Tech billionaires rally around nuclear as energy crisis looms

A rendering of the Natrium reactor and energy storage system. — TerraPower/TNS

In recent weeks, some of Silicon Valley’s most famous technologists have hailed a historically polarising energy source – nuclear power – as a solution to both cutting carbon emissions and weaning the world off now-controversial Russian gas.

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk wrote on Twitter that nuclear is “critical” to national security, while the risk of radiation is overplayed. And venture capitalist Marc Andreessen called for “1,000 new state-of-the-art nuclear power plants in the US and Europe, right now”.