Where does one of the world’s richest men put his money when it comes to powering the future? When you’re Bill Gates, you go nuclear.
The Microsoft Corp. /quotes/zigman/20493/quotes/nls/msftMSFT+0.09% chairman and founder of the software giant touted a developing nuclear technology that wouldn’t need to replenish its fuel supply for more than half a century, thus cutting back on waste disposal.
Gates has invested in privately held TerraPower LLC, based near the Microsoft headquarters in suburban Seattle. The company is developing what is known as a “traveling wave” reactor designed to run on depleted uranium that is now a waste product when it is enriched.
Though the technology still is being developed, a demo reactor could be in place as early as 2022 and could be set up in multiple locations by 2028, Gates said.
Gates was asked about the safety of nuclear facilities, given last year’s disaster at Japan’s Fukushima plant. He said if you ignore that, the Three Mile Island disaster in 1979 and the catastrophic Chernobyl meltdown in 1986, “we’ve had a pretty good century.” But technology that simulates potential disasters is much better now, he added.
“You can understand what’s going to happen digitially in a way you never could before,” Gates said.
Gates was the featured speaker Thursday night at The Wall Street Journal’s ECO:nomics conference just outside the posh seaside city of Santa Barbara, Calif. He said drastic measures like the TerraPower design are going to be necessary if dreams of a carbon-neutral future are to be realized.
While some experts at the conference, a gathering of energy industry officials and experts from around the world, were hoping that the U.S. could cut its reliance on carbon-emitting energy to under 50% in 50 years, Gates said it will take much longer. He figures it will be 75 years or more, provided basic research is funded and carbon-capture methods are employed.
“This is not just a straight reduction. This is something where it’s ultra-different,” he said. “I think the problem is way harder than many observers think.”
– Russ Britt