Bill Gates’ Terrapower Project And The Traveling Wave Reactor | Answers With Joe
You can get a free quote at http://lumerit.com/answerswithjoe . It’s the easy way to find out how much college will cost you, and what earning your degree will look like.
Bill Gates has become one of the most powerful philanthropists in the world through the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, and one of the projects he’s supported is a company called Terrapower, which is researching and building a new type of nuclear reactor, known as the Traveling Wave Reactor, that could provide 80% of our energy needs for the next 1000 years.
Here’s Bill Gates’ Ted Talk: Innovating to Zero:
https://youtu.be/JaF-fq2Zn7I
Get a T-shirt!
http://www.answerswithjoe.com/shirts
Support me on Patreon!
http://www.patreon.com/answerswithjoe
Follow me at all my places!
Instagram: https://instagram.com/answerswithjoe
Snapchat: https://www.snapchat.com/add/answerswithjoe
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/answerswithjoe
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/answerswithjoe
@robheusd
August 30, 2026 at 1:02 am
What makes this a bad idea is that Bill Gates is involved with it…
@christophergrove4876
August 30, 2026 at 1:02 am
🇨🇦/🇺🇸… 1000 years, huh?? EXCEPT that our inability to shed heat from our planet could mean a waste heat build up by SO MUCH that our oceans will boil in 400 years. (as per Thomas W Murphy -University of California, San Diego)
@aitorinarra
August 30, 2026 at 1:02 am
Is nuclear waist Highly radioactive for thousands of years ? I keep hearing this but I think it’s wrong. The high radiation comes from the fission products, which have half lives of a few hundred years. Plutonium and other transuranic elements are radioactive for thousands of years, but not dangerously. You can hold nuclear fuel in your hands before putting it in a nuclear reactor and it’s harmless. This means that nuclear waist stops being dangerous after only 200 or 300 years, even without processing. Do I have this wrong?
@Irishajw2
August 30, 2026 at 1:02 am
It was 100 trillion worth of electricity
@subliminalcastillo2126
August 30, 2026 at 1:02 am
Wind power: $20/MWh
Solar power: $37/MWh
Hydro power: $85/MWh
Coal power: $102/MWh
Nuclear power: $174/MWh
🙂
@hotjamsm07
August 30, 2026 at 1:02 am
anything that is radio active is in reality a fuel, just need to right tool/reactor to unlock it.
@ThinkingInTheAir
August 30, 2026 at 1:02 am
His new type of nuclear plant that he wants to build or is building it's going to happen it's going to be built out of cheap concrete At this point is going to be put up within just 7 years when a normal nuclear plant takes 30 years or more, comma and the type of reactor hes building will explode if it's exposed to water or air
@ThinkingInTheAir
August 30, 2026 at 1:02 am
Bill Gates didn't just get on board with Terra power he owns it. That period he found in the company. And he has a huge financial interest in nuclear and that is the reason they're pushing this highly dangerous and stupid source of energy. Just like they are pushing vaccinations. It is all about profit to these people. Do not get confused and really believe this man is innovative and superior in superior and out to save the world as some humanitarian because that's not accurate
@zehrajafri9252
August 30, 2026 at 1:02 am
The planet and ecosystem is collapsing we need these energy producer's. It's the only hope for humanity. Great job👍👍
@TaruOwO
August 30, 2026 at 1:02 am
I’d buy a fern 🙂
@pku2
August 30, 2026 at 1:02 am
The traveling wave reactor is NOT cooled by molten salt. It is cooled by liquid sodium. This adds risk and cost to mitigate the risk. It does use a molten salt thermal reservoir but it that is an auxiliary feature of the external power plant and not part of the reactor itself. I don’t know why they chose liquid sodium cooling rather than molten salt. Perhaps they will iterate another version that is cooled by molten salt and thus takes that risk and cost out of the reactor. Even as designed using liquid sodium coolant, it’s a huge advance over our current fleet of antiquated pressurized water reactors.
@timkunk3498
August 30, 2026 at 1:02 am
We have figured ot Fusion.
We have not figured out how to control it!
No one wants to be near a sun, if we lose control.
@luke-alex
August 30, 2026 at 1:02 am
0:33 You got your wish Joe. Lots of people are talking about Bill Gates now. Are you happy?
