Bill Gates Building Nuke Plant for China

Bill Gates Building Nuke Plant for China
BY SAM BIDDLE 
DEC 8, 2011 
gizmodo.com

What do you do when you've run out of things to spend money on, and everyone already uses your software? How about developing a nuclear plant with China? Sure! Bill Gates is doing just that, the AP reports. For science?


Although Gates says his baby nuclear energy company, TerraPower, is having "very good discussions" with China regarding the plant, the fact that he's throwing in a billion dollars over 5 years sounds like more than talk. 



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The plant, however, will be a "Generation IV" reactor, which for now exists only on paper—and the tech isn't expected to start materializing until for at least a decade. 


Gen IV cores are expected to be safer, more efficient, create less waste that fades earlier, and essentially address every possible criticism about nuclear power. Again, on paper.


So why China, Bill? Their society is far more open to nuclear power than ours, especially post-Fukushima. 


But it's also probably easier to use some remote Chinese backwater as a testbed for an untested form of nuclear energy. 


When Gates says, with quintessential hubris, that "[the reactor will] require no human action to remain safe at all times," you have every reason to raise an eyebrow. 


The international forum behind Gen IV nuclear says it's "developing safety design criteria for Generation IV nuclear power plants that reflect lessons learned from Fukushima." 


Stripping human oversight from a nuclear reactor doesn't sound like a lesson learned. 

Bill Gates Talking With China To Develop Nuclear Reactor

Bill Gates Talking With China To Develop Nuclear Reactor
December 7, 2011


BEIJING (AP) — Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates confirmed Wednesday he is in discussions with China to jointly develop a new and safer kind of nuclear reactor.


“The idea is to be very low cost, very safe and generate very little waste,” said the billionaire during a talk at China’s Ministry of Science and Technology.



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Gates said he had largely funded a Washington state-based company, TerraPower, that is developing a Generation IV nuclear reactor that can run on depleted uranium. 


TerraPower says it has discussed its plans with India, Russia and other countries with nuclear energy programs.


The general manager of state-owned China National Nuclear Corporation, Sun Qin, was quoted in Chinese media last week saying Gates was working with it to research and develop a reactor.


“TerraPower is having very good discussions with CNNC and various people in the Chinese government,” said Gates, cautioning the talks were at an early stage.


Gates says perhaps as much as a billion dollars will be put into research and development over the next five years.


TerraPower says its traveling wave reactor would run for decades on depleted uranium and produce significantly smaller amounts of nuclear waste than conventional reactors.


“All these new designs are going to be incredibly safe,” Gates told the audience. “They require no human action to remain safe at all times.”


He said they also benefit from an ability to simulate earthquake and tidal wave conditions. “It takes safety to a new level,” he said.


Since leaving Microsoft Corp., Gates has concentrated on philanthropy and advocating on public health, education and clean energy issues. He is an investor and strategic adviser to TerraPower.


Gates was at the Ministry of Science and Technology to talk about a joint project between China and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support innovative research and development to help alleviate poverty.


Gates said the ministry will help identify entrepreneurs and companies to manufacture new products in global health and agriculture to “change the lives of poor people,” including new vaccines and diagnostics and genetically modified seeds.


“China has a lot to contribute because it’s solved many of the problems of poverty, not all of them but a lot of them, itself, and many Asian, south Asian and African countries are well behind, whether it’s agriculture or health,” said Gates.


No specific poverty alleviation projects were mentioned.

Japan mulls $13 billion Fukushima bailout

Japan mulls $13 billion Fukushima bailout
By Linda Sieg and Kentaro Hamada
TOKYO | Thu Dec 8, 2011


(Reuters) - The Japanese government may inject about $13 billion into Tokyo Electric Power Co (9501.T) as early as next summer in a de facto nationalization of the operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant, sources said on Thursday.


Tepco's future as an independent firm has been in doubt since an earthquake and tsunami wrecked the plant in March, triggering the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years and leaving it with huge compensation payments and clean-up costs.



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In addition to public capital, the government and Tepco will also seek additional loans from banks, sources said, but the full scale of any Tepco bailout remains unclear.


Some analysts expressed doubt that the government would take the drastic step of taking control of the giant monopoly, which still has political clout, but the idea has proponents in some sections of Japan's ruling party.


"You have an essentially bankrupt operation, and if you are going to save it, it's going to cost a lot," said Andrew Dewit, a Rikkyo University professor who writes about energy policy.


"You've got a very bad picture getting worse, and dithering just ups the cost."


Tepco President Toshio Nishizawa was mentioned as saying a public fund injection could not be ruled out. "It is better to keep all options, so I don't deny it," Kyodo news agency quoted him as saying in an interview on Thursday.


Tepco has made progress in bringing the Fukushima plant under control and is on track to declare a "cold shutdown" -- when water used to cool the reactors is stable below boiling point -- before the end of the year.


But decommissioning four reactors at the plant is set to cost at least 1.2 trillion yen ($15.4 billion), a sum that would render Tepco insolvent if drastic measures to shore up its financial base were not taken, media reports said.


ENERGY POLICY REFORM


The Mainichi newspaper reported earlier on Thursday that the government planned to inject at least $13 billion and perhaps as much as $27 billion, while Kyodo news agency said the total bailout could reach 3 trillion yen ($38.5 billion) over four years, with half coming from private borrowings.


A government-run bailout fund would buy new stocks such as preferred shares to be issued by the utility, sources said.


Shares in Tepco slid as much as 17 percent before regaining some ground to end down 11 percent at 244 yen.


"The report got investors worried that Tepco could possibly become insolvent," said Hiroyuki Fukunaga, CEO of Investrust. "If they need 1 trillion yen to avoid that, then the money is not coming from anyone but the government."


Tepco would need to get shareholder approval to raise the ceiling on the number of shares it can issue at its next annual meeting in June.


To cover costs, Asia's biggest utility is pushing for hikes in electricity charges. It also wants permission to restart nuclear reactors, particularly those that have been idled at its biggest plant, Kashiwazaki-Kariwa.


Five of the seven reactors at that plant are off-line for checks or repairs, and two more are scheduled for planned shutdowns before May 2012.


But the ruling party has concluded that the public would be unwilling to accept higher electricity fees, particularly at a time when it is being asked to accept a hike in the sales tax to cover social security costs, Mainichi said, while restarting idled reactors is difficult due to public fears about safety.


Pushing Tepco to accept capital would also allow the government to pursue drastic reform of energy policy, including separating power generation from distribution, the paper said.


But experts questioned whether the two would necessarily go hand in hand. The government aims to finish a review of national energy policy, including nuclear power, by next summer.


"Nationalization could be a first step toward such reforms as splitting generation and distribution," said Rikkyo University's Dewit. "But whether this is a trial balloon and gets shot down in the short run, who's to say?"


The Mainichi report said a government panel led by Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura could, in the new year, announce plans to inject public funds, though Fujimura told reporters the issue of public funds was not now on the table.


Tepco is due to announce new steps in the coming days, which include an increase in its planned cost cuts over 10 years by 100 billion yen to 2.64 trillion yen as well as the sale of a thermal power plant, a source has said.


($1 = 77.7300 Japanese yen)


(Additional reporting by Edwina Gibbs, Taro Fuse, Mayumi Negishi, Hideyuki Sano, Taiga Uranaka and Yoko Kubota; Editing by Alex Richardson, Muralikumar Anantharaman and Will Waterman)