Terrapower, a nuclear startup founded and supported by Bill Gates, announced this week its new $650 million funding. This investment will help the company build its first commercial power plant.
Like other nuclear startups, Terrapower is riding a wave of interest from Hyperscalers, Data Center Developers and now chip designers. Nvidia’s venture arm Nventures took part in the round and marked their first energy investment.
Bill Gates and HD Hyundai both were already on the cap table and invested.
Terrapower began construction of its first power plant in Wyoming in June 2024. The company does not have approval for the reactor itself, but plans to receive permission for next year. That timeline seems reasonable given the Trump administration’s benign attitude towards nuclear weapons.
Once completed, Terrapower’s first reactor will generate 345 megawatts of power, hitting the middle ground between today’s large-scale traditional reactor and the promised small modular reactor of tomorrow.
Terrapower’s Natrium reactor is cooled by molten sodium rather than water. Natrium Design uses much more sodium than is necessary to cool the reactor. That’s because of design. If demand is low, the reactor continues to operate, heats up the sodium and then stores it in a large tank.
When demand rises again, steam turbines can draw heat from stored sodium. Nuclear power plants do not easily move up and down, which allows Natrium Recaltors to continue operating in steady state.
The storage system is designed to produce up to 500 megawatts of electricity for more than five hours, helping to bridge the gap between solar and wind power generation.
The startup previously pursued different reactor designs, which they hoped to be completed by the mid-2020s. However, after uncertainty was mounted, we changed courses pursuing current Natrium designs.
Terrapower claims that the reactor can be completed within three years after the first batch of concrete is poured into the reactor. Still, it requires considerable site preparation and construction before it happens.
There are also signs that the first Natrium Reactor will be cheaper than recent US nuclear reactors, but that’s not cheap. The Associated Press reported last year that the bill could reach $4 billion, with half of which could be handled by the Department of Energy.
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