比尔·盖茨的新梦想把核废料变燃料

2014-10-23 15:26:42来源：可可英语

　　TerraPower employees work in a building that also houses Intellectual Ventures, which includesa chamber for raising mosquitoes, a test kitchen for developing new ways to prepare andpreserve food, and hand-built, high-precision instruments for measuring tiny details ofprototype nuclear fuel.

　　TerraPower员工工作的地方跟高智发明同处一座建筑之内，这里有一个蚊子培养室，一个测试厨房，用来开发新的食物制备和保存方法，还有手工打造的精密仪器，用来测量雏形核燃料的微小细节。

　　TerraPower is not alone in pursuing a reactor that will turn waste uranium into energy, and ifsuch a concept can be commercialized, Mr. Gates might not be the first to do it. GeneralAtomics, which has decades of experience in nuclear power, but is probably best known forproducing the Predator drone, is pursuing what it calls an "energy multiplier" reactor moduleon the same general principal. General Atomics, which is based in San Diego, would use helium,not sodium, however, potentially simplifying some problems.

　　TerraPower并不是唯一一家正在研制新型反应堆并从废铀料中获取能源的公司，即便这个概念可以商业化，盖茨也未必是第一个实现它的人。通用原子公司(General Atomics)最出名的产品可能是“捕食者”(Predator)无人机，但它在核电方面也拥有几十年的经验，目前该公司正在研制名为“能量倍增器”(energy multiplier)的反应堆模块，其原理跟TerraPower的大体相同。总部设在圣地亚哥的通用原子公司将使用氦而不是钠，这可能会简化某些问题。

　　"You just set it up, let it burn, and it goes," said John Parmentola, the company's senior vicepresident.

　　“你只需把它设置好，让它燃烧，然后它就一直运行着，”该公司高级副总裁约翰·帕门托拉(John Parmentola)说。

　　Like TerraPower, General Atomics is courting the Chinese.

　　跟TerraPower一样，通用原子公司也正在设法获取中国的青睐。

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