UNITED STATES (VOP TODAY NEWS) — It became known that the lion’s share of investments under the US Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ADRP) will receive Bill Gates’ TerraPower. According to the law signed by US President Joseph Biden, $ 2.5 billion has been allocated for the ADRP program.
TerraPower will receive over $ 1.5 billion for development. TerraPower promises to build and commission an experimental fast neutron reactor by 2027 with this money.
As planned, by the end of this year, TerraPower has chosen a site for the construction of a demonstration reactor and a pilot nuclear power plant, by the way, small and modular, which has become fashionable in our time.
The Natrium reactor will be built at the Naughton coal power plant near Kemmerer, Wyoming. The state’s power generation is 90% dependent on fossil fuels, and the issue of decommissioning coal and gas power plants in Wyoming is not only acute, but extremely acute.
The Natrium project is being developed by TerraPower together with Japan’s GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy Americas. In addition to them, the local utility company PacifiCorp (partly owned by the notorious Warren Buffett) participates in the project.
The reactor power will be 345 Me. Molten sodium will be used as a heat carrier. Also, molten salts will make it possible to create a buffer heat accumulator with a peak power of up to 500 Me. It will be used to smooth out peak loads.
TerraPower expects to submit an application for the start of construction of a demonstration reactor in mid-2023, and hopes to receive a certificate for operating the nuclear power plant in 2026. If all goes according to plan, the Wyoming demonstration fast breeder plant will go online in 2027.
To the advantages of the chosen site, it can be added that the infrastructure in the form of systems for entering the network and water intake already exists and will remain from Naughton’s coal-fired power plants when they begin to be decommissioned in 2025. You can also add that the Natrium project has risen in price by 50%. Previously, it was estimated at $ 1 billion and it looks like the $ 1.5 billion or more allocated from the budget may not be the last for its implementation.
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