Professor Soon Heung Chang meets with Bill Gates

Bill Gates, the co-founder and former CEO of Microsoft, is widely known as one of the world’s billionaires. Gates has been also acknowledged as the world’s greatest philanthropist since he has devoted his money and reputation to tackle global health issues and raise awareness of his charity’s work after he stepped down as Microsoft CEO. In addition to titles such as a pioneer of personal computing and world’s leading philanthropist, Bill Gates could also be referred to as a pathfinder for an energy future as he is investing in the research and development of clean energy.

As Gates sees the energy future in carbon-free nuclear power, he has invested in TerraPower to support the development of the traveling wave reactor (TWR). In this circumstance, Prof. Soon Heung Chang, president of Korea Nuclear Society (KNS), and a delegation from KNS met with Bill Gates at Terra Power’s Seattle headquarters, on August 16, 2012, to discuss the cooperation between KNS and TerraPower for the development of a generation-IV sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR).

Dr. Soon Heung Chang, a professor of Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and an expert among experts who has devoted more than 30 years to working in the nuclear power field, briefly introduced Korea’s perspectives on nuclear power and had a conversation with Bill Gates.

According to Prof. Chang, Gates was amazed at Korea’s successful bids for nuclear power plants in the United Arab Emirates, even though Korea was a late mover in the field of nuclear power field and with rather limited resources. Also, according to Prof. Chang, Gates showed a keen interest in Korea’s low electricity rates.

“I have witnessed Bill Gates’ deep affection for this world and strong will to deal with global issues during the meeting with him. His attitude, passion, and love for humanity are truly an inspiration to the rest of us.” Prof. Chang appreciated Bill Gate’s hands-on and proactive attitude towards the challenge.

All over the world, including in the developing countries, billions of people are living unprivileged lives due to energy shortage. Gates focuses on solving fundamental problems through infrastructure development rather than short-term temporary solutions. Particularly, Gates considers nuclear power as the most effective way of supplying clean energy which can provide electricity at a lower cost than renewable energy while keeping carbon dioxide emission levels much lower than fossil fuels.

“TerraPower’s TWR is to use metallic fuel and Korea is the only country that currently develops SFR (KALIMER 600) using metallic fuel. Moreover, Korea has an outstanding supply chain for the entire lifecycle of a nuclear power station from equipment manufacturing to operation,” said Prof. Chang, while emphasizing the synergistic effects of partnership between Korea and TerraPower.

Korea would be a perfect partner for TerraPower’s current development of TWR in terms of research, development, and demonstration of technologies. Accordingly, Bill Gates and TerraPower are interested in teaming up with Korea to develop the advanced SFR.

Prof. Chang emphasized that Korea should create an opportunity based on lessons learned from the Fukushima crisis and actively move forward to achieve its leading position in the field of next generation nuclear reactors. Prof. Chang said that cooperation with Bill Gates will be a significant step towards the development of next generation nuclear reactors.