{"id":120442,"date":"2021-04-08T18:36:41","date_gmt":"2021-04-08T18:36:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/precoinnews.com\/?p=120442"},"modified":"2021-04-08T18:36:41","modified_gmt":"2021-04-08T18:36:41","slug":"how-bill-gates-company-terrapower-is-building-next-generation-nuclear-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/precoinnews.com\/business\/how-bill-gates-company-terrapower-is-building-next-generation-nuclear-power\/","title":{"rendered":"How Bill Gates' company TerraPower is building next-generation nuclear power"},"content":{"rendered":"
When Bill Gates started learning about nuclear power innovation, "I was skeptical, but also intrigued," he wrote on his Gates Notes blog in 2019.<\/p>\n
Like many people, Gates' opinion of nuclear power had been tinged by past disastrous accidents such as Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.<\/p>\n
But Gates was also interested in the potential of nuclear power as a clean energy.<\/p>\n
After reading a paper about a new generation of nuclear reactors built with technical advancements to guard against such accidents, Gates founded TerraPower in 2008 to realize the benefits of these innovations.<\/p>\n
Selected by the U.S. federal government to demonstrate the viability of nuclear power through its Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP), TerraPower aims to build "fully functional advanced nuclear reactor within 7 years of the award," according to the Office of Nuclear Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy.<\/p>\n
"We envision a 2050 grid that is powered by very significant wind and solar power, but is complemented by" Terra Power nuclear reactors, TerraPower president and CEO, Chris Levesque, tells CNBC Make It.<\/p>\n
Levesque envisions that TerraPower will help the United States become a dominant force in nuclear power; as other countries transition their energy grids, "the United States will once again export reactors that set the standard for the world, just as we did for today's conventional reactors," Levesque says.<\/p>\n
TerraPower's ability to achieve those goals will be in no small part due to the money and influence of the company's founder.<\/p>\n
"The most important factor is that Bill Gates is behind this," principal research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology department of nuclear science and engineering Charles Forsberg tells CNBC Make It. "The most important factors in developing a new reactor are money and very competent people. Bill Gates brings both to the project."<\/p>\n
Here's how TerraPower is building advanced nuclear power plants.<\/p>\n
Despite nuclear power's baneful reputation, <\/strong>it is actually the safest form of power generation when analyzed by deaths per unit of electricity generated, according to Gates.<\/p>\n And TerraPower's Natrium Reactor plants will be safer still, thanks in large part to a more reliable cooling system for its reactors.<\/p>\n Nuclear fission, a process where atoms split and release a large amount of energy, generates a lot of heat. In conventional nuclear power plants, called light-water nuclear reactors, water absorbs that heat, turning it to steam. The steam then turns a turbine to produce electricity.<\/p>\n The problem is, that steam can also build up and create pressure inside of a reactor, which has the potential to cause an explosion.<\/p>\n So TerraPower's Natrium plant uses a different method, pioneered decades ago: liquid sodium as a cooling agent. ("Natrium" means "sodium" in Latin.) Liquid sodium has a higher boiling point and can absorb a lot more heat than water, which means high pressure does not build up inside the reactor.<\/p>\n "Liquid sodium has certain improved thermochemical properties when compared to water that can change risk profiles and reduce the probability of events that might be more probable in a light water reactor," says Brett Rampal, the director of nuclear innovation at non-profit Clean Air Task Force.<\/p>\n