Gates Goes Nuclear: Billionaire Backs Fledgling Mini-Reactor Technology

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By Andrew Moseman
Mar 25, 2010 12:43 AMNov 20, 2019 4:11 AM
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Let's give Bill Gates some credit: Retiring from Microsoft with all the free time and money in the world, Gates could have launched any number of Montgomery Burns-ian schemes for world domination. Instead, the multi-billionaire went the philanthropist route, becoming one of DISCOVER's 10 most influential people in science through the health work his foundation funds. But a tinkerer is never done tinkering: In the last year Gates has patented an anti-hurricane device, given a few million dollars to fund geoengineering research, and then this week went public with his newest project: small-scale nuclear power. A Gates-backed start-up company called TerraPower in talks with Toshiba

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