Bill Gates Is Beginning To Dream the Thorium Dream 327
Daniel_Stuckey writes "TerraPower, the Gates-chaired nuclear power company, has garnered the most attention for pursuing traveling wave reactor tech, which runs entirely on spent uranium and would rarely need to be refueled. But Terrapower just quietly announced that it's going to start seriously exploring thorium power, too."
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Insightful)
What about all the stuff his foundation does about malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV? Or the stuff he's doing for sanitation and disaster relief? Heck, even if you're looking for something closer to home, then what about try to fund a better condom so that people will be faced with less of a choice between pleasure and safety?
I may not like the man and bear a huge grudge for some his more destructive effects on the computer industry, but all of that kind of seems piddling compared to the effect his actions will have on billions of the world's poorest people. I have been forced to grudgingly admire him for quite some time now over his philanthropy and the transparency and effectiveness of his charity compared to some of its "rivals."
Re:money = future -- I think I read this somewhere (Score:5, Insightful)
Those with the money control the future, good or bad.
Yes, I remember now. It was from a book at my local Carnegie Free Library, funded by wealthy philanthropist Andrew Carnegie:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_library [wikipedia.org]
Or it could have been at Stanford, which was funded by railroad tycoon Leland Stanford:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_University [wikipedia.org]
For some reason people believe governments make wiser decisions than wealthy individuals, but most of the long term projects happening in the world these days, the kind of things that matter to human survival as a species, and not just "the right party" winning the next short term election, are all being funded by wealthy individuals.
Or to put it another way: focus is no substitute for vision. Government bureaucrats rare have vision.
Re:money = future -- I think I read this somewhere (Score:5, Insightful)
While Carnegie and Standford are admirable individuals, I think you're somewhat in denial here. The vast majority of long term projects happening in the world these days are funded by governments (whether they matter to the actual survival of the human species is another question, as humanity would survive just fine without any privately funded and without most government sponsored endeavours).
But take health care for example: all charities in the whole world combined only achieve a fraction of the medical support solely the US health care system provides for, let alone the European ones.
Private charity makes for very good PR, but simply lacks the mass to come anywhere close to the amount public services require.
As for vision, both individuals in interaction with government (= active involvement with their own society) and those know-it-better separatist privates can have visions equally. Personally I would take Neil deGrasse Tyson's campaigning over Bill Gates' profit oriented private funding, but luckily we can have both!
Re:money = future -- I think I read this somewhere (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh... no. Not at all.
The entirety of the culture of serfdom was the rape of your own country for the profit of the nobility.
Re:Finally! (Score:4, Insightful)
Good! Take profits from the worst companies and use it for good. Nothing wrong with that- else-wise someone else will just take those profits.
The arm of the foundation charged with investing and growing the fund should simply chase the best investments without any restriction or influence from the charitable arm. It would be stupid not to.
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:money = future -- I think I read this somewhere (Score:5, Insightful)
For some reason people believe governments make wiser decisions than wealthy individuals, but most of the long term projects happening in the world these days, the kind of things that matter to human survival as a species, and not just "the right party" winning the next short term election, are all being funded by wealthy individuals.
No, many of the long term projects that get a lot of media attention are funded by wealthy individuals. Taxpayer dollars go to many long-term projects that will benefit humanity as well.
The LHC, Super Kamiokande, and almost all the big physics projects are taxpayer funded. Almost all the big brain mapping initiatives going on today are publicly funded -- particularly through the NIH. Most climate monitoring is done by national governments and universities. Government funding is about the only thing keeping new antibiotics research alive since it's unprofitable.
Personally, I'd rather vote for people to put the money into projects that won't deliver short-term profits in hopes of greater long-term profits than cross my fingers and hope that if we let some people amass enough concentrated money that they'll spend it on something other than their own, narrow interests. For every Carnegie or Gates there are a dozen Koch brothers, Trumps, and second-generation rich twits like Paris Hilton.
Re:Finally! (Score:3, Insightful)
the nuclear people piss in their own soup http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-07/fukushima-137-billion-cost-has-tepco-seeking-more-aid.html [bloomberg.com]
The only reason that happened, and most nuclear accidents, is because the anti nuke freaks started wining about it in the '60. A bunch of clueless hippies sitting around smoking weed and carrying on protests about anything that had anything to do with nuclear anything. Because of this all research on nuclear fission was stopped in the '70s.
If the hippie bunch would have help research the problem instead of being apart of the problem we would have safe nuclear reactors using modern technology today. Crap like Fukushima would never have happened.
So thank you very much flower children.
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Insightful)
You do realize that the Gates kids are only getting 2mil each from inheritance. That isn't even a rounding error compared to the amount of money Bill still has. All of his money is going into a charity.
I'll believe that when it happens. I'd also be that their car, college, and funding for their first business venture doesn't come out of that 2 million. More than likely, there is a trust someplace for them, and they are listed with such a low but concrete amount to show that they are in the will and weren't forgotten or otherwise to cut down on any contesting of his will.
The point of thorium is no plutonium. (Score:5, Insightful)
Thorium is a solution looking for a problem, basically -- there's lots of uranium around, it's dirt cheap, ...
The big point of thorium reactors is that they don't produce plutonium. This made it less attractive during the Cold War, when producing plutonium for building bombs was considered a plus. Thus they were what was developed before opposition to nuclear plants made designing and building new ones uneconomic - at least in the US.
In the current age of avoiding nuclear weapon proliferation, this potentially makes such designs less expensive to build and operate due to lower regulation and less need for defense against interception of spent fuel by budding bomb-makers, to convince the bureaucrats to let things proceed.
Such lower regulation and lower costs might make it possible to proceed with the necessary research, design, and deployment and still hope to make a profit.
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Insightful)