The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has approved construction of TerraPower’s Kemmerer Unit 1, the first commercial-scale advanced nuclear reactor to receive such authorisation in the United States.
This milestone advances TerraPower’s Natrium technology under the Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP), positioning the Wyoming project as the nation’s first utility-scale advanced nuclear plant.
TerraPower President and CEO Chris Levesque called the NRC’s decision “a historic day for the United States’ nuclear industry,” noting that the company plans to begin construction within weeks. “This is the first commercial-scale, advanced nuclear plant to receive this permit,” he said, and looked forward to “bringing the first Natrium reactor and energy storage system to market in the great state of Wyoming.”
TerraPower submitted the construction permit application in March 2024, docketed by the NRC in May 2024 with an initial 27-month review timeline. The process concluded in just 18 months due to the company’s comprehensive filings, responsive regulator dialogue, and federal support through the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act and President Trump’s pro-nuclear executive orders.
The Natrium reactor technology, developed in partnership with GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy, features a 345 MW sodium-cooled fast reactor integrated with a molten-salt thermal energy storage system that can temporarily raise output to 500 MW. The configuration is intended to provide stable baseload generation while allowing rapid power increases during periods of high electricity demand.
Scheduled for completion by 2030, Kemmerer Unit 1 will support rising electricity demand from AI, data centres and industrial electrification as the first utility-scale advanced nuclear facility in the US.
