The Wyoming Industrial Siting Council has granted a construction permit to TerraPower for its Natrium nuclear power plant near Kemmerer — a milestone achievement both in Wyoming and nationwide for commercial-scale “advanced nuclear” energy, the company says.
“This is the first state permit ever awarded to a commercial-scale advanced nuclear project and is a testament to the groundbreaking work of our TerraPower team,” TerraPower President and CEO Chris Levesque said in a prepared statement Tuesday.
The permit allows for construction of all non-nuclear portions of the Kemmerer Power Station Unit 1 plant. TerraPower has a permit application pending before the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for all of the nuclear-related facilities. “That application was submitted in March 2024 and is on track for approval in December 2026,” according to a TerraPower press statement. “The unique Natrium design enables the company to start non-nuclear construction onsite during the NRC review.”
The state’s review included an analysis of environmental and socioeconomic impacts related to the facility, as well as potential avoidance measures such as noise limits and nighttime-light restrictions to minimize negative impacts on birds and skirting cultural resources when possible, according to the state and TerraPower’s 1,459-page permit application. The Industrial Siting Council — a gubernatorial-appointed panel connected to the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality — now has 45 days to draw up its approval order and issue the permit.
“The regulatory process to bring new nuclear plants to fruition is robust, and our team has been working relentlessly to successfully maneuver through a complicated, multi-jurisdictional environment to bring the first Natrium plant to market,” Levesque said.
TerraPower began construction on a stand-alone but related facility — a liquid sodium testing center — in June, marking the occasion with a groundbreaking ceremony that included some 300 guests and company founder, Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates. The phased nature of construction for the larger project will cycle in workers with different construction and engineering skills, peaking at about 1,600 workers in 2028, according to TerraPower.
The plant is slated to begin generating electricity in 2030.
Natrium project
TerraPower selected the Kemmerer location in the fall of 2021 after analyzing a handful of other potential locations in Wyoming to co-locate the facility next to a coal-fired power plant slated for retirement. The idea, according to the company, was to utilize existing infrastructure associated with coal plants, including tapping the local workforce. The company chose a site near the Naughton natural gas and coal-fired power plant just outside the towns of Kemmerer and Diamondville in Lincoln County.
One of three coal-burning units at the Naughton plant was converted to natural gas a few years ago. The remaining two coal units will be converted to natural gas in 2026, according to majority owner PacifiCorp. TerraPower has partnered with the U.S. Department of Energy, which is expected to contribute about $2 billion of the $4 billion effort, to develop the project, according to the company.
PacifiCorp, which operates as Rocky Mountain Power in Wyoming, has tentatively agreed to consider taking over Natrium operations and plug the power plant into its six-state electrical service territory.
Natrium is an “advanced” nuclear reactor design that will use liquid sodium for cooling. The plant will generate a consistent 345 megawatts of power — enough energy to power about 250,000 homes — with a capability of ramping up to 500 megawatts for short periods of time, according to TerraPower. The reactor will use high-assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU) fuel.
The company originally proposed an in-service date of 2028, but had to push the start date back to 2030 due to global events. In 2022, following the invasion of Ukraine, TerraPower cut ties with the Russian state-owned Tenex — the only facility in the world at the time with the capacity to supply commercial volumes of HALEU.
TerraPower has worked to secure initial HALEU supplies with companies in U.S.-ally nations, while the Department of Energy is working to support a domestic production and supply chain for HALEU.
If successful, the company plans to deploy dozens of Natrium plants across the globe, including several more in Wyoming, TerraPower officials say.
Who did Gates pay? 💰💰💰Hmmm 🤔 You all voted for these fools.
Don’t be fooled by these charlatans. What they are after are the permits to store the nuclear waste, and then Wyoming becomes the dumping ground for the entire country. The wind resource of Wyoming has not even begun to be developed, and now this scourge will be unleashed on unsuspecting humanity? For what. The dirty dollar bill.
Followup — I just read that the US government, in addition to giving $2B to this TerraPower project, is providing $2.7 billion to develop domestic production of HALEU which until recently was only available from the Russian government. The cost of nuclear is so much greater than any other renewable source of power that it boggles the mind anybody is considering using it at utility scale.
