Bill Gates and TerraPower is Inventing the Future of Nuclear Energy

Nuclear Power Industry

Boyle reported that If you think about Bill Gates’ accomplishments in computing, we’re really trying to repeat that for nuclear energy,” said Chris Levesque, TerraPower’s president and CEO. “We think nuclear is overdue for technology demonstrations. That may sound strange in an age when so much attention has been focused on solar and wind power, but Levesque argues that nuclear power has a big role to play in the transition from fossil fuels to carbon-free sources of energy. We see a world that has continued penetration of renewables, and we think that’s a very good thing for the climate,” he said. “But we do think there’s a limit to renewables penetration … where you’re going to need some baseload generation. If it’s going to be carbon-free, I think it has to be nuclear.

About 20% of America’s electrical power comes from nuclear plants, compared with 17% from renewables and 63% from fossil fuels. The United States currently leads the world in terms of total kilowatt-hours produced, but other countries such as France and Japan get a higher percentage of their power from nuclear. Nuclear has gotten a bad name over the years – primarily due to safety breakdowns ranging from Three Mile Island to Chernobyl to Fukushima, plus long-running concerns about long-term nuclear waste storage. Economic factors aren’t helping: Thanks in part to fracking, it’s cheaper to build and operate gas-fired power plants than nuclear reactors. To turn the tide, TerraPower’s 150 employees are working on technologies that address nuclear safety as well as waste disposal and cost of operation.

One of those technologies is known as TWR, which stands for traveling wave reactors. Rather than relying exclusively on enriched uranium, traveling wave reactors are designed to make use of depleted uranium – the waste that’s left over at enrichment plants – as its reload fuel. After starting with enriched uranium, the reactors can continue to run on depleted uranium for decades. It does this by converting the depleted uranium and then using it in one swing through the reactor.

Liquid sodium serves as the coolant, transferring heat out of the reactor to turn a steam turbine. TWR’s proponents say the reactors are safer than traditional water-cooled reactors because they operate at lower pressures and aren’t vulnerable to a fuel-scattering explosion like the one that hit Chernobyl. The TWR concept has been around for decades. Some experts say it’s “extraordinarily challenging” to work with liquid sodium, due to the potential for leaks and the material’s high level of chemical reactivity. But TerraPower’s engineers say their materials technology is up to supporting the “once through” operation that would be used in the reactors they’re developing.

Levesque said TerraPower is making use of extensive research conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy’s national labs, including Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, plus its own research conducted over the past decade. The new thing is advanced physics, enabled by modern computing power that was really only available in the last 10 to 15 years,” he said.

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