“The Pacific Northwest seems to be a magnet for innovative and traditional nuclear power,” Dr. James Conca, a nuclear expert, recently wrote in Forbes. INL is working primarily with two companies, NuScale Power and Terrestrial Energy, on SMR projects. Terrestrial, which is using molten salt reactor (MSR) technology that is both newer and older – older because MSR was used at Oak Ridge National Laboratory as long ago as the 1950s, is partnering with Energy Northwest, a utility that operates the nuclear power facility at the Columbia Generating Station in Richland, Washington, which has the first rights of offer to operate the plant should it be built.
