Adds TerraPower saying it expects to apply for operating license in late 2027 or early 2028, paragraph 3, background throughout
First US approval for reactor to run on more enriched fuel
TerraPower expects construction in weeks, operations in 2030
Company to apply for operating license late 2027/early 2028
By Timothy Gardner
WASHINGTON, March 4 (Reuters) - The U.S. nuclear regulator said on Wednesday it approved construction for the Bill Gates-backed TerraPower small nuclear reactor in Wyoming, the first approval for a plant expected to run on a special, more-enriched uranium fuel.
The approval, the first for a commercial reactor by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in nearly a decade, was for TerraPower's planned 345-megawatt sodium-cooled reactor to be built in Kemmerer, in the western part of the state. It is expected to be operational in the early 2030s.
TerraPower plans to start construction in coming weeks and to submit an operating license application to the NRC in late 2027 or early 2028, it said.
The NRC said the plant includes an energy storage system to temporarily boost output up to 500 MW. Today's large reactors average about 1 gigawatt, or about 1,000 MW.
President Donald Trump, who wants the U.S. to quadruple nuclear power capacity to 400 gigawatts by 2050, issued executive orders last year to speed NRC permitting, seeking to shorten a multi-year process to 18 months.
The NRC finished its technical review of TerraPower's design in less than 18 months.
Backers of small modular reactors like Natrium say the plant can eventually be pre-made in factories instead of on site, saving on construction costs. Critics say SMRs will struggle to achieve economies of scale of today's larger reactors and will always be costly.
The Natrium reactor would run on a fuel called high-assay low-enriched uranium, or HALEU, which developers say will increase fuel efficiency. HALEU, traditionally made in Russia, is enriched up to nearly 20% instead of at the 5% level for uranium used today.
In January, the U.S. Department of Energy awarded American Centrifuge Operating, a subsidiary of Centrus Energy LEU.N, and General Matter, backed by tech billionaire Peter Thiel, $900 million each to develop domestic HALEU.
Non-proliferation advocates have pushed for HALEU to be enriched only up to 12% to prevent its supply chain from being targeted by militants looking to make a crude nuclear weapon.
(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; additional reporting by Laila Kearney in New York; editing by Chris Reese)
((timothy.gardner@thomsonreuters.com))