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Innovating to Zero!

yenom

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excellent link.:jew:

Bill Gates' ideas really have a huge impact on the future. I think he is really ahead of his time in the sense that he can see what can happen 50 years from now.
 

vince

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yeah, I like how Gates is essentially much more a philantropist than a capitalist.
 

Mole

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Listening

We all intuitively understand linear growth because that is the kind of growth we are familiar with. But exponential growth is counter-intuitive and so passes our understanding except mathematically.

And mathematically we can understand exponential growth very well.

Fortunately we have passed from linear growth to exponential growth since the invention of the printing press, the industrial revolution and now the electronic revolution.

And as exponential growth proceeds we are moving ineluctably towards the singularity.

Most of us don't notice this because even exponential growth is incremental and we adjust to to each increment. For instance I am learning to adjust to the increment of the ipod.

But what is interesting is that as we move inevitably towards the singularity, we don't know what the singularity looks like. In fact it may not look like anything at all, rather it may sound or feel like something.

And fortunately the electronic revolution is changing our sense ratios. The electronic revolution is no longer privileging the eye, but is bringing the the ear and the sense of touch into play.

So we may hear and feel the singularity before we see it.

And so we will discover the singularity or perhaps we might say the singularity will discover us.

So we may hear the singularity or we may find the singularity is listening to us, just as we listen to each other here.

And how fascinated we all are by Black Holes for each Black Hole is a singularity. So rather than listening to the singularity approaching us here, we project it outwards into deepest space, the furthest we can get from us. We are deaf to the footsteps of the singularity so we look the furthest we can see, and guess what we see - we see a singularity, an incomprehensible Black Hole. But it is only incomprehensible because we are looking rather than listening.

Unfortunately MBTI is entirely intuitive. It can be understood entirely without mathematics.

So MBTI is like driving forward looking in the rear vision mirror while the singularity is rushing towards us through the windscreen.
 

nanook

a scream in a vortex
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thanks, great video. had no idea that guy is up to something.
 

theadoor

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thanks, great video. had no idea that guy is up to something.

You're welcome :) TED is a totally awesome stuff, I really hope I'll have a chance to attend one of their events someday.
Nice website to suggest also is GOOD Home Page - GOOD, often very interesting and useful articles.
 

nanook

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i have jottet down a german transcript (very free translation) for this video. for a german message board.

you can't read it but wtf there are one or two german users around here, so:


bill gates redet in diesem englischem "ted talk" von der erfindung von energie erzeugungsmethoden die keinen CO2 ausstoß haben und die geeignet sind, herkömmliche erzeugungsmethoden zu ersetzen. er beklagt dass zuwenig geld in die forschung gesteckt wird.

auf eine neue methode geht er näher ein und zwar auf atomkraft, aber:

Uran besteht zu 0.72% aus dem Uranisotop 235 und zu 99,3% aus dem Uranisotop 238
bei der herkömmlichen methode wird nur das Uranisotop 235 verarbeitet, dh das meiste uran ist zur zeit nicht verwertbar.
bei der neuen methode soll nun außerdem das uranisotop 238 verwendet werden, so dass das uran fast gänzlich verwertet werden kann.

bei dieser noch nicht verwirklichten methode würde nicht nur kein abfall entstehen, sondern es könnte sogar der bisher angefallene atommüll weiter verarbeitet werden, bis kein problematisches material mehr übrig ist.

allein das in kentucky gelagerte und im sinne der herkömmlichen methode verbrauchte uran (sg. depleted uranium) könnte amerika noch einmal für 200 jahre mit energie versorgen.

offenbar ist das meer mit ausreichend heraus-filterbarem uran angereichert um mit dieser effizienten methode genug energie für die restliche lebensdauer der erde zu gewinnen.

so ein neuer reaktor wäre außerdem viel sicherer, da man ihn in einem vorgang für sechzig jahre am stück auffüllen kann. aktuelle reaktoren werden dauernd neu aufgefüllt (von homer simpson, glaube ich), was der gefährlichste vorgang sei.

durch moderne supercomputer kann diese technologie nun endlich simuliert werden, wodurch die entwicklung dieser technologie im detail (material auswahl...) erst möglich wird.

das entwicklungs projekt nennt er terrapower und er wirbt für die finanzierung.


er sagt, es braucht einige mal 10 millionen für den supercomputer, software und ingenieure. für tests der materialien nochmal 100 millionen, und um den reaktor zu bauen mehrere billionen.

im angesicht der berechnungen vom weltklima, wünscht er, dass das teil in 20 jahren entwickelt und in 40 jahren verwirklicht sein soll


ps: dies ist eine fast vollständige mitschrift des videos. die anfängliche argumentation wieso der co2 ausstoß wann wieviel reduziert werden muss hab ich weg gelassen.
 
