Bill Gates says he is willing to spend billions of dollars on a next-generation nuclear power plant project in Wyoming to help meet America’s growing electricity demand.
TerraPower LLC, a startup founded by Gates, began construction of the first commercial nuclear reactor in Wyoming last week, where a coal-fired power plant is being shut down, the billionaire Microsoft co-founder told CBS’s “The Power of the Future.” Confronting the stateTerraPower has been researching simpler, cheaper nuclear reactors since 2008 and plans to complete the new reactor in 2030.
“I’ve invested over $1 billion and I plan to invest billions more,” said Gates, the world’s sixth-richest person according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The TerraPower plant is backed by the US Department of Energy and was originally scheduled to be operational in 2028. But that would mean relying on fuel from Russia, which “is just not acceptable now,” Gates said in an interview with CNN. Fareed Zakaria GPS.
The reactor design uses liquid sodium instead of water as a coolant and also includes molten salt that can store heat to boost power. TerraPower plans to source its reactor fuel from the United States and its allies, Gates said.
“Coal is losing ground to natural gas,” Gates told CNN. “So what we have to do is compete effectively with natural gas.”
Carbon-free nuclear power is increasingly seen as a key part of the climate change fight, and more companies are promoting small reactors. At the COP28 climate change conference in Dubai last year, 25 countries announced an ambition to triple their nuclear power capacity, according to BloombergNEF.
