Nuclear energy has bright future, local business leader says | Local News

“It really follows the same thing that the government did with the Space Race,” Wandler said.

Right now, China and Russia are in the lead when it comes to nuclear power, and the U.S. government has realized it can’t get to “net zero,” in which the amount of greenhouse gases produced is equal to the amount of greenhouse gases that are removed from the atmosphere, without nuclear energy, Wandler said.

“The other clean energies are not going to get us to where we need to be,” he said. “We have no choice but to go with nuclear.”

BWX Technologies is a Virginia-based company that is looking to build up a supply chain in Wyoming for nuclear micro reactors. In mid-December, representatives from the company were in Gillette to meet with vendors from northeast Wyoming to look for companies that can help with different parts of the supply chain.

It will need materials such as stainless steel, graphite and beryllium. Services such as forging, precision machining and fabrication will be required, as well as the manufacturing of products such as valves, piping, wires and steam generators.

BWXT has a two-phase contract with the Wyoming Energy Authority to evaluate the viability of deploying small-scale nuclear reactors, with the goal of working as a private supplier for nuclear micro reactors in the state. L&H is supporting BWXT in this endeavor.

BWXT has meetings scheduled next year in other parts of the state, as well as a virtual meeting in February, but chose Gillette to be the spot of the first meeting.

The micro reactor project, referred to as the BWXT Advanced Nuclear Reactor, or BANR, is developing a modular, factory-fabricated system that is small and light enough to be transported via rail, ship or truck and that can deliver 50 megawatts of thermal nuclear reactor power.

At the meeting, Will Cayton, senior business manager at BWXT, said the support from the state means a lot.

“We can’t beat that. When there’s a state going to invest in their industry to help them do something we want to do … I’ll bend over backwards to help any way I can,” Cayton said.

Cayton added that a company doesn’t need to meet the nuclear quality assurance standard in order to work on this project.

“We’re working with tons of people that don’t meet the NQA standard, so we have to work a little harder to fill in some gaps for them,” Cayton said.

But if a northeast Wyoming vendor wanted to work toward achieving this standard, Cayton said BWXT will work with the business to get there so that “when this industry does reach where we all believe it’s going to reach,” it will be well-positioned to profit.

“You’ll be relied on heavily by all the manufacturers,” he said.

These micro reactors are not a threat to the industries that make Campbell County go, Cayton said. In fact, these reactors can be placed at coal mines or oil fields to give them power and heat.

“They’re still doing business, we’re giving them clean power to do it,” he said. “This is a complement to that industry, not competition.”

“That’s the truth of it,” Wandler said. “It’s not a threat to Wyoming, we’ll still be doing coal, oil and gas.”

Nuclear energy is taking off sooner than later, Wandler added, and the implications are huge.

“The scalability of it, globally, is massive,” he said. “It’s a little bit early, and I think that’s the hesitation of any entrepreneur, is how long are we going to have to wait, how much work is going to be there? This is coming, and it’s coming fast.”