System Upgrade: Bill Gates Backs New Wave Nuclear For World’s Clean Energy Future

 

When the world’s richest entrepreneur says wind and solar will never work, it’s probably time to listen.

Bill Gates made a fortune applying common sense to the untapped market of home computing. The meme has it that IBM’s CEO believed there was only a market for five computers in the entire world. Gates thought otherwise. Building a better system than any of his rivals and shrewdly working the marketplace, resulted in hundreds of millions hooked on PCs, Windows and Office. This is a man that knows a thing or two about systems and a lot about what it takes to satisfy the market.

For almost a century, electricity generation and distribution were treated as a tightly integrated system: it was designed and built as one, and is meant to operate as designed. However, the chaotic delivery of wind and solar have all but trashed the electricity generation and delivery system, as we know it. Germany and South Australia are only the most obvious examples.

During an interview at Stanford University late last year, Bill Gates slams unreliable wind and solar and made the point that it’s time to quit jerking around with renewables and batteries:

 

Gates, a solution focused thinker if ever there was one, hasn’t just thrown a wet blanket on wind and solar, he’s throwing his very own $millions at TerraPower – an outfit determined to develop a new wave of nuclear power plants that will safely deliver reliable and affordable power, forever.

Judith Sloan provides a few details below.

We’re getting closer to a sensible debate on nuclear power
The Australian
Judith Sloan
5 November 2019

Australia’s experience with ­nuclear power can best be summed up by the phrase “missed it by that much”. We’ve come close to establishing a nuclear power ­industry but events conspired against it.

So can we create the conditions that might lead to the construction of nuclear power plants? After all, we’re blessed with ample uranium and nuclear-powered electricity has the advantages of being both reliable (24/7) and emissions-free.

Long-serving South Australia premier Tom Playford was a fan of nuclear energy. Indeed, the South Australian government owned a uranium mine at Radium Hill that operated through to 1961. He wanted a nuclear power plant constructed in his state, but a technological jump enabled the very poor quality brown coal at Leigh Creek to be the source of fuel for a power plant that was built at Port Augusta.

In the 1960s, plans were developed to build Australia’s first ­nuclear plant at Jervis Bay.

Development was shelved in 1969, mainly weighed down by the lack of cost competitiveness of the plant relative to coal-fired generation.

In the late 2000s, Martin Ferguson, as the Gillard government resources minister, became enthusiastic about nuclear power for Australia. He did an in-depth ­investigation, including travelling overseas to consult with leaders in the field.

Then in March 2011 the Fukushima disaster occurred. The Daiichi nuclear power plant was inundated by a tsunami, the cooling systems of three of the re­actors failed and a series of explosions ­occurred. There were no immediate radiation-related fatalities but the negative impact on the public’s acceptance of ­nuclear power was substantial.

The Japanese government opted to shut all the country’s ­nuclear power plants and the German government similarly made the decision to wind down its ­nuclear plants. In this context, it’s interesting to detail a recent ­National Bureau of Economic ­Research study on the impact of the fallout from the Japanese accident. Nuclear power was replaced by fossil fuels and electricity prices rose quickly — by almost a third. It is estimated that there were 1300 cold-weather related deaths in the period 2011 to 2014.

The authors conclude the ­“increase in mortality from higher electricity prices outnumbers the mortality from the accident itself, suggesting the decision to cease nuclear production has contributed to more deaths than the ­accident”.

Good ideas never die. The ­environment and energy committee of the House of Representatives is running an inquiry, chaired by Ted O’Brien, into the prerequisites for nuclear energy in Australia. This inquiry has called into question the credibility of the CSIRO. While many scientists laud the advantages of ­nuclear energy in terms of generating reliable, zero-emissions electricity, the presumed high cost of plant construction is often mentioned as a major impediment to its rollout.

The CSIRO puts a figure of $16,000 a kilowatt for the construction of small nuclear modular reactors. It turns out this figure is in Canadian dollars and is cited in a report produced by one group but the ultimate source of the figure remains unclear. This much is actually accepted by the CSIRO.

When it comes to whether this cost might have fallen over time — there is a much lower cost estimate ($7000) from another source — the CSIRO is standing by $16,000.

The CSIRO is nigh on useless when it comes to this issue. As Trent Zimmerman, a member of the committee, stated: “It sounds remarkably vague … basically, you’re relying on a third party, who’s relying on a website, and you haven’t been able to fact-check that information yourself.”

The big roadblock in Australia is the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. The good news is that the amendment required is very simple — the removal of “a ­nuclear power plant” in section 140A (1)(b).

It is possible this could pass both houses of parliament, even though the Greens are likely to oppose it notwithstanding that nuclear energy is so environmentally friendly.

There are some exciting technological developments in ­nuclear energy. You once needed very large plants, but smaller-scale options are now available. Nor do they necessarily require large volumes of water.

The third episode of Inside Bill’s Brain available on Netflix covers many of the issues and describes Bill Gates’s start-up, Terra­Power. It’s worth watching.

Gates makes the point that ­energy is core to our modern life­styles — it is his starting point — but he is concerned about energy that emits high volumes of carbon ­dioxide and acknowledges the public’s reservations about ­nuclear. His team of extremely well-qualified nuclear physicists and engineers aim to create fail-safe nuclear plants no longer ­dependent on power and human intervention in the event of an ­accident.

The TerraPower plants will use depleted nuclear waste, meaning that it can’t be used for weapons’ production. There is enough nuclear waste in the US to power the nation for 125 years. And instead of having cooling towers, the plants use molten metal to prevent explosions in the event of overheating. The re­actors automatically shut down and the heat is passively removed.

In fact, a prototype plant was ready to be rolled out in China when the China-US trade war erupted and the US government withdrew its consent.

Our government could approach TerraPower to see whether it is interested in constructing a plant here.

Interestingly, professor John Quiggin, a left-wing economist, has given his blessing to the introduction of nuclear power in Australia. He does this on the condition that a carbon price also be introduced, which he sees as a necessary prerequisite to make nuclear power cost-competitive.

The good thing is that we already have a (shadow) carbon price, given our Paris emissions reduction commitment. Estimates put a figure of $90 a tonne on the carbon price by 2030. This part of the bargain is ­already in the locker

Nuclear energy is a difficult political sell. It won’t happen overnight. But it has many advantages that are likely to become even more apparent over time. There is a case for Australia to start to head in this direction.
The Australian