June 10, 2024 TerraPower, celebrated the start of construction on the Natrium reactor demonstration project. This marks the first advanced reactor project to move from design into construction in the USA.
“This groundbreaking represents the beginning of the next era of nuclear energy. The Natrium reactor is more than a design, it’s a plant coming to life that will support both the clean energy transition and our historic energy communities,” said Chris Levesque, TerraPower President and CEO. “Our innovative Natrium technology will provide dispatchable carbon-free energy, gigawatt-scale energy storage, and
long-term jobs to the Lincoln County community.”
TerraPower Chairman and Founder, is Bill Gates.
Approximately 1,600 workers will be needed for construction at the project’s peak. Construction is set to span five years. Once the plant is operational, the company estimates that 250 people will support day-to-day activities, including plant security.
Upon completion, the Natrium demonstration plant will be a fully functioning commercial power plant.
It is being constructed near a retiring coal-fired power plant and is the only coal-to-nuclear project under development in the world.
The 345 MW TerraPower project is expected to cost up to $4 billion, half of it from the U.S. Department of Energy. Levesque said that figure includes first-of-its-kind costs for designing and licensing the reactor, so future ones would cost significantly less. This will be 6.5 times more expensive than China’s reactors. $11600 per kW for the Terrapower Natrium reactor vs $1780 per kW for the Hualong Two.
A Georgia utility just finished the first two scratch-built American reactors in a generation at a cost of nearly $35 billion. The price tag for the expansion of Plant Vogtle from two of the traditional large reactors to four includes $11 billion in cost overruns.
The project features a 345 MW sodium-cooled fast reactor with a molten salt-based energy storage system. The storage technology can boost the system’s output to 500 MW of power when needed, which is equivalent to the energy required to power around 400,000 homes. The energy storage capability allows the plant to integrate seamlessly with renewable resources and is the only advanced reactor design with this unique feature.
Natrium combines a molten sodium reactor with a 1 GWh molten salt energy storage system. Sodium offers a 785-Kelvin temperature range between its solid and gaseous states, nearly 8x that of water’s 100-Kelvin range. Without requiring costly and risky pressurization, sodium can absorb large amounts of heat. It is not at risk of decomposition at high temperature as water does. Sodium is non-corrosive. Natrium is fueled by high-assay, low enriched uranium (HALEU) as its fuel. HALEU is enriched to contain between 5 and 20 percent uranium, which can be produced from spent fuel. Plant sites are expected to be smaller and 4x more efficient than conventional plants. Natrium control rods descend using only gravity in case of equipment damage/failure. Power output is a constant 345 MWe. The plant is designed to run at 100 percent output, 24/7. The storage system is designed to work in tandem with intermittent energy sources, responding to their spikes and crashes. It can produce 150% of the rated power output, or 500 MWe for 5.5 hours
Earlier this year, TerraPower submitted its construction permit application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for the Natrium reactor. TerraPower is the first to submit its construction permit application for a commercial advanced reactor to the NRC. Due to its unique design, non-nuclear construction is beginning, while nuclear construction will begin after this application is approved.
Through the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP), a public-private partnership, this Natrium reactor demonstration project is intended to validate the design, construction and operational features of the Natrium technology.
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As soon as the right people notice enough progress they will stop it and ask again why the eggheads are fixated on pyroprocessing metallic fuel and refining plutonium. That was the question asked before VTR was canceled in 2021.
There is a letter in the NY Times today June 19, by Richard Garwin, E. Lyman and F. von Hippel that the fuel used by this type of reactors, high assay low enriched (HALEU) is weapon usable and a threat to international security.
So, it’s a bit more efficient, and has a higher burnup, but the main advantage is the integrated high temperature thermal storage, which allows the power production to be throttled when the sun shines on a solar farm, and resume when a cloud passes over.
This is an advantage only in the context of a grid that’s being forced to accommodate undispatchable power sources that are only sporadically available. But we seem stuck with at least some such power for the time being.
