Stefan Mileschin

Software king of the world, and sworn enema to the mosquito, Sir William Gates III is sitting down with the Chinese to help them build a new type of nuclear reactor.

Now we don't know who the Chinese normally talk to about nuclear reactors but we are not sure that the bloke that signed off on Windows Vista is the sort of person you want to trust building anything radioactive.

After all, if China has a "China crisis" what would it be called? Our guess is that the meltdown would have nowhere to go and no reassuring blue screen of death is going to take the pain away.

According to AP, Gates made the announcement while he was in China visiting China's Ministry of Science & Technology.

The billionaire said the idea would be to create a very low cost, very safe reactor which generates very little waste.

It is quite likely that it would be based on technology developed by TerraPower which Gates finances. It is building a nuclear reactor that can run on depleted uranium.

TerraPower is having "very good discussions" with state-owned China National Nuclear Corporation, Gates said.

The plan would see a billion dollars go into research and development over the next five years.

We have been assured that Steve Ballmer will not be allowed within earshot of the project. Ballmer voids many strategic arms limitations agreements signed between the US and China.

http://news.techeye.net/hardware/bil...ear-with-china