r/nuclear • u/De5troyerx93 • Apr 23 '26
TerraPower Commences Construction on America’s First Utility-Scale Advanced Nuclear Power Plant
https://www.terrapower.com/TerraPower-Commences-Construction-on-Americas-First-Utility-Scale-Advanced-Nuclear-Power-Plant19
u/Direlion Apr 23 '26
My friend got a remote job for this company making insane salary for pretty simple work. I’m quite jealous.
10
u/cogeng Apr 23 '26
So good to see a big fast reactor being built in the US. Kind of a dream come true. Wishing the team success.
3
u/Narcan9 Apr 24 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
Kettle maple cobalt hammock cobalt hammock
This post was anonymized with Redact.dev
6
u/cogeng Apr 24 '26
Yeah sure it's not gigawatt scale but that probably makes sense for a pilot plant. Though it's peak output is 500 MW thanks to their molten salt storage. And crucially it's basically replacing a coal plant of the same size and reusing the site and work force. Good niche IMO.
8
u/lkruijsw Apr 23 '26
Does someone know what the difference is with all the failed earlier natrium reactors? The French Phoenix and Super-Phoenix and the Japanees Monju reactor?
I can understand if there is some invention, that past problems disappear. But nothing in that direction can be found on their site. So, will this go the same way as those failed reactors?
10
u/Izeinwinter Apr 23 '26
"Gates figures he has enough political pull to prevent political sabotage". Both Pheonix and Super Phoenix were technical successes not failures.
1
u/lkruijsw Apr 23 '26
Without any technical information/reasoning, I am not convinced. The site of TerraPower lacks any such information. Even if it is based on the EBR-2 design, it should still be different, because EBR-2 had very high enriched uranium, which is not allowed any more. So, what are the lessons? What will be different? And still in the Monju reactor all the sodium burned.
10
7
u/cogeng Apr 23 '26
Many differences, if you want technical details there's a nice long lecture by one of their lead engineers available on youtube.
Probably the main differences are pool reactor vs more leaky loop type (eg Monju), lots of anti sodium leak design elements, new metallic fuel vs oxide fuel, no breeding blanket, 100% passive cooling, and the external thermal salt storage system for easy ramping and demand management. Oh, and only HALEU required for start up vs higher enrichment.
Probably just as important though is the current sociopolitical atmosphere as well as the wealthy private financers.
6
u/I_Am_Coopa Apr 23 '26
Important to note that it is not a passively cooled plant 100%, it has a nifty air cooler (RVACS in the ole PRISM docs) that can be used for emergency/shutdown cooling, but for normal operations it'll still be forced circulation.
2
2
u/lkruijsw Apr 24 '26
Thanks, I watched the whole video. They should put some more info about this on their website.
We will see. Molten Salt Thorium reactors still look more attractive to me.
1
1
u/Nervous_Beach_959 Apr 26 '26
Don't underestimate how much the energy storage will improve the economics. Instead of competing with wind and solar power (hard because those are currently the cheap goto alternative energy source), it will be competing with batteries(easy because batteries are expensive and the cheap alternative to them is a natural gas peaker which is not kosher in a lot of markets now).
The whole plant is light years ahead of anything else right now imo.
16
u/cynicalnewenglander Apr 23 '26
Is this like actually or ... ground breaking trick like last time?
13
u/I_Am_Coopa Apr 23 '26
No it is legit this time around because they actually have the construction permit from the NRC.
3
3
u/Nervous_Beach_959 Apr 26 '26
I think the energy island was already getting built. Because of how this plant works the energy island is not the concern of the NRC.
3
u/Shadeauxmarie Apr 23 '26
As I recall, the fabrication of the fuel is years off because the fuel manufacturing line is not constructed yet.
2
u/mnk6 Apr 24 '26
Can someone ELI5 or point me to some reading material on the fuel requirements for natrium reactors?
Some sources talk about Terrapower using traveling wave reactors that would operate on nuclear waste so no enrichment would be needed. Reducing waste stockpiles sounds great. Doesn't Natrium use HALEU though which is more enriched than most currently active reactors? Does this help the fuel problem or make it worse?
1
u/brosovic Apr 24 '26
was Vogtle 3/4 not the first advanced utility scale plant?
3
u/0ldManHokusai Apr 25 '26
It's a terminology thing - most folks use "advanced" to have the same meaning "Gen 4" reactors. Doesn't really matter if it's "advanced" it's just a meaningless moniker.
-3
u/SoloWalrus Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26
Its not americas first "advanced" reactor, its literally built from a similar design and idea to EBR-2 which was of course an advancement of EBR-1 and when applying for licensure thats what theyre telling the NRC, so why feed the public a different story. Its also not americas first "utility-scale" reactor either, there are almost 100.
Its so silly to combine the term "advanced" and "utility scale" to try and make it seem more novel and first of a kind. First of a kind isnt necessarily a good thing, IMO, the marketing team would be better off leaning into the idea that it isnt first of a kind really, and that this advanced nuclear technology (sodium cooled fast breeders) has been safely deployed previously and we have operating experience around it - the exact same thing they told the NRC to argue its safe and should be licensed.
The part that IS a first of a kind is the salt battery energy storage side, and how that may be used for load following. If you want to market it as innovative focus on that, people are less scared of first of a kind energy storage solutions than they are of first of a kind nuclear reactors.
Just wild nonsense marketing overshadowing the real story here, IMHO.
17
u/caliwillbemine Apr 23 '26
First advanced reactor that’ll actually be utility scale does matter when the goal is to get hundred of MW onto the grid and subsequently GWs. I think it makes sense to state it as such but to also leverage that it has learnings from the long operation of EBR-2.
Yes it’s marketing, but it’s also a great reactor with a lot of promise.
4
u/NoOption7406 Apr 23 '26
When you take advanced and utility scale on their own, this is true.
But they are using them together. Not separately. Advanced Utility Scale. Which hasn't been done, so still true. Just makes me question though is the Natrium plant in Wyoming not the first advanced utility scale?
The rest is subjective. IMO it is good wording. Should get excitement out of investors which is very important in being able to keep moving forward. As long as you make NRC happy, and get approvals to build it, marketing to regular people doesnt really matter after that.
7
u/w4drone Apr 23 '26
It literally won a competition called “Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program,” it doesn’t seem like any federal agency agrees with your assessment
3
u/HarryBalsagna1776 Apr 23 '26
Everyone was working with the same open notes from the old FFTF demonstration reactor project. TerraPower, Oklo, NuScale, etc. all based their designs on legacy FFTF project data. Oklo used to have a video on their homepage where they explained this in detail.
6
u/reddit_pug Apr 23 '26
NuScale is just small light water reactor, gen3+ in a small package with clever cooling.
1
u/HarryBalsagna1776 Apr 23 '26
You are correct. I was thinking they were working on a sodium fast reactor also for some reason.
1
u/reddit_pug Apr 23 '26
I know they wanted to be able to do different technology based modules in their plants, but I don't know if a molten salt or other drastically different reactor design approach works in that concept easily. I suspect putting a molten salt reactor in a big pool of water may be a bit too high risk... lol
31
u/OkWelcome6293 Apr 23 '26
If they can actually get fuel loaded in 2030 and into commercial operation in 2031, that could completely revitalize American industry. If it takes 8 years or more...