TerraPower reactor image

Backers of a Bellevue-based project to build a new type of nuclear reactor are raising its public profile amid signs that the Obama administration is growing more open to nuclear energy.

In recent weeks, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates — who is providing financial backing to the TerraPower project — has sung its praises in public presentations and interviews as an energy source that does not contribute to global warming. TerraPower says it has made progress in computer modeling and design work and is moving toward seeking out partners to develop its plans.

TerraPower — which was born at Intellectual Ventures, a firm headed by former Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Nathan Myhrvold — is one of several projects looking to take advantage of President Barack Obama’s recent embrace of nuclear power.

In his State of the Union speech last month, the president called for a “new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants,” and just approved $8.3 billion in loan guarantees to build two new nuclear reactors in Georgia. They would be the first new reactors on U.S. soil in nearly three decades.

Myhrvold’s team faces a lengthy, multi-year process to get its “traveling wave” reactor concept reviewed by regulators. But the group hopes its model, which envisions using depleted uranium as fuel, will resonate with policymakers who have long grappled with how to deal with nuclear waste. And the project has an unparalleled backer in Gates, who has the public profile and deep pockets to push the initiative forward.

If TerraPower succeeds in advancing its plans — still a big “if” at the moment — it could provide an alternative blueprint for the nuclear industry at a time when new reactors may be coming online. It could also boost the profile of Intellectual Ventures.

The firm, which collects thousands of technology patents and licenses them to industry, has been labeled by critics as a “patent troll” that hinders innovation. Intellectual Ventures has lately been emphasizing its own in-house invention efforts, which include TerraPower, a hurricane-suppression system and a stratoshield to combat global warming.

All commercial nuclear reactors in the United States today are light water reactors that run on enriched uranium (uranium enriched to increase the concentration of an atom, U-235, that is easily split to produce energy). The byproduct of the enrichment process is depleted uranium, vast stores of which exist in the United States. By using depleted uranium as fuel, TerraPower says it can tap a cheap and plentiful fuel source while also helping to dispose of waste.

Today, TerraPower is organized as a separate legal entity, but still draws its 30-member staff from Intellectual Ventures. The TerraPower team has done simulation work with a supercomputer cluster housed in a former furniture store in Bellevue and worked in partnership with engineering firm Burns and Roe on a design for a 1,200-megawatt reactor. Now the project is beginning to turn its attention to potential partners.

“It’s a couple of billion dollars at least to build a nuclear power plant of this scale regardless of what design you use,” said Eben Frankenberg, executive vice president at Intellectual Ventures, who is playing a role in developing TerraPower. “Clearly we’re not going to do that on our own.”

Some of the big companies involved in nuclear energy are General Electric; Areva, of France; and Toshiba Corp., of Japan. Frankenberg declined to name potential partners, but said TerraPower is looking beyond the United States.

“Some of the recent news is very encouraging in terms of a potential nuclear renaissance in the U.S., but there are other countries that are being aggressive about new plants and new designs,” Frankenberg said. “The Chinese and Indians are both being more aggressive than the U.S., and they have dramatic energy needs.”

Gates, who is deeply involved in global health work through his private foundation, has shown a growing interest in nuclear and other energy technologies that could potentially meet the power needs of the world’s poor without contributing to global warming. Now he’s talking up TerraPower as a possible “energy miracle.”

“You have a greatly improved cost profile, you actually burn up the waste and you can use as fuel all the leftover waste from today’s reactors,” Gates told a crowd this month at the TED2010 technology conference in Long Beach, Calif. “In terms of fuel, this really solves the problem.”

Nuclear power, which supplies roughly 20 percent of electricity in the United States, is generating new interest because it does not produce carbon emissions linked to global warming. But nuclear energy is still associated with high-profile accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, and remains mired in safety concerns.

The “traveling wave” concept championed by TerraPower envisions a reactor that would use a small amount of enriched uranium at the start, and then run on depleted uranium or natural, unenriched uranium for up to 60 years or more without the need for refueling. The concept originated decades ago with Edward Teller, an American physicist known as the “father of the hydrogen bomb,” but has never been put into practice.

TerraPower isn’t the only company seeking to develop new reactor models. General Atomics, of San Diego, and NuScale Power, of Corvallis, Ore., are among firms working on new designs.

But the involvement of Gates sets TerraPower apart, said Andrew Klein, professor of nuclear engineering and radiation health physics at Oregon State University, in Corvallis, Ore.

“To take an idea all the way through the design phase and then providing enough information to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to review and certify design is a very expensive process,” Klein said. “So having someone with very deep pockets like Bill Gates is a great advantage.”

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