Published on July 15, 2019.
Based on a Sankei Shimbun article from September 18, 2014, this article introduces Toshiba’s next-generation 4S reactor, which Bill Gates inspected, and the technical features of TerraPower’s traveling wave reactor, or TWR. It records the reality that Japan’s nuclear technology, capable of long-term operation without fuel replacement, natural shutdown in emergencies, and high safety, has stalled after the Fukushima accident while China and others are rapidly catching up.

July 15, 2019.
It can operate for as long as 100 years without fuel replacement, requires almost no maintenance inside the reactor, and in an emergency the reactor naturally shuts down.
The following is from an article in The Sankei Shimbun dated September 18, 2014.
This is an article I found by searching because I thought there must have been voices of outrage from Japan over Bill Gates’s actions.
The Japanese next-generation reactor that excited Bill Gates stalls after the nuclear accident; with China and others rapidly catching up, this could be “fatal.”
“Wow!”
People connected with Toshiba vividly remember the excited figure of Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft in the United States.
On November 9, 2009, Gates secretly visited the Isogo Engineering Center in Yokohama, which designs nuclear power plants, and other facilities.
Gates visited as chairman of TerraPower, a venture company developing next-generation reactors in which he himself had invested, to inspect the next-generation reactor “4S” being developed by Toshiba.
The 4S is small, with an output of 10,000 to 50,000 kilowatts, but its distinguishing feature is that it can operate continuously for 10 to 30 years without fuel replacement.
It is also said to be highly safe, because even if power suddenly becomes unavailable, the reactor automatically shuts down and the core is cooled naturally.
Ozaki Akira, senior engineer in the Nuclear Energy Systems & Services Division of Toshiba’s Power Systems Company, says, “Even at this point, construction of a practical reactor is technically possible.”
The next-generation reactor called the “traveling wave reactor,” or TWR, which TerraPower is developing, has a mechanism very similar to the 4S.
It can operate for as long as 100 years without fuel replacement, requires almost no maintenance inside the reactor, and in an emergency the reactor naturally shuts down.
Gates and the other members of TerraPower praised it highly, saying, “Of everything we have studied in nuclear power so far, the most innovative was Toshiba’s 4S.”
Toshiba and TerraPower have concluded a nondisclosure agreement, so the details are unknown, but a Toshiba official revealed, “We are considering applying 4S technology to the TWR.”
This article continues.