A new generation of nuclear reactors signed by Bill Gates

AFP and FS Bill Gates

Demonized by some, praised by others, nuclear energy is still at the heart of many projects. Recently, it is none other than Bill Gates who has been making headlines for his company TerraPower, founded in 2008. The idea is as simple as it is ambitious: to revolutionize nuclear reactors. 

Goodbye to the classic pressurized water reactors. The new-born, called Natrium, works using sodium as a coolant. As the media outlet SciencePost explains, this modification gives the reactor a boiling point more than eight times higher than that of water. As a result, it can “absorb more heat from the nuclear core while maintaining a constant pressure“. Also, “in the event of a power loss, sodium continues to absorb heat without reaching dangerous temperatures, thus reducing the risk of fusion “. 

In addition to this major innovation, Natrium boasts a molten salt energy storage system, which allows it to store a significant amount of energy. 

The project took a little while to get off the ground, but it is now a reality, thanks to a partnership between TerraPower and the United States Department of Energy worth up to two billion dollars. 

As reported by Média24, the founder of Microsoft has therefore embarked on the construction of a first reactor in Wyoming. 345 megawatts that should come out of the ground by 2030, if the skepticism of opponents does not melt enthusiasm. In fact, the independent group “Union of Concerned Scientists” has issued a warning concerning these reactors, which could not only present new challenges, and not reduce nuclear waste as planned. 

So, will these new reactors signed Gates truly be an energy revolution and capable of responding to the environmental challenges of the time ?  

As a reminder, an identical technology called Astrid on which France worked for many years under the aegis of the CEA, was abandoned in 2019 under the Macron era, following an arbitration concerning the priorities of the CEA. Recycling the used fuel present in large quantities at La Hague became a very uninteresting objective in view of the current price of fuel on the market… Interest when you hold us! 

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