A small coal town community in southwest Wyoming was privy to a preview of plans for a proposed, first of its kind nuclear plant. The TerraPower nuclear plant is scheduled to open near Kemmerer by 2030. The event brought several officials to town – including a ‘celebrity’ appearance. Following this closely is the Casper Star Tribune’s energy reporter Nicole Pollack. She spoke with Wyoming Public Radio’s Caitlin Tan.
The following transcript has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
Caitlin Tan: So first things first, Bill Gates came to town – to Kemmerer. Bill Gates is the co-founder of TerraPower, which is the company heading up this nuclear project. So Nicole, you were there for the event. Tell us a little bit about it, and what was the mood like?
Nicole Pollack: So Gates came to Kemmerer. I think just to see his project himself to really know what was going on on the ground and find out what it really looked like. So, he and some of the executives from TerraPower toured the Naughton coal plant, which is the existing plant at the site. They also toured the [future] site of the TerraPower nuclear plant, which is going to be a little distance away. And they toured the Kemmerer Mine, which is not owned by Rocky Mountain Power, the utility TerraPower is partnering with, but it currently supplies the Naughton plant (which is owned by Rocky Mountain Power). Wyoming is looking for ways to try to keep that mine open even after its main customer closes (the Naughton power plant). After their tours, they went to the Fossil Fuel Coffee Company, which is a pretty new coffee shop that opened in town. They met with some local leaders, and I believe Wyoming’s Governor Mark Gordon was there, and I also saw [U.S.] Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyoming).
The main event that a larger number of members of the Kemmerer community and other leaders were invited to was at the Best Western [Hotel]. There were probably 60 or 70 people all assembled to see Bill Gates speak. They [the public] were pretty nervous, I think, going into it – a lot of people were looking around like, ‘Where is he? Is he here yet?’ And then all the cars rolled up and everyone was focused on the door, ready to see him come in. He ducked inside pretty casually.
But that was the only part [of the day] that most members of the media were invited to. So there were cameras lining the back wall. Other reporters and photographers were dodging around trying to get photos. There were also rows and rows of seats in the Best Western, and people just completely focused on everything that Bill Gates was saying.
CT: Wow. So it sounds like interesting energy in the room at the Best Western. Also, from what I understand, Governor Mark Gordon was there as well, and he made some remarks. Tell us more about what that looked like.
NP: So you had four panelists sitting up front at the table, a few TerraPower executives and then obviously Bill Gates. The panelists all spoke, gave their introductions and took a few questions. And at one point, Bill Gates turned to Gov. Gordon and was like, ‘Gov. Gordon, would you like to say anything?’ So Gov. Gordon got up and took the mic and made some very impressive off the cuff remarks. He basically emphasized that Wyoming wants to keep powering the nation, and that he really views nuclear power as a big part of that future – not just this one demonstration project, but also ideally, a lot more of these projects throughout the state at other retiring coal plants and maybe even other places in the future. Right now, TerraPower is studying the possibility of building more nuclear reactors at some of the coal plants that were considered for this first one, but didn't make the cut. So those Rocky Mountain Power plants include Wyodak in Gillette, Dave Johnston in Glenrock and then Jim Bridger in Rock Springs. So all of those are still on the table for the next round of these plants, assuming that this first one continues to go smoothly.
CT: At the event, was there any new information that you learned about this specific TerraPower project?
NP: I think most of the focus was on TerraPower emphasizing that even though their target dates have changed, instead of aiming for [opening by] 2028 they are now aiming for roughly 203, give or take, they're still committed. They still want to be in Kemmerer, and they're going to try to stick to their timeline that they came up with at the beginning of the project.
CT: So jumping off of that for people who maybe haven't followed as closely, TerraPower initially was going to get this nuclear power plant project off the ground operating by 2028. And then late last year, they had to announce a delay – a two year delay, because they don't have this special kind of fuel for the plant. It was supposed to come from Russia, and so now they're trying to figure out a domestic solution. And so that's kind of the background there.
NP: Like you said, this plant needs a different kind of fuel than the existing U.S. nuclear fleet. Pretty much every reactor operating in the U.S. right now uses a very low enriched form of uranium. The TerraPower plant uses a more highly enriched form of uranium that is currently only made in a couple places around the world and only commercially available from a supplier in Russia. So TerraPower’s original plan was to work with that supplier for at least the first load of fuel they needed for this first reactor, because they call it a ‘chicken and egg problem’. [That’s] where the suppliers they need for this fuel don't want to invest in making it until they're confident that these reactors are going to work and are going to be deployed at a scale that is economic[al] to supply. But the company can't start its reactors and prove that they're going to work unless those suppliers are there and unless they can get fuel. So, Russia was kind of a way around that. But once Russia invaded Ukraine, TerraPower committed to not getting their fuel from Russia, which left them scrambling to get it from somewhere else. And the problem they've run into is that U.S. suppliers – even with a lot of U.S. Department of Energy money, which is being funneled into them as we speak – are not going to be able to produce enough of this fuel at the scale that TerraPower needs in time for that 2028 deadline they originally set.
It's worth noting that that deadline was set by Congress as part of the $2 billion grant that they ended up receiving from the Department of Energy, which is paying for roughly half of the project. The whole point of the congressional funding was to try to make nuclear a more competitive source of U.S. electricity than it currently is. Because the existing type of nuclear reactor that we use in the U.S. is huge. It's expensive to build and to operate and it's really struggling to compete with a lot of newer, cheaper sources of electricity, like renewables and even natural gas. So the goal is to keep nuclear power in the mix by modernizing not only the actual plants, but the process of building them.
CT: So Nicole, something else you reported on that really stood out to me is the design of this nuclear power plant, and that it might not actually look like what we might all be envisioning. And also, notably, there's been a little confusion. TerraPower’s nuclear power plant is not going to take the physical space of the Naughton power plant that is already there. Break this all down for us.
NP: So right in the U.S., if you drive by a nuclear plant, you see that giant chimney thing made of concrete. It looks like a big cone. The TerraPower plant, their Natrium design looks a lot more like a bunch of warehouses, these blocky white buildings. If you drove by it, you might think it was some kind of industrial manufacturing facility or something. But if you didn't know what it was, you might not know it was a nuclear plant, because it doesn't have those sort of hallmark features that we typically see.
This Natrium design will be built a little distance away from the coal plant. Because what the company really wants isn't the physical infrastructure of the coal plant, they don't want that, like electricity generating capacity. What they're most interested in, is the electricity transmission capacity that's already existing there that's been used for the Naughton plant for a long time. That's enough to transfer all of the electricity generated at this nuclear plant to the grid. So if they can repurpose that, they don't have to go through this very complicated and expensive process of adding more transmission infrastructure, and figuring out how to integrate that into the grid. It's already there, they can already use it. And there is going to be a transition period where both the Naughton plant and the nuclear plant aren't operating at full capacity, so that they can both be connected to the grid at the same time just to make sure that the nuclear plant is dependable before they take that old plant that's currently providing a good chunk of Wyoming's power offline.
Follow Nicole Pollack, the Energy and Natural Resources reporter for the Casper Star Tribune.
