To: FJB who wrote (185 ) 12/24/2014 9:33:11 AM From: FJB Respond to Terrapower en.wikipedia.org TerraPower is a nuclear reactor design spin-off company of Intellectual Ventures that is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington , in the United States . TerraPower is investigating a class of nuclear fast reactors called the traveling wave reactor (TWR). One of TerraPower's primary investors is Bill Gates . [1] Gates' investment is reportedly in the tens of millions of dollars. Other key investors are Venture-capital firms Charles River Ventures and Khosla Ventures , who reportedly invested $35 million in 2010. [2] TerraPower is led by chief executive officer, John Gilleland, a member of the American Nuclear Society . [3] In December 2011 India's Reliance Industries bought a minority stake through one of its subsidiaries. Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani will join the company's board. [4] TerraPower also works with Los Alamos National Laboratory who hopes this partnership will help strengthen and expand their science and energy programs. [5] Whereas standard light water reactors such as PWRs or BWRs running worldwide use enriched uranium as fuel and need fuel reloads every few years, TWRs, once started, use depleted uranium instead and are considered to be able to operate for between 40 to 60 years without fuel reloading. Traveling wave reactor en.wikipedia.org nuclear transmutation in tandem with the burnup of fissile material. TWRs differ from other kinds of fast-neutron and breeder reactors in their ability to use fuel efficiently without uranium enrichment or reprocessing, instead directly using depleted uranium, natural uranium, thorium, spent fuel removed from light water reactors, or some combination of these materials.
