“An energy start-up backed by Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates is in discussions with Toshiba Corp. on developing a small-scale nuclear reactor that would represent a long-term bet to make nuclear power safer and cheaper,” Robert A. Guth and Daisuke Wakabayashi report for The Wall Street Journal.
“Toshiba said it is in preliminary discussions with TerraPower, a unit of Intellectual Ventures, a patent-holding concern partially funded by Mr. Gates,” Guth and Wakabayashi report. “Intellectual Ventures, based in Bellevue, Wash., is run by a former Microsoft executive, Nathan Myhrvold.”
Guth and Wakabayashi report, “The discussions come as President Barack Obama is trying to spur new investment in nuclear power in the U.S. with over $8 billion in government loan guarantees announced in February.”
“In interviews, Mr. Gates has described the device as being able to run buried deep in the ground without human intervention,” Guth and Wakabayashi report. “The reactor would likely take years to develop and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission doesn’t have a certification process for such reactors.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The guy responsible for the most unstable computer operating system in world history wants to build nuclear reactors? Microsoft Windows Chernobyl 2015®. Use Mac OS X to control the thing, Bill. This isn’t the accounting department down the hall; uptime sounds really important in this case. Swallow your misplaced pride now or we’re all doomed!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Eric H.” for the heads up.]
Most encouraging new energy creating material announced in the last few weeks: Aluminum nano-molecules.
Solar energy has been theorized to allow the proper size Aluminum molecules to cause water to break apart into Hydrogen & Oxygen.
If this can be made to work efficiently, I would rather not think about a Red-Orange Screen of Death rushing at me supersonically from a broken WindowGates nuclear reactor.
I’m all for nuclear energy, but not in the hands of Bill Gates!!!
“In interviews, Mr. Gates has described the device as being able to run buried deep in the ground without human intervention,”
So he wants to bury a nuclear reactor deep underground running on automated systems without human intervention… Wow, that sure isn’t a series of bad ideas.
Mmm… I can already taste the radioactive groundwater.
“Bill Gates wants to build nuclear reactors” …without a doubt one of the most terrifying phrases I have ever read!
Nuclear reactor + Windows = Darwin Award winner for sure!
Most people have the wrong perception about nuclear power. Fact is it is far cleaner than coal-fired plants which are rampant today, spewing out pollutants and CO2 that we all breathe in happily. Also, nuclear has many advantages over renewable sources such as wind and solar such as land space and intermittency issues. There is minimal waste produced and lots of time to figure out what to do with it. Yes, the waste is bad, but nothing is perfect.
No matter how he got the money, Gates should be commended for at least doing something good with it.
MDN’s take is probably tongue in cheek (I hope). Either way, it’s ridiculous. Bias is unavoidable but it should not cloud reality. OSX is better than Windows – I don’t see the relevance of that fact to Gates backing nuclear power.
Common people. Give the guy a break. Computer “engineering” is cannot be likened to civil or nuclear engineering. Computer engineering allows too much for syntactical and logical errors. Whereas civil and nuclear engineering are based on mathematics only.
Bill Gates is trying to do good with his money. We should support him.
Bill, just make the first one in Iran.
He can build anything he wants…in hell!
Oh wait—Bill doesn’t believe in hell.
so if US does with nuclear, it would be good. if other countries do, it makes enemies because they might make weapon? what the hell. this country is bullshit. don’t bother what bill gates does for this world. but please, americans are so narrow mind.
Scary thought – but B&W;came up with this modular reactor Idea much earlier – and without the scary connotations of it being Bill Gates.
As much as I am in favor of nuclear energy (it is after all my job), I think Gates/Nuclear is a bad combination. If just because of the bad jokes, because while the system wouldn’t actually run Windows (I would hope not) the jokes would run on and on and on.
Time to move to Australia. I heard that its one of the last places the radioactive wind will get too when BG new NUK initiative Blue Screens a big one.