@lloydshanks
August 30, 2026 at 1:02 am
Terrapower keeps talking about their Natrium reactor lately. Is that the same thing?
@timwood5143
August 30, 2026 at 1:02 am
I find it highly suspicious that bill gates owns so much farm land in the US. Doesnt it seem funny how the media listens to bill gates about medical information considering he got rich from computers. Lets not forget what he did to children in Africa anf India.
@midnightrambler8866
August 30, 2026 at 1:02 am
…….and Elon Musk's efforts to help humanity always makes him money. As if he doesn't have enough.
@dabberd6203
August 30, 2026 at 1:02 am
Joe, you should do an article on the CANDU nuclear reactors. They used natural uranium as a fuel and were a lot safer than PWRs. The technology was developed 40 years ago and a number of these reactors were built. Unfortunately, being a Canadian design (CANDU stands for Canadian Deuterium Uranium) they weren't taken seriously 😕 . It's another example of an alternative technology that got pushed to the side (not that I'm biased or anything eh).
@Skinnymarks
August 30, 2026 at 1:02 am
I want to know how this reactor cant melt down.
@gernblenstein1541
August 30, 2026 at 1:02 am
You know, there are ways for us to tell whether you're a witch. How much do you weigh?
@Chobaca
August 30, 2026 at 1:02 am
Money was no option?…
@SC-tl3px
August 30, 2026 at 1:02 am
Bill Gates and Warren Buffett got an 80 million dollar government handout for this. Gates is such an amazing philanthropist…
@Seriouspatt
August 30, 2026 at 1:02 am
Nuclear is not carbon free. Mining of input material, construction of facilities, storage and maintenance of burned out nuclear rods are not carbon free processes.
And no, it is not safe as you say. It is safe MOST of the time and then (literally) BOOM, there goes an area of the size of hundreds of square kilometers that's uninhabitable for decades if not longer.
@bartjuwet750
August 30, 2026 at 1:02 am
I don't agree when You say that the core of a travelling wave reactor in which the heavy metal is in solid phase can not melt. Solid materials can melt, liquids, gases and plasmas not.
@bartjuwet750
August 30, 2026 at 1:02 am
FYI: thorium reactors will be by definition breeder reactors, as the Th232 cycle is very comparable with the U238 cycle. Th232 is not fissile, it is fertile. By neutron capture it becomese Th233, which decays to Pa233 and which then decays to the fissile U233, which compares to U238 capturing a neutron and becoming in that way U239, decaying to Np239,decaying to Pu239. Even the half life times are very comparable.
@jianfabentsai2438
August 30, 2026 at 1:02 am
If Mr Bill Gates want to create clean energy via nuclear power plant for the best interests of humanity without profit, then thinking like a male and fellow capitalis…I mean entrepreneur (tight, tight, tight), simply gift the nuclear power research data, plans, and scientists to the US government and her NASA homies (though perhaps allegedly the US government, misdirect to cybercriminals already sequester the fruits of the research), as with US military might and almost infinite resources, they can realise and significantly improve on Bill's Terrapower project for the betterment of US citizens where the US government will create government linked companies to sell to other countries for quadrillion US dollars of profits per year. Common Cents. 🙂
@sbg3608
August 30, 2026 at 1:02 am
NOTE: THE % OF WASTE PER WATT PRODUCED IS REALLY REALLY SMALL.
@desperado3236
August 30, 2026 at 1:02 am
Barring thst this is funded by gates, who i just cant seem to trust; this is something we rly need.
A way to not only use the more abundant uranium 235; making it even cheaper but also reusing all that toxic waste… that would be a game changer for nuc fission and would make it better then everything else till we completely master fusion.
Will we actually be able to do this at a reasonable cost? Time will tell but its great theyre working on this.
@desperado3236
August 30, 2026 at 1:02 am
Maybe its just me but i just cant bring myself to trust gates. No matter how humanitarian and philanthropic he seems, it feels like a cover. I guess im like this with most billionaires where you doubt their sincerity but its especially with gates cuz he was founder of microsoft and tech savvy then most. So just like i dont trust microsoft, who seem to like to spy on you and money grubb, gates made them who they are so he seems to me even worse.
I dont know why i feel this way, i mean i cant explain it but thats the feeling i get though there is prolly little evidence to support it.
Of course everyone else is free to disagree and call me crazy but im very skeptical of anything he does. Hell alot of billionares actually.