JAKARTA - Elon Musk is now being touted as a "pro-nuclear" figure. This comes after his statement at The B-Word conference organized by the Crypto Council for Innovation, which was held Wednesday, July 21.
Musk believes that sustainable bitcoin mining can be created by using a Nuclear Power Plant (POLTN). Nuclear energy is considered "clean energy" because in producing energy, nuclear does not release greenhouse gases. But due to several high-level accidents, the current nuclear power plant has a bad reputation.
"I think modern nuclear power plants are safe, contrary to what people might think," said the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. "I really think it's possible to make a very, very safe nuclear. I'm talking about fission. You don't need fusion."
Nuclear fission is a process used in conventional nuclear reactors. With a fission reaction, a neutron hits a larger atom-splitting it into two smaller atoms, releasing energy.
Fusion is the opposite reaction of fission. With fusion, smaller atoms collide with each other and combine to form heavier atoms, releasing energy. Fusion is the process by which the sun produces energy.
“You have a huge fusion reactor in the sky called the sun. It pops up every day," said Elon Musk.
Some state fusion as a safer way to produce nuclear energy, as fission produces radioactive waste that can remain hazardous for a very long time, while fusion does not produce long-lived radioactive waste (among other reasons).
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The problem is, with today's technology, fusion grabs all the energy it creates to sustain the reaction, leaving no "clean energy" to power other things. Several companies are trying to commercialize fusion energy, but so far, they have not been successful.
On Wednesday, Musk did not specify how a nuclear power plant could be made "very safe." But Musk has publicly supported the use of nuclear energy for years.
“We have to build more nuclear power plants,” Musk said in a 2007 interview with PBS. "I think it's a better way to generate energy than coal-fired power plants or natural gas power plants."
Currently, about 20% of the energy generated in the United States comes from nuclear, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
Conventional nuclear energy technology using fission has developed and improved over the years. For example, Bill Gates founded the state-of-the-art nuclear company, TerraPower, which innovates on legacy power generation technology. However, there is strong opposition to the use of nuclear power.
Opponents of nuclear power say there are still risks associated with nuclear power, regardless of technological innovation, and that a better solution is to focus on increasing renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar.
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