By Adrian Volenik – Yahoo Finance
Bill Gates is making big changes in the small town of Kemmerer, Wyoming, with a population of just about 2,400. Gates’ company TerraPower has started building what he calls “the most advanced nuclear facility in the world” in this tiny community.
This will be the first of the so-called Natrium plants, which promise to be safer, cheaper, and more efficient than traditional nuclear power plants. It is a groundbreaking project expected to provide clean, zero-carbon energy.
But Gates isn’t stopping at nuclear power. His energy investment firm, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, backed by other big names like Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, and Richard Branson, has just raised $839 million for a new climate fund called BEV III. This fund is part of Gates’ bigger plan to invest in technologies that can drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions. The fund will focus on five main areas: electricity, transportation, manufacturing, buildings, and food and agriculture.
Gates, who was the richest person in the world from 1995 to 2017, has been focusing on philanthropy, particularly vaccines, clean water, and sustainability. Due to these and other initiatives, he’s often in the spotlight and occasionally at the center of controversy.