. Cominfg from a very poor county, the nuclear power may be a goog way to get a cheap energy for poor counties. Thank
Nuclear energy is not “zero-carbon”. The uranium does not appear in the factory by magic, it has to be mined or otherwise obtained, and this costs quite some (fossil) energy.
Direct and indirect CO2-emissions per kilowatt hour (grammes/-kWh).
natural gas 448
coal 924
coal: clean-coal-technology 800
co-generation of heat & power (gas) 300
uranium 62-230
Figures: TNO 1992. Via WISE Amsterdam.
Nuclear energy can be safer, cleaner and cheaper, if using aneutronic reactor, because it can generate electricity directly exceeding 95% of efficiency without neutron hazards. Few millions instead billions, a proof-of-concept could be built at a price of $40 millions, and a full-scale at a price of $500 millions.
@Chris H There is plenty of U-238 currently sitting in storage in the US and other countries which have developed atom bombs by separating out the fissile U-235. Most of this material is “good to go” right now. In addition, once reprocessing is begun, there are literally tons of “waste” that will suddenly be worth much more than their weight in gold if a safe, reliable breeder design becomes a reality. Thorium may also be used in any of these designs and is not really useful for much else. The cost/danger of mining thorium is much less than coal. There is enough thorium in Idaho to power the whole US for 1000 years– lights on 24/7.
@A.J.S. That’s absolutely true
. I’m excited to see changes in power generation in my lifetime.
I’m hopeful at least. More people just need to know about the viability of this sort of technology.
I can’t figure out how this core could remain critical with the “burning cigarette” model they show in the video. The thin wafer burn region would lose about 50% of it’s fast neutrons (used for breeding) into the burnt fuel region. These are essentially lost. So you start out with 2.5 neutrons; the average number produced from a fission of U235 or P239. If you lose 50% to fast leakage you have 1.25. We’ll say 1 is absorbed by U238 to make P239 and maintain our fuel inventory. You then have .25 neutrons for the next generation.
I know the video is oversimplified for its own sake and I would love to see more information about the design.