Bill Gates firm sees ‘another major milestone’ for reactor demonstration in Wyoming
TerraPower has selected Chicago-based engineering company Sargent & Lundy to design a training centre at Kemmerer, Wyoming, for TerraPower’s innovative Natrium reactor demonstration project which will be deployed at the site at the end of this decade.
TerraPower said in a statement that the planned Kemmerer Training Centre will host all Natrium operation training activities, for both the demonstration project and for future Natrium plants.
The centre will house the Natrium training simulator, laboratories for electrical and instrumentation and control, mechanical and scientific laboratories, training classrooms, and an auditorium.
According to the statement, design of the facility will start immediately, while construction is expected to be completed in the autumn of 2025.
TerraPower, a startup founded by Gates in 2008, broke ground in June 2024 for construction of its first commercial Natrium nuclear plant at Kemmerer, where a coal plant is shutting down.
The Natrium demonstration plant includes three separate project parts: a sodium test and fill facility, the power production or energy island, and the nuclear island with the reactor itself.
First to be built is the test and fill facility, which will be a standalone, non-nuclear building that will provide a testing site for the reactor’s sodium coolant system by receiving, sampling, processing, and storing liquid sodium which will ultimately be delivered to the Natrium reactor.
The Natrium reactor itself is a 345-MW electric sodium-cooled fast reactor with a molten salt energy storage system that is being designed to flexibly operate with renewable power generators.
TerraPower’s chief executive Cristopher Levesque has said that the company is aiming to start nuclear-related works in 2026 subject to receiving a permit from the US regulator. The plant is expected to be completed by 2029-2030.
The Natrium demonstrator is co-funded by the US Department of Energy under its Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) programme.
