The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued its first construction permit in eight years for a commercial nuclear reactor.
The permit will allow TerraPower (an aptly named) nuclear technology company, founded by Gates in 2006 to build a sodium-cooled reactor in western Wyoming
The Microsoft co-founder has been eyeing nuclear generation as a power source for the electricity-hungry data centers behind artificial intelligence, is not only the founder but TerraPower’s primary investor.
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The project is reportedly worth $4 billion and is expected to be completed by 2030.
Yahoo News reports: The new plant will be situated very close to a former coal plant that has been converted to burn methane gas, AP News reported. It is also 130 miles from Salt Lake City.
Once it is built and put into commission, the reactor is expected to have an everyday capacity of 345 megawatts. When pushed to its limits, it will produce almost 500 megawatts.
That amount of electricity, enough to power about 400,000 homes, is expected to help lower the rising cost of electricity in the area caused by the construction of AI data centers.
Since it is being generated with nuclear power, it also isn’t associated with a significant amount of air pollution, the way that fuel sources such as methane and oil are. This means it can be a tool in the fight to cool down the planet, which has been superheated when warmth has been trapped inside the atmosphere by air pollution.
Nuclear power does also have some drawbacks, such as the fact that it creates a small amount of long-lasting radioactive waste that must be safely disposed of.
However, it also makes up for some of the weaknesses of clean energy sources: it can generate power at any time, night and day, in any weather, unlike solar and wind power, which require battery storage to meet 24/7 demand. This means that while it is not the ultimate goal of a transition away from polluting fuels, it is a useful option in the short term.
And according to TerraPower, this reactor would actually produce less waste than older models, making it an even better idea, per AP News.
