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by credit_guy 2728 days ago
This note was quite short, so Bill Gates didn't go into much details.

The details are:

* Bill believes in a new nuclear fission technology that addresses the concern of nuclear waste, traveling wave reactor [1].

* He financed a startup called TerraPower [2] to demonstrate and then to put in use this technology

* Being aware of the strong anti-nuclear sentiment in the US and of the more friendly attitude in China, he signed an agreement with China National Nuclear Corporation to build a 600MW reactor in China

* With the new US administration more hawkish approach towards China, some new restrictions on nuclear deals were announced by the Department of Energy in October [3]

* Gates' TerraPower venture found itself in the crosshairs of these restrictions, so the deal with the CNNC became for all practical purposes void [4]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveling_wave_reactor

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraPower

[3] https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-announces-measures-preve...

[4] https://www.rt.com/business/447910-bill-gates-nuclear-china/

1 comments

Hmm. No working examples, "maintenance free" (in reality this translates to "maintenance impossible"), and uses liquid sodium as a coolant.