:-) Well put. A Windoze nuke, aarghh!!
>These are by far and away the safest reactors ever designed. > >As long as they remain unbuilt, they will remain so. > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Keith Addison" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: biofuel@sustainablelists.org >Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2011 8:12:08 AM >Subject: [Biofuel] Bill Gates's Nuclear Miracle? > >Also: > ><http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/nov/09/miniature-nuclear-reactors-los-alamos> >Mini nuclear plants to power 20,000 homes >£13m shed-size reactors will be delivered by lorry >John Vidal and Nick Rosen >The Observer, Sunday 9 November 2008 > ><http://allafrica.com/stories/201009170031.html> >South African Govt Halts Pebble Bed Modular Reactor Project >16 September 2010 > ><http://sites.google.com/site/rethinkingnuclearpower/aimhigh> >Aim High! >Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor > >Hmph. > >--0-- > ><http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2010/03/23/bill-gates%E2%80%99s-nuclear-miracle-john-gilleland-says-terrapower-needs-discipline-not-divine-intervention/> > >Bill Gates's Nuclear Miracle? John Gilleland Says TerraPower Needs >Discipline, Not Divine Intervention > >Gregory T. Huang 3/23/10 > >John Gilleland's first day on the job was a little different from >most people's. The nuclear physicist showed up at Intellectual >Ventures in Bellevue, WA, and sat down at the conference table with >his new boss, CEO Nathan Myhrvold, and another, shall we say >prominent, techie. > >"The guy on my left looked familiar," Gilleland says. "It was Bill Gates." > >Gilleland had been on the job for all of three minutes when Myhrvold >said jokingly, "John, you're late on your deliverables." > >That was back in December 2006. Gilleland is now CEO of TerraPower, >the spinoff from Intellectual Ventures that is focused on creating a >fundamentally new kind of nuclear reactor. It's the invention firm's >biggest research project to date, spinning out as a separate entity >in the fall of 2008 with 30-some staff and untold amounts of funding >from Gates and other investors. It is a project that Intellectual >Ventures likes to cite as a potentially transformative, homegrown >invention. > >The basic idea is to create a reactor that needs only a small amount >of enriched uranium to get started, and then uses depleted uranium >(spent fuel) or natural, unenriched uranium to produce the >nuclear-fission reactions necessary to generate power for 60 years or >more without refueling. The design is called a traveling wave >reactor, and the idea dates back to the early 1990s. If it works, the >key benefits would be cheaper power, much more plentiful fuel, more >efficient nuclear waste disposal, and less risk of nuclear >proliferation. > >Gates has been gushing about the project as of late. He mentioned >TerraPower prominently in his talk at the TED conference in >California last month, calling out the proposed reactor design as a >possible "miracle" innovation in the effort to provide clean energy >to more of the world's population without increasing carbon emissions >in the atmosphere. (Nuclear power provides about 20 percent of the >electricity in the U.S.) > >Gilleland (see photo, left) has been given the keys to Gates and >Myhrvold's nuclear kingdom for good reason. Previously, he co-founded >and led Archimedes Technology Group, which developed improved >techniques for cleaning up nuclear weapons waste, among other things. >Before that, he was chief scientist and vice president of energy >programs at Bechtel, and U.S. managing director of the International >Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) program for fusion energy, >and he spent 16 years at General Atomics doing fusion research. > >The traveling wave reactor is certainly an intriguing idea, and one >that could be a true breakthrough. But the question, skeptics say, is >whether it can be made to really work-and how long that will take. >The idea is that the reactor makes its own fuel and uses it as it >goes along: the neutrons emitted by a small amount of enriched >uranium convert depleted uranium into plutonium, which splits to >produce energy and also emits more neutrons that continue to "breed" >new fuel. There is no precedent for TerraPower's particular design, >and the project faces some major challenges-technical, business, and >regulatory. So far the physics has only been tested in computer >simulations, albeit using the most advanced supercomputers available. >(It's worth mentioning that only someone like Gates could afford to >fund this and risk having it not work-which is exactly why Myhrvold >sees the need for an "invention capital" industry.) > >On the plus side, the environment for nuclear power development is >more promising than it has been in years. President Obama recently >called for a new generation of nuclear plants to be built in the >U.S.; they would be the first new ones