# TerraPower A Bellevue, WA-based nuclear innovation company founded in 2008 by [[Bill Gates]], Nathan Myhrvold, and John Gilleland. Gates serves as board chair. The company develops the Natrium reactor, a sodium-cooled fast reactor paired with a molten salt energy storage system — a combination that lets the plant ramp output up and down to complement intermittent renewables on the grid, something conventional nuclear cannot do easily. ## Natrium Design The Natrium reactor is a 345 MW sodium-cooled fast reactor coupled with a gigawatt-hour-scale molten salt thermal storage system that can boost output to 500 MW during peak demand. Sodium coolant operates at atmospheric pressure (eliminating the high-pressure containment needed for water-cooled reactors) and has superior heat-transfer properties. The integrated storage makes Natrium function as both a baseload plant and a peaker — a genuinely novel value proposition for grid operators. ## Kemmerer Plant TerraPower is building its first Natrium plant in Kemmerer, Wyoming, on the site of a retiring coal plant — a coal-town-to-nuclear-town transition that has become the nuclear renaissance's signature story. The NRC issued a construction permit in early 2026, the first ever for a commercial non-light-water power reactor. Construction officially began in April 2026, with the [[Department of Energy]] cost-sharing under the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program. The plant is expected to be operational by 2030 and will employ approximately 250 full-time staff. ## Meta Partnership [[Meta]] signed a deal with TerraPower to help fund the development of two new Natrium reactors delivering up to 690 MW of carbon-free power as early as 2032, with options for up to eight reactors totaling 2.4 GW. This makes [[Meta]] one of the largest corporate backers of next-generation nuclear alongside [[Amazon]] and [[Google]]. ## KB Relevance TerraPower is politically interesting because [[Bill Gates]] is not part of the right-wing tech ecosystem the vault primarily tracks — he's a centrist philanthropist who draws fire from both MAGA populists and the progressive left. But his nuclear investments intersect heavily with that ecosystem: the same AI power demand driving [[The Quest for 90 Gigawatts]] is what makes TerraPower commercially viable, and his technology is now directly powering [[Meta]]'s infrastructure. The Gates connection also surfaces the broader [[Nuclear Energy Debate]] question of whether advanced nuclear can achieve bipartisan escape velocity as an energy source. ## See Also - [[Bill Gates]] - [[Meta]] - [[The Quest for 90 Gigawatts]] - [[Department of Energy]] - [[Nuclear Energy Debate]] - [[Artificial Intelligence]] - [[Energy Sector]]