An Underground Nuclear Reactor Powered by Bill Gates' Money [Nuclear Power]

A unit of Intellectual Ventures—the patent firm started by ex-Microsoft chief tech dude Nathan Myhrvold and funded partly by Bill Gates—called TerraPower is talking with Toshiba about using its nuclear reactor tech to build underground reactors.

Their reactor tech supposedly can 'run for decades on depleted uranium without refueling or removing spent fuel from the device.' So, these reactors are built way, way underground, without people actually working in them. Of course, these safer, cheaper and awesomer reactors are years and years away from actually being developed.

Still, Bill Gates + nuclear power sounds kind of nerdsexy, maybe more so than the nigh-mythical Bloom Box, even if you're ambivalent about what Intellectual Ventures actually does (just Google—or Bing—"Intellectual Ventures patent troll"). And, hopefully, we won't see any blue smoke screens coming out of windows in the ground.
[Gizmodo via WSJ, Image via bibliodyssey/Flickr]

Posted in: Bill Gates, Intellectual Ventures, Nuclear, Power Generation, TerraPower, Toshiba, Underground