Bill Gates began building the first nuclear power plant based on sodium reactors
June 12, 2024
0
What makes Natrium reactors special Once operational, the Sodium Demonstration Facility in Kemmerer, Wyoming, USA, will become a fully operational commercial power plant. According to TerraPower founder Bill
What makes Natrium reactors special
Once operational, the Sodium Demonstration Facility in Kemmerer, Wyoming, USA, will become a fully operational commercial power plant. According to TerraPower founder Bill Gates, Natrium will be “the world’s most advanced nuclear facility”, will be much safer and will produce orders of magnitude less waste than conventional reactors.
The plant is being built near the closing Naughton coal-fired power station and is the only coal-to-nuclear conversion project being developed in the world.
Although the company says it has laid a cornerstone, full construction of the “power island” that will house the main steam turbines and other power generation equipment will begin in 2025. Construction of the Natrium nuclear power plant will take several years. This is expected Nuclear power plant will be operational in 2030if everything goes as planned. The company will build the non-nuclear parts first, while the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission reviews the construction permit application it approved last month.
On this project, TerraPower is in a private-public partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy and energy company PacifiCorp. It is interesting that the company will employ 200 to 250 people in total. 110 of them will be former employees of Naughton coal-fired power station.
How does the Natrium reactor work?
The project includes a fast neutron reactor with sodium cooling capacity 345 megawatts. Storage technology can increase system capacity up to: 500 megawatts on demand, approximately equivalent to the energy required to provide electricity. 400,000 homes.
On his blog, Bill Gates explained why the Natrium demonstration plant is much safer than any existing nuclear power plant: “The Natrium plant uses liquid sodium, which has a boiling point more than 8 times the boiling point of water, so it can absorb all the atoms. The extra heat produced in the nuclear core is Unlike water, sodium does not need to be pumped because when it heats up, even if the plant loses power, the sodium continues to absorb heat before it reaches a dangerous temperature, which can cause melting.
Gates also says this Natrium contains an energy storage system based on molten saltIt will allow it to control the amount of electricity it produces, unique among nuclear reactors.
How the Natrium installation will look and work: video
I’m Sandra Torres, a passionate journalist and content creator. My specialty lies in covering the latest gadgets, trends and tech news for Div Bracket. With over 5 years of experience as a professional writer, I have built up an impressive portfolio of published works that showcase my expertise in this field.