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entropie

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I havent seen the video, cause I cant do that from my workplace but I'll comment on the summary:

In my opinion as an engineer this is dangerous half knowledge vouching for the american nuclear power lobby from a purely economical standpoint, which is wrapped in big words but contains critical errors.

I will only talk about the biggest lie in that text, cause its just too ridicoulus to be given more thought.

The new method he proposes does not not produce no more radioactive waste no more. U-235 contains like a million gigawatts energy, while U-238 contains nearly nothing. Since he hasnt described how he wants to get more energy out of what contains virtually no energy, I'll just assume he is god.

U-238 is used as a waste product in so called breeder reactors to produce a faint amount of new U-235 + a faint amount of energy and the waste products: U-238 and Pu-239.

Should he now really have found a method to make power from U-238 this would of course enable the power industry to make cheaper power from their U-238 waste but what he doesnt talk about are the other radioactive materials that are produced in the nuclear fission process due to either coming in contact with rdioactive material or being by-products of the process.

I'll give you a list to sum up what radioactive waste is produced in the process:

- Cesium - 137
- Iodine - 129
- Iodine - 131
- Strontium - 90
- Cobalt - 60
- Plutonium - 239
- Plutonium - 241
- Neptunium - 237
- Americum - 241
- Technetium - 99
- Krypton - 85
- Ruthenium - 106
- Rhodium - 65
- Palladium - 105
- Palladium - 106
- Palladium - 108
- Xenon - 133

So be careful guys with dangerous half knowledge. All Bill Gates cares about is his wallet. If he talks about reducing CO2 emissions in the face of what other radioactive waste he seems to take for granted for that, he doesnt really care about our environment.
 

nanook

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is it possible that i translated the names of the isotopes incorrectly? he talks about uranium and i translate uran and he did not use the word isotop, but the numbers 38 and 35 and i got the rest (like the 2 in front of 38) from a german wikipedia article about uran, somewhat guessing that the article speaks about the same stuff. would be glad if anyone points out, if i made critical errors. i have no idea about the topic.
 

nanook

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Traveling wave reactor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A traveling-wave reactor, or TWR, is a kind of nuclear reactor that can convert fertile material into fissile fuel as it runs using the process of nuclear transmutation. TWRs differ from other kinds of fast-neutron and breeder reactors in their ability to use little or no enriched uranium, instead burning fuel made from depleted uranium, natural uranium, thorium, spent fuel removed from light-water reactors, or some combination of these materials.

History:
The concept of a reactor that could breed its own fuel inside the reactor core was initially proposed and studied in 1958 by Saveli Feinberg, who called it a “breed-and-burn” reactor

No TWR has yet been constructed, but in 2006, Intellectual Ventures launched a subsidiary named TerraPower, LLC to model and commercialize a practical engineering embodiment of such a reactor, which has since come to be called a traveling-wave reactor. TerraPower has developed TWR designs for low- to medium-power (300-MWe) and large power (~1000-MWe) application.[7] Bill Gates featured TerraPower in his 2010 TED talk.[8]

Reactor Physics:
The reactor is fueled primarily by depleted uranium, but requires a small amount of enriched uranium or other fissile fuel to initiate fission. Some of the fast-spectrum neutrons produced by fission are absorbed by neutron capture in adjacent fertile fuel (i.e. the non-fissile depleted uranium), converting it into plutonium by the nuclear reaction. The plutonium then fissions to produce two fission products, an average of around 2.5 neutrons, and about 200,000,000 electron volts (eV) of energy, which is converted to electricity using conventional steam turbines.

