New approach can help nuclear power compete with natural gas, Gates says
Bill Gates plans to invest billions more dollars into nuclear energy through his company TerraPower. The company broke ground last week on a new nuclear power facility in Wyoming that Gates has touted as an example of how such construction can be simpler and much less expensive.
“I put in over a billion, and I’ll put in billions more,” Gates, speaking Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation, said of his investment in TerraPower.
“We’ve been willing to go back to the basics and do what people have always said should be done, which is to cool the plant with metal instead of water,” Gates said during a separate appearance on CNN. “And that means that this problem of high pressure and extra heat when you shut down is completely solved. And so, the complexity that’s meant that nuclear has gotten more complex and more expensive as it has gone from first to third generation, we changed that utterly.”
Gates said on CBS that in addition to the money from him and other private investors, the federal government is supporting the TerraPower project because of its benefits for energy security, and that there are no risks or higher costs for utility consumers.
While the overall cost for building the reactor in Wyoming was close to $10 billion, Gates said that costs will fall and the payoff for investors will rise as more units are built — especially as the nascent artificial intelligence industry puts ever increasing demands for power on America’s electric grid.
“So, once we get to like our 10th unit and we have our component costs down we shouldn’t expect people [who] buy electricity, to pay higher prices,” he said on CNN.
Gates said TerraPower’s approach can make nuclear power competitive with energy sources like natural gas. He said on CNN that he’s confident the company can meet “that very aggressive cost target” and be profitable.
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