Construction will continue as planned at TerraPower’s Natrium “advanced” nuclear reactor power plant near Kemmerer, the company says, even though its lead engineering and construction contractor announced it will exit the project.
Bechtel, a global engineering giant, first mentioned the split in a Worker Adjustment and Retaining Notification letter sent to Virginia officials earlier this month indicating it will terminate its involvement with the project and that the split would result in eliminating 200 positions at its nuclear engineering headquarters in Reston, Virginia, beginning sometime in November.
“TerraPower and Bechtel were unable to reach an agreement on the next phase of the project and have decided to move forward separately,” Bechtel stated in the Sept. 15 letter. The letter did not offer additional details about the cause of the split.
Bechtel will complete work on a “sodium test-and-fill facility,” and bidding is underway to find a replacement firm, TerraPower told WyoFile in a statement Monday.
“Construction in Kemmerer will maintain its current schedule with the exemplary subcontractor teams and [engineering, procurement and construction] support services from commercial-grade firms that have been working on site. TerraPower is managing this transition to protect the overall construction schedule for [Kemmerer Unit 1] and will rebid the EPC contract.”
TerraPower, backed by Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates, selected Kemmerer in 2021 for its pilot Natrium nuclear power plant, a liquid-sodium cooled “advanced” nuclear reactor. The term advanced, these days, is typically applied to nuclear reactor designs that are smaller than nuclear plants built decades ago, and that do not rely on water for cooling. Gates has billed the project as critical for meeting the global challenges of climate change and growing demand for electricity.
Bechtel was tapped in 2020 to lead design and construction for the bulk of the nuclear energy campus, which includes nonnuclear portions — a workforce training center and liquid-sodium testing facility — and the “nuclear island” that includes the actual nuclear power plant and ancillary components that fall under the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s authorities. Bechtel was expected to maintain its lead role through completion of the power plant, expected to commence operations by 2031, according to TerraPower statements that still appeared on its website Monday.
Bechtel, however, wasn’t expressly under contract to continue to the next “nuclear island” phases of the project, according to Lincoln County Board of Commissioners Chairman Kent Connelly, who said TerraPower has kept commissioners apprised of progress and changes.
TerraPower has been “very open about it,” Connelly told WyoFile. “There’ll be a new contractor coming in. So this is not about somebody being pulled off the site. They’re just changing contractors.”
The WARN notice that was sent to Virginia officials was a “legal requirement,” Bechtel told WyoFile in a statement. “Our people will move to other nuclear projects underway across the company, where demand for these skills continues to grow.”
In addition to the nonnuclear facilities at the site, Bechtel was instrumental in “major procurements” for materials, it said, as well as “beginning foundational work for Kemmerer Unit 1.”
“This work was performed under an earlier phase of the contract, prior to full [engineering, procurement and construction] scope,” Bechtel added. “As we considered the next phase of the project, Bechtel and TerraPower decided to move forward separately.”
First-of-its-kind nuclear plant
The Natrium plant at Kemmerer is designed to generate 345 megawatts of electricity with an energy storage component to ramp up to 500 megawatts to meet demand peaks, according to the Bellevue, Washington-based company. One megawatt is enough electricity to power about 750 homes.
The $4 billion project is backed by $2 billion from the Department of Energy — a commitment made under the first Trump administration.
Construction on nonnuclear portions of the project began in 2024 and 2025. The NRC issued a construction permit for the nuclear portions of the campus in March, making it the first commercial reactor approved in nearly a decade in the U.S.
The next major permitting milestone will be an operating license from the NRC, which TerraPower says it hopes to secure in 2028. The plant is expected to be fully operational by 2031, according to the company.
TerraPower has indicated that it plans on building similar Natrium-design nuclear power plants throughout the U.S. and in other countries.
From the earliest days of this project’s announcement, nothing made sense. At 345 megawatts for $4 B or so (in 2020 dollars) and a long (undetermined) building schedule, you could get that easily from about 105 wind turbines and for B’s $ less money and much faster. In other words, the electricity produces would never be able to compete with wind and solar and batteries. Why should public money back this scam?
There is nothing new about liquid sodium cooled reactors. They existed in the laboratory in 1946 Los Alamos, and the first operational sodium cooled plant ran from 1950 till 1964. Over 20 sodium plants have been built with an accumulated runtime of 400 reactor years. Bechtel built the first ever commercial nuke plant and 40 percent of all US commercial reactors beginning in 1957, plus a great number globally. Wyoming is not their first neutron rodeo.
Which makes this situation here in Wyoming and Bechtel bailing as quick as they can a serious mystery . Very uncharacteristic at the least. WTF?
Thanks Dustin and WyoFile. While TerraPower will seek to minimize the impact of Bechtel’s withdrawal, this is a big deal. Losing a contractor with the reputation, international reach and expertise of Bechtel has to be a significant setback. Just the fact that Bechtel is now laying off 200 nuclear workers, in an industry that has struggled to find and train workers, will likely hinder future progress. I am sure WyoFile will keep an eye on the hiring of the replacement contractor.
Larry, the Bechtel employee I spoke to personally, that was working on this project, said TerraPower project management was a “trainwreck”, and “they didn’t know what they were doing”.
There should be no replacement contractor.
Changing contractors in the middle of a job isn’t good for quality control.
Quality control for a NUCLEAR power plant should be at the pinnacle of construction projects.
I spoke to a Bechtal employee working on this job back before labor day, he told me that the project was a joke and TerraPower didnt know what they were doing. He knew they were going to be off the project in a short amount of time.
The people of Wyoming and Kemmerer better step up and demand a halt to this project. Nuclear power contractor changes isn’t like bringing in different builders to finish a shed in the back yard.
This could end VERY badly.
This concerns me. Bechtel leaving is indicative. This needs audited. Bechtel knows what it is doing on a project. In the early 1980s WNP-2 in Washington State was a mess of out of control contractors, cost overruns and schedule slippage. Steve Bechtel himself came up and managed the project. He gave us a cost and said we would be commercial in two years. Bechtel took control and two years later Christmas 1984 WNP-2 went commercial and have been through a licensing renewal as the renamed Columbia to keep powering the Pacific Northwest for decades to come. Bechtel does not run from work. Red flags are up regarding this reactor for me. Bechtel is experienced in turning projects around and understands nuclear very well. A third party needs to discover what happened, what Bechtel learned that made it run from this project. This is not normal for Bechtel and Wyoming deserves to learn the real issues in concrete terms of what Bechtel knows that made them shake their hands of this project where TeraPower anticipates several more Natrium reactors potentially needing built throughout the world.