02-02 Super Heroes

Bill Gates and Elon Musk are to me, super heroes. The two continue to imagine and develop world class stuff. I have enjoyed a great life developing systems using the software tools created by Bill Gates decades ago. And I’m still doing it.
For this chapter, I’d like to focus on Bill Gates who, in his retirement, has been directing his enormous wealth to areas that can make a serious difference. One key effort is his passion for helping Africa eliminate poverty. Which leads to his thesis that these poor countries need uninterrupted power/electricity to move their societies forward. Accordingly he chairs a serious initiative to produce nuclear energy in a form that is more affordable, secure and environmentally friendly.
The focal point of the R&D for the new reactor is a firm called TerraPower. What is interesting about his technology is that is uses the waste products of our current nuclear systems, ie spent Uranium.
The arguments for this version of nuclear power generation is compelling when we study how are current electrical systems pump out vast amounts of CO2 (coal, gas, etc) or are intermittent (solar, wind, etc).
Here’s the problem, and why this chapter is included in this Cold War series.
The West is not very pro-nuclear. The amount of nuclear stations under construction in North America over the past three decades have been abysmally low with regulatory challenges massive. China, on the other hand, has 44 in production and 13 under construction.
Accordingly Mr Gates logically wanted to test his new Nuclear Reactor where nuclear energy was embraced. So quite recently, he cracked a deal with China and the future for TerraPower looked incredible.
Until President Trump banned the transfer of such technologies. A shock to TerraPower and the outlook for this new reactor.
Determining whether or not the President’s move was prudent is beyond my paygrade. My gut tells me that it was prudent and hopefully the President will work with Mr. Gates and TerraPower to help develop this technology in the US. Then everybody would win, except possibly the Chinese.