Discussion on:

Meet the future of nuclear power: 8 guys in China

Not sure what's really in it for Bill Gates? Maybe in return for helping China undermine its national security, he will get the Chinese to use their cloning methodologies to create spare parts for him and his family, since its illegal in the U.S. and he doesn't want to end up like Steve Jobs.

Otherwise, we in the West know how China feels about Democracy, Free Speech and Freedom of the Press.

Perhaps China doesn't realize that the nuclear reactors make perfect targets for their enemies.

We are one planet, and the problems with China's air quality is a problem for the entire world. Nuclear development in the US, specifically non-conventional nuclear will have loobist from all sides to fight. Whereas in China once the right people are on board, it will happen and we will all be the better for it.

You can't fight for free speach and civil liberties if you can't breath!

Gates is a businessman. The answer is obvious, although I forget the source at the moment - "one dollar more". Although, in Gates case, it's not to have, but to give away.
China isn't really concerned about anyone attacking them, certainly not to the point where they're going to forego projects that (physically & economically) benefit the population out of concern about creating a vulnerability. Just like it is here in the USA, concerns about a "big war" primarily exist as pretext to justify buying munitions.

How does FNR respond to catastrophe as meltdown, of Japanese earthquake? The current light water reactors seem to be disasters in waiting.

I agree that safety still could be an issue. Does this mean the new reactors still have waste? Nuclear power still be a problem if it does'nt resolve these issues.

"... conventional water-cooled, uranium-fueled models. They produce weapons-grade waste, ..."

Power reactors don't really produce 'weapons-grade' material. That's made in reactors dedicated to the purpose, in which U-238 is exposed to neutrons long enough to turn a little of it into Pu-239, but then pulling it out before a more than a small fraction of that absorbs a second neutron to become Pu-240. It takes several weeks to refuel a light-water reactor -- open it up, swap fuel elements, close, and restart it -- so they're run as long as practical between refuelings.

There is a new startup coming out of MIT called Transatomic Power (http://transatomicpower.com). They are developing a molten salt reactor that is modified to run on nuclear waste. Checkout their TEDx presentation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAFWeIp8JT0

These kids are the future of nuclear power!

I just hope they don't try to control these power plants with Windows!

Gates has gone to China, I presume, because of the near impossibility of enlightening the NRC to the fact that reprocessing nuclear spent fuel is essential to the disposal of long-lived waste. We generate less than 100 tons of waste a year, isotopes with half-lives shorter than 30 years, and promiscuously leave those still with about 50 tons of plutonium, and 3000 tons of unused uranium. Then people like Amory Lovins talk about stuff that lasts billions of years, and its descendant decay products include deadly stuff like radium, polonium, and radon. He doesn't mention, perhaps doesn't know, that it takes tens of thousands of years before the quantity radium, etc, is enough that its radioactivity equals the quite low level of the tons of parent uranium.

Be that as it may, the crowning stupidity of most of my fellow-environmentalists is that they imagine the 18th century energy sources --biomass (think whale oil and slaves), wind (think of the steam tug towing the Temeraire to be broken up), and solar (think Ireland, Finland, or the Hebrides) can become resurgent against the technologies that ousted them.
The stupidity of the prevailing anti-socialist sentiment, the Right Wing Nuts et al., is that private enterprise is the only way to do it. The development of hydropower, aircraft, and the fundamentals of nuclear power, were all done using government money, directly, not by idiotic subsidies.

In case you missed it, and I thank "arxterin" for posting it, make sure to see this and listen to what the two MIT students have to say....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAFWeIp8JT0

Is it perfect? No it's not. When you can do better...post your idea. Until, then, this video shows what fresh thinking can do to bring a sea-change for an industry, a country, a planet.

Almost all nuclear power generation technology is hopelessly primitive. Every reactor design in use depends on heating water into steam, which in turn drives a turbine generator to produce electricity. In essence, they are all just gigantic steam engines with HUGE energy losses in each step of the process of producing electricity. Rather than burning coal or oil, they simply 'burn' fissionable materials. Instead of incremental 'baby steps' to improve a 2 century old technology, we should be seeking to develop an SSNR...a solid state reactor with no moving parts. The science to do so exists...is it perhaps the will we are lacking?