TerraPower Applauds NRC Permit Schedule Acceleration for Natrium® Reactor

The NRC announced today plans to complete review of the Natrium plant¹ construction permit application by the end of 2025.

Bellevue, WA – July 2, 2025 – TerraPower, a nuclear innovation company, received notification from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that the application review duration for the company’s Construction Permit Application (CPA) has been adjusted from a 26-month review to a 19-month review for the first Natrium plant, Kemmerer Unit 1. The anticipated issuance date for the final environmental impact statement (EIS) and safety evaluation for the CPA is now December 31, 2025. President Trump’s Executive Orders signed in May 2025 supports the streamlining of regulatory reviews to safely deploy advanced nuclear energy in the United States.

“This acknowledgement by the NRC that our application can be completed more quickly than originally anticipated is a testament to the incredible work by our Natrium team and the support for advanced reactors at the federal level. President Trump has been instrumental in both founding the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program and supporting rapid deployment of advanced reactors. Streamlining reviews is a commonsense solution that will accelerate permitting schedules; and proves that we can bring safe, well-vetted American technologies to market faster and compete on the global stage,” said Chris Levesque, TerraPower President and CEO.

TerraPower was the first developer to submit a construction permit application for a commercial advanced reactor to the NRC in March 2024. TerraPower’s regulatory strategy has been built on providing thorough technical content and robust engagement opportunities to discuss the Natrium technology and design with regulators. Today’s schedule shift builds on the NRC’s ongoing efforts to streamline its review processes. In February 2025, the NRC acknowledged it was ahead of schedule on safety review. In May 2025, the NRC exempted the energy production and energy storage portion of the plant from its review, paving the way for construction on half the Natrium plant to begin this year.

The Natrium technology is the first-mover in the advanced reactor sector and is well positioned to support rapidly increasing energy demand. The Natrium project is the only advanced nuclear developer to begin construction on a commercial-scale project in the U.S. The plant design features a 345 MW sodium-cooled fast reactor with a patented molten salt-based energy storage system. The storage technology can boost the system’s output to 500 MW of power when needed as it is designed to keep base output steady, ensuring constant reliability, and can quickly ramp up when demand peaks — it is the only advanced reactor design with this unique feature.

The first Natrium plant is being developed through the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP), a public-private partnership. That project is expected to be completed in 2030 and will be the first utility-scale advanced nuclear power plant in the United States.

Read the full letter from the NRC on their website.

About TerraPower
TerraPower is a leading nuclear innovation company that strives to improve the world through nuclear energy and science. Since it was founded by Bill Gates and a group of like-minded visionaries, TerraPower has emerged as an incubator and developer of ideas and technologies that offer energy independence, environmental sustainability, medical advancement and other cutting-edge opportunities. It accepts and tackles some of the world’s most difficult challenges. Behind each of its innovations and programs, TerraPower actively works to bring together the strengths and experiences of the world’s public and private sectors to answer pressing global needs. Learn more at terrapower.com.

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¹ The Natrium reactor is a TerraPower and GE-Hitachi technology