Bill Gates new investor?

This new technology could save the troubled nuclear power industry

Monday 17 October 2016 00.30 AEDT

This new technology could save the troubled nuclear power industry
Small nuclear reactors, funded by investors like Bill Gates, are emerging in the US as cheaper, safer alternatives to traditional nuclear power plant designs

The future of the nuclear industry may happen somewhere on scenic but relatively isolated land that’s about 100 miles southwest of Yellowstone National Park. Amid the 890-square-mile Idaho National Laboratory campus, a plan is in motion to build a type of nuclear reactor unlike any that’s currently in use to produce electricity.
The plan belongs to Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, a consortium of 45 municipal agencies looking to replace their aging coal-fired plants. It won approval from the US Department of Energy earlier this year to scope out a site at the lab to analyze the environmental and safety impacts of what’s called the small nuclear reactor. If all goes well, the consortium plans to build a power plant there with 12 reactors totalling 600 megawatts in capacity.
The analysis is crucial for determining whether there’s a strong business case for building small nuclear reactors. The emerging technology is meant to create cheaper and safer nuclear power plants. Nuclear power plants emit no emissions, but existing designs have become too costly to be a popular solution for climate change. The new technology has gotten significant funding from investors such as Bill Gates.
The Utah group isn’t alone in investing in the new technology. In May, the Tennessee Valley Authority, which supplies power to nine million people in seven southeastern states, became the first utility to apply for a permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build a small nuclear reactor.
The name of the technology gives a good clue to its distinguishing characteristics. Unlike other nuclear reactors that usually produce about 1,000 megawatts of carbon-free electricity, the small modular reactors, like the ones Utah is planning, are designed to be a fraction of the size at 50 to 300 megawatts. Rather than using electrically operated pumps and motors to circulate coolant and keep the core of the nuclear reactor at a low temperature, as happens in traditional plants, small reactors use no pumps and motors and instead rely on passive means such as gravity and conduction to cool the reactors.