America’s First Commercial Nuclear-Power Projects in a Decade Just Broke Ground

The first commercial nuclear-power projects in a decade are now under construction in the U.S., a potential turning point for a segment of the power industry that has been stuck in neutral for years. A project by TerraPower, a company founded by Bill Gates almost 20 years ago, started construction Wednesday in Wyoming, while Kairos Power broke ground last week in Tennessee on a plant that intends to sell power to Google. For years, nuclear power’s would-be revivalhas been more concept than reality, dominated by designs and climate pledges, but with little under construction. The renewed interest comes alongside the biggest jump in electricity demand in a generation, much of it driven by the need to power data centers for artificial intelligence. That has sent the tech industry on the hunt for towering amounts of energy. TerraPower and Kairos are among the developers trying to prove that smaller streamlined reactor designs can overcome the problems the industry is known for: cost overruns and delays that contributed to a loss of enthusiasm for the technology. Most of the nuclear power plants in U.S. were built before 1990. “This isn’t a test reactor,” said Chris Levesque, president and chief executive of TerraPower. “This is a grid-scale nuclear reactor that will be built in 42 months.”  Federal regulators last month gave TerraPower the greenlight for constructionof a nuclear plant on a site where it had been building nonnuclear support facilities for nearly two years. It was the first such license in years for a commercial project, though the company will need a separate approval to load fuel and begin operations. Getting to this point required the work of 1,000 engineers, Levesque said. “It’s going to take a lot more persistence going forward,” he said. “It’s really not a business for the faint at heart.” The project will employ up to 1,600 construction workers. Once operating, it expects to have about 250 employees. Traditional U.S. reactors use water to cool the reactor core. TerraPower will use liquid sodium, which has a higher boiling point and allows operations at lower pressures with a more streamlined design than conventional projects. The 345-megawatt plant will include an energy-storage system that could boost output to 500 megawatts during times of peak electricity demand. The TerraPower reactor will deliver electricity into utility PacifiCorp’s multistate transmission system. The reactor is part of a public-private partnership with the Energy Department’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program, a 50-50 cost share that has authorized up to $2 billion in federal funding for the project. Read more https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/americas-first-commercial-nuclear-power-projects-in-a-decade-just-broke-ground-25ae8c9c?st=VpuptH&reflink=desktopwebshare\_permalink