比尔•盖茨：别抛弃核能

    5月3日，在《连线》杂志（WIRED）举办的《设计颠覆创新商业大会》（Disruptive by Design Business Conference）上，比尔•盖茨对能源的现状以及可能取代石油和煤的高科技能源产品进行了探讨。

    盖茨表示，尽管最近日本的福岛核反应堆发生了大灾难，但是核能仍然存在巨大的应用潜力。他指出，核的能源生产能力是煤的“100万倍”。他充满讽刺地说道：“火电站也会夺去人的生命，但每次只会死几个人，难怪政客们喜欢这种发电方式。”

    事实上，在盖茨看来，福岛核反应堆灾难说明，一方面，多年来核技术进步乏善可陈；另一方面，从创新和投资的角度看，核技术已经日臻成熟。

    “核反应堆比较早的一个应用是核潜艇。”他表示：“之后，它们升级到第二代，后来由于三里岛核事故，加之火电的原因，那个应用就被关闭了。此后就基本没什么新设计可言了。”盖茨指出，福岛核反应堆是基于20世纪60年代设计的第二代核反应堆。它与未来的第四代核电站有天壤之别。[注：盖茨是核反应堆设计初创公司地球能源公司（TerraPower）的投资人。]第四代核反应堆采用更为先进的方法处理“残热”，且能彻底绕开此问题。残热产生自反应堆中残余的放射能。

    另一将被证明有助于核创新的重要工具是软件仿真。利用软件仿真，核电站就能预测到地震和海啸般的波浪等地质变化。“人类根本无法预测这类事。”但是，盖茨希望，到2020年，终有一个第四代核电站设计能够付诸实践，而且，到2030年，能够再按照此设计建成百余座核电站。

    在演讲中，盖茨还涉及到能源生产的其他潜在形式，包括氢能和太阳能。盖茨认为，氢能不大可能成为主流能源，他对此的态度充其量也就是不冷不热。

    “我从来都无法真正理解氢能，”他表示：“对于任何问题来说，它从来都不是什么解决方案，不过是存储能源的一种潜在方式罢了。它不过是一种化工产品，虽然是非常了不起的化工产品，但如今所有的应用都是按容积计算的。而且，事实表明，氢气非常易燃，氢火焰极为炽热，但却是无形的。”

    盖茨认为，太阳能有三个发展趋势：用于沙漠中的多用途网、办公楼和商业场所顶上的装置以及居民住宅顶上的太阳能板。

    “如果你喜欢外形灵巧的东西，那就买个屋顶上用的太阳能装置，”他表示：“如果你喜欢麻烦，那就添置沙漠中用的那类网。”尽管如此，太阳能应用仍然是任重而道远，这在某种程度上是电池容量所致。假设你通过太阳能可获得50%的能量，你需要应付诸如以下的问题：将能量储存起来，以备晚上使用；如果是在完全不见阳光的沙漠里，就得储存足够两周用的能量才行。盖茨还表示，欲适应上述情形，比我们今天采用的任何电池技术都要难上“100倍”。

    如果太阳能技术尚处于初级阶段，那盖茨家中是否完全不用太阳能板呢？

    “噢，与所有人一样，我们也喜欢‘灵巧可爱的’东西。”他对与会者表示：“我确实说过，有钱人可以为所欲为。”

    译者：大海

    At WIRED's Disruptive by Design Business Conference today, Bill Gates discussed the current state of energy and potential technology replacements for oil and coal.

    Gates suggested there's much more potential for nuclear energy, despite the recent disaster with Japan's Fukushima reactor. As he sees it, nuclear has a "factor million" of energy creation compared with coal. And as he quipped, "coal plants kill, but they only kill a few at a time, which is highly preferred by politicians."

    Really, the Fukushima reactor incident in his opinion is evident of just how little nuclear technology has improved over time and how ripe the technology is for innovation and investment.

    "They had a design which worked on a submarine," he said. "Then they went to generation 2 and got shut down due to Three Mile and coal in particular. There wasn't much design after that." Fukishima, Gates pointed out, was an older second-generation reactor based off 1960s design. Put side-by-side with future fourth-generation plants, the difference is night and day. (Note: Gates is an investor in TerraPower, a nuclear reactor design startup.) Fourth generation reactors have better ways of dealing with "afterheat," heat created by leftover radioactivity in a reactor, and could circumvent the problem completely.

    Another important tool that will prove helpful with nuclear innovation is software simulation, which will help plants anticipate scenarios like earthquakes and tsunami-like waves. There is "no way humans can predict these things." It's Gates' hope that one of several fourth-generation nuclear plant designs will get built by 2020, and that by 2030, that particular design will be emulated with hundreds more built.

    He also addressed other potential forms of energy creation, including hydrogen and solar. On the former, Gates was lukewarm at best about its potential as a mainstream source.

    "I've never understood that [hydrogen]," he said. "It was never a solution to anything, just a potential way to store energy. . . It's just a chemical, and it's a really nice chemical, but all of our applications are per volume-type applications. And it turns out it's actually quite flammable. A hydrogen flame is very, very hot, but invisible."

    Gates broke down solar into three trends: utility girds in deserts, installations on office roofs and commercial spaces, and panels on residential roofs.

    "If you want cute, go for stuff on the roof," he said. "If you're interested in the problem, go for the [grids] in the desert." Still, solar has a very long way to go, part of which has to do with battery capacity. If you're getting say, 50% of energy through solar, you have to deal with factors like stashing enough energy away for the evening and even dealing with two-week periods in the desert where sunlight goes missing entirely. According to Gates, accommodating such scenarios is a "factor of 100" more demanding than any battery technology we have today.

    So if solar is such an infant technology, does that mean the Gates home is solar panel-free?

    "Oh, we like to do 'cute' like everyone," he told the conference. "I did say rich people can do whatever they want."