America’s largest farmland owner, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, ranks 43rd on the 2025 Land Report 100 with 275,000 acres. One of his more recent ventures, TerraPower, grabbed headlines in June 2024 when Gates broke ground on what he calls “the most advanced nuclear facility in the world” on 44 acres in Kemmerer, Wyoming.

Gates wrote on his Gates Notes blog that the sodium-cooled Natrium reactor “will bring safe, next-generation nuclear technology to life in Wyoming. It’s a huge milestone for the local economy, America’s energy independence, and the fight against climate change.”

Proponents of nuclear energy say 21st-century technology has greatly reduced the possibility of a Three Mile Island-type meltdown. Instead, it offers a clean-energy source that will be beneficial to the environment. It is a belief that Gates says he has supported since reading a scientific paper nearly 20 years ago about the benefits of a Natrium reactor.

“The design was far safer than any existing plant, with the temperatures held under control by the laws of physics instead of human operators who can make mistakes,” Gates wrote on his blog. “It would have a shorter construction timeline and be cheaper to operate. And it would be reliable, providing dependable power throughout the day and night.

“As I looked at the plans for this new reactor, I saw how rethinking nuclear power could overcome the barriers that had hindered it — and revolutionize how we generate power in the US and around the world.”

Gates founded Terra-Power in 2008 a few years after reading that report. The ensuing theories and designs became a reality in 2024 when the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) accepted TerraPower’s construction-permit application for review.

“It’s a step that sounds bureaucratic but is, in fact, a huge deal and the first time something like this has happened with a commercial nonlight water reactor in more than 40 years,” Gates wrote.

“This step starts the review process at the NRC for the permit application. Once it is approved, construction can begin on the actual nuclear reactor. The review process will take a couple of years, so in the meantime, TerraPower will continue to build the non-nuclear parts of the facility. Construction will begin (in 2025) on the so-called ‘energy island,’ which is where the steam turbines and other machinery that actually generate power will sit. The plant hopefully will come online in 2030.”