First up, from the Associated Press, June 10 an in-depth article:
In Wyoming, Bill Gates moves ahead with nuclear project aimed at revolutionizing power generation
Bill Gates and his energy company are starting construction at their Wyoming site for a next-generation nuclear power plant he believes will “revolutionize” how power is generated.
Gates was in the tiny community of Kemmerer Monday to break ground on the project. The co-founder of Microsoft is chairman of TerraPower. The company applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in March for a construction permit for an advanced nuclear reactor that uses sodium, not water, for cooling. If approved, it would operate as a commercial nuclear power plant.
The site is adjacent to PacifiCorp’s Naughton Power Plant, which will stop burning coal in 2026 and natural gas a decade later, the utility said. Nuclear reactors operate without emitting planet-warming greenhouse gases. PacifiCorp plans to get carbon-free power from the reactor and says it is weighing how much nuclear to include in its long-range planning.
The work begun Monday is aimed at having the site ready so TerraPower can build the reactor as quickly as possible if its permit is approved. Russia is at the forefront for developing sodium-cooled reactors.
Gates told the audience at the groundbreaking that they were “standing on what will soon be the bedrock of America’s energy future.”
“This is a big step toward safe, abundant, zero-carbon energy,” Gates said. “And it’s important for the future of this country that projects like this succeed.”
Advanced reactors typically use a coolant other than water and operate at lower pressures and higher temperatures. Such technology has been around for decades, but the United States has continued to build large, conventional water-cooled reactors as commercial power plants. The Wyoming project is the first time in about four decades that a company has tried to get an advanced reactor up and running as a commercial power plant in the United States, according to the NRC.
It’s time to move to advanced nuclear technology that uses the latest computer modeling and physics for a simpler plant design that’s cheaper, even safer and more efficient, said Chris Levesque, the company’s president and chief executive officer.
TerraPower’s Natrium reactor demonstration project is a sodium-cooled fast reactor design with a molten salt energy storage system....
....MUCH MORE
And from Cowboy State Daily, June 11:
Inside The Bill Gates Poker Game In Kemmerer
Kemmerer citizens who played Texas hold 'em with Bill Gates on Monday at the Wyoming Fossils store said the billionaire is shrewd card player who called the "bullsh*t" on one of the player's bluffs.
Turns out, billionaire Bill Gates ain’t a slouch when it comes to playing card games. He knows how to bluff.
That’s the takeaway of a tiny group of card players in Kemmerer, Wyoming, who got to sit at the table Monday with one of the world’s richest people.
Since the 1990s, Gates has picked up a thing or two in the trick-taking card game bridge with his billionaire friend Warren Buffett.
When Gates arrived in the mining town on Monday to break ground on a novel Natrium nuclear reactor that he’s betting billions on as a winner along Highway 189 just south of town, Gates was also quietly chomping at the bit to head over to a game of Texas hold ’em, a popular variation of the traditional game of poker.
Shortly after lunch and shaking hands with Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon and executives of reactor developer TerraPower LLC and the Buffett-owned PacifiCorp, Gates and his security detail headed over to Wyoming Fossils along Pine Avenue to sit down with five townsfolk for a game of poker.
But before Gates headed to the upstairs loft of the fossil store located just across the street from the first JCPenney retail store in the nation, Gates took a quick tour of the fossil collection of owner Robert Bowen.
When the pair got to the rear of the store, Bowen handed Gates a chisel and a ballpeen hammer that the billionaire used to split a rock open to reveal six or seven fossilized fish.
They weren’t just any fish. There were Knightia Eocaena, an extinct bony fish that is referred to as Wyoming’s state fossil, along with Diplomystus, an extinct fish distantly related to modern-day herrings and sardines.
“He was pretty excited,” said Bowen, who plans to clean up the 24-by-18-inch chunk of rock and send it as a gift to Gates.
The billionaire wants to hang the extinct fish from the nearby Fossil Lake quarry on a wall with other collected fossils at his home in Washington.
“He’s got a spot in mind,” Bowen said.
But then the real business got underway. They headed upstairs to a table already set up to play Texas hold ’em....
....MUCH MORE
May 2023
Bill Gates: "I’m in Wyoming to celebrate the next nuclear breakthrough"
December 2022
"Tech Billionaires Are Betting Big On Nuclear Power"
August 2019
Energy 2019: "Inside the lab where Bill Gates’ TerraPower is inventing the future of nuclear energy"
A major piece from Seattle's own GeekWire:May 2008
Who says big ideas are rare? (Using Nuclear Waste)
August 2010
"How Moore’s Law Has Spoiled Us for The Energy Revolution"
December 2011
Bill Gates and China Aren't Building a Traveling Wave Nuclear Plant (yet)
November 2017
"Bill Gates and China partner on world-first nuclear technology"
This story slipped under the radar but may be important.
Plus, we've been following it for a decade and aren't quitters.
(I know, it's a fine line between perseverance and pig-headedness)
March 2019
10 Breakthrough Technologies 2019: Bill Gates at Technology Review
In some parts of this introduction Mr. Gates is talking his book so earnestly it is almost adorable.
That is the first and last time I will ever place 'Mr. Gates" and "adorable' in such close proximity.
"Bill Gates’ Children Mock Him With ‘Billionaire’ Song"
We just broke ground on America’s first next-gen nuclear facility
Kemmerer, Wyoming will soon be home to the most advanced nuclear facility in the world.
