Intellectual Ventures

The Need for Innovation in Energy

Intellectual Ventures’ investments in energy inventions have evolved to become TerraPower^™, an expert team that is investigating innovative ways to address energy needs. TerraPower’s most advanced work centers on radically improving ways to make electricity using nuclear reactors.

TerraPower’s innovative reactor designs could avoid the well-known limitations of current plants, nearly all of which employ nuclear reactor technology that dates back to the 1950s. Today’s reactor designs require rare, enriched uranium fuel, but can extract only a small fraction of the energy from that fuel. As a result, these reactors produce too much waste, consume too much of our dwindling and increasingly costly uranium resources, and require frequent and expensive refueling.

The TerraPower initiative is advancing a comprehensive program to improve the technology of reliable nuclear plants. Its business approach presents an important alternative towards the creation of a financially and socially attractive emission-free energy that is safe and sustainable.