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Kemmerer, Wyoming, is a frontier coal town. It was organized in 1897 by coal miners and still employs people in the coal and natural gas industries today.
Photo courtesy TerraPower

TerraPower, a start-up co-founded by Bill Gates to revolutionize designs for nuclear reactors, has picked Kemmerer, Wyoming, as the preferred location for its first demonstration reactor. It aims to build the plant in the frontier-era coal town by 2028.

Constructing the plant will be a job bonanza for Kemmerer, with 2,000 workers at its peak, said TerraPower CEO Chris Levesque in a video call with reporters on Tuesday.

It will also provide new clean-energy jobs to a region dominated today by the coal and gas industry. Today, a local power plant, coal mine, and natural gas processing plant combined provide more than 400 jobs — a sizeable number for a region that has only around 3,000 people.

“New industry coming to any community is generally good news,” Kemmerer Mayor William Thek told CNBC. “You have to understand, most of our nearby towns are 50 miles or more from Kemmerer. Despite that, workers travel those distances every day for work in our area.”

The town of Kemmerer, Wyoming. The statue is of J.C. Penney, as Kemmerer is home of the first Penney store, William Thek, the mayor of Kemmerer told CNBC.
Photo courtesy William Thek

For TerraPower, picking a location was a matter of geological and technical factors, like seismic and soil conditions, and community support, said Levesque.

Once built, the plant will provide a baseload of 345 megawatts, with the potential to expand its capacity to 500 megawatts.

For reference, one gigawatt or 1,000 megawatts of energy will power a mid-sized city, and a small town can operate on about one megawatt, according to a rule of thumb Microsoft co-founder Gates provided in his recent book, “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.” The United States uses 1,000 gigawatts and the world needs 5,000 gigawatts, he wrote.

It will cost about $4 billion to build the plant, with half of that money coming from TerraPower and the other half from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program.

“It’s a very serious government grant. This was necessary, I should mention, because the U.S. government and the U.S. nuclear industry was, was falling behind,” said Levesque.

“China and Russia are continuing to build new plants with advanced technologies like ours, and they seek to export those plants to many other countries around the world,” Levesque said. “So the U.S. government was concerned that the U.S. hasn’t been moving forward in this way.”

Once built, it should provide power for 60 years, Levesque said.

How TerraPower’s reactors are different

The Kemerrer plant will be the first to use an advanced nuclear design called Natrium, developed by TerraPower with GE-Hitachi.

Natrium plants use liquid sodium as a cooling agent instead of water. Sodium has a higher boiling point and can absorb more heat than water, which means high pressure does not build up inside the reactor, reducing the risk of an explosion.

Also, Natrium plants do not require an outside energy source to operate their cooling systems, which can be a vulnerability in the case of an emergency shut-down. This contributed to the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan, when a tsunami shut down the diesel generators running its back-up cooling system, contributing to a meltdown and release of radioactive material.

An artists rendering of a Natrium power plant from TerraPower.
Photo courtesy TerraPower

Natrium plants can store also heat in tanks of molten salt, conserving the energy for later use like a battery and, enabling the plant to bump its capacity up from 345 to 500 megawatts for five hours.

The plants are also smaller than conventional nuclear power plants, which should make them faster and cheaper to build than conventional power plants. TerraPower aims to get its plants to a cost of $1 billion, a quarter of the budget for the first one in Kemmerer.

“One important thing to realize is the first plant always costs more,” said Levesque.

Finally, Natrium plants produce less waste, a problematic and dangerous by-product of nuclear fission.

‘Times are changing’

The Kemmerer plant still faces a couple of hurdles, including federal permitting.

“There’s a comprehensive licensing process overseen by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, that, frankly, is expensive. There, there are many, many reviews,” Levesque said.

Also, the fuel that the Natrium plant uses is called high-assay low-enriched uranium, or HALEU, which is not yet available at commercial scale.

The existing nuclear fleet in the United States runs uranium-235 fuel that is enriched up to 5%, the Department of Energy says, while HALEU is is enriched between 5% and 20%.

“Sadly, we don’t have this enrichment capability in the U.S, today. And this is an area of great concern of the US government, and specifically the Department of Energy,” Levesque said.

