Wyoming explores replacing coal with advanced nuclear

Wyoming Governor, Mark Gordon, together with a broad coalition of high-ranking federal, state and industry partners, announced that Bill Gates' advanced nuclear venture, TerraPower, selected Wyoming to be the state in which they will build and operate their advanced nuclear Natrium™ reactor, replacing a coal-fired plant at a yet-to-be-selected Rocky Mountain Power facility.

The project, with a combination of private and federal funding and supported by Wyoming's legislature, which passed HB 74, will allow the development of a first-of-a-kind, fully functioning advanced nuclear power plant that is expected to validate the design, construction and operational features of the Natrium technology and enable Wyoming, which leads the country in coal exports, to remain a leader in a form of energy best suited to replace coal.

The Governor, in his remarks, clearly sought to straddle the complexity of competing interests in Wyoming, which is home to some of the largest fossil fuel companies in the country, while announcing this "game-changing and monumental" news.

“Earlier this year, I set a goal for Wyoming to be a carbon negative state, and continue to use fossil fuels. I am not going to abandon any of our fossil fuel industry, it is absolutely essential to our state and we believe very strongly is our fastest and clearest course to being carbon negative.

I do want to say, that it is the bedrock of our economy, in many ways, and as that, it has provided us with enormous amounts of capital and money to be able to do great things with wildlife, our landscape and our environment.

But this historic announcement helps Wyoming meet the first part of that objective. Nuclear power is clearly a part of my "all of the above" strategy, for energy in Wyoming, it will be the first of a new generation of nuclear plants that are smaller, modular in design and are equipped with enhanced safety measures. This facility will also result in an overall reduction of CO2 being released in Wyoming.

You may access the Wyoming PBS video of this announcement by clicking the image below.

https://youtu.be/hHzwwtSTbxY

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), awarded TerraPower $80 million in initial funding from the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) to demonstrate the Natrium technology in October 2020. TerraPower signed the cooperative agreement with DOE in May 2021.

In December, 2020, Staffan Qvist, Paweł Gładysz, Łukasz Bartela and Anna Sowizdzał published at study that looked at the issue of how best to retrofit coal power plants for decarbonization in Poland. They published their findings in Retrofit Decarbonization of Coal Power Plants—a Case Study for Poland, showing that decarbonization retrofits worked best using high-temperature small modular reactor to replace coal boilers.

Learn more at: GeekWire's Bill Gates’ TerraPower will build its first next-gen nuclear reactor in Wyoming, by Lisa Stiffler, June 3, 2021 and at TerraPower's joint announcement with PacifCorp and Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon, June 2, 2021.

Published by Nucleation Capital in Advanced Nuclear, Brilliant thinkers, Carbon emissions, Construction costs, Energy abundance, Future of Energy, Government support, History Timeline, History-making, LINKS, Nuclear competitiveness, Nuclear innovation, Politicians supporting nuclear, Solving climate, US technological leadership, Zero emission energy

October 21, 2020

DOE announces funding for three advanced reactor builds

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has selected two teams—one led by TerraPower in partnership with GE Hitachi, building a 345 MWe sodium fast reactor with a molten salt energy storage system and one led by X-energy, which has designed a modular 80 MWe (scalable to a 320 MWe four-pack) high temperature gas-cooled reactor—to receive $80 million each in initial funding annually under the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP).

In this program, DOE provides initial funding to develop, test, license and build advanced nuclear reactors within five to seven years of the award. DOE plans to invest about $3.2 billion over seven years in these projects that will be matched by the industry.

Simultaneously, the DOE approved a $1.4 billion multi-year cost-share award to the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) for the development and construction of the Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP), a 720 MWe NuScale small modular nuclear power plant, made up of 12 small 60 MWe modules, to be located at DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory site. NuScale (shown in the image) is the first of the new designs to be approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Read more in Forbes: "America Steps Forward To Expand Nuclear Power."

