Bill Gates

Bill Gates is all in on nuclear power. Sixteen years ago, the mind behind Microsoft founded TerraPower with an equally visionary goal: to revolutionize America’s energy system and fight climate change. The company would do this with a seemingly simple solution: swapping water for liquid sodium as the reactor’s main cooling agent. And this summer construction began on its first power plant, in which Gates has invested $1 billion.

TerraPower’s plant will be smaller than traditional nuclear power facilities, and hopefully, safer. Sodium’s boiling point is eight times greater than water, meaning it can more efficiently transfer heat away from the reactor’s core. It also has a lower risk of explosion compared to water because it is able to operate at lower pressure levels. Of course, sodium is not without its drawbacks: it burns when it comes in contact with air, and explodes when it touches water, meaning any system it operates in must be contained; a leak could spell bad news. This June, the company broke ground on what may be the world’s first such reactor to test this technology. “While these first-of-a-kind projects can be big and risky, they are too important for our future to fail to act,” Gates wrote on his blog after the ground-breaking in Kemmerer, Wyo. If all goes to schedule, the plant will open in 2030.

But while the switch may not be turned on for at least five more years, the project is already transforming the local community. Kemmerer’s economy was once dominated by coal–a now dying industry as the country transitions to a clean economy. Today, TerraPower is providing new jobs—eventually up to 1,600—building a more sustainable future.