TerraPower, a Bill Gates–backed nuclear power start-up, received the federal green light to start building a power plant in Wyoming. The approval paves the way for the first new commercial nuclear reactor in the U.S. in nearly a decade.
On Wednesday the Nuclear Regulatory Commission unanimously voted in favor of TerraPower’s construction permit.
The start-up hopes to build smaller, more advanced nuclear reactors that the company says will help support the transition to clean energy from fossil fuels. Known as the Natrium plant, the reactor is not expected to come online until at least 2031.
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Chris Levesque, TerraPower’s chief executive officer, said in a statement that the approval marked a “historic day for the United States nuclear industry.”
TerraPower claims that its reactor design will be easier and cheaper to build and bring online than older nuclear power plants—the last two reactors built in the U.S. in recent memory cost $35 billion and ran way overbudget and past schedule. TerraPower will still need to clear multiple other regulatory hurdles before it can come online.
A key difference between TerraPower’s reactor design and older plants is that older reactors pump water through protective shields and heavy, thick pipes into the reactor core, where it is heated through nuclear fission. The resulting steam then creates electricity. TerraPower’s design uses liquid sodium, which doesn’t reach such high pressures as water, reducing the cost of shielding. And the start-up’s plant will be outfitted with a battery storage system that will enable it to ramp up or down electricity production as needed—something older reactors can’t easily do.
The Trump administration has touted nuclear power as a potential solution for the U.S.’s rapidly rising energy demands, which are set to become more acute as planned data centers to power artificial intelligence come online.