From Bloomberg, June 16:
Bill Gates said he’s prepared to plow billions of dollars into a next-generation nuclear power plant project in Wyoming to meet growing US electricity needs.
TerraPower LLC, a startup founded by Gates, broke ground for construction of its first commercial reactor last week in Wyoming, where a coal plant is shutting down, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft Corp. said on CBS’s Face the Nation. TerraPower has explored simpler, cheaper reactors since 2008 and expects to complete the new reactor in 2030.
“I put in over a billion, and I’ll put in billions more,” said Gates, the world’s sixth-richest person according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
TerraPower’s plant, which has backing by the US Department of Energy, was initially
expected to be operational in 2028. But that would have meant relying on fuel from Russia, which is “unacceptable now,” Gates said on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS.
The reactor design uses liquid sodium as a coolant
rather than water and includes molten salt that can store heat to boost its output. TerraPower plans to source reactor fuel from the US and its allies, Gates said....
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