News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement s... by jedberg on Friday August 28, 2020 @12:05AM (#24301252)
I watched the Bill Gates doc on Netflix. They actually had this ready to go in 2017. They were going to build it in China because US regulators wouldn’t allow it.

But then we started a trade war with China and they nixed the contract.

They were hoping to prove it out in China and then bring it back to the US.

Re:Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement s... by spenrose on Friday August 28, 2020 @12:42AM (#24301433)
China had ambitious plans for nuclear and didn't follow through: https://twitter.com/sampenrose/status/1162772916125126656
Re:Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement s... by wahern on Friday August 28, 2020 @12:53AM (#24301481)
That assessment is a little out of date. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_reactors#China

They had several construction starts in 2015 (some are coming online now), and after a 3 year hiatus began several more in 2019. BTW, I'm not just trusting that Wikipedia table. I've confirmed construction and [near] completion of some of those listed (but haven't bothered with all, my doubts assuaged).

China's nuclear plans were delayed and reassessed. But their commitment to and follow through on their [apparently] revised plan is still quite ambitious. Predictions of the death of nuclear in China were rather premature, albeit understandable considering the lack of transparency, especially in the Western world given the language barrier.

Re:Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement s... by natmaka on Friday August 28, 2020 @06:08AM (#24303206)
In 2009 their intention was to "raise the percentage of China's electricity produced by nuclear power to 6% by 2020" In 2019 nuclear produced 4.9% of the gridpower.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China

Not very "ambitious" in my book, especially given their to solar and wind (wind power generation capacity added in the sole year 2016 produced 4%). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_China

Solar is even more dynamic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_China

The language barrier remains low here because China builds with non-Chinese partners (French "Électricité de France" for the EPR, Russian "Atomstroyexport" for the VVER) or at the very least builds local extensions to existing architectures which may be exported and therefore are closely followed by foreigners (Brookfield Business Partners, as the new owner of Westinghouse, and the "CAP" potential series). Even the new (and not yet active) local model (Hualong) is potentially exportable and therefore well documented. Moreover all this stuff is submitted to IAEA inspections, which are well-documented and expose it to international experts.

Re:Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement s... by legulere on Friday August 28, 2020 @03:57AM (#24302430)
If you have sources, then why not correct Wikipedia?
Re:Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement s... by wahern on Friday August 28, 2020 @04:14AM (#24302522)
Because the table wasn't wrong as far as I could tell. And on some of the plant-specific articles there were newer citations. But, point taken--it would have been useful to have added more recent citations to that table.
Re:Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement s... by iamgopal on Friday August 28, 2020 @03:29AM (#24302282)
What about India?
Re:Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement s... by mayama on Friday August 28, 2020 @04:00AM (#24302438)
India's new design PHWR-700 was a few years late to come online. Plant at Kakrapar came online in July and another plant at same site should come online next year. Plan for 10 new PHWR-700 is still in progress, but original goal of 2022 will be pushed by a few years now.

https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/other/india-e2-80-99s-first-7...

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/science/india-to-b...

Re:Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement s... by autisticcurio on Friday August 28, 2020 @02:22AM (#24301893)
The technology exists for small scale nuclear power stations, like those developed in submarines. Based on old news reports it would appear the new glass cube US Embassy in London is nuclear powered and the embassy has enough spare to power surrounding buildings, the moat has more than a medieval defensive purpose.
Re:Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement s... by Reason077 on Friday August 28, 2020 @05:47AM (#24303087)
If this were true, it would be very obvious to electricity suppliers that the embassy is using far less energy than would be expected for a building of it’s size.

But no, I don’t think even the Americans could get away with building an unlicensed nuclear power plant near the center of London.

Re:Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement s... by andbberger on Friday August 28, 2020 @03:25AM (#24302260)
This would be more believable if you had said that... I don't know.. the US Antarctic embassy was nuclear powered. But in a city with excellent existing energy infrastructure in a country that, rocky start notwithstanding, the US has been allied with for almost 250 years? Get outta here
Re:Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement s... by oblio on Friday August 28, 2020 @04:20AM (#24302550)
Small adjustment: a bit more than 200 years. The Brits burned down Washington in 1812.
Re:Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement s... by adventured on Friday August 28, 2020 @04:56AM (#24302798)
It's also fascinating what intervened:

"Less than a day after the attack began, a sudden, very heavy thunderstorm—possibly a hurricane—put out the fires. It also spun off a tornado that passed through the center of the capital, setting down on Constitution Avenue and lifting two cannons before dropping them several yards away. Following the storm, the British returned to their ships, many of which required repairs due to the storm. The occupation of Washington lasted for roughly 26 hours and the British plans are still a subject of debate."

The Washington DC area gets only a few tornadoes per century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_Washington

Re:Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement s... by emteycz on Friday August 28, 2020 @01:18PM (#24307438)
It's also not that unlikely. Similar thing happened in Poland.
Re:Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement s... by tW4r on Friday August 28, 2020 @02:35AM (#24301965)
Do you have any such reports on hand? I couldn’t find any because the searches immediately went to embassy’s comments on nuclear weapons.

But it just seems fascinating that an embassy would have its own nuclear power source and id love to learn more

Re:Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement s... by autisticcurio on Friday August 28, 2020 @06:18AM (#24303254)
I tried finding some of the old news stories in the online media which gave me the impression before posting here, in fact I think I even commented on a couple of them, but the search engines control so much of what we know today I simply cant find those old articles.

Edit: I should add, circa 2004/2005 I used to be able to cut and paste conversational posts from online chat forums like pistonheads and others, paste the post into Google and it would give me a list of other websites where the exact same conversation was taking place albeit with different avatars. Fast forward to 2011 and all becomes clear. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-op... You cant do that now, Google has been updated.

The forum I used to post on, used techniques like using the image of a full stop (period) at the end of the sentence, which I spotted because broadband was slow so the placeholder for the image appeared before it got pulled down from a Canadian webserver. The 5 eyes are very real and they even have oversight of Tor contrary to popular belief.

Re:Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement s... by autisticcurio on Friday August 28, 2020 @07:53AM (#24303782)
Re down votes: Either spook manipulation or people dont want to believe they get up to such chicanery. Youre safe guys, you know I dont have a driving licence, a mobile phone, no money, no bank account, no passport, no job, put out of business, in isolation in the countryside where I dont speak to anyone other than strangers who might want to stop whilst I walk the dog, I can see why the Police get called Plod now.
Re:Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement s... by implements on Friday August 28, 2020 @03:10AM (#24302178)
Checks calendar ... nope, not April 1st.