All posts tagged: terrapower

Bill Gates’ TerraPower gets approval to build new nuclear reactor

Bill Gates’ TerraPower gets approval to build new nuclear reactor

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) gave TerraPower the go-ahead this week to build a new nuclear reactor in the shadow of an aging coal power plant in Wyoming. TerraPower’s permit is the first to be issued by the NRC in nearly a decade. The startup — founded by Bill Gates in 2015 and backed by Nvidia — has been designing its Natrium reactor with GE Vernova Hitachi. The final power plant will generate 345 megawatts, which is about two-thirds smaller than modern full-size reactors, but multiple times larger than many small modular reactor designs favored by other startups. Natrium differs from other reactors not just in scale, but also in the details of its design. Where most nuclear reactors built in the last 50 years have been cooled by water, Natrium is cooled by molten sodium, which TerraPower says should be safer. This is the first time a commercial reactor that is not cooled by regular water has been approved by the NRC in more than 40 years. The reactor will operate with an excess …

Meta signs deals with three nuclear companies for 6-plus GW of power

Meta signs deals with three nuclear companies for 6-plus GW of power

Meta today announced three deals to provide its data centers with nuclear power: one from a startup, one from a smaller energy company, and one from a larger company that already operates several nuclear reactors in the U.S. Oklo and TerraPower, two companies developing small modular reactors (SMR), each signed agreements with Meta to build multiple reactors, while Vistra is selling capacity from its existing power plants. Nuclear power has become a favored power source for tech companies as their AI ambitions have grown, providing stable 24/7 electricity. Startups and existing reactors have benefited from the race for data center power, though in different ways. Existing reactors tend to be the cheapest form of baseload capacity, but there are only so many to go around, which has pushed Meta and its peers toward SMR startups. Companies like Oklo and TerraPower are betting that by building a large number of smaller reactors, they’ll be able to bring the cost down through mass manufacturing. It’s a plausible hypothesis, though one that has yet to be tested. Meta’s …