In Wyoming, Bill Gates advances nuclear project aimed at revolutionizing electricity production

Bill Gates and his energy company are beginning construction at their Wyoming site on a next-generation nuclear power plant that he says will “revolutionize” the way electricity is produced.

Gates was in the small community of Kemmerer on Monday to launch the project. Microsoft co-founder is chairman of TerraPower. The company filed an application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in March for a construction permit for an advanced nuclear reactor using sodium, not water, for cooling. If approved, it would operate as a commercial nuclear power plant.

The site is adjacent to PacifiCorp’s Naughton Power Plant, which will stop burning coal in 2026 and natural gas a decade later, the utility said. Nuclear reactors operate without emitting greenhouse gases that warm the planet. PacifiCorp plans to obtain carbon-free power from the reactor and says it is evaluating how much nuclear to include in its long-term planning.

The work that began Monday aims to prepare the site so that TerraPower can build the reactor as quickly as possible if its permit is approved. Russia is at the forefront of developing sodium-cooled reactors.

Gates told the audience at the inauguration that they were “standing on what will soon be the foundation of America’s energy future.”

“This is a big step toward secure, abundant, carbon-free energy,” Gates said. “And it’s important for the future of this country that projects like this succeed.”

Advanced reactors typically use a coolant other than water and operate at lower pressures and higher temperatures. Such technology has been around for decades, but the United States has continued to build large, conventional water-cooled reactors as commercial power plants. The Wyoming project is the first time in about four decades that a company has attempted to bring an advanced reactor into operation as a commercial power plant in the United States, according to the NRC.

It is time to move to advanced nuclear technology that uses the latest computer and physics modeling for simpler, cheaper, even safer and more efficient plant design, said Chris Levesque, president and CEO of the business.

TerraPower’s Natrium Reactor Demonstration Project is a sodium-cooled fast reactor design with a molten salt energy storage system.

“The character of the industry has not been to innovate. It’s sort of repeating past performance, you know, not moving forward with new technology. And it was good for reliability,” Lévesque said in an interview. “But in the face of the demand for electricity we will see in the decades to come, and also to correct the cost problems associated with nuclear and nuclear power today, we at TerraPower and our founders have really felt it was time to innovate.”

A Georgia utility has just completed construction of the first two U.S. reactors of a generation, at a cost of nearly $35 billion. The price tag for expanding the Vogtle plant from two of the large traditional reactors to four includes $11 billion in cost overruns.

The TerraPower project is expected to cost up to $4 billion, half of which will be funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. Lévesque said that figure includes first-of-its-kind costs for designing and licensing the reactor, so future costs will cost much less.

Most advanced nuclear reactors under development in the United States rely on a type of fuel – known as high-grade low-enriched uranium – enriched to a higher percentage of the uranium-235 isotope than the fuel used by conventional reactors. TerraPower delayed its launch date in Wyoming by two years, to 2030, because Russia is the only commercial supplier of the fuel and is working with other companies to develop alternative supplies. The US Department of Energy is working on its development at the national level.

Edwin Lyman co-authored a paper in Science on Thursday that raises concerns that the fuel could be used for nuclear weapons. Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the risk posed by HALEU today is low because there aren’t many of them in the world. But that will change if advanced reactor projects, which require much larger quantities, move forward, he added. Lyman said he wants to raise awareness of the danger in hopes that the international community will increase safety around the fuel.

NRC spokesman Scott Burnell said the agency is confident its current requirements will maintain both the safety and public safety of all built reactors and their fuel.

Gates co-founded TerraPower in 2008 to enable the private sector to propel advanced nuclear power forward to provide safe, abundant, carbon-free energy.

The company’s 345-megawatt reactor could produce up to 500 megawatts at its peak, enough to power up to 400,000 homes. TerraPower said its first reactors would focus on providing electricity. But he envisions that future reactors could be built near industrial facilities to provide high heat.

Almost all industrial processes requiring high heat currently obtain it from burning fossil fuels. Heat from advanced reactors could be used to produce hydrogen, petrochemicals, ammonia and fertilizer, said John Kotek of the Nuclear Energy Institute.

It’s significant that Gates, a technology innovator and climate champion, is betting on nuclear power to help solve the climate crisis, added Kotek, the industry group’s senior vice president for policy.

“I think it helped open people’s eyes to the role that nuclear energy plays today and can play in the future in tackling carbon emissions,” he said. a much broader range of nuclear energy technologies than we have seen in decades.

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