TerraPower, a company that develops reactors powered by depleted uranium, is in talks with Toshiba in view of developing a small nuclear reactor.
TerraPower is a unit of Intellectual Ventures, a patent holding investment firm partially backed by Bill Gates and run out of Bellevue, Wash., by former Microsoft executive, Nathan Myhrvold. Japan’s Nihon Keizai Shimbun first reported the news.
In this recent interview with Cnet News Gates discusses his investments in cleantech and in TerraPower.
A Toshiba spokesman confirmed the discussions, reports the Wall Street Journal. He said the talks were at an early stage.
TerraPower’s reactors initially start operating on a small amount of uranium but then run for decades on the uranium’s waste products.
The Obama administration is eager to have the country build nuclear reactors again, after a thirty-year hiatus. Last month the Department of Energy announced $8 billion in loan guarantee to support the construction of new reactors.
TerraPower is not the sole developer of small, next-generation reactors. NuScale Power, backed by CMEA, and General Atomics are both working on a small nuclear reactor that would also run on spent fuel.