As she prepares to return home after four terms in the House and one in the Senate, Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis is optimistic her home state of Wyoming is in a strong position to take advantage of growing interest in nuclear energy.
Lummis represented the state with the nation’s largest uranium deposits during her time in Congress. She announced in December she would not seek another term.
Wyoming’s nuclear ties date back to the Manhattan Project, but it is set to move beyond the export of raw material with the construction of the nation’s first next-generation nuclear facility. TerraPower, a nuclear reactor company backed by Microsoft founder Bill Gates, began construction last month on a 345-megawatt reactor in Kemmerer, Wyoming.
The plant, the first nuclear energy facility in Wyoming, is a next-generation project that will use liquid sodium as a coolant instead of water. The Energy Department said the simpler design of this type of reactor, paired with advanced construction methods, will make future commercial reactors faster and easier to build.
If completed on schedule, the TerraPower plant would be operational roughly a decade after its initial announcement. Lummis attributes the construction of the reactor, which was permitted under both Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden, to a “sea change” that has occurred at the NRC since Trump’s second inauguration.
