Wyoming’s TerraPower Finds Way Around Russia Problem

There was a little snag with the newly proposed and permitted nuclear power plant proposed for Wyoming as to where it would get its nuclear energy from. But the issue has been addressed.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission had granted a construction permit to TerraPower,  to build a new wave of smaller, advanced reactors in Wyoming.

The plant is expected to come online in 2031 near an old coal-burning power plant that is slated to retire a few years later.

This will not be the old light-water reactor technology, in which water is pumped into a reactor core and heated by atomic fission, producing steam to create electricity. TerraPower’s reactor will use liquid sodium instead of water, allowing it to operate at lower pressures.

For a time, it was thought that the only place to get the HALEU for the power plant was through a Russian company. That issue has been addressed.

TerraPower will secure HALEU (High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium) primarily through a 10-year contract with ASP Isotopes (ASPI), which will build a dedicated enrichment facility in South Africa to supply fuel for the Natrium reactor. The agreement includes initial core supply for the Wyoming project and long-term deliveries from 2028 through 2037. This strategy aims to circumvent the global HALEU shortage and reliance on Russian supply.

Can this be done in the United States? Wyoming has everything needed right here, onsite, except the means to process and enrich. But, in the long run, that can be fixed.

ASP Isotopes (ASPI) via a new, dedicated enrichment facility in Pretoria, South Africa.

TerraPower is funding the construction of this facility to secure a stable, non-Russian, Western-aligned supply chain.

TerraPower has previously collaborated with U.S.-based Centrus Energy to explore domestic enrichment capabilities.