The demo project also includes an initial one-year scope to start the design and licensing of an enrichment facility that would support the fueling of advanced reactors with high-assay, low-enriched uranium. The thermal energy storage system will help boost power production to 500 MWe and improve the economics of the plant by matching grid demand or providing other services, such as the production of hydrogen. The team expects to reduce the amount of nuclear-grade concrete required for the plant by 80% compared to traditional large-scale reactors. The simplified design and decoupling of nuclear and non-nuclear systems allow for expedited licensing and construction. Natrium couples a 345 megawatt electric (MWe) nuclear reactor with a molten salt energy storage system that can flexibly operate with renewable power sources. TerraPower teamed up with GE-Hitachi, Bechtel and Energy Northwest to develop Natrium, a sodium-cooled fast reactor that leverages technologies used in solar thermal generation systems. Pending future appropriations by Congress, DOE will invest $3.2 billion over 7 years in these projects that will be matched by the industry teams. reactor design applications that were submitted to our new Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program funding opportunity announcement, TerraPower LLC and X-energy were awarded $160 million in initial funding to test, license, and build their advanced reactors under this aggressive timeframe. reactor designs that will be fully operational within the next 7 years.Īfter evaluating the competitive U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is all in on new nuclear technologies and we just made our boldest move yet-selecting and supporting two U.S. nuclear companies can really do with the support and resources of the federal government. We have the best innovators in the world. We have the bipartisan support from Congress. "It is a great spot for absorbing the intermittency of the renewable resources and using the storage that's built in that is so incredibly valuable to us," he said.After talking about it for decades, the United States is finally ready to take the next step in demonstrating advanced reactor technologies. "We expect to build many more thousands of megawatts of wind capacity in the state."īut the nuclear power plant in Kemmerer will be a key bridge for the state, Hoogeveen said. "Wyoming is a tremendous wind-resource state," Hoogeveen said. So far, Rocky Mountain Power has built 2,000 megawatts of wind-power capacity in Wyoming, and that's going to grow. Wind power is also a part of that effort. "As we go down that path, we see the Natrium project as being incredibly valuable to our customers." "External requirements from the federal government, state governments, regulatory agencies are going to require that we change, and we're going to need to decarbonize," he said. There, it will become part of Rocky Mountain Power's decarbonization plan.Ĭoal-fired plants like the Naughton facility in Kemmerer "have benefited our customers for decades with very low-cost power," Gary Hoogeveen, president and CEO of Rocky Mountain Power, said Tuesday. Once built, the plant will be turned over to Rocky Mountain Power, a division of Berkshire Hathaway Energy's PacifiCorp, to operate. "I'm really certain that we're going to establish that capability" in another public-private partnership, similar to the way the Natrium power plant demonstration is being built. government and specifically the Department of Energy."īut it's coming, he said. "And this is an area of great concern of the U.S. "Sadly, we don't have this enrichment capability in the U.S. The existing fleet of nuclear reactors in the United States runs uranium-235 fuel enriched up to 5%, the Department of Energy says, while HALEU is enriched between 5% and 20%.
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