Free Republic

Gillette-based L&H Industrial, a 60-year-old industrial machinery company in the coal-rich Powder River Basin, has partnered with nuclear technology innovator BWX Technologies as part of a blockbuster deal to launch a multibillion-dollar industry in the micro nuclear reactor field. A Wyoming company with international clout that’s bolstered the state’s energy industries for decades is jumping into the nuclear business. Gillette-based L&H Industrial Inc., a 60-year-old stalwart industrial machinery company in the coal-rich Powder River Basin, has partnered with nuclear technology innovator BWX Technologies Inc. (BWXT) as part of a blockbuster deal to launch a multibillion-dollar industry in the micro nuclear...

Uranium enrichment and the nuclear fuel industry make up a globally integrated complex concentrated in the hands of a few key players. A geopolitically-driven divorce is on the horizon, however. At the outset of the invasion of Ukraine last year, US Senator John Barrasso, a Republican of Wyoming, led an effort to ban Russian-origin uranium and nuclear products following the West’s break with the fossil fuel industries that had been filling the Kremlin’s war chest. The bill stalled, but it highlighted America’s reliance on Russian nuclear imports and the need for a comprehensive supply chain rework. When countries are already...

Bill Gates sold West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin on this year’s Democratic climate spending blowout as a way to put unemployed coal workers to work building advanced nuclear reactors. Now we learn, belatedly, that these projects depend on Russia for fuel and will cost taxpayers more than advertised. The Energy Department last year awarded up to $2 billion for an advanced nuclear reactor “demonstration” project in Wyoming being developed by TerraPower, a company Mr. Gates founded. These advanced reactors have been promoted because they take up significantly less space than conventional reactors and could theoretically use reprocessed nuclear fuel. TerraPower’s...

The Microsoft co-founder, who has donated more than $50 billion to philanthropic causes since 1994, has in recent years focused his attention on climate change, which he considers one of the most acute problems facing humanity. He has spearheaded several initiatives on the research and development of clean energy. Bill Gates has called on US authorities to build new nuclear reactors in order to deal with climate change. Speaking at the Nuclear Energy Assembly, organised by a US nuclear trade industry association, the 65-year-old drew attention to the number of nuclear reactors in the country slated for retirement, noting that...

Power companies run by billionaire friends Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have chosen Wyoming to launch the first Natrium nuclear reactor project on the site of a retiring coal plant. TerraPower, founded by Gates about 15 years ago, and power company PacifiCorp, owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, said on Wednesday that the exact site of the Natrium reactor demonstration plant was expected to be announced by the end of the year.... ...The project features a 345 megawatt sodium-cooled fast reactor with molten salt-based energy storage that could boost the system’s power output to 500MW during peak power demand. TerraPower...

TerraPower reached an agreement with state-owned China National Nuclear Corp in 2017 to build an experimental nuclear reactor south of Beijing. But Gates wrote in an essay published late last week that TerraPower is unlikley to follow through on its plans in the face of new U.S. restrictions on technology deals with China. The Bellevue, Washington-based company is now unsure which country it will work with to conduct trials of its technology, which is desgined to use depleted uranium as fuel for nuclear reactors in a bid to to improve safety and costs, company officials told the Journal. “We’re regrouping,”...

"On why the free market won’t develop new forms of energy fast enough: ...Without a substantial carbon tax, there’s no incentive for innovators or plant buyers to switch."

August 16, 2015 China will start construction of a 600 MWe fourth generation nuclear reactor and it could be Terrapower traveling wave reactor china, energy, future, microsoft, nuclear, science, technology Facebook Twitter linkedin google Reddit Construction of the Xipu fast neutron reactor nuclear power demonstrative project in east China's Fujian province is designed to start at the end of 2017, China Business News quoted Xu Mi, an academician with Chinese Academy of Engineering, as saying. The demonstrative nuclear power project, designed with 600,000kw (600 MWe) installed capacity, will be a fourth generation reactor designs. The Shanghai newspaper speculated that this...

<p>Bill Gates reckons he has already dropped a cool $1 billion on investments in renewable energy technologies. Now he’s looking to double that.</p> <p>Gates, who according to Forbes will still have at least $78 billion left even after he’s placed his new bets, said in an interview with the Financial Times that investing in radical, ‘wild-eyed’ energy tech companies is the only way that the world is going to get the solution to climate change at an affordable economic cost.</p>

  Bill Gates' Dream for a Nuclear-Powered Future Is Almost Here By Maxx Chatsko | More Articles | Save For Later March 4, 2014 | Comments (1) Is this the future of clean energy? Source: TerraPower.Things may be different today, but in its heyday, Microsoft was a game-changing company that forever altered the way the world interacted with computers. The creative genius and foresight of Bill Gates has paid off in a significant way: He's the wealthiest person in the world with a net worth of $76 billion, according to Forbes. While Gates still advises Microsoft, he has turned much of his...

Bill Gates has invested some of his considerable fortune in a nuclear reactor developer that is promising to deliver cheaper power while operating more safely and dramatically reducing radioactive waste.