But it’s coming, Levesque said. “I’m really certain that we’re going to establish that capability” in another public-private partnership, similar to the way the Natrium power plant demonstration is being built.

Once built, the plant will be turned over to Rocky Mountain Power, a division of Berkshire Hathaway Energy’s PacifiCorp, to operate.

There, it will become part of Rocky Mountain Power’s decarbonization plan.

Coal-fired plants like the Naughton facility in Kemmerer “have benefited our customers for decades with very low cost power,” Gary Hoogeveen, president and CEO of Rocky Mountain Power, said Tuesday. “And we appreciate that. But times are changing,” Hoogeveen said.

“External requirements from the federal government, state governments, regulatory agencies are going to require that we change and we’re going to need to decarbonize and as we go down that path, we see the Natrium project as being incredibly valuable to our customers.”

“Wyoming is a tremendous wind resource state,” Hoogeveen said. And so far, Rocky Mountain Power has built 2,000 megawatts of wind power capacity in Wyoming, and that’s going to grow. “We expect to build many more thousands of megawatts of wind capacity in the state.”

But the nuclear power plant in Kemmerer will be a key bridge for the state, Hoogeveen said.

“It is a great spot for absorbing the intermittency of of the renewable resources and using the storage that’s built in that is so incredibly valuable to us,” he said.

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European wind stocks tumble after Trump says he will stop new turbine construction

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4 hours ago

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January 8, 2025

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European wind stocks tumble after Trump says he will stop new turbine construction

A Vestas wind turbine near Baekmarksbro in Jutland. 

Afp | Getty Images

European wind power stocks tumbled Wednesday after President-elect Donald Trump said he would prevent the construction of new turbines.

“We’re going to try and have a policy where no windmills are being built,” Trump told reporters at a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida on Tuesday afternoon.

The Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas Wind Systems and Danish wind developer Orsted fell about 7% Wednesday in the wake of Trump’s remarks.

The president-elect went on a lengthy attack against wind turbines during yesterday’s press conference, arguing that they are too expensive, require subsidies and lack public support.

Trump’s opposition to wind power creates further challenges for an industry that has already struggled in the face of high interest rates that have raised the cost of developing new projects more expensive. In late 2023, for example, Orsted took a $4 billion writedown and canceled two offshore wind projects off the coast of New Jersey.

Still, wind power has expanded in the U.S., growing from 2.4 gigawatts in 2000 to 150 gigawatts by April 2024, according to data from the Energy Information Administration. Electricity generation from wind hit a record in April 2024 and beat generation from coal-fired plants, according to EIA data.

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New DOE report finds 90% of wind turbine materials are recyclable

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18 hours ago

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January 7, 2025

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New DOE report finds 90% of wind turbine materials are recyclable

US wind turbine
The Nordex Group

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has released an encouraging new report revealing that 90% of wind turbine materials are already recyclable using existing infrastructure, but tackling the remaining 10% needs innovation.

That’s why the Biden administration’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has allocated over $20 million to develop technologies that address these challenges.

Why this matters

The wind energy industry is growing rapidly, but questions about what happens to turbines at the end of their life are critical. Recyclable wind turbines means not only less waste but also a more affordable and sustainable energy future.

According to Jeff Marootian, principal deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, “The US already has the ability to recycle most wind turbine materials, so achieving a fully sustainable domestic wind energy industry is well within reach.”

The report, titled, “Recycling Wind Energy Systems in the United States Part 1: Providing a Baseline for America’s Wind Energy Recycling Infrastructure for Wind Turbines and Systems,” identifies short-, medium-, and long-term research, development, and demonstration priorities along the life cycle of wind turbines. Developed by researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, with help from Oak Ridge and Sandia National Laboratories, the findings aim to guide future investments and technological innovations.

What’s easily recyclable and what’s not

The bulk of a wind turbine – towers, foundations, and steel-based drivetrain components – is relatively easy to recycle. However, components like blades, generators, and nacelle covers are tougher to process.

Blades, for instance, are often made from hard-to-recycle materials like thermoset resins, but switching to recyclable thermoplastics could be a game changer. Innovations like chemical dissolution and pyrolysis could make blade recycling more viable in the near future.

