Micha Pawlitzki | Image Bank | Getty images
The nuclear industry rushed to launch small advanced reactors in the early 2030s, aimed at meeting the growing need for electricity in the technology sector with deep pockets to power artificial intelligence.
The world is largely based on the same technology of pressure water reactor in the past 70 years, but these plants have proven to be incredibly costly to build in the United States in the 21st century.
The first new nuclear power plant completed over the decades, 3 and 4 reactors at Plant Vogtle in Georgia, sadly cost approximately $ 18 billion more than expected and opened late. Each of these reactors can generate 1,114 megawatts of electricity, enough for more than 800,000 houses.
“Doing these new constructions with this older and high pressure technology is simply unaffordable,” said Chris Levesque, CEO of TerrorAn advanced reactor company co-founded and supported by Bill Gates, told CNBC.
Despite the growing interest in the restart of closed reactors, such as Michigan palisades and Three Mile island in Pennsylvania, as a faster and cheaper short -term solution, there is “a lot of hesitation on a whole new factory,” said Levesque.
Advanced reactors under development promise to have smaller and light fingerprints that could make them cheaper and faster to build when they are fully sold. But the industry is crowded with more than 90 different technologies at various stages of development in the world, according to the Nuclear energy agency.
The public services and technology sectors must be at the bottom of the field at five or 10 companies with the right technology, said John Ketchum, CEO of Nexttery energyThe largest electricity company by market capitalization in the United States
“Many of them are under capitalization,” said Ketchum about small nuclear startups designing advanced reactors. “So we have to choose the ones we really want to take and make bets,” the CEO told the Ceraweek Energy conference in Houston earlier this month.
Ketchum sees the first online reactor online around 2031 in the United States, with more units potentially on the way to 2035. Technological companies will serve as a catalyst, Levesque claiming that they are a “enormous force” which can advance industry because of their immense demand for electricity coupled with their deep pockets. Alphabet,, Amazon,, Meta And Microsoft Together, seven times are worth the value of the entire public services sector of the S&P 500.
Here are some of the main players in the American market to relaunch nuclear energy, all three private but with significant financial support – often technological companies – and already aligned customers.
Terror
Terror is the first company of advanced reactors in the United States to go from design to construction, break On its first factory near an old coal site in Kemmerer, Wyoming in the summer of 2024. The company aims to start power by the end of 2030 at Pacificorp of Warren Buffett.
The Terrapower natrium reactor operates at atmospheric temperature, a characteristic which, according to Levesque, will reduce construction costs.
The United States is currently based on reactors that operate at around 300 Celsius (572 degrees Fahrenheit) and are cooled by water. The system operates under high pressure – water bubbles at 100 degrees Celsius – to keep the coolant liquid, and plants need heavy and expensive components to contain the pressure, said Levesque.
Terrapower uses sodium rather than water, such as coolant. The sodium liquid bubbles at 900 Celsius, much higher than the operating temperature of the natrium reactor of around 500 celsius. This means that the plant does not need to be under pressure, said Levesque.
The use of a low pressure and lighter factory to avoid high pressure systems “reduces tons of steel, tons of concrete, working hours, a number of systems,” said Levesque. He believes that the Natrium factories will cost about half a traditional nuclear power plant, the prices lowered as more are built.
The natrium reactor has a power capacity of 345 megawatts, enough for more than 250,000 houses. A plant will have the capacity to go up to 500 megawatts for several hours by storing heat in a thermal battery in melted salt, known as Levesque. The idea is to be able to send electricity on demand to the network when solar energy and wind energy fade because the sun does not shine or the winds are loose.
Terrapower has the financial support of its key founder Bill Gates, SK Group, one of the largest energy suppliers in South Korea, and ArcelorMittal, a Diérien. Gates and Sk Group led Terrapower's $ 830 million in funding In 2022. The Wyoming Project was supported by $ 2 billion from the Ministry of Energy, which Terrapower says that it will correspond to Dollar for Dollar.
Terrapower filed its request for a construction permit from the nuclear regulatory committee in 2024 and expects the regulator to issue a permit in December 2026.
“We are trying to show people that we are inevitable,” said Levesque.
X-Energy
Of all advanced reactor companies, X-Energy is the first to win a direct investment from a technological company, obtaining hundreds of millions of Amazon dollars to build its XXE-100 reactor.
“What this sector needs is risk capital to invest in factories because US public services are not doing it today,” the CEO of X-Energy Clay Sell told CNBC.
X-Energy's most recent financing tower raised $ 700 milliondirected by Amazon and with additional capital of the founder of Citadel Ken Griffin, ARES managementSegra Capital Management, Jane Street Capital and the University of Michigan, among others.
“One of the largest companies in America, a company that is in size larger than the entire public services sector belonging to investors in the United States, has been to come forward and to say that we want to facilitate the new nuclear future in the United States,” said Sell about Amazon's investment.
The money will largely go to finish the design of the reactors so that it is ready for construction and finish the first phase of the X-Energy fuel installation, said Sell.
The XE-100 is a reactor of 80 megawatts sold in a pack of four units to build 320 megawatts in total, said CEO. The multiple units create redundancy and small size allows the largest component, the reactor ship, to ship from a factory via the road to the construction site, said Sell.
The reactor uses gas helium as a cooling liquid rather than in water. X-Energy has its own graphite stones that contain grains of uranium locked up in ceramic. Sell said that graphite cannot melt, which makes the plant “intrinsically sure”.
Amazon's investment will finance four XX-100 reactors in the state of Washington which will be built, held and operated by Energy Northwest, a public service, with online plants in the early 2030s. The intention is to pass to a dozen XX-100 in Washington, said Sell.
X-Energy also works with Dow Inc. To deploy four reactors in chemical society manufacturing plant in Seadrift, Texas. The Ministry of Energy awarded X-Energy up to $ 1.2 billion to develop and deploy its technoloy.
X-Energy aims to become the first company to order an advanced operational reactor in the United States, said Sell.
Kairos Power
Kairos Power Signed a contract with the Google alphabet unit last year to deploy several advanced reactors, aimed at providing the Youtube company with 500 megawatts of energy. The first reactor should be put online in 2030, with additional deployments until 2035.
The financial conditions of the agreement have not been disclosed, but the Google contract is “extremely important”, allowing Kairos to “plan the infrastructure not only for a project but for a series of projects,” CEO Mike Laufer told CNBC.
“This allows us to develop our infrastructure, our production – our manufacturing capacities,” said Laufer.
The 75 megawatts kairos reactor will be deployed in pairs to provide 150 megawatts of total power. Similar to Terrapower, the kairos reactor operates near atmospheric pressure using melted fluoride salt instead of water as a coolant. Like X-Energy, Kairos uses fuel that frames the grains of uranium in ceramic and graphite stones which cannot melt in high temperature reactors, depending on the company.
Kairos builds a low -power demonstration reactor at Oak RidgeTennessee to enhance its capacity “to provide clean, safe and affordable nuclear heat. Oak Ridge, site of A national laboratory About 25 km west of Knoxville, was the place where uranium was enriched As part of the Manhattan project To build the first atomic bombs.
Today, there will be a “natural slimming” in the number of advanced reactor companies, the CEO of Kairos, Laufer, said: “He will be motivated by who can really be able to carry out projects,” he said.
