(Tokyo) Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and the Japan Atomic Energy Agency have reached an agreement to participate in a next-generation nuclear energy project with TerraPower, a company founded by Bill Gates.
Posted at 12:19 a.m.
The memorandum of understanding calls for cooperation in the development of advanced nuclear technologies, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries said in a statement Thursday.
Located in Kemmerer, in the desert lands of western Wyoming, the project will use an unconventional sodium-cooled nuclear reactor. It will employ workers from a local coal-fired power plant, which is scheduled to close soon.
MHI, one of Japan’s largest industrial conglomerates, says it will provide technical support, including for reactor development.
“MHI will also bring the expertise and knowledge gained through this partnership to help advance nuclear innovation in Japan,” the company said in a statement.
It emphasizes that the company considers nuclear energy to be essential to achieving carbon neutrality in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in order to combat climate change.
For its part, TerraPower says it wants to make its plant useful for the development of the current energy network and the production of renewable energy. A salt heating “battery” would allow the plant to increase electricity production on demand, thus making it possible to compensate for drops in electricity during the absence of wind or solar energy.
The approach is not new. Russia has operated a commercial sodium-cooled reactor at full capacity since 2016, and such designs have been tested elsewhere in the United States.
Bill Gates, the famous co-founder of Microsoft, founded TerraPower in Bellevue, Washington, in 2008 and he chairs the board of directors.