Bill Gates nuclear venture hits US restrictions on China deals

TerraPower LLC, a nuclear venture, led by Microsoft Corps founder Bill Gates, is seeking a new collaborator for early technology studies after new US rules have forced it to leave an agreement with China, the company's Wall Street Journal officials said.

TerraPower reached an agreement with the state-owned China National Nuclear Corp. in 2017 to build an experimental nuclear reactor south of Beijing. But Gates wrote in an essay released late last week that TerraPower cannot follow their plans in the face of new US restrictions on technology companies with China.

Bellevue, the Washington-based company is now uncertain which country it will attempt to pursue its technology, which is destined to use depleted uranium as a fuel for nuclear reactors to improve safety and cost, Journal officials say.

"We regroup," CEO Chris Levesque told Journal in an interview. "Maybe we can find another partner."

In October, the US Department of Energy announced new restrictions on nuclear agreements with China, in line with a broader plan from the Trump administration to limit China's ability to access US technologies such as it considers strategic importance.

Gates, with co-founder TerraPower, said in his essay that regulations in the US are currently too restrictive to allow the reactor prototype to be built domestically. (Report by Carl O & # 39; Donnell; editing Jonathan Oatis)