Nuclear power company TerraPower has passed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff’s final safety evaluation for a permit to build a reactor in Wyoming. The Washington-based company backed by Bill Gates and NVIDIA could be the first to deploy a utility-scale, next-generation reactor in America.
TerraPower’s Natrium design pairs a small modular reactor (SMR) with an integrated thermal battery. The SMR generates 345 megawatts of continuous electrical power. The thermal battery, which stores excess heat in molten salt, allows the system to surge its output to 500 megawatts for more than five hours, generating enough energy to power 400,000 homes at maximum capacity.
“Today is a momentous occasion for TerraPower, our project partners and the Natrium design,” said company CEO Chris Levesque in a statement issued Monday. The favorable assessment “reflects years of rigorous evaluation, thoughtful collaboration with the NRC, and an unwavering commitment to both safety and innovation.”
The company launched in 2006 and is building on technology used in an experimental breeder reactor in Idaho that operated for nearly 30 years before shutting down.
TerraPower set a goal of producing power at the Kemmerer, Wyo., site by 2030. The reactor is located near a retiring coal plant.
There is tremendous renewed interest in nuclear as tech giants and data center operators scramble for new energy sources to power AI operations. Microsoft, Amazon and others have invested in a combination of existing nuclear plants that can be restarted and construction of new facilities. The Trump administration has pledged to expedite permitting.
“We’ve finished our technical work on the Kemmerer review a month ahead of our already accelerated schedule, as we aim to make licensing decisions for new, advanced reactors in no more than 18 months,” said Jeremy Groom, acting director of the NRC’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
“We thank TerraPower for promptly addressing the agency’s questions to ensure safety and enable the NRC to efficiently process the application,” he added in a statement.
The NRC said there are no safety aspects that would preclude issuing a construction permit for the reactor. TerraPower last year broke ground in Wyoming on non-nuclear components of the facility.
In June the company announced $650 million in new funding from Gates, who helped start TerraPower, as well as the venture arm of chip giant NVIDIA. It previously raised more than $1 billion, including investments from Gates as well as South Korea-based SK Inc. and SK Innovation, according to PitchBook. TerraPower has additionally been awarded roughly $2 billion from the U.S. Department of Energy.
There are still additional permitting hurdles to complete:
- In the coming weeks, the NRC staff will provide a safety evaluation and final environmental impact statement to the Commission for the final phase of the licensing.
- The Commission then determines whether the staff’s review supports the findings required to issue the permit, and votes on whether to direct the staff to issue the permit.
- If the NRC issues the permit, TerraPower will need to submit an operating license application for approval.
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