
Bill Gates wants to develop a safe and clean next generation nuclear plant. His company, TerraPower, is constructing such a nuclear plant in Wyoming, and has received a needed permit, hopefully enabling the plant to replace an obsolete coal-powered power plant on the same site:
In Kemmerer, Wyoming, the Naughton Power Plant has been burning coal to provide electricity since the 1960s. But in September 2019, it was announced that the plant would be shut down by 2025 due to issues with operating efficiency and compliance with environmental regulations. Yet unlike other towns where coal plants get shuttered, Kemmerer won’t simply fade from the map. Instead, it is the site where Natrium, America’s first coal-to-nuclear project, is taking place…
TerraPower broke ground on Natrium in June of last year and, this week, the company announced that it received approval from the Wyoming Industrial Siting Council (ISC) for the first of the Natrium plants, known as Kemmerer Power Station Unit 1. According to the company, this makes them the first developer to receive a state permit for an advanced nuclear project in US history. The permit allows TerraPower to begin building the non-nuclear portions of its plant, including its “energy island,” which will hold the plant’s turbines and molten-salt energy storage tanks. …
The ISC permit will only cover the development of the non-nuclear components of Natrium. The subsequent permit for the nuclear tech will need to come from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. That body accepted TerraPower’s application last summer, so it might be some time until the project can move onto the nuts-and-bolts phase. Still, if the application gets approved as anticipated, it seems that reactor construction could begin in 2026.
In other news, MIT scientists plan to build a fusion power plant in Virginia, and a utility says that small nuclear reactors will be coming to Virginia.
In October, CNN reported that “old, unexploded” nuclear “warheads” are being turned into fuel in Tennessee, “to power the next generation of America’s nuclear reactors — small, modular power stations that are easier and cheaper to build. They require far less upkeep and physical space than the aging fleet of large nuclear power plants.”
Poland’s ‘Project Phoenix’ plans to build small modular reactors across Poland. Such reactors are a new technology that has been used largely in pilot projects.
“Nuclear power is the safest form of energy we have, if you consider deaths per megawatt of energy produced,” notes Yale University’s Steven Novella. “Wind turbines, surprisingly, kill more people than nuclear plants,” notes an environmentalist. And “solar panels require 17 times more materials in the form of cement, glass, concrete, and steel than do nuclear plants, and create over 200 times more waste,” such as “dust from toxic heavy metals including lead, cadmium, and chromium.”
Nuclear plants emit no air pollution, only harmless steam. Unlike wind farms, nuclear power plants don’t kill birds. The biggest utility that generates wind power pleaded guilty to federal crimes for killing 150 eagles.
Many years ago, France and Sweden replaced most of their fossil-fueled electricity with nuclear power, and as a result, ended up emitting less than a tenth of the world average of carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour. The air in Germany got dirtier because of its hostility to nuclear power. Coal-fired power plants were turned back on to replace nuclear plants that generated no air pollution, but have been closed down. Nuclear power is best for the environment, notes Reason Magazine’s Ronald Bailey. Yet as he observes, “Germany idiotically shut down its last three nuclear power plants” in April 2023. “Until 2011, the country obtained one-quarter of its electricity from 17 nuclear power plants. Shutting down nuclear plants results in more mining of coal, making it harder to protect “natural landscapes.”