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posted by martyb on Monday January 28 2019, @01:32AM   Printer-friendly
from the can't-sue-innovation dept.

Bill Gates thinks he has a key part of the answer for combating climate change: a return to nuclear power. The Microsoft co-founder is making the rounds on Capitol Hill to persuade Congress to spend billions of dollars over the next decade for pilot projects to test new designs for nuclear power reactors.

Gates, who founded TerraPower in 2006, is telling lawmakers that he personally would invest $1 billion and raise $1 billion more in private capital to go along with federal funds for a pilot of his company’s never-before-used technology, according to congressional staffers.

“Nuclear is ideal for dealing with climate change, because it is the only carbon-free, scalable energy source that’s available 24 hours a day,” Gates said in his year-end public letter. “The problems with today’s reactors, such as the risk of accidents, can be solved through innovation.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/bill-gates-comes-to-washington--selling-the-promise-of-nuclear-energy/2019/01/25/4bd9c030-1445-11e9-b6ad-9cfd62dbb0a8_story.html


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  • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @02:41AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @02:41AM (#792840)

    Human institutions is not 100% reliable. When the shit happens, and it always does, the damage is also NUCLEAR.

    If we come to accept that risk, then the nuclear tech will have a chance of becoming mainstream.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @03:47AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @03:47AM (#792855)

    I Summon Thorium!

  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday January 28 2019, @05:20PM

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 28 2019, @05:20PM (#793094) Journal

    I think what you are saying is that the problem with nuclear power is: people.

    More specifically greedy people.

    I would tend to agree. It's not the newer technology that I fear so much as the fact that people will be in charge of designing, building and maintaining it -- all driven by a profit and cost cutting motive that comes before all else.

    Nuclear power might work okay on the VGER planet. Once the biological boot loader is gone.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.