I do wish Brian could link to actual technical accounts, rather than media PR pieces written for people who are totally clueless.
They seem pretty confident of eventually getting approval on the nuclear end of things. I wonder why? The NRC delights in crushing these sorts of hopes.
“They seem pretty confident of eventually getting approval on the nuclear end of things. I wonder why?”
Besides the goofy power conversion system, which will create new anticipated operational occurrences (transients) that will need to be analyzed in licensing space and undoubtedly contribute to unavailability in operations (darn, salt valve stuck again), they should be confident that a 2024 updated PRISM/IFR+ is indeed licensable. All it takes is money and will power, and they can follow NuScale. The thing they shouldn’t be confident about is their business case, just like NuScale doesn’t have an attractive business case. Granholm was pitching AP1000 the other day. We’d build 10 to 1 AP1000 over NuScale in Nth of a kind.
“This is an advantage only in the context of a grid that’s being forced to accommodate undispatchable power sources”.
If you were to go to 80% nuke power this is the type of system you would want because power use varies a lot depending on the time of day and work days vs Sat and Sun.
Reactors whose coolant “freezes” at temperatures of several hundred degree have a dismal commercial and operational history. Sodium coolants react poorly with water and catch fire when exposed to air.
The effort has the earmarks of another DOE boondoggle decoupled from commercial reality.
Unclear what “4 times more efficient than conventional plant” means. The thermal efficiency of the plant is around 38% ( in literature) with conventional nuclear plant around 34%.
The nuclear burn-up of a conventional nuclear plant is around 50 gigawatt-days per metric ton of uranium. Unclear what the Natrium reactor’s burn-up is from a literature search. Perhaps Terrapower is counting on some form of fuel recycling. However, reprocessing facilities cost several dozen billions of dollars. Alternatively, using the aforementioned efficiency and “4 times” factor puts the nuclear fuel burn-up somewhere in the vicinity of 200 gigawatt-days per metric tonne of uranium. Literature search yields burn-up for salt fast reactors of around 60 or so gigawatt-days per MTHM.
Rather than slick marketing, perhaps would be better to provide straightforward information and let the reader assess the technology on a relative basis.
It is metallic uranium alloy fuel, likely 50% Zirconium by mass. Comparisons of burnup can get confusing when spatial fissile density and/or the enrichment is significantly different than the LWR fuel most are familiar with. U-50Zr should be nearly 10g/cc so perhaps the uranium density would be similar to UO2, but fissile density is likely quite higher using HALEU. It’s a breeder, so it’s even more confusing, which is why the best comparisons to be made are cladding fast fluence, and cladding displacements per atom. My guess is TP is likely shooting for the high end of the experience base demonstrated for alloy fuel, incrementally higher than what was achieved in EBR2. Honestly, I’d ask the Russians, not the B+MG foundation.
The only thing giving me optimism is Bill Gates has enough money and connections and political clout to get bureaucrats moving toward approval.
The idea is good, and there’s no huge technological obstacles. I’d like to see this move forward.
Good luck.
“Starts Construction” *suits with shovels and prepared heap.
VTR (very similar, but with Pu) went unfunded in 2021. Should be able to get some concrete laid for $4B. PRISM been on the shelf since the ’80s.
Imagine all the utilities scrambling to get in line /s.
Bravo for TerraPower’s gradual, reductive march towards building whatever GE/DOE wanted to do with the Integral Fast Reactor in 1994. Recall, in 2012, the “Traveling Wave” was going to breed in-situ with natural uranium and burn like a cigar for 40 years – with the cladding lasting 300+ displacements per atom (3x the SFR experience base). Now, TP wants to build PRISM. Of course, there is some grätüitöus green flair with the third fluid system, since the most direct path towards profitability is the simplicity added by the third working fluid.
Unlikely to be finished; if it is, I’ll be retired and we’ll be no closer to environmental judgement day.