The small modular reactor could reestablish nuclear power as an alternative energy source, with the Washington-based company as its biggest investor.
he latest attempt to put Washington at the center of nuclear power development is happening at the site of the state’s last effort, which mostly failed almost 40 years ago. And one of the state’s biggest users of electric power will have a hand in its development.
“We’re building in the shadow of an unfinished reactor. It’ll be constantly on our minds,” said Gregory Cullen, vice president for energy services and development at Energy Northwest.
The site is Energy Northwest’s half-built reactor No. 1, near the Columbia Generating Station reactor north of Richland. In 1982, the Washington Public Power Supply System — a consortium of 28 public utilities including Seattle City Light — halted construction of four nuclear reactors at Hanford and Satsop because of massive cost overruns. That led to the second-biggest bond bankruptcy in U.S. history.
Only Reactor No. 2 was completed. In 1998, WPPSS changed its name to Energy Northwest and Reactor No. 2 became the 1,000-megawatt Columbia Generating Stanton in a massive rebranding to leave bankruptcy in the past.
Now the site is targeted to house four small modular reactors — the newest hot ticket in the nuclear industry. The nation’s fast-growing power needs plus the hunt for new sources of carbon-free electricity have led the United States to seriously experiment with nuclear energy again, especially small modular reactors. Choosing to locate the reactors on this piece of federal land gives the project the advantage of existing infrastructure, including roads and utilities from the 1980s.
The money behind the energy development project is coming from an unusual source: Amazon, which already has a pretty big footprint in the Tri-Cities.
Amazon is offering almost $334 million for a multiyear feasibility study of a cluster of small modular reactors to be built at Hanford. “It was Amazon that stepped up,” Cullen said. They are partnering with Energy Northwest, whose size enables it to handle a nuclear project of a few billion dollars that an individual utility would be too small to attempt.
A model of a small modular reactor designed by X-energy, a company in which Amazon has recently invested. (Photo courtesy of Amazon)
The tentative plan is to build a cluster of four small modular reactors — to be owned and operated by Energy Northwest — to provide 320 megawatts to the Northwest power grid. Amazon would have first access to that power for its operations, including its data centers around the Pacific Northwest. Expanding that cluster up to 12 reactors producing 960 megawatts is a future option.
A small modular reactor unit is a mini-reactor capable of generating 50 to 300 megawatts of energy. One hundred megawatts could power 120,000 houses. Small modular reactors are designed so extra modules can be added as needed, with 12 modules being the theoretical maximum.
The components are prefabricated, so they need only to be assembled at the right location. Tri-Citians want the plant that manufactures the prefabricated components. But nuclear engineering company X-energy of Rockville, Maryland, designer of the reactors, says it does not currently plan to build a plant in Central Washington.
The small modular concept is supposed to be less expensive, faster to construct on a smaller footprint and more flexible in tailoring energy production to customer needs. So far the United States has several designs on the drawing board, but zero small modular reactors in real life. The world has two functioning 35-megawatt reactors, both on a barge in the Russian Arctic Ocean port of Pevek. NuScale Power of Corvallis, Oregon, is the first, and so far only, small modular reactor developer to receive Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval for its 60-megawatt design.
“We are in the middle of what is truly a technological revolution in advanced nuclear energy,” wrote X-energy spokesman Jackie Spryshak in an email.
The research and potential building of nuclear reactors in the Tri-Cities is only the first step for Amazon. The retail giant has tentative plans to work with X-energy to build small modular reactors across the nation by 2039 that would collectively produce 5,000 megawatts of power.
“As the energy needs of our business and customers continue to grow, we’re continuing to invest in renewables while also finding additional sources of carbon-free energy that can help power our operation and bring new sources of energy to the grid,” wrote Amazon spokeswoman Erika Reynoso in an email. “Nuclear power is one part of that mix. It can be brought online at scale and has a decades-long record of providing a reliable source of safe carbon-free energy.”
Matt Garman, CEO of Amazon Web Services, added in a statement included in Reynosa’s email: “It’s an important area of investment for Amazon. Our agreements will encourage the construction of new nuclear technologies for decades to come.”
Workers in an X-energy control room. Amazon has recently invested in the company, which develops small modular nuclear reactors and fuel. (Photo courtesy of Amazon)
Amazon’s contract with Energy Northwest is contingent on the energy company meeting milestones in 2025 and 2026. It can withdraw from the project if cost overruns or unresolvable disputes occur. Puget Sound Energy has an option to join the project, according to the contract. And public utilities can receive some of the generated electricity if Amazon approves and the utilities provide some money for the project.
Ultimately, Energy Northwest does not know how much the four-reactor cluster will cost to build; the estimate is a few billion dollars, Cullen said. And potential challenges along the way to building this new type of reactor are also unknown.
“This project is gonna be difficult. We expect the first one to be difficult and expensive,” Cullen said.
But the Tri-Cities area has embraced its nuclear future. “The Tri-Cities has a long history with nuclear energy,” said David Reeploeg, executive vice president of the Tri-Cities Industrial Development Council, an economic development nonprofit.
Nuclear reactors created today’s Tri-Cities. World War II’s Manhattan Project created the reactor-studded Hanford nuclear reservation. The region is home to the Columbia Generating Station, Washington’s only power reactor. Tri-Citians spent most of the 1990s unsuccessfully trying to revive a dormant research reactor to create medical isotopes. Tri-Cities leaders and state legislators have spent the past 10 years trying to attract the nascent small modular reactor industry to Hanford. A reactor fuel manufacturer is a long-time resident of northern Richland. And several small nuclear-related companies call Richland home.
“We see the community in the front lines of combating climate change. … of deploying these technologies,” said Sean O’Brien, executive director of the Forward Energy Alliance, an Tri-Cities Industrial Development Council offshoot that concentrates on clean energy.
Among those efforts, up to 14,000 acres in southern Hanford have been set aside for clean energy production. Earlier this year, the federal government entered talks with a solar farm developer to use 8,000 acres of that land for one of the nation’s largest solar panel farms. The project is expected to take five to seven years to complete.
“We’ve been looking at bringing clean energy sites to the state,” Cullen said.
X-energy is preparing a construction permit application to submit to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in early 2025. After that, the entire NRC approval process will likely take a few years. X-energy plans to build its first small modular reactor complex at Seadrift on the Texas Gulf coast.
The Energy Northwest project would be the second for X-energy, watching what happens in Seadrift to make adjustments for the Hanford project.
While Energy Northwest and X-energy can learn from the Seadrift project, problems will be inevitable with building a new type of reactor. Cullen said: “This project is gonna be difficult. We expect the first one to be difficult and expensive.”
Source: Cascade PBS
