Lyon County could potentially get a nuclear power facility

LYON COUNTY (KSNT) – This year, the Kansas Department of Commerce and Evergy began talks with TerraPower, a nuclear energy company based out of Washington state, to potentially bring a natrium reactor to the Sunflower State.

TerraPower’s Natrium Reactor is different from a traditional nuclear reactor like at Wolf Creek.
The small modular reactor uses sodium as its primary coolant, instead of water.

“It’s ability is to retain the heat that comes off the reactor core for a long period of time,” said Representative, 60th District, Mark Schreiber. “It doesn’t need to be pressurized, so that reduces the amount of the equipment that’s needed to be inside the containment building. And then, if the reactor, for instance, shuts down, it still has that heat that can still create steam on the secondary side of the system and power the generator.”

Schreiber says over the next 10 years, the Midwest will need to scale up its power generation, the demand for data centers, E-V chargers and new manufacturing is expected to rise as older power plants go offline. He believes the Sunflower State’s central location makes it a perfect spot to build a Natrium Reactor.

“I think Kansas is perfectly situated right in the middle of the country, and in the middle of the southwest power pool, with a good transmission network to create power here and to be able to ship it north, south, east or west,” said Schreiber.

Schreiber has not presented this proposal to Lyon County commissioners yet.
However, the Lyon County-based regional development association gave its stamp of approval for the project this week.

TerraPower will begin looking through available sites in January.

For more local news, click here. Keep up with the latest breaking news in northeast Kansas by downloading our mobile app and by signing up for our news email alerts. Sign up for our Storm Track Weather app by clicking here.