Facility under construction at retiring coal site in Wyoming
TerraPower, the US nuclear company founded by Bill Gates, announced the selection of 12 supplier awards as it continues to build out the supply chain needed to support its first Natrium plant, Kemmerer Unit 1, in Wyoming.
Kemmerer Unit 1 is under construction at a retiring coal site in Kemmerer and according to TerraPower is the first utility-scale advanced reactor project under construction in the Western Hemisphere.
“Securing supplier contracts is fundamental to establishing the resilient and sustainable supply chain needed to build advanced nuclear plants,” said Pat Young, senior vice-president and Natrium project director at TerraPower.
“With each contract awarded, we are strengthening our network of qualified partners and ensuring critical milestones are met as we bring the Natrium reactor to market.”
The equipment awards support the construction of the Natrium plant and completion of the first-of-a-kind sodium test and fill facility (TFF) that is also being constructed on the Natrium site in Wyoming.
The TFF is a non-nuclear support building designed to safely store roughly 400,000 gallons (1.5 million litres) of liquid sodium to test coolant systems and fill the Natrium reactor.
The Natrium plant design features a 345 MW sodium-cooled fast reactor with a patented molten salt-based energy storage system. The storage technology can boost the system’s output to 500 MW of power when needed as it is designed to keep base output steady, ensuring constant reliability, and can quickly ramp up when demand peaks. TerraPower says it is the only advanced reactor design with this unique feature.
The supplier awards went to Merrick & Company (two awards), Mirion Technologies, BWXT, Teledyne Brown Engineering; Marmen, Thermal Engineering International, Jensen Hughes, Boston Government Services, James Fisher Technologies; KHRONE and Valserve.