Published by Nucleation Capital in Advanced Nuclear, Capital reallocation, Climate innovation fund, Future of Energy, Government support, History Timeline, History-making, LINKS, Nuclear competitiveness, Nuclear financing, Nuclear R&D

June 29, 2020

Southern Company and TerraPower Prep for Testing on Molten Salt Reactor

Southern Company, a leading utility, is partnering with Bill Gate's TerraPower to develop a molten chloride fast reactor (MCFR) that uses liquid salts as both a coolant and fuel. Working with consortium of experts to accelerate this work, the group will begin testing in a $20 million test facility starting in 2021 while targeting to beta test their design in the late 2020s.

Read more at the Office of Nuclear Energy: Southern Company and TerraPower Prep for Testing on Molten Salt Reactor.

Published by Nucleation Capital in Climate innovation fund, Future of Energy, LINKS, Nuclear innovation, Public companies

October 7, 2019

Philanthropy’s Critical Nuclear Moment

Philanthropy’s potential role in the science and development of nuclear power is significantly constrained, both by the overlap with impact investors and the traditionally dominant role played by government, especially abroad. Yet, the urgency of the need to address climate with technical solutions demands more of those with the ability to donate. So, it may not surprise many, that there are now dozens of funders, grantees and other nonprofit organizations working in the pro-nculear space, who are committed to the mission of ensuring that nuclear thrives and succeeds in helping to decarbonize the planet.

Inside Philanthropy reporters interviewed more than a dozen of these individuals who share the belief that the fate of the Earth is dependent upon mankind's ability to support the continued deployment of safe and abundant nuclear, since, according to the IPCC and numerous key scientists, like James Hansen, it will be impossible to decarbonize the entire global economy with it within the appropriate time frame.

Among those interviewed included Armond Cohen, executive director and co-found of the non-profit Clean Air Task Force and Rachel Pritzker, president and founder of the Pritzker Innovation Fund, one of the earliest and best-known funders in the space, who sees nuclear a piece of a larger puzzle.

Sam Mar, VP at Arnold Ventures, noted that most philanthropic funding has gone to organizations supporting other types of zero-emission energy and that nuclear groups are significantly underfunded as a technology and industry group. This view was confirmed by Matthew Nisbet, who published a research paper analyzing climate funding and who found that no grants at all were focused on promoting nuclear energy but rather, if there were grants, they were used for opposing nuclear energy.

So the question is, if philanthropists do want to support nuclear power, how can they do it? According to Larry Kramer, president of the Hewlett Foundation, funders should be "helping to finish off the research and development on fourth-generation reactors, then helping develop poicies to implement and figure out where there is the support for siting new designs.

See Inside Philanthropy: Philanthropy's Critical Nuclear Moment or, if you don't have a subscription, see the reprint of the IP piece at Klean Industries.

Published by Nucleation Capital in Advanced Nuclear, Brilliant thinkers, Carbon emissions, Climate change, Climate innovation fund, Future of Energy, LINKS, Nuclear innovation, Nuclear R&D, Philanthropic support for nuclear, Reduced ecosystem impacts

July 14, 2019

Peter Diamandis on energy abundance and the future of nuclear

Peter Diamandis, Chairman and Co-Founder of Singularity University, founder and executive chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, writes a tech blog. We were sent a copy of the email that he sent out to subscribers on the future of nuclear, which begins as follows:

Yes, I want nuclear energy *in my back yard*!

Extraordinary new innovations are giving us failsafe nuclear fission and the potential to achieve our age-old dream of fusion.

This year, Bill Gates commented: “Nuclear is ideal for dealing with climate change, because it is the only carbon-free, scalable energy source that’s available 24 hours a day. The problems with today’s reactors, such as the risk of accidents, can be solved through innovation.”

This blog is about convincing you to re-consider nuclear as a viable and critical idea. The upside of success is extraordinary, which is why, for the first time, we’re beginning to see venture capital make massive investments in the field.

Let’s dive in!

Read the rest of Diamandis' Tech Blog post: "Energy Abundance: The Future of Nuclear."