The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has pivoted to a 19-month review schedule of TerraPower’s construction permit application for its Natrium plant in Kemmerer, Wyo.
TerraPower’s Kemmerer Unit 1 project’s construction permit application review is to be completed by Dec. 31, according to the NRC July 1 letter to the company. The agency expects to have TerraPower’s final safety evaluation and environmental impact safety completed by then.
NRC notified the Bellevue, Wash. based company in the letter that the review has been compressed from 26 months to 19 months. The previous review completion date was June 2026.
Given President Donald Trump’s Executive Order on Reforming NRC, issued in May, the new targeted completion date is Dec. 31.
According to NRC, the updated schedule comes as the agency has been in constant talks with US SFR Owner, a TerraPower subsidiary and the formal applicant for the construction permit.
This is the second time the TerraPower timeline has been sped up by the nuclear regulator. NRC updated TerraPower’s application review in a February 26 letter, moving the original review date from August 2026 to June 2026. In that letter, NRC said it was already ahead of its original schedule.
TerraPower intends to convert an old coal-powered plant in Kemmerer, Wyo. into a nuclear plant, Kemmerer Unit 1. The plant will have the Natrium reactor, a 345-megawatt sodium fast reactor, with a molten salt-based energy storage system.
TerraPower submitted its construction permit application for its advanced reactor in March 2024, becoming the first advanced reactor company to do so, according to TerraPower’s July 2 press release.
The storage technology can boost the system’s capacity to 500-megawatts of power when needed.
The Natrium plant is being developed through the Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program. The project is expected to be completed by 2030, TerraPower said.
