This article was originally published on our sister site, Freethink.
A nuclear power startup founded by Bill Gates has announced plans to build a new kind of molten salt reactor at a retiring coal plant in Wyoming.
This reactor will be the first real-world demonstration of the startup's technology, which could help power the world — without warming the climate.
Nuclear power: Splitting atoms (known as nuclear fission) produces heat. At most nuclear power plants, that heat is used to boil water, which produces steam. The steam then spins a giant turbine to create electricity.
Nuclear power is reliable, cost-effective, and doesn't produce any climate-harming carbon emissions. It's been used in the U.S. for decades, and today, nuclear power plants generate about 20% of the nation's electricity.
The challenge: The average lifespan of a nuclear power plant is 35 years, and most of the plants in the U.S. were built between the 1970s and '90s.
New facilities aren't being built at the same pace old ones are retiring, though, because getting projects approved isn't easy — nuclear power plants today tend to be massive facilities that cost $10 billion and take several years to build.
Why it matters: If another form of clean energy doesn't fill the gap left by those old nuclear power plants, carbon-emitting sources, such as natural gas or coal, might.
Wind and solar are options, but nuclear power is more reliable and takes up less physical space. TerraPower has designed a new kind of nuclear reactor that could be built more quickly and cheaply than traditional plants.
The idea: TerraPower calls its technology Natrium, and instead of using the heat from fission to boil water and spin a turbine, it heats up salt until it actually turns into a liquid.
Molten salt reactors are meltdown-proof and more resistant to proliferation.
That molten salt is then stored in a giant tank, and the heat from it can be tapped to spin a turbine and generate electricity whenever needed — it doesn't have to be used right away if another source of cheaper or cleaner energy, such as solar or wind, is already meeting the grid's demand.
The cold water: Molten salt reactors have been around since the '60s, but the approach was largely abandoned in favor of water-based reactors, mainly because molten salt is highly corrosive and can easily damage the systems.
However, if TerraPower — or one of the other groups taking a second look at the tech — has overcome that issue, molten salt reactors have a lot of other advantages over traditional nuclear: they're meltdown-proof, and they are more resistant to proliferation than water-based systems.
The next steps: On June 2, TerraPower announced that it would be building its first Natrium molten salt reactor at the site of a retiring coal plant in Wyoming. This fully functioning plant will serve as the first demonstration project for the startup's tech.
It's not clear how long the plant will take to build. However, TerraPower is expected to decide on a final site by the end of 2021 and have the plant operational before the end of the decade, so it seems eight years would be the maximum.
The exact cost to build the molten salt reactor is also unknown — Reuters says $1 billion; Gates told GeekWire $4 billion in February — but even the higher estimate is 60% less than traditional plants.
TerraPower's reactor will produce about 60% less power, too — 345 MW compared to the 1 GW average of traditional plants — but the smaller size and lower capital cost could make building new reactors seem less daunting, perhaps spurring the construction of more nuclear power plants in the U.S.
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