International Bill Gates nuclear startup unlikely to build reactor in China due to new US laws.

[bobgeese]

If you’re not thankful for trumps election after knowing he has begun the pushback on China, you’re either uninformed, or a butthurt liberal.

 

[Fluffernutter]

Nothing that a few high-powered lobbyists can't solve.

 

[rokzilla]

hey again MicroBrew,

i checked on it - they're called traveling wave reactors. they are powered by depleted uranium waste! it would be like making your car run on the carbon dioxide that your engine burns.

incredible stuff.

as far as a dominant China being a "bad thing" - i haven't seen it yet, though i admit i don't follow regional politics in Asia too closely. if by "bad thing" you mean that its bad that the US is supplanted by the Chinese, such is the arc of history and innovation, you know?

if the Chinese can bring cheap, clean power to the planet, whilst also managing to reduce nuclear waste that we currently have no idea what to do with (for the next several centuries), its a major win for mankind.

the fact that some corporate entity in the US won't be able to reap the trillions such an innovation would generate is small beer to me.

this is sad news.

- IGIT

If you’re looking at it through a vacuum of just this subject. China also has internment camps for Muslims, publicly kidnaps people including celebrities, etc. China has yet to prove empowering them in any way is a good idea. They have over a million people a year dying from air pollution. I don’t think we should just start with handing them technology to make the ruling class richer until other things are straightened out.

 

[Fawlty]

Not seeing the problem here. China is doubling their nuclear power capacity, which is necessary due to their coal consumption, which is a crisis.

 

[JonesBones]

Not seeing the problem here. China is doubling their nuclear power capacity, which is necessary due to their coal consumption, which is a crisis.

That's true. They use coal for everything over there.

 

[PEB]

Was that question for me?

No shit. Accidents do happen. Cars, planes, guns, doctors, medication, vaccines, etc. Should we do away with something good because there was an accident?

Are you referring to Chernobyl and Fukushima? Both have been brought under control. Chernobyl was a poor design and poorly maintained. That's 2 accidents in roughly 50 years. How many plane and car accidents do we have in one year? Certainly more human death through planes and cars than nuclear power plant accidents.

Nether Chernobyl or Fukushima have been brought under control. Chernobyl is dead to anyone moving into the area because the reactor has a new sarcophagus but still radiates. Hardly what you would call a safe zone and people have still not moved into the area because of continued radioactive contamination. Fukushima could be even worst not because of the area but due to a lack of Government reporting. The Japanese government seems to want to keep a lid on how truly bad it is in the ocean.

 

[Joe265]

I don't think humanity is capable of taking care of nuclear waste for its what, 250,000 year life span. We should probably start rethinking nuclear power.

We are unable to even handle human waste responsibly. “Modernity” seems to exist in a fragile illusion. We need to be constantly distracted for us to forget how we really, truly feel.

 

[badascan]

Thorium... look it up...

 

[EradiatedHaggis]

Umm...what the actual fuck is Bill Gates doing wanting to build a nuclear ractor?!? That is actually some scary shit if you know anything about his history of doing fucked up shit with Microsoft.

 

[Whippy McGee]

I work in the Nuclear Industry. China earned this one.

China stole Westinghouse's AP1000 pressurized water nuclear reactor technology over the last decade, after making a deal with them not to do it. The AP1000 is the standard moving forward and it caused the company to crash hard. China came at our company to start a subsidiary in Hong Kong that we only got to own 51% of the company, but it would transfer our solutions to a 100% owned by China sister company to deliver the solutions (and that is how they often steal as well). We told them "HELL NOPE", but thanked them for the free lunch.

 

[Whippy McGee]

Thorium... look it up...

^^^ Actually yes. Again, I work in the nuclear industry, as well as at Y12 (Oak Ridge, TN)... look it up and what it does.

Long story short. Thorium was competing with Uranium at Y12 by two top scientists as the path forward for U.S. power back in the day. Uranium won, because they couldn't really weaponize Thorium. Thorium is a great solution and at worst you can create a really ineffective dirty bomb from it. "Meltdowns" would also have been less severe at Chernobyl and Fukashima had they been Thorium based.

Good on you for knowing this one. Most people have no clue.

 

[all caps]

What we should be preparing for is hunting and gathering, because that is our future

 

[Orgasmo]

Still better to live here than in China. Despite all the crap we do, we are freerer. And despite all our crap, a Chinese dominated world would be much worse. China would act worse than us if they had the same power.

Those designs are commercially accepted , while Gates is funding R&D for a new type of reactor. Considering his philanthropic / funding of medical programs around the world, this looks like a cause for Gates and not a money making venture. So the size of the US market wouldn't be a concern for him.

I'm sure the Iraqis and Libyans are thanking you for their freedom. China is the local bully in Asia, but Uncle Sam is the single greatest thug on the world stage. You invaded more countries, destabilized more societies and supported more murderous dictators than everyone else combined. But sure, keep selling to us that you're the good guy.

