(18 Jan 2022) LEAD IN:
As countries look to move away from fossil fuels, a small US town may be transformed when a new type of nuclear power plant is built there.
TerraPower plans to launch its Natrium reactor in Kemmerer, Wyoming, which would use molten sodium instead of water to cool the reactor.
STORY-LINE:
This Wyoming town has relied on coal for over a century.
Until recently, Kemmerer was little-known for anything except J.C. Penney's first store and some 55-million-year-old fish fossils in quarries down the road.
In November, a company backed by Bill Gates, TerraPower, announced it had chosen Kemmerer for a non-traditional, sodium-cooled nuclear reactor that will bring on workers from a local coal-fired power plant scheduled to close soon.
Many residents in Kemmerer see the TerraPower project as a much-needed economic boost because Rocky Mountain Power's Naughton power plant will close in 2025.
The plant employs about 230, and a mine that supplies coal exclusively to the plant — and is also at risk of closing if it can't find another customer — almost 300.
"I don't know if Kemmerer would have survived if we lost the power plant and the coal mine both. It may have just turned into a ghost town," says Crystal Bowen, a coal power plant worker.
TerraPower has pledged to train workers so anyone interested can transition to working at the nuclear plant when it opens, says Rodger Holt, manager of the Naughton coal plant.
"They talked about a two year training program for people that will be working in the nuclear. So the timing works out really well, so most of those details have not been ironed out yet. But, pretty much most of the people out here that are going to want to be part of that facility should have the opportunity."
The plant remains years off — 2028 is the current estimate — but the news has already triggered interest in real estate and "breathes new life into the town," says Mayor Bill Thek.
"I am absolutely for saving our environment. And if we get in on the ground floor of being part of saving and making our environment better, I'm all for that." he says.
"With what's happening here with the natrium power plant, that's the survival of our community" Thek adds.
Nuclear power is emerging as an answer to fill the gap as states transition away from coal, oil and natural gas to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stave off the worst effects of a warming planet.
"So we fully expect a massive expansion of wind and solar, and we're for that. But to complement that wind and solar, if we're going to shut off the fossil sources over time, we really need a source like nuclear that's emission free and that's running 24/7," says Chris Levesque, TerraPower CEO.
The planned Kemmerer reactor uses Natrium technology, which is a sodium-cooled fast reactor paired with an energy-storage system.
TerraPower says its relatively small 345-megawatt plant, able to power about 345,000 homes, will be safe and less expensive than conventional, water-cooled nuclear plants.
The high heat-transfer properties of sodium will allow the Natrium plant to be air-cooled.
That will enable the plant to be quickly shut down in case of an emergency, and the absence of emergency generators and pumps will save on costs, according to TerraPower.
The approach isn't new. Russia has had a commercial sodium-cooled reactor in use at full capacity since 2016 and such designs have been tested in the U.S.
At peak capacity, the plant could generate 500 megawatts, enough for 500,000 homes, according to TerraPower.
Lyman says the problem of what to do with its used nuclear rods.
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