Hey, maybe that is what the Mayan’s knew. Bill Gate starts to work on his nuclear project Dec 2012.
The world will never be the same and parts of it will be flat floating through space.
The world’s most expensive way to boil water, even after the massive subsidies given by the government.
Free Marketeers, why won’t any private company insure a Nuke Plant? Currently the taxpayers assume ALL liability for a Nuke Plant because NOT ONE insurance company will touch them.
@Draven Grey:
More like the “loud scream of death”. NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
Peace.
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Olmecmystic
We could always burn fossil fuels.
Carbon Dioxide is plant food.
If you want to stop CO2 from escaping into the atmosphere, hold your breath.
Pretty far reaching conclusion that a company that Gates invests in means Gates wants to build a reactor. And the snarky Windows OS comment was childish and not what I expect from your publication.
People should learn more about this technology before ridiculing it, just because it is associated with Bill Gales.
First, it uses depleted uranium for power. Depleted uranium is a byproduct of using uranium. It is less radioactive than natural uranium. Because of its extreme density, it is already used for purposes other than power generation. For example, it is used in shielding for medical radiation therapy. The military uses it in armor plating and in armor-piercing projectiles. So if it can be used with acceptable safety in current applications, it should be just as safe for use in a devices that generate electrical power. And it seems much safer than the military applications.
Second, this new technology itself is obviously nothing like the large-scale nuclear power generation technologies currently used in power plants and some U.S. naval vessels. If the dangerous substances can be sealed off with no chance of something like a run-away “melt-down” occurring, then I would consider it safer than the potentially explosive (or leaking) stockpile of fossil fuel needed to run equivalent conventional smaller-scale power generation (and certainly more friendly to the environment).
Third, the world (especially the U.S.) needs to become less reliant on fossil fuels. “Feel good” alternatives such as solar and wind power cannot come close to meeting 100% of needs. Hydro and geothermal power are ideal, but there are not enough places like Iceland and rivers to dam up. So the only practical “clean” alternative (at this time and into the near future) is nuclear power.
I’m all for any research that makes using nuclear power safer and more practical. It’s even better that this new technology makes use of depleted uranium, because depleted uranium is already being used in ways that are considered safe and practical.
China Syndrome!!!!
All Bill knows how to do is copy, so does this mean he will be copying the French designs? Who else has a good “safe” design? Spent fuel gets stored in his back yard, not mine!!!!
Actualy the overall energy efficiency of nuclear is not that good when compared to everything else
Do some real research
just because it looks like free energy doesn’t mean it costs the least
we don’t need at all anywhere
we need to shut down the plants now
I wonder what the fallout from this idea would be?
“In interviews, Mr. Gates has described the device as being able to run buried deep in the ground without human intervention,” Guth and Wakabayashi report. “The reactor would likely take years to develop and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission doesn’t have a certification process for such reactors.”
Actually, such a reactor has already been developed (at Los Alamos). Hyperion Power Generation is looking to commercialize that design and is working to get it approved. But the NRC doesn’t yet know how to deal with such a power source. Look it up.
See any recent story about runaway vehicles controlled by errant software. And then there is this 1998 story about the USS Yorktown, a Navy SmartShip controlled by Microsoft Windows NT that once lost control of its main engines for two hours because of a system crash. Sure, let’s let these geniuses build a nuclear reactor.
http://gcn.com/articles/1998/07/13/software-glitches-leave-navy-smart-ship-dead-in-the-water.aspx
MDN forgot to add the most virus prone OS in the history of the planet!
I hope the ethernet connections and WiFi cards will be hardware disabled. Then again, having computers that can’t talk to each other is also a bad thing. Kind of like where I work.
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Does anyone else find it odd that all the experts on everything are using mdn?
@Dennis Mooney. Expect it. And expect it often. They really should change the name of this site as the childish commentary certainly isn’t “news”. It is nice to get a bunch of articles in one place. But the childish banter is well uh. Childish.