Leaving aside the participation of Gates, let’s take a look at the cost of power from this project. It produces 350 megawatts of power for a cost of $4 billion, which comes to $11.43 per watt. Compare to solar power at $1.16 per watt. For example, the Cowboy I and II solar farms (with battery storage) near Cheyenne will provide 800 megawatts of peak power for $1.2 billion. That’s $1.50 per watt of solar + battery.
Also consider the cost of maintenance and security for Natrium. The fuel is “High Assay Low Enrichment Uranium” which is highly refined and can thus be used to create a nuclear weapon should the security have any weakness or vulnerability. But solar power produces enormous quantities of electricity (available all day using the batteries) and has no moving parts. Maintenance and security is almost nothing, and you never need to refuel solar panels.
the US Navy has been using sodium cooled reactors for decades. They are easy to spot as they’re constantly in dry docks for repairs. Coolant leaks in particular. Molten sodium explodes when in contact with water.
That’s nonsense. All current US naval reactors are PWR (pressurized water reactor). A sodium cooled reactor was tried with the Seawolf in 1957 and turned out to be too much trouble (and that is before you look at what happens when sodium and water meet). Rickover killed that experiment, USS Seawolf was refitted with a PWR and that was the end of sodium cooled reactors in the US navy.
I find it curious how these nuclear plants are discussed like putting one up is no more difficult than buying a generator at Home Depot. Previous nuclear plants have been difficult, take longer than expected and very expensive.How much will a kwhr cost for one of these to make?
Jeffery. We don’t have time for small details like cost per KW. Come on Dude! Little things like that are not important when looking at scope of project like this. The world is burning up due to this CO2 excess. We can’t worry about little things like price per KW or safety. We gotta build it to find out.
Bill Gates is famous for creating poorly tested, unreliable software with serious bugs, crashes, and security holes. (I know; for decades I have written about, fought, and tried to fix the problems in Microsoft products. It’s gotten a bit better since Gates stopped taking an active role in the company.) Why is he now being allowed to build a nuclear reactor, based on untried technology that can ignite in unextinguishable fires, on the west side of our state… where the prevailing winds can carry leaked radioactivity to the rest? It’s sad that local and state officials have been so blinded by Gates’ wealth that they are allowing him to endanger all of us.
EXCELLENT Point!!!!!
Why does anyone trust Bill Gates with anything?
First and foremost, near anyone but Bill Gates! He is most prolly the Devil, himself.
Secondly, what’s the plan for the waste?
Perfect, no disposal plan for spent fuel. Guess they will store it on site. Of course no one want to talk about disposal, just like all the material in the dump from wind energy. Wyoming the dumping ground for the USA.
The People of Kemmerer have allowed a demon into their community, in Bill Gates.
Everything this man touches is a blight on humanity.
Whatever this reactor powers it wont be for the good of the people. AI server farm/data center is most likely the end goal.
It isnt too late for the People of Kemmerer and Wyoming to stop this.
Oh dear. Sorry you have been poisoned against Bill Gates. A great inventor and humanitarian.
I dont know which claim is more outrageous.
Probably “inventor” as he wouldnt have had money for his eugenics programs if he hadnt stolen ideas and monopolized the tech industry in its infancy.
Bill Gates, literally invented nothing, he stole, bought, or squashed competing innovations.
Bill Gates was instrumental in building an operating system foundation that helped jumpstart a computer revolution through Microsoft Corporation. In addition, in 1996, Jobs and Apple was about to go under…….Gates gave him 40m to stay afloat as he believed Apple was important. Musk really has not invented anything, his engineers did. Times have changed…Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, can you buy one at Home Depot?
Gates invented nothing. He claimed to IBM that he could develop an operating system for the IBM PC but didn’t. He BOUGHT QDOS (hastily renamed MS-DOS and PC-DOS) from another vendor he met at a trade show. (I know; I was AT that show long ago.) His later career was a series of monopolistic and predatory business practices. He sold shoddy, buggy products and blocked the development of better ones. He should in no way be involved in the development of nuclear power, and likely thinks of us as rubes for allowing him to do so where it would endanger our citizens.
Right out of the Playbook of the Rockefellers.
Really. Get a grip!