TerraPower’s Natrium SMR: Inside the $4B Wyoming Project Redefining Nuclear Energy in 2025

Industry Adoption: How TerraPower’s Wyoming Natrium Project Is Moving from Blueprint to Commercial Reality

Between 2021 and 2024, TerraPower’s Natrium Small Modular Reactor (SMR) project in Wyoming was a bold but uncertain blueprint for America’s energy future. This foundational period was defined by securing a powerful public-private partnership, with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) committing up to $2 billion and TerraPower selecting Kemmerer, Wyoming—the site of a retiring coal plant—as its home in November 2021. The vision was clear: create a “coal-to-nuclear” transition model. However, the project’s fragility was exposed in December 2022 when its reliance on Russian High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU) fuel forced a two-year delay, highlighting significant supply chain vulnerabilities. Despite this setback, the project reached a critical milestone with its official groundbreaking in June 2024, signaling a firm commitment to move from concept to construction.

The landscape has dramatically shifted since the start of 2025. The Natrium project has moved from a high-potential demonstration to a commercially validated cornerstone of the U.S. energy transition, driven by a new, powerful market force: artificial intelligence. TerraPower’s $650 million fundraising round in June 2025, which included NVIDIA’s venture arm, was a clear inflection point, validating the Natrium reactor’s unique value proposition. Its 345 MWe sodium-cooled fast reactor, paired with a molten salt storage system that can boost output to 500 MW, is perfectly suited to power energy-intensive data centers. This has been confirmed by commercial agreements with data center operators like Sabey Data Centers (January 2025) and Prometheus Hyperscale (March 2025). This evolution from serving the grid to powering the digital economy demonstrates the technology’s adaptability and has solidified its business case, attracting a new class of investors and offtakers and transforming the project’s risk profile from speculative to strategic.

Table: TerraPower Natrium Project and Broader SMR Investment Timeline

Table: TerraPower’s Strategic Partnership Ecosystem for the Natrium SMR

Geography: From a Single Wyoming Site to a Regional and Global Blueprint

Between 2021 and 2024, the geographic focus of TerraPower’s Natrium project was intensely local, centered entirely on Kemmerer, Wyoming. Key events like the site selection in November 2021, the land purchase in August 2023, and the groundbreaking in June 2024 anchored all activity to this single point on the map. This hyper-localization was both a strength, enabling a focused coal-to-nuclear transition, and a risk, portraying it as an isolated experiment. The geographic footprint was limited to a single state, with partnerships primarily focused on domestic players like PacifiCorp and Bechtel.

Since 2025, the project’s geographic scope has exploded from a local site to a regional hub with a global outlook. The May 2025 tri-state cooperation agreement between Wyoming, Utah, and Idaho established a formal “energy corridor” for advanced nuclear, transforming the project into the anchor of a multi-state ecosystem. This was quickly followed by reports that TerraPower is eyeing Utah for its second commercial Natrium reactor. Simultaneously, the project’s supply chain has gone global, with manufacturing partnerships reaching South Korea (Hyundai, Doosan) and engineering alliances stretching to the UK (Modulift). This outward expansion is not just for sourcing parts; it’s for market access. TerraPower’s submission of the Natrium design for UK regulatory assessment in October 2025 and its alliance with KBR for worldwide deployment confirm that the Kemmerer, Wyoming site is no longer just a power plant—it’s the strategic blueprint for a global product rollout.

Technology Maturity: From Delayed Blueprint to De-Risked, Buildable Asset

In the 2021–2024 period, the Natrium technology was firmly in the pre-construction and demonstration phase. Its maturity was defined by engineering designs, securing foundational DOE funding, and initiating the NRC’s complex licensing process. The technology’s primary vulnerability was laid bare in December 2022 when the lack of a non-Russian HALEU fuel supply chain forced a two-year delay. This event underscored that the reactor, while advanced on paper, was tethered to unresolved logistical and geopolitical risks. The groundbreaking in June 2024 was a crucial step, but the technology itself had not yet passed the key external validation gates of regulators or commercial offtakers.

The period from 2025 to today has been marked by a rapid maturation from a theoretical design to a de-risked, buildable, and commercially validated asset. The technology passed its most critical tests in late 2025, with the NRC issuing the final Environmental Impact Statement (October) and the final safety evaluation (December), which found no barriers to issuing a construction permit. This regulatory green light is the single most important validation point, transitioning Natrium from a novel concept to a licensable technology. Concurrently, its commercial value proposition was proven by the influx of capital from NVIDIA and offtake agreements with data center operators. The molten salt energy storage system is no longer just a technical feature; it is a bankable solution for powering the high-demand, variable-load AI industry. With non-nuclear construction commencing and a 38-month schedule to operation, the technology has officially entered the execution and commercial-scaling phase.

Table: SWOT Analysis of the TerraPower Natrium Project in Wyoming

Forward-Looking Insights: Execution and Expansion in 2025 and Beyond

TerraPower’s Natrium project has successfully navigated the valley of death for first-of-a-kind energy technologies, transitioning from a federally subsidized concept to a commercially validated infrastructure asset. The year ahead is about one thing: execution. All eyes will be on the Kemmerer, Wyoming construction site, and the primary signal to watch is adherence to the 38-month construction timeline. Any significant delays would undermine the core SMR promise of delivering predictable schedules and costs. The narrative has shifted from “if” to “when,” and the market will now hold TerraPower and Bechtel accountable for delivering on that timeline.

Two key trends are set to accelerate. First, the SMR-for-AI thesis is gaining significant traction. Following the Sabey and Prometheus agreements, expect TerraPower to actively pursue more power purchase agreements with data center developers, solidifying the Natrium reactor as the go-to solution for clean, reliable power for the digital economy. Second, regional expansion is the next logical step. The tri-state energy corridor is a policy green light for TerraPower to replicate its Wyoming model, and an official announcement of a second commercial plant in Utah would be a powerful signal that scaling has begun. While the project is on a clear path to success, the full development of a domestic HALEU and component supply chain remains a medium-term challenge. The reliance on international partners like Hyundai and Doosan demonstrates that while Wyoming may be the hub for deployment, the SMR ecosystem is, and will remain, a global endeavor.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does the Wyoming Natrium project cost and who is funding it?
The project’s total estimated cost is $4 billion. It is funded through a public-private partnership, which includes up to $2 billion from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP), over $1 billion from Bill Gates personally, and a total of $3.4 billion in private capital raised by TerraPower.

What is the Natrium reactor and what makes it unique?
The Natrium reactor is a 345 MWe sodium-cooled fast reactor. Its key innovation is a molten salt energy storage system that allows it to boost its power output to 500 MW for several hours. This flexibility makes it ideal for supporting the variable power demands of both the grid and energy-intensive data centers.

Why was the project delayed, and when is it expected to be operational?
The project was delayed by two years in December 2022 because of its reliance on Russian-sourced High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU) fuel. Following its groundbreaking in June 2024, the project is on a 38-month construction schedule, with operations now expected to begin in 2031.

How has the project’s customer base evolved since it was announced?
Initially, the project was designed as a “coal-to-nuclear” transition to provide baseload power for the utility PacifiCorp. Since early 2025, its primary commercial focus has shifted to the high-growth AI and data center industry, leading to partnerships with Sabey Data Centers and an investment from NVIDIA’s venture arm.

What major milestone did the Natrium project achieve in late 2025?
In late 2025, the project achieved a critical regulatory milestone by receiving its final Environmental Impact Statement (October) and a final safety evaluation (December) from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The NRC found no barriers to issuing a construction permit, which de-risked the project and validated it as a licensable technology in the U.S.