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Get set, Wyoming.
Governor Mark Gordon says his state is intent on using nuclear power to go “carbon negative.” And two of the world’s richest men, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, have a plan to step in with technology and funding to make it happen.
One proposed project involves TerraPower, founded by Gates more than a decade ago, and Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway-owned utility, PacifiCorp, which covers western states including Idaho, Utah, Oregon, Washington, California and Wyoming.
Though Gates has claimed there’s cutting edge technology behind the plant proposal, it would use materials that have long been employed in nuclear power, including uranium and plutonium.
The plant’s cooling would utilize Natrium technology, which is a sodium-based liquid metal coolant. The technology reportedly has certain advantages over water as a cooling agent for reactors, but is also more prone to problems with leakage and combustion.
“We think Natrium will be a game-changer for the energy industry,” Gates said last week at a media conference in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
According to reports, the plant would produce 345 megawatts of electricity, or even up to 500 megawatts with added boosts provided via a molten salt energy storage component.
The plant cost is estimated at $1 billion, and would take seven years to build.
Notably, the project doesn’t involve thorium technology. Many innovators in the nuclear industry believe that thorium represents real advances over other older nuclear materials, in terms of byproducts and safety. Thorium byproduct waste can’t be used to build nuclear weapons.
A reactor of the kind backed by the Wyoming governor and the tycoons set to build it has other higher risk factors than usual reactors. For one thing, fuel used for the reactors has to be enriched to a higher degree, making it a potential high value target for malicious actors looking to make a crude nuclear weapon.