I wish to be very clear that fission could have solved a lot 40 years ago, but it currently does not help.
I'm working on a fusion story where all involved know we're just 30 years out. Not sure yet where that story is going, but Georgia's experience didn't help matters because people hear "nuclear," and at that point, we have Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and other such nice things. Overbudget and really late doesn't help matters. (For a fun time, check out Palo Verde.) While there was more outrage in Germany over nuclear, if you grew up in Phoenix in the '80s, Palo Verde was shorthand for poor execution.
Enhanced geothermal is the answer here. I'd like to think we can figure out fusion, but it's one of those things where we're trying to harness the power of stars, and we are not Type II. Cart, horse.
Yes, fission is preferable to coal, but that's a low bar. We need renewables that can perform when it's neither sunny nor windy, and this is where EGS makes sense. I expect we will see more investment in wave power, but that's also likely decades off, with desalinization being part and parcel, and that has its own waste problems.
This revolutionizes nothing. It's old tech trying to address new problems, and short of the wheel, this generally goes poorly. I do want to say I think Gates has his heart in the right place, and, you know, malaria vaccines are totally changing the world.
One nuke plant in Wyoming will not.
If this is being done to avoid coal miners not getting uppity, I guess OK, but this is tech from nearly 80 years ago competing with PV, wind and EGS. This is backward looking.