TerraPower’s demonstration of an advanced reactor will be delayed by at least two years because the only source for the fuel it burns is Russia. The Ukraine war has stopped the trade in such materials. TerraPower is planning to construct its first reactor in the frontier-era coal town of Kemmerer, Wyoming. They had hoped to finish the demonstration reactor by 2028.
Chris Levesque is the CEO of TerraPower. He said, “In February 2022, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused the only commercial source of HALEU fuel to no longer be a viable part of the supply chain for TerraPower, as well as for others in our industry. Given the lack of fuel availability now, and that there has been no construction started on new fuel enrichment facilities, TerraPower is anticipating a minimum of a two-year delay to being able to bring the Natrium reactor into operation.”
The TerraPower advanced nuclear plant design is called Natrium. It will be smaller than conventional nuclear power reactors. It is estimated to cost four billion dollars. Half of that money will come from the Department of Energy (DoE). It will offer three hundred and forty-five megawatts of power. The reactor will have the potential to expand its capacity to five hundred megawatts. That is estimated to be about half the energy required to power a mid-sized city.
However, the plant will depend on high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU). The existing nuclear reactor fleet in the U.S. burns uranium-235 fuel enriched to five percent. HALEU is enriched between five percent and twenty percent.
The U.S. does not have the enrichment capacity to supply commercial amounts of HALEU fuel. TerraPower had “assumed the use of HALEU from Russia for our first core load.”
Since Russia invaded Ukraine last February it has become clear that Russia could no longer be a reliable trading Partner. TerraPower, the DoE and other stakeholders have been looking for alternative sources of HALEU fuel. They are also pressuring lawmakers to approve two billion dollars to support HALEU production, according to Levesque.
Wyoming Senator John Barrasso, a Republican, thinks that this situation is a “wake up call” for the U.S. In a written statement, Barrasso said, “Instead of relying on our adversaries like Russia for uranium, the United States must produce its own supply of advanced nuclear fuel.”
Barrasso sent a letter to the Senate Energy Committee Chairman Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) requesting that they hold a hearing about the availability of HALEU. Barrasso also sent a letter to Jennifer Granholm, the Secretary of Energy urging the U.S. to move faster to secure a source of HALEU.
The DoE has “sufficient stockpiles of excess and previously used uranium to meet TerraPower’s needs,” however it has “yet to process sufficient amounts of this excess uranium into HALEU,” Barrasso said in his letter to Granholm. “At this point, no single pathway will likely be sufficient to meet TerraPower’s schedule.”
Currently, 800 engineers are working to complete the plant’s design. TerraPower expects the project will employ as many as two thousand workers to build the plant in the mid-2020s. TerraPower has raised over eight hundred and thirty million dollars in private funding in 2022. The U.S. Congress has appropriated one billion six hundred million dollars for construction of the plant.