The billionaires bankrolling the hunt for nuclear energy’s ‘holy grail’
24 October 2024 6:30am BST
In the shadow of an old coal plant in Wyoming, Bill Gates is bankrolling what he hopes is the future of nuclear energy.
Terrapower, a start-up that the Microsoft billionaire started in 2006, wants to build reactors that will bring down the cost of nuclear power to previously unheard of levels.
According to the company, its reactors will be smaller, safer and cheaper to make than traditional power stations because of efficiencies gained by manufacturing their constituent parts in factories.
Gates, who published a book on climate change in 2021, is championing nuclear energy as a solution to reaching the world’s net zero climate targets, as well as to meeting the prodigious electricity needs of Silicon Valley as companies develop ever more complex artificial intelligence (AI) software.
Terrapower broke ground on its Wyoming site in June and has said it expects to finish construction in five years, assuming it secures regulatory approvals.
Pictured holding a shovel with other executives in June, Gates said: “I believe Terrapower’s next-generation nuclear energy will power the future of our nation – and the world.”
The company is just one of several start-ups that are shaking up the nuclear industry after decades of relative stagnation.
The push by “big tech” into AI is creating massive and growing demand for power, triggering a round of frantic deal-making as companies battle for uninterrupted supplies. Nuclear has emerged as a favoured option.
That was swiftly followed by announcements this month that Google had ordered up to seven mini-nuclear reactors from Kairos Power, another start-up, and that Amazon was supporting rival X-Energy to build another four in Washington state.
Around the world, a plethora of upstart companies are hoping to ride the wave with their own small reactor designs, including NuScale, Holtec, Last Energy and Ultra Safe Nuclear. They are competing against larger industry incumbents such as GE Hitachi, Westinghouse and Britain’s Rolls-Royce.
Some businesses want to deploy old technology, such as water and gas-cooled reactors, in new ways. Others are looking at designs not widely used yet, such as molten salt or liquid metal-cooled reactors.
It has kindled hopes that private enterprise could shake up the previously state-dominated nuclear industry, in an echo of how Elon Musk has revolutionised rocket travel.
Gates is one of several big hitters to have entered the fray, with investment guru Warren Buffett joining him as an investor in Terrapower.
Meanwhile, X-Energy’s backers include Kam Ghaffarian, the billionaire behind space start-ups Axiom Space and Intuitive Machines, and Ken Griffin, the boss of US hedge fund Citadel.
Peter Thiel, the Donald Trump-supporting billionaire who founded PayPal, has also backed a nuclear fuel start-up through his Founders Fund vehicle.
“Big tech is forcing an industry that is used to moving at a glacial pace to move at warp speed,” says Ben Finegold, a nuclear analyst at London-based investment house Ocean Wall.
“There’s going to be a conflict where someone’s going to have to have to budge, and I think it’s going to be the nuclear industry – because the technology companies are going to throw tens of billions of dollars at this.”