When the world’s richest entrepreneur says wind and solar will never work, and backs nuclear instead, it’s probably time to listen.
Bill Gates made a fortune applying common sense to the untapped market of home computing. The meme has it that IBM’s CEO believed there was only a market for five computers in the entire world. Gates thought otherwise. Building a better system than any of his rivals and shrewdly working the marketplace, resulted in hundreds of millions hooked on PCs, Windows and Office. This is a man that knows a thing or two about systems and a lot about what it takes to satisfy the market.
Now, putting his money where his mouth is, Gates has teamed up with another American billionaire, Warren Buffett to build the next generation of safe and reliable nuclear power plants, starting in Wyoming.
Bill Gates, Warren Buffett to Launch ‘Game-Changing’ Nuclear Power Plant in Wyoming
Epoch Times
Tom Ozimek
3 June 2021
Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon on June 2 announced that a next-generation nuclear power plant will be built at a soon-to-be-retired coal-fired plant in Wyoming in the next several years, with the project a joint initiative between Bill Gates’s TerraPower and PacifiCorp, owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.
“Today’s announcement really, truly is game-changing and monumental for Wyoming,” Gordon said at a press conference at the state Capitol in Cheyenne.
The project features a 345-megawatt sodium-cooled fast reactor with a molten salt-based energy storage system, which would produce enough power for roughly 250,000 homes. The storage technology is also able to boost output to 500 megawatts of power for about five and a half hours, which is equivalent to the energy needed to power around 400,000 homes, according to TerraPower.
Gordon said the pilot project, called Natrium, would replace one of the state’s current coal-fired power plants, with an exact location to be announced by the end of the year. At the same time, Gordon made clear that the move toward nuclear doesn’t mean he is abandoning Wyoming’s fossil fuel industry, which he called “the bedrock of our economy” that has provided “an enormous amount of capital” for environmental protection initiatives.
“Earlier this year, I set a goal for Wyoming to be a carbon negative state and continue to use fossil fuels,” Gordon said, with “carbon negative” meaning the state would capture more carbon dioxide than it emitted.
“I am not going to abandon any of our fossil fuel industry—it is absolutely essential to our state and one of the things that we believe very strongly is our fastest and clearest course to being carbon negative.”
“Nuclear power is clearly a part of my all-of-the-above strategy for energy,” Gordon added.
Wyoming is both a top coal mining and top uranium mining state, and the reactor would use uranium from “in situ” mines that extract heavy metal from networks of water wells on the High Plains, officials said.
The reactor proposal also creates common ground between Wyoming, a Republican state, and Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration, which is seeking to reduce carbon emissions by half, compared to 2005 levels, by 2030.
U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said by video link that Natrium has a “simpler design that will hopefully result in faster construction at lower cost.”
“It’s going to create a smaller footprint. It’s going to be equipped with next-generation safety measures,” she said.
“I have a feeling that Wyoming won’t be the only state angling for one of these nuclear reactors once we see it in action,” she said, adding that the Biden administration is prepared to make “major investments in advanced nuclear technology so that communities all over the country can enjoy the benefits of safe and reliable and clean power that will leave them with lower energy bills.”
Gordon said the small, modular nuclear reactor would provide on-demand energy and result in an overall reduction of CO2 emissions, while creating “hundreds of good-paying jobs through the construction and operation of the unit.”
Gates, who founded TerraPower 15 years ago, spoke at the press conference by video link, saying that he believes “Natrium will be a game-changer for the energy industry.”
“Wyoming has been a leader in energy for over a century and we hope our investment in Natrium will help Wyoming to stay in the lead for many decades to come,” he said.
The plant will be a “multibillion-dollar project,” with costs to be split evenly between government and private industry, TerraPower President and CEO Chris Levesque said.
The plant would produce two-thirds less waste by volume than conventional nuclear plants, Levesque added.
Epoch Times
STOP THESE THINGS 
Be careful here. This project already has $80 mm from US DOE and could be a boondoggle like the other recent projects in South Carolina and Georgia. Also, nuclear is being used as the ‘silver bullet’ to make a case for a carbon tax (and thus tariffs).
Coal keeps communities FREE. They can buy coal from various sources that can compete thus keeping costs down. They are less dependent. Nuclear creates a dependent system much like wind and solar. More regulations. More complexities. If it shuts down that takes down a massive swath. Although it’s energy is reliable and abundant just the fact that those two alleged to be ‘essential’ businessmen are involved would be reason enough to shun the project. Buyer beware. There are so many red flags on this namely the names.
Buffet made billions on wind spinners that sucked money direct from the people into his portfolios. He stated publicly he knows they are a scam and profited from them anyway. Those with morals shun such investments.
Gates has his claws in trying to force inject the entire world population beyond their will ‘for their own good’ with experimental concoctions that just made hundreds of millions of unsuspecting participants lab rats. It’s for his good. He’s been at this for decades presenting himself as a savior. Does not mention those who get maimed. His schemes also assisted in the ‘non-essential’ business collapse of 2020 where he again like all of them just got richer. These were businesses that were essential to their owners and the many who patronized them before they declared war on the fictitious novel ‘virus’.
Maybe if they first gave away all their money like Jesus mentioned as way to find the KOH what they say then about what’s good for us instead of them might be worth considering.
Locating the KOH should be a priority for all of these business leaders but unfortunately it’s always about finding more space for their ever expanding portfolios which never buy happiness.
About time too. Great news. But oh dear, when will journalists stop measuring energy in terms of number of homes serviced.? It makes my blood boil.