Bill Gates's TerraPower working with Chinese National Nuclear Corporation to build nuclear prototype

The Breakthrough

TerraPower is developing a traveling wave reactor that uses depleted uranium as fuel. The prototype plant to be built in chance will be 600 MWe, and there are hopes to build a commercial-scale version that outputs 1150 MWe.

The Implications

Nuclear technology could address many of the world's energy needs but there is always the problem of waste. The TerraPower reactor would simplify some of those issues, and it sounds like China is interested. They expect the prototype to be completed between 2018 and 2023, with actual commercial plants possible in the late 2020s.