Bill Gates is backing Wyoming's first nuclear plant
CBSN
A company backed by Bill Gates is planning to build a small nuclear power plant in Wyoming on the site of a coal-powered plant that is shutting down.
TerraPower this week announced that Kemmerer, Wyoming, would be the site of the first nuclear plant using its Natrium technology — a type of advanced nuclear technology that is designed to be smaller and more flexible in terms of output than current nuclear plants in the U.S. fleet.
The startup hopes that the $4 billion project, nearly half of which will be funded by the government, will serve as a proof of concept and lead to the deployment of many new nuclear plants, while adding reliable — and carbon-free — power to a grid that is shedding fossil fuels.
Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.