TerraPower is the first spin-off of Intellectual Ventures, and Bill Gates is the principal owner of TerraPower, although there are others who have a level of ownership.…our group looked at renewable sources of energy to see if they could be counted on to provide for the needs of the United States and the planet. We advocate the pursuit of renewable sources of energy, but the fact is that they just can’t provide the electric power that the world will need. That is why we will unfortunately end up burning even more coal, which has its well-known environmental problems, unless we use nuclear. – John Gilleland
I’m continuing to research the Terrapower story - first post here. Bill Gates investment doesn’t mean this is the best Gen IV+ reactor design, but it is very encouraging to see private funds at risk on a concept that appears to be very early stage (compared to the very well-developed Integral Fast Reactor (IFR)).
And it is very encouraging to see that the Terrapower CEO is willing to speak “tr
uth to power” by revealing what every serious student of energy policy knows - that the consequence of the environmental activists focus on renewables is more and more coal generation. When American president Obama starts exhorting exactly this truth from his bully pulpit then I would have some confidence that serious solutions are again on the table.The above quotation is from an interview with Terrapower CEO John Gilleland in the April 2008 Nuclear News. From the interview we gain a few more small insights into the reactor design.
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