Korea Invests in Bill Gates TerraPower

Korea’s SK Group will invest USD250 million in TerraPower to develop small modular nuclear reactors. The round was co-led by SK Inc and SK Innovation and TerraPower’s founder Bill Gates. Additional funding will come from other investors.

The US Department of Energy is giving TerraPower cost-shared funding through the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) to test, license and build an advanced reactor within the next seven years. Terrapower has selected Kemmerer in Wyoming as the preferred site for the Natrium nuclear power plant demonstration project, which will feature a 345 MWe sodium-cooled fast reactor with a molten salt-based energy storage system. The storage technology can temporarily boost the system’s output to 500 MWe when needed, enabling the plant to follow daily electric load changes and integrate seamlessly with fluctuating renewable resources.

The company noted that part of the ARDP award requires a match of 50% of project costs, up to USD2 billion

19 thoughts on “Korea Invests in Bill Gates TerraPower”

  1. You don’t imagine aviation engines are regulated by the FAA? When I worked at GEAE in ’00-05 there was a FAA signature on EVERY design change as trivial as spraying an anti-wear coating on a part in production for 30 years. Have you ever heard of ETOPS or fan shroud tests where they destructively test jet engine to ensure blades won’t cut through the fuselage of the plane.

    Aviation is heavily regulated, turbines included, and that is why there are a few accidents. Everything is by the book and very expensive in aviation.

    You’re not going to escape government involvement in nuclear operations, testing, etc. The government literally owns the fuel and lets you use it and will ultimately take the spent fuel from you when you’re done (repository). If the labs aren’t building msrs like all the readers on this blog want to see, read between the lines: It’s a non-starter. The best ‘THEY’ will give you is MAYBE a FLiBe pebble bed will get built to demonstrate the magnitude of the inefficiencies and problems that are so obvious to people like me who also have worked on both Aviation and multiple nuclear systems…

  2. Only $303M is DOE money for the Kairos project. Both TP and Kairos have hundreds of engineers working on these designs respectively and it has been nearly all private funds to this point.

    • Kairos has hired a lot of engineers, just like B&W mPower did. The mPower project was bootstrapped by [what is now] BWXT research budget, received nearly $100M in DOE money, and then activist investors forced the project to be abandoned because it wasn’t commercially viable. The private fund raising of Kairos (much of which was earlier DOE grants) is dwarfed by the unprecedented 2021 DOE grant, which has triggered their expansion. I argue that fund raising does not make an enterprise – BWXT IS a business selling products and services. The idea that “risk reduction” is to boot-strap a new design firm, instead of contracting work to an entity with some depth and experience (like GE, or Lock Mart) is absurd. Looking through their PSAR (NRC site) they are repeating mistakes the German PBR by stabbing shutdown rods directly in the bed. China has acknowledged what was estimated by others, that the PBR does not have a commercial advantage over LWRs or fossil plants. How is the economic equation improved by transferring heat with a corrosive bath of rare, enriched, salts? It’s hard to believe the additional complexity is offset by the increase in heat rate – and then there is the typical “we’re going to be online by 2026” boast. Utter nonsense. Total corruption.

        • Then they are subsiding on the numerous grants they’d received from the DOE prior… None of these start-ups are solvent – they have no means to pay the bills besides through handouts.

    • Koreans do seem to be tossing money around. Good for Captain Kirk. Looks like they are seeing what sticks – maybe Hyundai is led by naïve executives as well. They should focus on batteries.

  3. GE likely has 3 or 5 engineers revising PRISM to fit the Nutria™ power conversion system parameters – I watch the job postings. Decades ago, the DOE/DOD labs did a lot of conceptual design; consulting firms like GE and Bechtel did much of the detail design/fabrication (See Hanford N). I don’t understand the need to disguise DOE spending through huge grants to ‘private companies’. Provide the funding to the labs; the labs can contract the detail work to the commercial design bureaus – this is the process that brought us the BWR, MSR, EBR, etc. Enough of these ‘private companies’ like TP and KairosPower, which run on government cheese. Consensus in the labs should determine what gets prototyped – drop the marketing – let the experts in the labs decide – it’s not really meant to be a public discussion. Trust the scientists; take what they give you.

    • The DOE picked a winner for the advanced reactor demonstration program in 2021, calling the preferential treatment given to an obscure UCB-affiliated start-up “risk reduction”. It is not clear what “risk” is “reduced” by awarding the anointed Kairos Power with $629M over 7 years to field a 35MW FLiBe-cooled pebble bed WITHOUT power conversion system. It is strange to use a ‘private company’ as a vehicle to fund a lab (ORNL) – it is strange to describe an organization that sells no products/services as a ‘private company/business’ when bankrolled by federal grants. The corruption is strong with this one – Kairos was born out of relationships among members of Obama’s “Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future” circa 2012. The Hermes reactor may be built, with all that printed cash – I for one am scratching my head as to… why? To look busy or sincere?

    • The primary function of the government labs is to continue never ending work for the labs, as opposed to commercialization of cost effective power plants.

      As a group, fast reactors require reprocessing of fuel to the tune of tens of billions of dollars for the required support facilities. Such expenditures are conveniently omitted in cost estimates for the fast reactor technologies.

      The DOE’s track record for picking winners in the energy markets is utterly dismal. A better strategy is to provide tax breaks with the DOE not involved; let the marketplace decide.

    • The “experts” in the labs have zero experience building commercial facilities and their track record of dismal failures amply demonstrates their lack of qualifications for deciding marketplace winners and losers.

      • If you “let the market decide”, then the answer is 500MWe H-class natural gas turbines for the next 100 years. I’m all for “let the market decide”, but our markets aren’t really markets (e.g. ICE passenger cars are being forced into retirement by 2035 in CA).