Fuel:
Unlike light-water reactors (LWRs), TWRs can be fueled at the time of construction with enough depleted uranium to produce full power for 60 years or more.[11] TWRs consume substantially less uranium than a LWR per unit of electricity generated due to TWRs higher fuel burnup, higher thermal efficiency and higher fuel density. A TWR also accomplishes reprocessing on the fly, without the need for chemical separation that is typical of other kinds of breeder reactors. These features greatly reduce fuel and waste volumes while enhancing proliferation resistance.[10]

Depleted uranium is widely available as a feedstock. Stockpiles in the United States currently contain approximately 700,000 metric tons of depleted uranium, which is produced as a waste byproduct of the enrichment process.[12] TerraPower has estimated that these stockpiles represent an energy resource equivalent to $100 trillion worth of electricity.[11] Company scientists have also estimated that wide deployment of TWRs could enable projected global stockpiles of depleted uranium to sustain 80% of the world’s population at U.S. per capita electricity usages for over a millennium.[13]

In principle, TWRs are capable of burning spent fuel from LWRs. This is possible because spent LWR fuel is mostly depleted uranium and, in a TWR fast neutron spectrum, the neutron absorption cross section of fission products are several orders of magnitude smaller than in a LWR thermal neutron spectrum. Additional technical development would be required to realize this capability, however.

TWRs are also capable, in principle, of reusing their own fuel. The used metal fuel from TWRs will still contain a high fissile content. Recast and reclad into new driver pellets without separations, this recycled fuel could be used to start fission in additional TWRs, thus displacing the need to enrich uranium altogether.
 

entropie

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No the translation made sense.

The TWR looks indeed really cool, but its in the end only another form of breeder reactor to produce material for nuclear power plants or nuclear power itself.

Since I am no big fan of nuclear energy, I will not like it, cause it does produce nuclear waste nevertheless and isnt a sustainable form of energy production.

Judging from the concept tho and the idea its indeed a betterment in the field of breeder reactors.

What I didnt like about the article is that he said it will produce "no nuclear waste" what is a lie and that he pointed out the advantages of the thing cause it has no CO2 emissions. That's just foul play cause CO2 emissions will be the least of our worries if we concentrate on more nuclear power plants.
 

entropie

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Gonna post my personal opinion now on the topic of nuclear power, cause I feel like it:

In my opinion there are no real achievements left to be made in the nuclear energy sector. And someone, who talks about revolutionary inventions and masks them as green energy innovations is an idiot.

The Americans have the luxury to live in a big country. They can like dumb their atomic waste everywhere, free following the slogan "what I dont see, doesnt bother me". In Germany tho, having a much more densely populated area it has always been a precious issue to find a place to dumb the stuff. An issue that even led to the foundation of an own political party, namely the Greens, from activist farmers that protested against the plans of the government to dumb the stuff in their neighbourhood.

Since that time we have reduced the amount nuclear energy needed to meet the countries energy requirements to 11 % (!!). One has to think about that number, its only 11% and the plans to close all nuclear power plants are long laied out only the energy lobbies tend to destroy them with every new change of political ruling system we have.

So fact is, Germany can become a role model region presenting that it is possible without nuclear power. So really cool inventions in that field would be for example the container/turbine system that can store electrical current. It's a container filled with a liquid that is changed into a gas thru a turbine electrically powered. The gas then is stored. When then electrical current is needed the gas goes thru the turbine again which then turns and produces power. Has an effect ratio of almost 90%.

In my opinions those should be great inventions of the future, which can be really called green, not a betterment of breeder reactors.

In the long term I am hoping for breakthroughs in Quantum Science, so that nuclear fusion may be effective one day. I dont think that this is an impossible thing to do. With new and better super-magnets maybe it will be possible to get the thunneling effect thats going in the sun for billion of years working down on earth aswell.
 

Schaph

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It'll be intereting to know how Bill Gates squeezed a Phd of nuclear physics in his busy schedule.

I try to be impartial about nuclear energy. Energy source should be selected to fit the end usage. Nuclear energy is great because during operation a nuclear power plant can run on a closed loop system, which is convinent for submarines and stuff. However, nuclear energy does not have zero carbon emission. Production of nuclear fuel requires vast mining and refining operations. Not to mention the current refining process uses pure flurine, which is energy (carbon) intensive to produce and extremely hazardous.
 
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