Nuclear Power: Future of our Planet or “Destroyer of Worlds”

“Attention, Attention. Honorable Comrades.” Chernobyl Disaster on April 26, 1986 opening announcement (English translation).

 “Kill Switch” is found on air crafts, weapons and nuclear power plants. Who controls the “safety control rod axe man” (SCRAM)?

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported in 2018 450 nuclear power reactors in operation in 30 countries.

Viewing satellite imagery of systems across the globe calls attention to my visits to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva at the Franco–Swiss border. CERN is made up of close to two dozen member states. CERN is located in Eastern France, about 800km north of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER).

ITER or the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor is reported to be an experimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor situated at Cadarache Center.

ITERs origins can be traced back to the 1980s with structural erection in the 2000s and ongoing assimilation. Funding reportedly comes from the European Union, China, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States. Altogether, almost 3 dozen member countries are included.

In the US, originally named Colliding Beam Fusion Reactor, CBFR, Tri Alpha Energy or TAE  Technologies location is “based in Foothill Ranch, California, with global headquarters in Lucerne, Switzerland.” Foothill Ranch is situated in close proximity to the University of California, Irvine. The distance of 17.7 km makes it ideal for scientists to commute to the campus, facilitating technology transfers. 

The late UC Irvine professor Norman Rostoker, known as “the father of breakthrough clean nuclear fusion energy” co-founded Tri Alpha Energy along with Microsoft co-founder, the late Paul Allen. New investors  include, “… the Rockefeller family’s Venrock firm, Goldman Sachs, Rusnano and New Enterprise Associates.”

State of Florida, Hendrik J. Monkhorst Professor Emeritus of Physics and Chemistry, Member of the Quantum Theory Project. Monkhorst’s research includes “Colliding Beam Fusion Reactor for Green Nuclear Power.”

State of Washington and Canada appear to also show interest in fusion energy “Helion Energy is working on its own approach to small-scale fusion power, with backing from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel’s Mithril Capital and other firms. Just outside Vancouver, B.C., General Fusion is making progress, fueled in part by investments from Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos.”

TAE Technologies CEO Michl Binderbauer is “already thinking about the next machine, which will be nicknamed Copernicus. TAE’s current facilities in Foothill Ranch, Calif., won’t be big enough to accommodate Copernicus, so Binderbauer and his team will be looking for an expansion site.”  Florida, Canada, or Mexico?

U.S. Secretary of State proposed in 2020 to “reopen our consulate in Nuuk, Greenland this summer for the first time since 1953. It’s reopening will…strengthen our partnership with are Arctic allies.” Such a move may serve dual purposes.

Or, have expansion sites in Africa and South America reopened for the New Nuclear Power & Possession Hierarchy of Russia, USA, France, China-Iran, UK, Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea?

Who built or is building nuclear power plants and reactors, “plasma machines,” and gas energy plants? Usual suspects point to the Department of Energy, GE and Chevron.

Reportedly new venture capital stems from companies like Veritas Capital and seed funding or collaboration linked to Microsoft, Google, Pay Pal, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon. “Technological solutionism” as some have critiqued?

Techies, if you find working at these companies alluring, now is your chance to transition into nuclear engineering and take part in fusing power. U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics reports an increase of job openings in the field of nuclear engineering in 2022. For those who have no memory of Chernobyl, it seems pandemic, quarantines and testing may have well prepared you for radiation checks.

If they build it, will you work there? If so, forget not Churchill’s words, “With great power…”  And be ready to be one of the first “liquidators.” But will you be as patriotic as the Soviets? Risks? Reported accidents and Incidents go as far back to the 1940s to 1980s including the “1979 Three Mile Island accident, the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, and the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster…”

Sure, you could sue. Precedence? You may wish to examine case law as to liability. Recall the “Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act.”

In the Supreme Court case Duke Power Co. v. Carolina Environmental Study Group, we find the following: “stimulate the private development of electric energy by nuclear power” and “There is no equal protection violation… purpose of encouraging private participation in the exploitation of nuclear energy, is ample justification for the difference in treatment between those injured in nuclear accidents and those whose injuries are derived from other causes.”

Important to note that the Price-Anderson Act appears to fall under federal law reportedly pertaining to “all non-military nuclear facilities constructed in the United States before 2026.”  For all you startups looking to get started on a supercharger nuclear reactor better get started.

