Pollack reported in mid-November, 2021, that Wyoming is a coal state. It’s an oil and gas and trona and bentonite and — tenuously — uranium state. And with the help of a Bill Gates-fronted technology company, it could soon become a nuclear state. Five months have passed since nuclear developer TerraPower and Rocky Mountain Power, Wyoming’s largest utility, revealed plans to build a 345-megawatt demonstration reactor at one of four retiring Wyoming coal plants. They’re partnering with the federal government, which will pay half the costs, up to a $1.6 billion ceiling, but that money comes with a time limit: The plant must be operational by 2028.
It’s an ambitious target. Achieving it would be groundbreaking. No U.S. nuclear project has been completed on schedule, or on budget, in decades.
Still, to communities faced with impending, irreplaceable job losses, the proposal offers a lifeline. Leaders from Glenrock, Gillette, Rock Springs and Kemmerer have all asked TerraPower the same question: “How do we make sure it’s built here?” In short, they can’t. Enthusiasm doesn’t hurt, but as long as the infrastructure meets TerraPower’s standards, the decision comes down to factors like geology, seismology, meteorology and hydrology, in accordance with the standards of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) — the independent federal agency that evaluates and authorizes nuclear development.
Retirement dates are a consideration, too. Even though the nuclear facility will be built separately, the chosen coal plant must be shut down before the reactor starts up. While the Naughton and Dave Johnston coal units are already scheduled to close by 2027, Rocky Mountain Power plans to keep the Jim Bridger and Wyodak plants operating through the late 2030s. But all four plants will close eventually, and each loss will cost local jobs — many of which the project promises to restore — and eat away at the state’s baseload electricity supply.
“There’s a need to put something on the grid following those coal plant retirements,” said TerraPower CEO Chris Levesque. “To put something on the grid that runs 24/7, that can up its power when wind and solar are curtailed.” TerraPower believes a new generation of nuclear plants can meet that emerging need. In collaboration with fellow nuclear developer GE Hitachi, the company “reinvented what a reactor can be,” Tara Neider, senior vice president of TerraPower and the project’s director, said during a presentation last September, before the company picked Wyoming for its first plant.
“We largely started by blowing away what a reactor looks like and breaking it into its individual parts,” Neider said. “Then we started putting it back together. And nothing was considered sacred.” Out of the partnership came a minimalist design called Natrium — the Latin word for sodium — after the liquid metal that flows through the reactor’s core. Rooted in ideas developed in the 1960s, but adapted to the modern energy market, Natrium is now poised to become Wyoming’s first-ever nuclear power plant.
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In conclusion, Pollack indicated that a second uranium era is upon us. Nuclear would be a new power source for Wyoming, but it’s not a new industry. The state’s uranium producers have weathered the turbulent international market for more than 60 years. The Wyoming uranium industry flourished as nuclear took off in the 1960s and ‘70s, but the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979 caused demand to flatline, flooding the international uranium market and sending domestic production into free-fall. Years later, as interest in nuclear began to creep upward once again, the Fukushima accident had a similar effect on the industry.[But it should be noted here that no one has died or has been irradiated in nuclear power plants. Compare that record with renewables, and coal, and natural gas ....]
At its peak, uranium production created roughly 5,000 jobs in Wyoming alone. Forty years later, with more than 90% of the nuclear fuel used in light water reactors now imported from Canada, Australia, Russia and Kazakhstan, Wyoming is home to half of the country’s 225 remaining uranium workers. If the first Natrium project succeeds, TerraPower plans to build many more, potentially starting with other retiring Wyoming coal plants that meet NRC requirements. Other companies, interested in following in TerraPower’s footsteps if the venture succeeds, are watching closely.
The prospect of a Wyoming nuclear industry has led to speculation that Natrium, and other projects like it, could revitalize the uranium sector. But the reality is more complicated. “It’s not just uranium,” said Glen Murrell, director of the Wyoming Energy Authority. “It’s the milling and enrichment and the fuel manufacturing. That piece is actually not really established at all in the United States, so that’s a big problem, because if you mine [uranium] here in Wyoming, where are you going to actually get it processed?”[This matter is changing rapidly in the U.S. (more)]
Industry believes that a federal subsidy for uranium production, coupled with the imposition of tariffs on imported nuclear fuel, is the best place to start.
“It’s not a free market,” said Travis Deti, executive director of the Wyoming Mining Association. “You’re competing with state-sponsored entities. And if we’re going to compete, you need state help, you need the help of the federal government.”(more)
TerraPower has expressed interest in using domestically-sourced uranium in the future — but has said that it currently plans to import fuel, at least for the first Natrium facility. To have any chance of reviving the U.S. uranium industry, Natrium needs to be operational by 2028. If that can be done, state leaders say, it’ll be done here. “TerraPower got a head start simply by picking Wyoming,” Murrell said. “If you put this in Santa Barbara, you would probably get a lot of pushback. That’s not going to really happen in Wyoming, because they’re much more accepting of the energy sector.”
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