TerraPower Aims to Trigger US Nuclear Rebirth

TerraPower, fueled with $1 billion from Bill Gates, hopes to be first out of the gate with next generation nuclear projects that will back up burgeoning renewable energy generation.

That is what Chris Levesque, president and CEO of the company, told the Grid Talk podcast of the U.S. Department of Energy, energy.gov/gridtalk.

The company has 1,000 engineers now hard at work developing its 345-megawatt prototype in Nevada.

Ultimately, the units will be plugged in to the grid at many sites across America where now sit idle or soon to be mothballed coal-burning power plants, he said.

That will allow the new units ready access to generation lines.

“We have all these retiring coal sites,” he said. “The amount of places in the grid in the U.S. and internationally where you can plug in a gigawatt-plus is very limited.”

“It maximizes the available cooling water and it's a great call to the nuclear transition opportunities,” Levesque said.

“We are the only construction permit for a commercial reactor in fron?t of the NRC (U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission) today so by that objective measure, it means we’re next. It means the next American reactor is our Natrium Reactor in Wyoming; yes, so we plan to receive that construction license in 2026.”

All kinds of nuclear technology should soon follow.

“All the models show that the optimum mix on an emission-free grid is going to be 20% to 30% nuclear,” Levesque said.

“I wish we could move faster, though. TerraPower is the leader. We’re trying to deliver as fast as we can on the first one and scale as fast as we can but we’re going to need multiple technologies,” he said.

“We really do need to triple nuclear and we’re excited about being first but even when we deliver hundreds of reactors to triple nuclear, it’s going to require a really massive deployment,“ Levesque said. “China and Russia are super committed to this and the U.S. and Europe are really playing catch-up.”