in 30 years. Companies >including General Atomics, General Electric, NuScale Power, and >Hyperion Power Generation have burgeoning nuclear efforts in the >U.S., as does General Fusion in British Columbia, and Areva, Hitachi, >and Toshiba further abroad. (Reports surfaced yesterday that >TerraPower and Toshiba are in talks to collaborate on a nuclear >reactor, possibly involving elements of Toshiba's "4S" fast neutron >reactor-see more on this type of design below.) > >TerraPower will need international partners, and funding on the order >of billions of dollars, to succeed. "I am hoping that we could get a >reactor built inside of 10 years," Myhrvold told me in August 2008. >"Of course, to have it built in 10 years, we have to start designing >it in three years, because it takes a couple years to design it, and >then you have to build it. It's a long process." > >I spoke with Gilleland recently about this process, the milestones >his group has achieved, and its realistic prospects for >revolutionizing the field of nuclear power. Here are some edited >highlights from our conversation: > >Xconomy: How did you originally get involved with this nuclear project? > >John Gilleland: Eben Frankenberg [executive vice president at >Intellectual Ventures] contacted me. They were looking to see whether >a startup around nuclear would be viable. I was coming off a job with >Archimedes, and had sold that company. I came up [to Bellevue] with >the idea of telling them they were off-base and steering them away >from the endeavor. But I never left. > >X: What was the original thinking at Intellectual Ventures around >nuclear power? > >JG: They wanted to raise the energy standard around the world. It's >great if you can supply per capita energy levels to allow people to >rise above poverty. It helps with disease. They looked around at >renewables and all sorts of sources, and determined the best bet >would be through nuclear power, along with the other systems. It was >a necessary element. > >A conclusion I came to independently was that there were areas for >tremendous improvement [in nuclear power]. Modern plants are very >safe, but things can be improved. We revisited ideas of the previous >century with new data and new computing power. Edward Teller and >Lowell Wood worked together in the '90s on these ideas. What is a >superior system? One that has an incredibly abundant fuel supply so >it's accessible to everyone, but is safe against accidents and >proliferation-that's a key problem about nuclear, but it can be >overcome. It would be wonderful to have a system that didn't in the >long run require enrichment plants, reprocessing plants. When we >talked to proliferation experts at various institutes, [they said] it >would be an incredible reduction in the prospect of weapons. That's >one of the constructs that I, and others, hold on to. > >X: So if things go really well, you could have a version of this >thing built by 2020? That's still a ways away. > >JG: In nuclear terms, that's speed of light. But for Nathan and Bill, >you should have seen them-10 years?! For them [coming from software], >six months is normal. Fortunately, they're very patient men. > >X: Bill Gates is a very vocal supporter of TerraPower. How directly >is he involved in the company? > >JG: I get e-mails and questions from Bill on a monthly basis. Our >quarterly updates last between one and 12 hours. We also have >intermediate meetings, and take trips around the world to look at >plants. He asks penetrating questions about the neutronics >calculations [for instance], how you do the program mapping to follow >the daughter products. He came in once with a 10-inch-thick book >labeled "nuclear power." It's a nontrivial amount of time he's >spent-long hours and hard questioning. > >X: What kinds of specific questions and feedback has Gates provided? > >JG: He will remind us that the economics of the thing must be there. >It must be competitive economically. Even if it is much lower >proliferation risk, or there's fuel forever, if you can't afford it, >it probably won't happen. The safest position is for it to be less >expensive than any other nuclear process, and less than or equal to >natural coal. We have a time constraint: raising the standard of >living is a key to wellness, but the climate change timescale and the >time it takes to change the energy infrastructure are of comparable >scale. But in that context, you must find something that is >affordable. [Gates] reminds us of how the world works every once in a >while, which is good for us. > >X: So how do you actually make this thing operational by 2020? > >JG: We have to find a place to build a prototype. We are discussing >this with various institutions. We need to build a reactor in [the >range of] a few hundred megawatts electric. It needs to be that large >to demonstrate this reactor can live on depleted uranium fuel, that >this wave action in the core exists and we understand it all >correctly. The remarkable thing we