Size of US market does matter. You cannot build anything without economic and political considerations. At this point, nuclear power is a declining industry is US whereas it is rapidly growing in China. Where would Bill Gates find more opportunities to go through with his projects?

 

[Orgasmo]

I work in the Nuclear Industry. China earned this one.

China stole Westinghouse's AP1000 pressurized water nuclear reactor technology over the last decade, after making a deal with them not to do it. The AP1000 is the standard moving forward and it caused the company to crash hard. China came at our company to start a subsidiary in Hong Kong that we only got to own 51% of the company, but it would transfer our solutions to a 100% owned by China sister company to deliver the solutions (and that is how they often steal as well). We told them "HELL NOPE", but thanked them for the free lunch.

You sold AP1000 technology to them in 2006.

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.for...tinghouse-electrics-chinese-trojan-horse/amp/

 

[VivaRevolution]

1 of the good things about the Trump administration.

Gates's nuclear venture has had to abandon its plan to build an experimental reactor in conjunction with China's state owned China National Nuclear Corp. due to the Trump administration passing new laws aimed at curtailing technology transfers to China.

The Bellevue, Washington-based company is now unsure which country it will work with to conduct trials of its technology, which is designed to use depleted uranium as fuel for nuclear reactors in a bid to improve safety and costs, company officials told the Journal.

-

The West has been too blase on China for too long. From Clinton funder Bernie Schwartz giving them the expertise to better aim their missiles and rockets to US companies enabling their military and economic ascendancy to America going soft on China stealing American I.P. China is acting quite bellicose and certainly wants to dominate the world. About time America started to pullback from enriching China's war machine and crimped their agenda.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/bill-gates-nuclear-venture-hits-205553461.html

I will hold off on cheering this on, until I know that the US government isn't preventing new nuclear tech, to protect big energy.

 

[IGIT]

As an American id rather Americans work with Americans to make these kinds of breakthroughs. Its kind of what made America the powerhouse it is/was for the last half of the 20th century.

ahoy Edison,

America has not bought a nuclear power plant online in over two decades. the market, as they say, has spoken.

building a nuclear plant takes such colossal amounts of money and the payoff is so long term, that its impossible to get one made without robust government assistance - so, its not happening here.

if he hasn't done so already, i'm sure Mr. Gates will partner with either Japanese or European interests to further explore the technology.

we Americans are going to stand pat on natural gas and...coal.

- IGIT

 

[IGIT]

hi rokzilla,

If you’re looking at it through a vacuum of just this subject. China also has internment camps for Muslims, publicly kidnaps people including celebrities, etc. China has yet to prove empowering them in any way is a good idea.

refusing to do business with a country based on human rights violations?

the horse has left the barn on that one, my friend.

unless you want to start prying off every solar panel that have been covering US rooftops since President Obama's generous solar and wind tax credits (and have everyone one of us surrender our chinese made electronic devices), i am not going to lose sleep over the Chinese government being less virtuous and saintly than ours.

if they can invent a nuclear power plant that will produce clean, cheap energy for centuries to come...i am all for it. it would be a boon to the planet - though i can imagine Russian, Nigerian, Canadian and Middle Eastern interests blanching at the thought of those petrodollars vanishing into thin air.

They have over a million people a year dying from air pollution. I don’t think we should just start with handing them technology to make the ruling class richer until other things are straightened out.

i have no idea what this means.

you're saying that over a million people in China die per year from air pollution (along with another 7 million or so across the globe), and that Mr. Gates shouldn't partner with China to develop this planet/life saving technology because industrialists in China will profit?

lol.

so an innovation that results in a net gain for the entire planet is not desirable if it doesn't enrich Americans.

hmmmf.

i am not moved by this argument.

- IGIT

 

[Whippy McGee]

You sold AP1000 technology to them in 2006.

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.for...tinghouse-electrics-chinese-trojan-horse/amp/

No... Westinghouse sold it to them and it was a few years later.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

Nuke power is slow moving, expensive and nearly fucking dead here in the US. There are many plants still operating in the US but why wouldn’t Gates try and go to China. Old ass plants being shutdown. Construction being stopped and heavy regulation here in the US make Chiner more appealing. Until trump said no.

 

[grizzard2bid]

Was that question for me?

No shit. Accidents do happen. Cars, planes, guns, doctors, medication, vaccines, etc. Should we do away with something good because there was an accident?

Are you referring to Chernobyl and Fukushima? Both have been brought under control. Chernobyl was a poor design and poorly maintained. That's 2 accidents in roughly 50 years. How many plane and car accidents do we have in one year? Certainly more human death through planes and cars than nuclear power plant accidents.

Correction on Chernobyl.
Actually Chernobyl had a new reactor that was not yet broken in and in the testing phase. It did have a design flaw, but the chief engineer was a stubborn a-hole who wanted to show positive results right away and pushed it too far instead of testing it out. It overheated caused a meltdown reaction and they couldn't cool it in time- it was absolutely avoidable and caused by human error. The engineer was actually jailed and lived rest of his life in disgrace.