Workers are building a first-of-its-kind nuclear power plant 5 miles outside Kemmerer, Wyoming, and the money trail runs straight to Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and taxpayers footing $2 billion in assistance. The TerraPower Natrium project is being sold as faster and smaller than traditional plants twice its size, while the people living near it are left to sort through the risks, the jobs and the promises from above.
Who Has the Power
TerraPower's Natrium project aims to begin making electricity in the next four years. It sits inside the Trump administration's push to diversify the U.S. energy economy by building dozens of new nuclear power reactors that will feed power-hungry data centers and manufacturers. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a statement, "America's nuclear renaissance is underway because of President Trump’s bold vision and ambitious goals," and added, "Advanced nuclear technologies ... will help power the next generation of American industry, strengthen our energy security, and ensure the United States remains the world’s nuclear innovation leader."
That language sounds grand from Washington. On the ground, it means a remote town gets turned into a test site for a national energy plan shaped by billionaires, federal money and corporate ambition. TerraPower said the Natrium reactor represents a significant public-private partnership in which the company and taxpayers are contributing equally. "This partnership was created to help build out this new industry in order to scale a fleet of new reactors and unleash American nuclear power at a time when it’s needed most," the company said. "To meet this demand, we must build and scale the entire next-generation nuclear industry, which means we need a fleet of power plants, a domestic fuel supply, a robust supply chain and a trained workforce."
The company’s pitch is clear. The bill is shared. The control isn’t.
Who Gets Sold the Risk
The project is bringing thousands of construction workers to the remote area and buoying businesses including Fossil Fuel Coffee Co., the Super 8 motel and Scroungy Moose Pizza. It is happening as coal mines are headed for closure and good-paying jobs are otherwise scarce. Some community members remain deeply skeptical of both the nuclear project and the wealthy men behind it, while others are optimistic.
Michelle Pollard, 61, a Kemmerer coal mine employee, said, "I've lived and breathed that coal mine for 35 years and I love it. But you have to change with the times and I’m glad they picked Kemmerer." She said, "Things have to evolve. You have to change with the times. And I, too, like clean energy."
Charlotte Sherbeyn, 59, said she is opposed, though she welcomes the economic boom promised by Natrium's boosters. She said about 1,600 temporary construction jobs will ultimately give way to as many as 300 permanent ones for running the power plant, according to Natrium. Sherbeyn said she doesn't understand why billionaires like Gates need public funding to complete these projects. "I'm just not a huge Bill Gates fan," she said. "He only cares about him. It’s just a dollar sign to him." She also said she worries a nuclear meltdown at the Natrium plant could trigger a broader catastrophe, given the coal and natural gas beneath the ground and the Yellowstone Caldera 260 miles north. "If that blows up," she said, "we’re done."
The hierarchy is plain enough. Thousands of workers arrive for the buildout. A few hundred jobs may remain. The public pays $2 billion. The people nearby live with the consequences.
What the Town Says Back
The town is divided. Janet Lively, 41, assistant manager behind the Fossil Fuel Coffee Co. counter in downtown Kemmerer, said, "I would say our community is split. You’re either opposed to it or in favor." Pollard said she has been impressed with the quality of the engineers and other workers TerraPower has hired and said she's comfortable Gates has the best interests of people at heart. She said Gates has visited the project multiple times, which she sees as a sign of his earnest commitment to Kemmerer.
Since going down to part-time at the mine, Pollard has opened "3 ZERO 7 Place" soda shop, a reference to the state's sole area code. She said, "Kemmerer is kind of used to boom and bust. You can't have growth without some short-term pain."
TerraPower President and CEO Chris Levesque said, "This really is the beginning of a whole new era of nuclear energy." He said, "This is the first plant, but we're going to build more than a hundred of these things around the world." He also said, "What changed about 10 years ago was with the concern about climate and CO2 emissions, a lot of liberal folks, a lot of especially young liberals, really got interested in nuclear," and added that nuclear had "this great safety record" and that older generations had grown up with stigma from the 1970s.
That’s the sales pitch: a new era, a global rollout, and a fresh round of public faith in a technology still carrying the scars of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima.
The State, the Market, and the Fallout
The article said workers began preparing the non-nuclear parts of the facility in June 2024 and broke ground on the nuclear site in April. Contractors are also finishing a towering testing and fueling facility. The reactor building is not yet under construction, and there's no nuclear fuel on the site yet. USA TODAY received an exclusive site tour with Levesque in May. Managers explained safety protocols for construction workers, the nuclear fuel and the community, highlighted efforts to protect Native American sites and nesting birds, and showed the testing facility where workers will help develop pumps to move molten metal from the reactor to the generator turbine.
The site is just outside Kemmerer, where coal helped build the state and today powers a significant portion of Wyoming's economy. About 4% of all jobs are either directly or indirectly linked to coal mining. Trump won Lincoln County, home to Kemmerer, with 83.5% of the vote in 2024. The state exports 60% of the electricity it generates. Several coal-fired power plants are owned by Buffett's PacifiCorp, which has 2.1 million customers across six western states.
The Natrium reactor uses a special kind of refined uranium that is more concentrated than typical nuclear fuels, but still weaker than what's used for bombs. Wyoming is home to large uranium deposits that state leaders hope can one day power reactors across the country. The article said about 100 reactors are still operating from the nuclear expansion of the 1960s and 1970s, and that nuclear power still provides about 20% of the country's electricity. It also said the 1979 partial meltdown at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island, the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown and the 2011 Fukushima leak helped sustain public fear of nuclear energy.
Edwin Lyman, a physicist and director of nuclear power safety for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said, "My No. 1 concern is that this push is not being inspired by genuine innovation in nuclear power or any perceived interest in nuclear power by the public." He added, "It's being driven by ideology that somehow nuclear power hasn't gotten its due, and that's because the government has been over-regulating it, that the dangers have been overstated, and that's what's been holding it back." He also said, "The fact is the industry doesn't have a good track record, and they blame everyone else for their own poor performance. And, unfortunately, those issues are being overlooked in this new political push for nuclear power."
Lyman later said, "It's a sign that the industry and the Trump administration are not seriously confronting these issues in a way that's sustainable," and added, "That doesn't bode well. You can fool some people, but you can't fool Mother Nature."
The project keeps moving. The town keeps splitting. The public keeps paying.