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Southern Teams Up With Gates-Backed TerraPower on Small Nuclear Reactor

Southern Teams Up With Gates-Backed TerraPower on Small Nuclear Reactor

Southern Co. has agreed to design and build an advanced demonstration nuclear reactor using technology developed by the Bill Gates-backed company TerraPower LLC.

Southern plans to build the molten-chloride reactor at Idaho National Laboratory, according to a statement Thursday. The U.S. Energy Department is providing a grant to cover 80% of the $170 million project, with the rest coming from Southern, TerraPower and others.  

Southern and TerraPower are part of a growing wave of companies seeking to build smaller reactors that are expected to be faster and cheaper to construct than conventional nuclear plants. The demonstration system will have less than 500 kilowatts of capacity and is expected to go into service in 2026, according to Lauren Lathem, Southern’s program manager. A commercial version may eventually reach 720 megawatts of capacity. 

The reactor will use TerraPower’s molten-chloride technology that operates at higher temperatures than conventional reactors, making it more efficient than water-cooled nuclear plants in common use now. It’s a different design from the Natrium liquid-sodium reactor that TerraPower plans to build in Wyoming for PacifiCorp. 

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