Wednesday, June 24th, 2015
Stephan: This is the latest on what I confess I initially found a very odd story: A group of leading billionaires were putting $1 billion dollars into nuclear energy. And then I added up the Forbes wealth estimates for these people, and the corporations they control and realized that a collective billion dollars is actually a modest play which, should it work out, could return many multiples of the investment. And if not it would have no significant effect on any of them. Think about that.
On the technical merits I think this will be seen as a bad call, a waste of money. The idea is to replace the reactors now operating in the U.S., which are past their close down date. There are 99 of them in operation today, and these deteriorating physical plants become more degraded and dangerous ever year. They are just old. Superficially that makes sense.
But this new investment presumes a major breakthrough in nuclear power, which I think is problematic. And it still does nothing about the millions of pounds and gallons of radioactive waste, and that is going to become an increasingly hot topic. Imagine something like Fukushima in your area.
I think they have also significantly misjudged the rapidity with which the carbon era is ending, and the cost level to which noncarbon, non-nuclear generation has dropped. It will be interesting to see how this new-nuclear trend works out.
Credit: James Marvin Phelps
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Pentagon’s top arms provider and firms partly funded by Silicon Valley billionaires Bill Gates and Paul Allen are among dozens of companies collectively betting more than $1.3 billion that a new wave of nuclear power can be a force to fight climate change.
Advanced nuclear power plants, which will employ techniques such as using fuels other than uranium and coolants other than water, have attracted private investments from more than 40 companies from Florida to Washington state, the Third Way think tank says in the first report specifying the number of firms and total money invested in the technologies.
The reactors, which could come into development in 10 to 15 years, can help curb U.S. carbon emissions and make investments in electricity generation less costly, researchers at Washington, D.C.-based Third Way said in a report seen by Reuters and to be released as soon as Monday.
Companies expressing faith in advanced nuclear power range from Lockheed Martin, the Pentagon’s largest supplier, […]
DOA. All the skilled people needed to build nukes are gone. Progress in non-carbon sources will make this irrelevant.