        Since the majority of the citizenry ‘trusts the science’, and since the labs are full of our best and brightest, most educated, scientists, the public discourse/debate on the path forward in nuclear should defer to the labs. The labs “dismal failures” are a new concept since the ’00s and NR never lost focus.

        Recall, the labs (including NR) prototyped everything from nuclear rockets to PWRs and allowed their commercial partners to commercialize PWRs/BWRs and GCRs after the kinks were worked out (exception Ft. Saint Vrain had kinks).

        • I think your characterization of the labs is misplaced. The labs are fundamentally research operations. Developing commercial facilities should be left to private industry where the profit motive creates innovation in designing and building projects.

          Relying on researchers to guess at the best commercial products is inherently not particularly productive, as demonstrated by the historical record of numerous multi-billion dollar fiascos ultimately funded by the taxpayer.

          • In much agreement with your assessment Mike. The current attempt to commercialize advanced nuclear is similar to what was done in the 50s and 60s. It had always been a private/public partnership to commercialize nuclear and this is what’s happening with ARDP.

            • The BWR was a lab experiment, GE was allowed to commercialize it.

              The PWR was developed through numerous generations through NR with Westinghouse, Combustion Engineering, and even GE. It was NR under Rickover that designed Shippingport, which was the prototype for commercial PWRs. Those vendors then went on to commercialize derivatives.

              So, no. The genesis of the designs is in the labs. The contractors that built the experiments and supported the labs later commercialized the designs.

          • The labs can sort through the chaff. They are “the best and the brightest”. The hoards of geniuses at the labs are best suited to weigh-in on the ‘future of nuclear’ over the incessant noise on the internet about rehashing 1960s reactors from a dozen start-ups, few of which are actually ‘businesses’ in the sense that they do not make things or perform services. There is a reason that there are only a handful of jet engine manufacturers (GE, PW, UTC, ??) – it’s a big deal: very complicated, thoroughly regulated, safety of the public is involved. Nobody is suggesting staffing-up an office with 200 noobs and Berkeley academics to put simply ‘different’ engines on airliners, yet we see this in nuclear news every single day. It’s a cacophony. Yes, turbines have transitioned out of research and into the semi-private sector, but nobody is looking to shoulder-in on GE or Pratt’s business, because that would be impossible with the depth and experience and continuum of history. If there are no functioning examples of your start-up’s reactor, it is in the realm of research and is not a commercial endeavor – belongs in the labs. Hermes belongs in the lab, the work should be contracted to a company that has the talent and relationships necessary to bring it to fruition (i.e. GE or WEC).

            • Gas turbines are not heavily regulated. The regulatory difference between gas turbine power plants and nuclear power plants is like night and day. Having helped build, operate, and managed both types, I am quite certain I am right.

              The number of gas turbine manufacturers has been shrinking over the years, in part due to the machines getting bigger and more efficient (I am referring to power plants), thereby reducing the number of units needed. The marketplace weeds out competitors as technologies matures. Same phenomenon occurs in most marketplaces.

              Government labs are the last organization that should pick marketplace winners and losers because they do not actually make things that are sold in the marketplace. Cost is not much of a consideration for government operations using taxpayer money. Further, the concept of earning a profit is utterly foreign to government bureaucrats.

              In my opinion, the fundamental problem with the Department of Energy is attempting to control innovation in the nuclear arena. This contrasts starkly with a philosophy of providing help. Strikes me that bureaucrats inevitably gravitate to a big-government-knows-best mentality.

              Ultimately, if some company wants to develop a reactor, they should not be forced to get the DOE’s permission. Rather, the DOE should provide actual help.

              • You don’t imagine aviation engines are regulated by the FAA? When I worked at GEAE in ’00-05 there was a FAA signature on EVERY design change as trivial as spraying an anti-wear coating on a part in production for 30 years. Have you ever heard of ETOPS or fan shroud tests where they destructively test jet engine to ensure blades won’t cut through the fuselage of the plane.

                Aviation is heavily regulated, turbines included, and that is why there are a few accidents. Everything is by the book and very expensive in aviation.

                You’re not going to escape government involvement in nuclear operations, testing, etc. The government literally owns the fuel and lets you use it and will ultimately take the spent fuel from you when you’re done (repository). If the labs aren’t building msrs like all the readers on this blog want to see, read between the lines: It’s a non-starter. The best ‘THEY’ will give you is MAYBE a FLiBe pebble bed will get built to demonstrate the magnitude of the inefficiencies and problems that are so obvious to people like me who also have worked on both Aviation and multiple nuclear systems…

                • Design, manufacture and operation of heavy frame gas turbines used in power plants is not regulated by the government. However, emissions are regulated by the states exercising regulations promulgated by the EPA.

                  Aircraft carrying passengers are a completely different regulatory animal. I specifically stated I was talking about power plants.

                  As far as the labs are concerned, they will be quite happy to build prototypes to expand their empires. Commercial success is not a consideration. Consortiums using massive amounts of taxpayer money to demonstrate their technology are happy to go that route as their financial risk is minimal. Strikes me that nobody actually looks out for the taxpayer, based on the the long line of multi-billion dollar fiascos promulgated by the DOE. The financial risk should lie primarily with private industry, with the government providing research related help. The government should not use the effort as never ending make work for the labs.

                  I do agree that a number of these exotic advanced reactors are unlikely to be built, with commercial success unlikely for those actually built. However, stupefying amounts of money will be spent because of the mentality “it’s only money, and it’s not even ours”. Kind of what happens when the government runs the show.

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