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The U.S. is going to need about 130% more electricity by 2030 to meet the demands of the boom in artificial intelligence. Tech companies in the federal government are investing billions in new nuclear power plants. One now under construction in Wyoming just got a federal license and its backers say it will prove the advanced technology makes nuclear plants safer and quicker to build. NPR's Kirk Siegler paid a visit.
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KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: The infamous Wyoming wind is whipping an American flag hoisted above the construction site of what's only the fourth nuclear reactor to be built in the U.S. this century.
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SIEGLER: One of the first in a new generation of advanced designs.
CHRIS LEVESQUE: And that's where the reactor goes.
SIEGLER: Washington state-based TerraPower, founded by Bill Gates, says this will be the first of many - part of a new nuclear renaissance they want to bring to longtime energy exporting states like Wyoming. Meet CEO Chris Levesque, with his bright smile and bundle of enthusiasm about all things advanced nuclear.
LEVESQUE: Yeah. We weren't even allowed to do excavation in this footprint out here until we got the NRC license.
SIEGLER: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave TerraPower final approval to begin construction in March. Now, this capped five years of studies and safety demonstrations and a decision to site the plant in Kemmerer, Wyoming, which won bids over numerous other Western towns.
LEVESQUE: There's a whole different story to begin with, is having communities vying for a nuclear power plant, you know, 'cause the old story on nuclear was more of a not-in-my-backyard thing.
SIEGLER: Levesque, who came to TerraPower after a career in the legacy nuclear industry, thinks new technologies and demand for low-emission power is changing this. Almost everything here will be buried underground, and they'll use liquid sodium metal instead of water to cool the reactor.
LEVESQUE: I'd have to say milestones like this really show people that, yeah, this is a new technology, but we're doing it. We're hitting our milestones. It's real, and people can start to work this into their plans.
SIEGLER: Once online in 2031, Levesque says this plant will make enough electricity for a utility to power almost half a million homes in nearby Salt Lake City. And TerraPower has agreements with Meta to build up to eight more reactors to power the company's data centers, specifically.
LEVESQUE: Since we were selected by Department of Energy, we've had a project going for five years that's switched administrations, switched parties, switched multiple controls of Congress.
SIEGLER: The Biden administration's infrastructure law fronted half of the costs of construction - about $2 billion. Wyoming's Republican senators voted against that bill, but the state is eagerly courting nuclear energy plants and new uranium mines. Same with neighboring Idaho and Utah, where Governor Spencer Cox recently staged a press conference in the barren scrubland west of Salt Lake City.
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SPENCER COX: If you are serious about energy abundance, you have to be serious about nuclear energy.
SIEGLER: Cox was unveiling Utah's application to be one of the U.S. Department of Energy's new nuclear hubs, billed as a nuclear life cycle innovation campus, where they'd enrich nuclear fuel, recycle it and store its waste that could come from the Kemmerer plant one day.
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COX: This should not be controversial. America built the nuclear industry.
SIEGLER: But nuclear still is controversial, especially in the West with its legacy of abandoned uranium mines and radioactive waste, particularly in Indian country. And Salt Lake City was downwind from the Cold War era nuclear weapons test sites.
LEXI TUDDENHAM: This area has been considered a sacrifice zone for a long time, and I think...
SIEGLER: Lexi Tuddenham of the group HEAL Utah is alarmed that Utah wants to put a nuclear hub here, about 10 miles from the western shore of the drying Great Salt Lake. She says nuclear is being rebranded as green, but what about the waste?
TUDDENHAM: Bill Gates is paying for this first one. We as taxpayers are also paying for this first one, I will say. But what about the next one, the next one, the next one? How much are we going to be on the hook for as taxpayers and as ratepayers as we go down this path?
SIEGLER: TerraPower says, like conventional nuclear reactors, its new plant in Wyoming will store its spent fuel on-site until a permanent repository is approved by the Feds. They say it's safe and the advanced nuclear tech produces less waste than legacy plants.
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SIEGLER: Back in Wyoming, the country's top coal-producing state, one thing that's not in dispute is that Kemmerer is eager for any sort of energy boom. When the West Coast divested from coal, national headlines all but wrote off this town of 3,000 as dying. Today, city administrator Brian Muir says there's relief and optimism hundreds of skilled jobs are being created.
BRIAN MUIR: I'll just say, when Bill Gates came here, he talked about our high energy IQ. We know about all forms of energy and the benefits and the costs and the risks and the footprints and all of that. We understand that.
SIEGLER: Muir says Kemmerer is already lobbying TerraPower to build a second nuclear plant here.
Kirk Siegler, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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