Microsoft, If YOU Build It, Will They Come?

Microsoft has reportedly been working on a fusion reactor since the 1990s, Tri Alpha Energy or TAE Technologies. Perhaps, the incentive arose when “On July 15, 1994, the United States filed a civil antitrust Complaint  to prevent and restrain Microsoft Corporation (“Microsoft”) from using exclusionary and anticompetitive contracts to market its personal computer operating system software…”  

Having government on your back, I imagine you’d find a way to make yourself “indispensable” to your country and others as well as beholden to you financially. So it came as no surprise when I read the 2007 Discover Magazine interview of the late Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft:

What are the biggest questions on your mind right now?

The health of the planet, whether it’s ocean health or energy. Should nuclear energy make a comeback? We have an investment in a fusion energy company that is quite interesting.

What kind of fusion research are you investing in?

“The company is called Tri Alpha Energy [which finances aneutronic fusion, a process that emits protons rather than neutrons, potentially making it much more efficient than current concepts]. Fusion has been predicted to be just over the horizon for decades now . . .  There has been a lot of discussion recently on fission reactors, and I have been involved in doing some survey meetings recently. I think Bill is intrigued by that too. But it’s really speculative.”

“In life, you need to pick your spots.”

Microsoft, Google, Pay Pal, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon, your spots are showing – both  Fusion and Fission.

In the event of a nuclear disaster, will the U.S., as the Soviet Union did in Chernobyl, call the “liquidators?”  Pilots, miners, military, reserves, and public volunteers, will they come?

Tech company names, specifically start-ups, run the typical gambit of using soft names. Soft names appear to purposely steer clear from bullish company names or of past generations including the “Men Who Built America.”

Soft ploys are, however, strategically chosen by tech companies to provide open and sharing platforms stemming away from being seen as the “bull in the China shop.” Nuclear Reactors are not China shops. They’re not soft, not your play pal, or make googly sounds.

Nuclear disasters leave their dark lethal mark. To conceal it, a “sarcophagus” structure encased the Chernobyl reactor. Completed in 2016, it stands as part of Ukraine, or, as a deadly  reminder.

Will Microsoft and reported collaborators (companies like Google and investors from Switzerland, China, Russia, Japan, and Italy) build a “sarcophagus” like structure in your country in case of accident or nuclear disaster? Imagine such a site in your city.

Nuclear Power: Future of our Planet or the NET?

TAE Technologies makes what can be construed as a promise or threat, “In order to ensure the future of our planet and a thriving ecosystem, we must adopt a safe, cost-effective, non-polluting, scalable, carbon-free energy solution.”

Future of our PLANET or the NET? Energy secures technology companies and online platforms’ future. Safe and Carbon-free?  Are you speaking of your technologies and industry polluters? TAE, recall skepticism raised with bioTECHs “safe and effective” drugs.

Let’s entertain the idea of a reactor that can supply us with a power station. Challenge? Basically, procuring a continual and viable working nuclear reactor generating energy. Second, providing safe operations; and Third, sustainable safe and longstanding nuclear waste management.

The concept of “safer modular reactors” is ludicrous. Why not simply call it a “smart reactor.” In these times people would eat shit if told it was “smart shit” or noting Ernest Rutherford’s words “talking moonshine.” Speaking of “smart shit” and taking a cue from “soft” companies, I propose a prototype, “smart waste.”

Imagine fossil fuel resources were extinguished or their extraction was no longer possible or permitted. Focus will ultimately turn to solar, wind, and hydro power for most in the public. Private sector may easily opt for the “quick and dirty” option of nuclear power, despite high financial cost.

State collaboration? We the public, of course, will pay the “non-carbon tax.” Recall a reported phrase of Microsoft’s companies and/or foundation, “Like it or not, we’re all in this together.” Sure, basta….

After a century, Ernest Rutherford may still negate the viability of energy from power fission or fusion.  “Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of the atom is talking moonshine.”  Still, who would have thought a microbe or molecule at a micro, atomic, or nanoscale could unleash extreme destruction in our world.  

Physicists, Electricians, Chemists, Engineers, and Scientists’ stand on viability of creating new power grids from energy generated from nuclear reactors are dependent on where they sit on progress and principles. Balancing both is no small feat.

Future generations, Honorable Comrades, stand to gain and lose in the next century of the nuclear powered world. Or, will Oppenheimer’s fear realize, “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”