Why Bill Gates Is Bullish on Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear Energy
“If we don’t build 100 reactors, we won’t make a significant contribution to climate,” Gates says on Zero, where he also talks AI and a potential Trump return.
Bill Gates at the Global Solutions Summit in Berlin in May.
Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg
Earlier this month, Terrapower, the energy company Bill Gates founded in 2008, began work on a new nuclear plant in Kemmerer, Wyoming. The project, which was dogged by regulatory delays, has been a long time coming. It will provide new jobs to a tiny historic coal town that is hoping to push its economy into the future.
The new reactor is also notable because of its design. Instead of using water to cool its reactors, it uses sodium. Gates anticipates the design change will make for safer and cheaper reactors — opening the door for a new nuclear renaissance.