ENERGY PLANS: Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is in discussions with China to jointly develop a new and safer kind of nuclear reactor. He says the idea is to create something cheap and safe with little waste.
THE VEHICLE: Gates has largely funded a company, TerraPower, to develop a Generation IV nuclear reactor that can run on depleted uranium.
THE PROMISES: TerraPower says its traveling wave reactor would run for decades on depleted uranium and produce significantly smaller amounts of nuclear waste than conventional reactors.
