Tuesday, February 15, 2005
They're doing at least one thing right over there...
If you are interested in preventing global warming, the future of developing economies, prospects for nuclear power, and/or driving a hydrogen-fueled car someday, this article is possibly worth reading.
Let a Thousand Reactors Bloom
What's an energy-starved autocracy to do? Go nuclear...
Late last year, China announced plans to build 30 new reactors - enough to generate twice the capacity of the gargantuan Three Gorges Dam - by 2020. And even that won't be enough...
To meet [hugely] growing demand, China's leaders are pursuing two strategies. They're turning to established nuke plant makers ...
But they're also pursuing a second, more audacious course. Physicists and engineers at Beijing's Tsinghua University have made the first great leap forward in a quarter century, building a new nuclear power facility that promises to be a better way to harness the atom: a pebble-bed reactor.
A reactor small enough to be assembled from mass-produced parts and cheap enough for customers without billion-dollar bank accounts.
A reactor whose safety is a matter of physics, not operator skill or reinforced concrete.
And, for a bona fide fairy-tale ending, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is labeled hydrogen...
Now we're talking revolution, comrade... [Wired]
