The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued the first permit to build a commercial nuclear reactor in eight years on Wednesday, giving approval to plans by a Bill Gates-backed company to build a sodium-cooled reactor in western Wyoming.
TerraPower applied for the permit in 2024, and construction is scheduled to begin within weeks. Finish Up to $4 billion factory It is targeted for 2030, according to TerraPower.
“We spent thousands of workforce hours working to achieve this historic accomplishment,” Chris Levesque, president and CEO of TerraPower, said in a statement.
Microsoft co-founder Gates, who is looking to use nuclear energy as a power source for electricity-hungry, AI-driven data centers, is the founder and lead investor in TerraPower.
The TerraPower plant is slated to be built on the site of a coal-fired power plant converted to burn natural gas near Kemmerer, a town of about 2,500 people located 130 miles (210 kilometers) northeast of Salt Lake City. PacifiCorp’s Naughton plant will continue to operate in the meantime.
The 345-megawatt reactor can generate up to 500 megawatts at its peak, enough for about 400,000 homes.