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Bill Gates invested in at least 5 Battery Startups who could revolutionize the capacity problems of the large power-grids worldwide: http://gigaom.com/2013/04/0

by X4 13y ago

Bill Gates invested in at least 5 Battery Startups who could revolutionize the capacity problems of the large power-grids worldwide: http://gigaom.com/2013/04/02/bill-gates-investors-back-sodium-battery-startup-aquion-energy/ http://gigaom.com/2013/04/02/bill-gates-investors-back-sodiu... Soon replaced by graphene super capacitors.. How conservative do you sound when you promote Thorium reactors in a solar cell thread? ..some people have heard enough "positive" things about nuclear power now. There are cheaper, more reliable, regrowing and more efficient technologies that Nuclear power fans simply ignore. Nobody said that the power generated by nuclear fusion is lower than with green power, but definitely at scale.

dredmorbius 13y ago
Gates has looked at a number of power options, including Sadoway's liquid metal batteries and the TerraPower "nuclear candle" breeder reactor. I'm not convinced that nuclear's the way to go, but we know how to create working plants based on both uranium and plutonium fuel cycles, with thorium looking pretty viable. How economically feasible and long-term safe they are remains an open question, though I'd consider them as at least bridge technologies to whatever human's next stable-stage energy mix is. The best fusion reactor design I've seen is a third-generation design that's been in long-term field trials with wide deployment, and can be found in an operational model 8 light minutes away. The primary challenge is figuring out how to plug it into human power grids.