A power company co-founded by Microsoft‘s Bill Gates has announced plans to begin building a new type of nuclear power plant in the US this summer.
TerraPower revealed it plans to apply for the necessary permits this month to start construction on a next-generation nuclear reactor at the start of June in Kemmerer, Wyoming.
The Washington-based firm has received an estimated $1 billion in funding from private investors, which will be combined with $2 billion from the US government.
The reactor is unique in the world of nuclear power, as it is cooled with liquid sodium rather than water – an efficient strategy, but one that has proven dangerous because of sodium’s explosive reaction if it touches water.
TerraPower’s announcement puts it in a nuclear energy race against Russia and China.
This concept image shows what TerraPower’s nuclear powerplant complex could look like once it is done being built in Kemmerer, Wyoming.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates co-founded TerraPower ‘to take action in developing advanced nuclear energy to meet growing electricity needs, mitigate climate change and lift billions out of poverty.’
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The two superpowers are working to develop and export cheaper reactors, and the Natrium one represents TeraPower’s attempt to enter that market, the Financial Times reported.
In December, the company inked an agreement with Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation.
This deal will see TerraPower exploring the use of its Natrium reactors to not only generate electricity in the United Arab Emirates, but also produce hydrogen – a notoriously energy-hungry process.
Levesque told FT that they plan to apply this month for the necessary permits to begin construction in June, but whether or not the company has received approval yet, they will begin building then.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is in charge of approving construction of new nuclear powerplants.
The next-generation reactor, called ‘Natrium,’ can be built for half the cost of water-cooled ones, the standard nuclear power technology for decades, CEO Chris Levesque said.
Because of the design of the Natrium reactor, most of the initial phase of construction will not involve any reactor parts per se, but will rather focus on support structures.
Another concept image of TerraPower’s proposed nuclear powerplant. The large storage tanks are involved with the sodium cooling hardware.
Scientists at TerraPower work on the sodium cooling system, an innovative and affordable technology that also presents new dangers compared to conventional water cooling.
According to the company’s website: ‘TerraPower was founded by Bill Gates and a group of like-minded visionaries that decided the private sector needed to take action in developing advanced nuclear energy to meet growing electricity needs, mitigate climate change and lift billions out of poverty.’
Nuclear power does not have the same issues with carbon emissions that other powerplants do, especially coal.
But it does present new problems, as spent nuclear waste is dangerously radioactive for thousands of years.
Liquid sodium produces hydrogen when it comes into contact with water, and hydrogen then reacts explosively. This lab equipment is part of TerraPower’s experiments for proving the technology.
There has not been a sodium-cooled reactor in the US since several experimental reactors were attempted in the 1960s and 1970s.
After several failures, including a partial meltdown of the Fermi 1 in Michigan in 1966, all of these reactors were decommissioned, and most were replaced with conventional boiling water reactors.
In 1995 the Monju Nuclear Powerplant in Japan suffered a fire as a result of a sodium leak in its cooling system.
The ensuing coverup, involving falsified reports and edited video footage of the accident, was so disgraceful that government investigator Shigeo Nishimura took his own life after uncovering it.
‘When you use liquid sodium as a coolant instead of water it’s a game-changer,’ Levesque told FT, noting that since it boils at almost 900C it can be operated much more cheaply than water-cooled reactors.
‘Natrium plants will cost half of what light water reactor plants cost . . . and we are moving our project along pretty aggressively,’ he said.
The reactor in Wyoming will be a demonstration project, but upon completion it will become a commercial power provider, TerraPower claimed.
The plant is scheduled to be operational by 2030.
