Billionaire friends Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have come together to launch the first Natrium nuclear reactor project on the site of a retiring coal plant in Wyoming. The power companies of both Gates and Buffett—TerraPower and PacifiCorp announced that the exact site of the Natrium reactor demonstration plant would be announced by end of the year.
Wyoming is the country’s top-coal producing state. “We think Natrium will be a game-changer for the energy industry,” Mr Gates said by video link to a news conference hosted by Republican governor Mark Gordon, The Guardian reported.
"Nuclear power is clearly a part of my all-of-the-above strategy for energy" in Wyoming, the country's top coal-producing state, Gordon said.
The nuclear reactor is expected to feature a 345-megawatt sodium-cooled fast reactor with molten salt-based energy storage that could boost the system’s power output to 500 MW during peak power demand. The plants are expected to cost about $1 billion a TerraPower spokesperson said.
The demonstration plant would be built in seven years, Chris Levesque, TerraPower’s president and chief executive said.
“We need this kind of clean energy on the grid in the 2030s,” he added.
Small advanced reactors that run on alternate fuels can help cut emissions that cause climate change.
