FEATURE: Nuclear Travelling Wave Reactors - Can Bill Gates Save the World?

What would you do if you were the richest person alive? New car? New house, huge TV, pool and gym? Well, Bill Gates is one of the richest human beings on the face of the planet, and has enjoyed that privilege for many years now, so he probably has all of those things. But what’s amazing is what he’s spending the majority of his money on now.

Bill has reached an interesting point in his life, it is pretty much impossible for him to spend all of his fortune before he dies- he’s just that rich. So, he has nobly decided to focus his efforts on leaving this planet in a better way than he found it. Let's get one thing clear: this is not just about generically pumping money into random charities; he is actually making serious, real efforts to revolutionise YOUR life. How?

At the moment, you have a problem- a BIG problem. As a species we are putting out an average of 5 tonnes of co2 emissions per person. If you are American, that figure rises to about 20. And every gram of co2 that we put out (above and beyond that which we exhale) contributes to raising the planets average temperature, which is a dangerous game to play. Bill Gates advocates that we shouldn't be looking for better ways to play the game, he's pushing for us to stop altogether; reduce carbon emissions to zero.

The key difference between this and other "green" efforts is that Bill Gates actually has the technical connection, personal passion, business experience and financial clout to actually fix this HUGE planet-wide issue within our lifetime. In other words - Bill isn't just looking to "raise awareness", he's looking to fix the problem himself. And he has a damn good chance of doing it.

Bill is funding development of a new method of producing energy, one which solves all of our current problems. He is financing a company called TerraPower, based in Bellevue, Washington. TerraPower are researching advanced Nuclear technology and fuels.

See, Nuclear power that we currently have has a few major problems. Most obviously, Chernobyl-like incidents are, to say the least, a problem. Also, there is the fact that the fuels and technologies of current-gen Nuclear power stations can be weaponized. And we must not forget that Nuclear waste is a big issue. Plus you have the fact that enriching Uranium for fuel, and even just opening the reactor to put the fuel in are expensive and cumbersome tasks.

The solution that TerraPower are developing is based on a technology known as Travelling Wave Reaction.

The idea is that you put a small amount of enriched fuel into the reactor, and it sets off a different kind of chain reaction to the normal nuclear process; one which slowly converts standard nuclear waste into the fuel that it needs.

So you can instantly see the benefit - all the Nuclear waste which is currently being stored around the world suddenly goes from being a dangerous space-waste into useful, cheap fuel. Virtually no mining or refinery required.

Reactor Design

Nuclear reactors based on such designs "theoretically could run for a couple of hundred years" without refueling, says John G­illeland, manager of nuclear programs at Intellectual Ventures.

That's quite a step forward. Usually with Nuclear reactor technology, fuel is enriched by taking mined Uranium and stripping out 'none-fissile' elements such as U238, leaving pure U235. this means that there are vast stockpiles of U238 sat rotting. The new process uses a small amount of U235 to initiate a chemical reaction which actually converts the useless U238 into something entirely different - Plutonium-239. This type of Plutonim is fissile, and is used as fuel.

One of the greatest advantages of this method is that the conversion process is instantaneous; the U238 (useless for bomb-making) is immediately converted then burned, leaving no room for fuel to be extracted and used as weapons-grade material.

The essential theory for this has been in existence for over 20 years, however it is only recently that TerraPower have come up with a workable design for the reactor, and have begun actively developing the systems, processes and technologies needed to implement it.

So it is great that Bill Gates is using his vast wealth to drive this new technology through towards completion. We have to remember that all of our technological progress relies on us having a clean, reliable, sustainable energy production cycle as a civilisation. We cannot switch to electric cars until our electricity is no longer sourced from fossil fuels, otherwise we are simply moving the problem.

Be sure to check out the video on TED of Bill's conference, and look at the TerraPower website for updates on progress.