found out is that the technologies >basically exist to put this reactor core in the Fast Flux Test >Facility in eastern Washington, and in Idaho. France, China, India, >Russia, and Japan have built [fast neutron] reactors of this type-it >was that type of reactor that can uniquely support running this new >kind of [traveling wave] reactor core. > >There are problems. We have to discover which metal is the best one >to clad the fuel and have structures inside the reactor. Fundamental >measurements have to be made along the way to optimize the reactor. >There's no doubt the reactor will work, but we don't know until we've >done more R&D. > >X: What lessons do you bring with you from your time at Archimedes, >Bechtel, and ITER, in terms of leadership? > >JG: There are different phases. Whether its fusion or new renewables, >when it's a new project, you've erased the grease board. You have to >bring a sense of vision and behave more like a movie director than a >manager. You say, this is what we want, and you let them perform. The >art is, when do you bring in discipline? Now we have to stop and >build [a reactor], and change the nature of the organization. This is >where you have the lighting manager in the plan, and then have a >schedule. Engineers need to meet the schedule. This is where perfect >is the enemy of the very good. > >As I learned at ITER, it's also culturally based. People are born >with similar brains, but they learn a lot about how to think, and it >will vary from culture to culture. Running a U.S.-Japan >collaboration, you could sense the way the Americans, Japanese, >Russians, and others would approach the problem. The Japanese were >prone to go all the way to the result in consensus, and then come >back and consider what to do. The U.S. would start down a beautiful >road in the landscape they had planned, but then they'd see beautiful >flowers on the left and they'd take an immediate turn and explore the >new flowers. You have to do it just right. > >At TerraPower, we're pretty much a U.S. organization. We have >different professors with different personalities and priorities, >contracts with national labs and businesses, all with different >attitudes and views. We're in the transition between the initial >creative phase and really nailing down what we'll build by 2020. > >X: What is the biggest remaining challenge? > >JG: To see it through institutionally, we need to make sure we have >the patience to push through the development all the way to >operations. Then there's the technical challenge. Some of the testing >we need to do needs to be done in other countries. We don't have a >fast [neutron] reactor operating in this country. Most energy >technologies benefit from superior materials-radiation resistance, >strength, ability to take temperature. The best way to learn how to >do something is to build one. I would like to see the U.S. build a >fast reactor to enhance our ability to study the materials. We're >absolutely thrilled there's an embodiment [a big enough core in fast >reactors] that looks just like what we need to build. But we have to >optimize it. That's our technical challenge in creating a new path to >fission power by 2020. We need to build a machine that looks the same >but has some differences in the size of the vessel and so forth. >That's why I'm still around after three and a half years. > >X: Are there lessons from the recent failure of the Pebble Bed >Modular Reactor in South Africa (which had been touted as a nuclear >silver bullet and was nearing construction)? > >JG: Yes and no. The technology and goal are different. The lesson is >you have to decide you're going to follow through and you've got >something different about it. I'm not an insider on why the gas >reactor has come and gone. At the time of Pebble Bed, the world >wasn't building reactors all over the place. That's relatively new. >The Chinese, I believe, have a variant on it, at Tsinghua University, >and they're beginning to revive it. > >X: If you could ask the God of Physics one question, what would it be? > >JG: What is dark energy? [In astrophysics, this is the mysterious >stuff that seems to be responsible for the accelerating expansion of >the universe---Eds.] > >X: So you must be pretty confident that TerraPower is going to work. >You don't need the God of Physics for that? > >JG: I think he's given us enough information, and we have to be very >clever to work out his puzzle. We're there but for some knowledge >about some particular piece of metal [for instance]. I'll turn the >question around and say, we ought to thank him because he gave us the >toolkit and the data-the physics is well understood. This project >will just take a lot of discipline, not divine intervention. > >Gregory T. Huang is Xconomy's National IT Editor and the Editor of >Xconomy Boston. You can e-mail him at [EMAIL PROTECTED], call him >at 617-252-7323, or follow him on Twitter at @gthuang. _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
