US approves construction for Gates-backed TerraPower reactor in Wyoming

By Timothy Gardner

WASHINGTON, March 4 (Reuters) - The U.S. nuclear regulator said on Wednesday it has approved construction for the Bill Gates-backed TerraPower small nuclear reactor in Wyoming.

The approval, the first for a commercial reactor by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in nearly a decade, was for TerraPower's planned 345-megawatt Kemmerer sodium-cooled reactor. It is expected to be built near a coal-fired plant and operational in the early 2030s.

TerraPower said in a statement it plans to start construction in coming weeks.

The NRC said the plant includes an energy storage system to temporarily boost output up to 500 MW.

The NRC finished its technical review of the new design in less than 18 months.

President Donald Trump, who wants to quadruple U.S. nuclear power capacity to 400 gigawatts by 2050, issued executive orders last year to speed permitting by the NRC, seeking to shorten a multi-year process to 18 months.

TerraPower's Natrium reactor would run on a special fuel called high-assay low-enriched uranium, or HALEU, which traditionally was only made in Russia. The NRC said its staff expects to issue the permit soon.

In January, the U.S. Department of Energy awarded American Centrifuge Operating, a subsidiary of Centrus Energy LEU.N, and General Matter, backed by tech billionaire Peter Thiel, $900 million each to develop domestic HALEU.

HALEU is uranium fuel enriched up to nearly 20% instead of the 5% level of uranium used in today's reactors. Non-proliferation advocates have pushed for HALEU to be enriched only up to 12% to prevent its supply chain from being targeted by militants looking to make a crude nuclear weapon.

The DOE also supports the Natrium reactor with up to $2 billion in funding through the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program.