Bill Gates said he is willing to invest billions of dollars in a next-generation nuclear power plant project in Wyoming to meet the United States’ growing electricity needs.
TerraPower LLC, a startup founded by Gates, broke ground last week in Wyoming, where a coal-fired power plant is being shut down, said the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft Corp. said on the CBS program Face the nationTerraPower has been researching simpler, cheaper reactors since 2008 and expects to complete the new reactor in 2030.
“I have invested over a billion and will invest billions more,” said Gates, who is the sixth richest person in the world according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
TerraPower’s plant, funded by the US Department of Energy, was originally scheduled to begin operations in 2028. But that would have meant relying on fuel from Russia, which is “unacceptable at this time,” Gates said on the CNN show Fareed Zakaria GPS.
The reactor design uses liquid sodium as a coolant instead of water and includes molten salt that can store heat to boost power. TerraPower plans to source the reactor fuel from the U.S. and its allies, Gates said.
“Coal is being displaced by natural gas,” Gates told CNN. “So we need to compete effectively with natural gas.”
Carbon-free nuclear power is increasingly seen as a key element in the fight against climate change, and more companies are promoting smaller reactors. Last year, at the COP28 climate conference in Dubai, 25 countries said they wanted to triple their nuclear power capacity, according to BloombergNEF.