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TerraPower

Gates-backed TerraPower pitches new nuclear tech

To leap to the next generation of nuclear power technology, Bill Gates-backed start-up TerraPower is approaching countries rather than individual utilities or financiers.

Gates last week disclosed that he brought up TerraPower's fourth-generation nuclear power technology with government officials at the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology during a visit to China. "TerrPower is having very good discussions with [China National Nuclear Corporation] and various people in the Chinese government," Gates told the Associated Press.

Bellevue, Wash.-based TerraPower then said that the company has visited energy experts in the U.S. France, India, Japan, Korea and … Read more

Gates-backed nuclear outfit TerraPower funded

TerraPower, a company seeking to commercialize a novel nuclear-power technology which has the enthusiastic backing of Bill Gates, has raised $35 million in venture funding.

Seattle-based TerraPower said on Monday that Charles River Ventures led the series B round, which also had money from Khosla Ventures.

TerraPower was spun out of Intellectual Ventures, the intellectual-property licensing company headed by Nathan Myryvold, to commercialize traveling-wave nuclear reactors.

The basic idea behind traveling-wave reactors is to use a small amount of enriched uranium and spent uranium fuel from traditional nuclear-power plants to produce electricity. Rather than needing to refuel every several years, … Read more

Toshiba eyes nuke alliance with Gates start-up

Reuters

Toshiba is in talks with a company backed by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates to jointly develop advanced nuclear reactors, the Japanese electronics maker said Tuesday.

The Japanese electronics maker, which is also the world's No. 3 chipmaker behind Intel and Samsung Electronics, added it will restart plans to build a factory to make NAND flash memory chips as the global economy recovers.

Toshiba, which owns U.S. nuclear firm Westinghouse, said it was in preliminary talks with the Gates-backed firm TerraPower to develop so-called traveling-wave reactors, which are designed to use depleted uranium as fuel and thought to hold … Read more