TerraPower CEO Chris Levesque on next-generation nuclear power

Recent boom in AI, clean technology, and crypto all fueling an unprecedented demand for power, and utility companies are frankly having a hard time keeping up with it. According to the International Energy Agency, global electricity demand from AI is expected to jump tenfold between 2022 and just 2026, and this number is expected to grow in the coming years. Our next guest says his company can help meet demand. Its first next generation nuclear plant is called Natrium and is about to break ground in Wyoming in June. Chris Levesque is the President and CEO of Terra Power. Chris, welcome. Good to have you with us. So you will break ground on what ultimately will be a next Gen. nuclear plant. How long is it going to take? What kind of permitting do you need and how soon do you think you can get it? Sure. That first plant in Atrium is actually going to be America’s next nuclear power plant. Just last month we submitted our construction permit application to the NRC. It’s the only one in front of the NRC and when we received that permission from the NRC to start nuclear construction in 2026 that will then start a three-year construction process. But we can start the non nuclear parts of the facility now and and this June will beginning the construction of the the turbine and the electrical production facility at the site of a retiring coal plant in fact in in Wyoming so it’s in Wyoming. And ultimately when it comes online what sort of regional footprint will it serve, how many people? Yeah, so it’s at 345 megawatts, it’s enough to serve about 400,000 ratepayers. But you know as you’ve been mentioned in your earlier segment we’re we’re really thinking about the data center demand which is going to be immense. You know, nuclear energy is 20% of the nation’s electricity supply today. But we built very few new nuclear plants, very few. That’s right. That’s right. And when how many, in fact, actually in the last 30 years in in the US, only two new plants have gone online really. And you know when Bill Gates, our our Chairman, created the company over 15 years ago, he recognized that hey, nuclear energy is really valuable. But if if we’re going to deploy it massively the way we need to, we need to move to the next technology. Today’s, today’s reactors in the US are based on very old technology. So this is, this is a field we needed innovation. So that was one of the things I wanted to ask you about A a typical nuclear plant that I think of the reactors are cooled with water, this will be cooled with cooled with sodium. The name of the reactor is natrium, which means sodium and in Latin. And an advanced reactor like this is going to have new benefits. It’s it’s going to be cheaper. It’s going to be safer. Today’s reactors I want to be clear a very safe but Natrium will be that next level of safety and it’s going to let you use the plant in a totally different way because Atrium has built in energy storage and it’s going to let you change power quickly when demand changes throughout the day or if the wind or the sun are curtailed throughout. When I think of sodium, I think of what I put on my steak mineral sodium. This is liquid sodium. Yeah. On your steak is sodium chloride. Remember salt. And this is the liquid metal sodium which melts at a very low temperature and it it flows like water and it, it allows you to have a very low pressure plant, which will be a lighter plant with lighter components and that’s what makes it cheaper. Where does that, where does that cooling waste go once it has done its job? Yeah, I dispose of it. Yeah. So the used fuel, as we call it, is eventually going to a geologic disposal facility and in the ground and and the US government has responsibility to create a facility like that. So the plan for Natriums used fuel is the same plan is the used fuel for those 93 reactors that are operating in the US today, which is geologic disposal and that’s very safe. And and the other thing to realize about it, it’s a very small volume of used fuel. So the nuclear energy is powered, you know 20%. What if the political wind shift, Is that a risk to this project and to your enterprise? I don’t think so because one thing about nuclear energy today and and this is in the last five to six years is so different than its history is, is we have bipartisan support for nuclear energy and and different folks support nuclear for different reasons. We we have a lot of young liberal folks who work for our company because they really are concerned about climate change. More conservative folks are interested in nuclear for its energy security value and and we are in a competition with China and Russia for nuclear technology. Chris Levesque, we have to leave it there. Tara Power, we appreciate it. Thanks, Donna. Thanks for your time.