KEMMERER, WYOMING — Terra Power has begun construction of an advanced nuclear power plant in Kemmerer, Wyoming, partly funded by the U.S. government. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave the company final approval to begin construction in March, following five years of studies and safety demonstrations.

The Kemmerer facility is the fourth nuclear reactor to be built in the United States this century. Terra Power, based in Washington state and founded by Bill Gates, was selected for the project through a Department of Energy pilot program that began during the first Trump administration. The Biden administration's Infrastructure Law provided about $2 billion, covering half of the construction costs. Wyoming's Republican senators voted against the Infrastructure Law that funds the project.

The reactor design will use liquid sodium metal instead of water for cooling and will have almost all major components buried underground. Terra Power CEO Chris Levesque said the company's advanced reactor technology makes nuclear plants safer and quicker to build. "We're building an advanced nuclear plant but so many aspects of the plant and of the business are the same as the sixty-year-old coal plant that's down the road," he said.

The decision to site the plant in Kemmerer was made over bids from numerous other western towns. "There is a whole different story to begin with, is communities vying for a nuclear power plant," Levesque said. "The old story on nuclear was more of a 'not in my backyard thing.'"

If the plant is online by 2031, Terra Power says it will generate enough electricity to power almost half a million homes, likely in Salt Lake City. The company has also inked agreements with Meta for several additional reactors to power Meta's data centers. The International Energy Agency forecasts that U.S. data centers will need about 130% more energy by 2030 due to an artificial intelligence boom.

Kemmerer, with about 3,000 residents, hired Brian Muir in 2019 as city administrator to find new economic opportunities after the local coal mine went bankrupt and the nearby coal power plant was slated for decommissioning. Construction of the Terra Power plant is expected to create hundreds of skilled jobs, and some generators at the adjacent coal plant will be converted to natural gas, preserving about 100 existing jobs. The plant will store its spent nuclear fuel on site until a federal permanent repository is approved.

"That's what we were concerned about is no longer being an exporter of power, cause that's a majority of our jobs," Muir said. "I'll just say, when Bill Gates came here, he talked about our high energy IQ. We know about all forms of energy and the benefits and the costs and the risks and the footprints and all of that, we understand that."

Kemmerer city leaders are lobbying Terra Power to build a second nuclear plant in the town. Terra Power says its advanced nuclear technology produces less radioactive waste than legacy nuclear plants.