Nuclear energy is difficult. A climate-conscious billionaire wants to make it easier.
Outside a small coal town in southwestern Wyoming, billions of dollars are needed to build the first of a new generation of U.S. nuclear power plants.
Workers started construction on Tuesday a new type of nuclear reactor They would be smaller and cheaper than the huge reactors of the past and designed to produce electricity without the carbon dioxide that is rapidly warming the planet.
The reactor being built by TerraPower, a start-up, will not be ready until 2030 and faces enormous obstacles. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not yet approved the design and the company will have to overcome the inevitable delays and cost overruns that have killed countless nuclear projects before.
What TerraPower does have is an influential and wealthy founder. Bill Gates, currently ranked As the seventh richest person in the world, he has invested more than $1 billion of his fortune in TerraPower, a figure he expects to increase further.
“If you care about the climate, there are many places in the world where nuclear power needs to work,” Mr. Gates said Monday during an interview near the project site. “I’m not involved in TerraPower to make more money. I’m involved in TerraPower because we need to build a lot of these reactors.”
Mr. Gates, the former head of Microsoft, said he believed the best way to solve climate change was through innovations that make clean energy competitive with fossil fuels, a philosophy he outlined in his 2021 book, “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.”
There is a revival of interest in nuclear energy across the country. Several start-ups are competing to build more and more smaller reactors and the Biden administration is offering significant tax breaks for new plants.
Expectations for TerraPower’s project are especially high among the 3,000 residents of the nearby Wyoming towns of Kemmerer and Diamondville. The local economy has depended for decades on a coal-fired power plant and an adjacent mine. But that plant is expected to close in 2036 as the country transitions away from burning coal.
A new reactor, and the jobs that come with it, could provide a lifeline.
