The following blog post is a guest contribution from Albie Serur. Albie brings an interesting and developing story about the effort Bill Gates is making to advance energy production that eliminates CO2 emissions as well as hazardous waste. If you like the article, you'll also love this video of Gates talking about his ideas at TED. Thanks Albie, and enjoy the article -
As the world grows and technology develops, the problems we face begin to change as well. There was once a time period in which electricity did not exist and having any artificial light at all was improbable …now electricity is being consumed gluttonously and the overconsumption is sucking our planet dry of fossil fuels at a disturbing rate. With technology giving us the ability to obtain fossil fuels from inside the earth faster than ever before, many alarming questions have begun to surface. What happens when we run out of natural resources? Why haven’t we taken more precautions to avoid this situation? Not only are we burning up our natural resources faster than previous generations could have ever deemed possible, but the act of doing so is releasing so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that global warming has become an issue as well. Our drive as a people to achieve technological perfection has created a huge imbalance between the amount of natural resources that can be dug up and sold, and the amount left in the earth for future generations is rapidly dwindling. It’s time for a change, and that change has to be in finding new technologies to create energy rather than using technologies that continue to deplete our non-renewable resources.
With fossil fuels slowly dwindling and global warming becoming more and more disconcerting, people are rapidly starting to pay attention and raise awareness towards the fact that this problem will not go away on its own. Not only have countries been spending millions of dollars researching new ways to create energy, individual companies have begun to undertake this task as well. Sadly, in our society few people take the initiative to solve problems before serious issues result. Because of this, the race for an alternative energy source is similar to the Space Race of 1957 in that whatever country emerges successful and finds the solution will become the next world power and have the rights over the next generation’s biggest industry.
Bill Gates is a brilliant trillionaire who has more recently devoted some of his resources to solving the energy issue. The fact that he has an interest in this industry shows how important a solution actually is. Finding a new way to power the world is both vital for the safety of its inhabitants and economic prosperity. After reviewing a large number of alternative energy source proposals, it seems that Gates has begun investing time and money into a new type of nuclear power plant that is a large upgrade from the ones used today and is without the typical problems of nuclear waste.
Nuclear power plants began production in the 1950’s. As of 2008, 65 plants and 104 operable reactors produce nearly 20% of the nations energy. Considering that the other 80% of the nation’s energy is created by 5400 other power plants which run on fuel, it is clear to see how strong these nuclear plants actually are in comparison. Nuclear power plants have the ability to become the next primary source for energy, and in addition to their strength they do not release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The plants however do use radioactive elements that could poison the environment if the waste products are not disposed of correctly; one of the biggest concerns of environmentalist groups lobbying against the use of nuclear plants. Nuclear plants work through heat generated by a process called nuclear fission. Nuclear fission occurs when a uranium atom splits creating an excess of 200 million electron volts in the form of radiation and heat. Since after every reaction there are more neutrons released then required to start the process, the reaction becomes self-sustaining producing tremendous amounts of energy.
The excess energy created however does not come without a catch. The large amounts of power emitted through these radioactive reactions cause enormous amounts of radioactive waste. Nuclear waste left over from the plants needs to be watched for the next ten thousand years in order to make sure that it will not damage the environment. Another issue with nuclear plants is that uranium is a very scarce resource, and there is only enough of it on Earth to last another thirty to sixty years. Additionally, uranium is rather expensive to harvest and even more costly to enrich prior to using it in the plants. After examining the effectiveness of active nuclear power plants and considering the problems they could possibly cause, Bill Gates seems to be sold on Terrapower designed nuclear power plants.
Terrapower is a company that designs a custom type of nuclear reactor that has some truly revolutionary features. Unlike the nuclear reactors out today that require rare, enriched uranium, Terrapower reactors can run off of unenriched uranium, spent fuel rods, and nuclear waste byproducts from other factories. The fact that the uranium used to create the energy does not need to be enriched is a huge milestone in the field of nuclear energy. Prior to this technology it was thought that the world’s uranium reservoirs would last only thirty to sixty years…now they can last for centuries and basically be recycled. Also, the problem of nuclear waste needing to be watched and possibly hurting the environment will solve itself since the waste will actually hold value and can be used to power these new plants. These innovative new plants could make one fuel core last for fifty to one hundred years before needing to be refueled and each core could create over one billion watts of electricity. This process would use up the existing stockpiles of depleted uranium and create energy from a source once considered worthless, as opposed to depending on a source that is scarce and costly. With these new plants, electricity will be created at a cheaper price than any type of plant created before this. Terrapower has successfully developed an idea that could be the most efficient type of energy resource ever seen on our planet. These plants (just like the other nuclear plants) would also have no carbon dioxide emissions and may contribute to the decline of the world’s global warming problem.
With fossil fuels running low and the search for alternative energy resources becoming a frenetic race, we can only hope that an idea such as the one being developed by Terrapower will advance energy production in the right direction. We have finally reached the realization that generators powered by wind, coal, water, petroleum, and other gases will be useless for large-scale production within the next few decades. Now we can only hope that these new forms of nuclear reactors can light up our way to the future. With a revolutionary approach that creates energy while also solving significant environmental problems, Terrapower could possibly become the only plausible solution to our lack of natural resources and need for electricity. Hopefully more companies and investors will put time and effort into this topic and possibly make this new system even better. Bill Gates also stated how he believes this type of technology would do great in a free-market economy. If Terrapower becomes successful, Bill Gates and his colleagues will have successfully led the world into a new generation of energy producing technology.
Leadership comes in many styles, shapes, and forms. Some people are leaders because they lead by example to better a group of people, and others are leaders because people learn from their decisions and business ideas. If Terrapower is among the answers we’ve all been waiting for, Mr. Gates will not only play another significant role in altering the American business market and larger landscape, but will be looking at spinning quite a large profit owning both Microsoft and a five billion dollar share of Terrapower!
