US Energy News: Nuclear Power Plant Backed By Bill Gates, Warren Buffet Heads To Wyoming

The town of Kemmerer, Wyoming, will become the home of an experimental Natrium nuclear power plant run by TerraPower.

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett both backed the Natrium reaction demonstration project, and it will replace a coal-fired plant closing in 2025. This nuclear power plant is one of two supported by the Department of Energy (DOE) and is expected to be operational within seven years, as mandated by Congress.

The news comes after President Joe Biden on Monday signed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal.

“President Biden signed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal and today DOE is already putting it to work with more than $1.5 billion heading to Wyoming,” said Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm. “The energy communities that have powered us for generations have real opportunities to power our clean energy future through projects just like this one, that provide good-paying jobs and usher in the next wave of nuclear technologies.”

TerraPower is a nuclear reactor design and development engineering company headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. The company is developing nuclear fast reactions, otherwise known as traveling wave reactors.

Gates founded the company in 2006. He was part of a private-sector group that decided to develop nuclear energy which will meet electricity needs and mitigate climate change.