- Bill Gates is optimistic about the future of American nuclear power thanks to bipartisan support.
- Gates is building a power plant in Wyoming with TerraPower, a company he cofounded.
- Nuclear energy is the largest clean power source in the US and a key to fueling AI development.
The forecast looks bright for American nuclear energy, Bill Gates says.
The billionaire former Microsoft CEO is already building a nuclear power plant in Wyoming with TerraPower, a company he cofounded.
The company intends to take its nuclear power plant online in 2030, Business Insider previously reported, and Gates is "quite confident" the project will move forward regardless of who wins the White House or the Congressional majority in November.
"Their support for nuclear power is very impressive in both parties," Gates told CBS News on "Face the Nation" on Sunday. "Of all the climate-related work I'm doing, I'd say the one that has the most bipartisan energy behind it is actually this nuclear work."
He noted the reasons each party supports nuclear "may not be identical." Republicans value energy security and exports, he said, while Democrats value both those issues and clean energy.
"Nuclear really is a special," he told CBS. "Not because it's green, there are people who don't value that part of it all, I wish they would. They value it because of the US leadership. And you really don't want the nuclear reactors around the world, made by our adversaries, because it's economically a huge job creator."
Nuclear energy is considered the largest source of clean power in the United States and is responsible for nearly half of the nation's emissions-free electricity, according to the Office of Nuclear Energy, a US government agency.
It's produced in nuclear reactors through atomic fission, in which subatomic particles called neutrons collide with full atoms, forcing them to split in two. This process releases tons of heat, which is used to boil water and produce steam. That steam is then routed through the nuclear reactor's steam system to spin turbines and produce electricity.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have worked to bolster the nuclear energy industry this year.
In March, the House of Representatives passed the ADVANCE Act, which will expand the use of nuclear energy in the United States and abroad. President Joe Biden also signed a law in March that allocates $100 million to nuclear workforce training programs at universities, two-year colleges, and trade schools.
This renewed focus on nuclear energy also comes as the development of AI surges. Tech companies like OpenAI are increasingly looking for cleaner, greener forms of energy to meet the huge power demands of their data centers.