A few years ago a couple of fairly well respected scientists, Martin Fleishman and Stanley Pons announced to great fan fare that they had created a positive result cold fusion process in a jar on a tabletop. The basis of their experiment was the electrolysis of heavy water with a palladium anode. The premise of their experiment was that they could by means of a controlled and safe fusion environment create more energy from there device than it required to operate. This would amount to an energy perpetual motion machine.
Well, no other scientist on Earth was able to duplicate Fleishman and Pons’ results. In fact they were just about laughed out of the world of science. Cold fusion was and remains a scientific pipe dream.

Now it seems another group of bright fellows are offering a different sort of self perpetuating nuclear power. And these fellows are backed by the world’s richest man, Bill Gates. The company that Gates has thrown a relatively small portion of his wealth into is called Terrapower. They are headquartered about a stone’s throw from Gates’ Seattle Microsoft empire.
The main premise of the Terrapower research is development if hyper fast nuclear reactors that can use spent nuclear waste from current nuclear facilities as fuel. Obviously this would be a problem solving vehicle on many levels. It would provide a means to get rid of current nuclear waste which presently is being temporarily stored underground. It would also end the worlds need for new Uranium supplies which like just about every other nonrenewable resource for energy will eventually run out. Another important benefit of the super efficient nuclear power production plan is that it would not require enriched Uranium thus lowering the risk of misuse for weapons construction.

The Terrapower research has been labeled just as ridiculous as the 1989 cold fusion experiment. Honestly that is hardly the case. Development of a new breed of more efficient nuclear reactors is certainly implausible but definitely not impossible.
Bill Gates has openly expressed his belief that technology can end the Earth’s mass pollution with the creation of 100% clean energy sourcing. Terrapower hopes to have working models within 15 years. Gates has also invested heavily in advances in wind and solar power. It is true that Gates would like to us to find a magic pill that cures the Earth’s energy consumption result woes and rarely do such miracles occur. But, we should remember that science has long been a wellspring of miracles.