Critical materials like nickel, cobalt, and zinc used in generators and power electronics are particularly important to recover.

Key strategies for a circular economy

To make the wind energy sector fully sustainable, the DOE report emphasizes the adoption of measures such as:

  • Better decommissioning practices – Improving how turbine materials are collected and sorted at the end of their life cycle.
  • Strategic recycling sites – Locating recycling facilities closer to where turbines are decommissioned to reduce costs and emissions.
  • Advanced material substitution – Using recyclable and affordable materials in manufacturing.
  • Optimized material recovery – Developing methods to make recovered materials usable in second-life applications.

Looking ahead

The DOE’s research also underscores the importance of regional factors, such as the availability of skilled workers and transportation logistics, in building a cost-effective recycling infrastructure. As the US continues to expand its wind energy capacity, these findings provide a roadmap for minimizing waste and maximizing sustainability.

More information about the $20 million in funding available through the Wind Turbine Technology Recycling Funding Opportunity can be found here. Submission deadline is February 11.

Read more: The California grid ran on 100% renewables with no blackouts or cost rises for a record 98 days

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Mazda finally reveals plans to build its first dedicated EV: Here’s what we know so far

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19 hours ago

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January 7, 2025

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Mazda finally reveals plans to build its first dedicated EV: Here's what we know so far

Mazda-first-dedicted-EV

Mazda is finally stepping up with plans to build its first dedicated EV. The upcoming Mazda EV will be made in Japan and based on a new in-house platform. Here’s what we know about it so far.

The first dedicated Mazda EV is coming soon

Although Mazda isn’t the first brand that comes to mind when you think of electric vehicles, the Japanese automaker is finally taking a step in the right direction.

Mazda revealed on Monday that it plans to build a new module pack plant in Japan for cylindrical lithium-ion battery cells.

The new plant will use Panasonic Energy’s battery cells to produce modules and EV battery packs. Mazda plans to have up to 10 GWh of annual capacity at the facility. The battery packs will power Mazda’s first dedicated EV, which will also be built in Japan using a new electric vehicle platform.

Mazda said it’s “steadily preparing for electrification technologies” under its 2030 Management Plan. The strategy calls for a three-phase approach through 2030.

The first phase calls for using its existing technology. In the second stage, Mazda will introduce a new hybrid system and EV-dedicated vehicles in China.

Mazda-first-dedicted-EV
Mazda EZ-6 electric sedan (Source: Changan Mazda)

The third and final phase calls for “the full-fledged launch” of EVs and battery production. By 2030, Mazda expects EVs to account for 25% to 40% of global sales.

Mazda launched the EZ-6, an electric sedan, in China last October. It starts at 139,800 yuan, or around $19,200, and is made by its Chinese joint venture, Changan Mazda.

Mazda-first-dedicted-EV
Mazda EZ-6 electric sedan (Source: Changan Mazda)

Based on Changan’s hybrid platform, the electric sedan is offered in EV and extended-range (EREV) options. The all-electric model gets up to 600 km (372 miles) CLTC range with fast charging (30% to 80%) in 15 minutes.

At 4,921 mm long, 1,890 mm wide, and 1,485 mm tall with a wheelbase of 2,895 mm, Mazda’s EZ-6 is about the size of a Tesla Model 3 (4,720 mm long, 1,922 mm wide, and 1,441 mm tall with a 2,875 mm wheelbase).

Mazda-first-dedicted-EV-interior
Mazda EZ-6 interior (Source: Changan Mazda)

Inside, the electric sedan features a modern setup with a 14.6″ infotainment, a 10.1″ driver display screen, and a 50″ AR head-up display. It also includes zero-gravity reclining seats and smart features like voice control.

The EZ-6 is already off to a hot sales start, with 2,445 models sold in November. According to Changan Mazda, the new EV was one of the top three mid-size new energy vehicle (NEV) sedans of joint ventures sold in China in its first month listed.

Will Mazda’s first dedicated EV look like the EZ-6? We will find out with Mazda aiming to launch the first EV models on its new in-house platform in 2027. Stay tuned for more.

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