April Fools?
The 'trillions' we will (and have) invested in vast 'high tech' unsustainable solutions becomes the brunt of the Aprils Fools joke by Idaho Samizdat today along with geek humor and illusions of progress.
Idaho Samizdat - Geek humor, Google, and nukes
TechCrunch speculates on visions of mass distraction
No friends, Google is not building a nuclear reactor. TechCrunch, a technology blog with enormous readership, has an April Fools joke on its site today.
In it the blog offers readers a scenario where Google plans to acquire a secret uranium enrichment technology to fuel "small, mobile, and highly efficient nuclear reactors."
The intent is to portray the mandarins in Mountainview as being sufficiently competitive relative to Bill Gates and his work on a new nuclear reactor that they are planning a similar technology development push.
The language of the blog post is suitably over-the-top, and so much so, that even an official of our acquaintance at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission pronounced it to be a hoax. Regardless, it is good, green fun. Enjoy.
Terrapower says no deal with Toshiba
Despite a raft of trade press and mainstream media reports that Toshiba was shopping a deal with Terrapower, the nuclear energy R&D outfit funded by Bill Gates' foundation, the firm now denies it.
In a press release, Terrapower says it has not entered into agreements with any companies to build or operate the Traveling Wave Reactor.
It looks like news about the company's "information-gathering meetings" got too much spin. In my growing up days, we used to call that "gyroscopic instability caused by a low center of gravity."
This blog questioned the basis for such a deal in a post earlier this week. It was pointed out there are significant differences between the design concept for the Traveling Wave Reactor and Toshiba's sodium cooled design.
The problem with the denial from Intellectual Ventures is that the story made the Financial Times in London. The newspaper reported Bill Gates personally visited Toshiba's R&D facilities in Yokohama, Japan, last November to learn about their work on small reactors.
