Posted on 04/25/2024 7:43:56 AM PDT by Red Badger
Gillette-based L&H Industrial, a 60-year-old industrial machinery company in the coal-rich Powder River Basin, has partnered with nuclear technology innovator BWX Technologies as part of a blockbuster deal to launch a multibillion-dollar industry in the micro nuclear reactor field.
A Wyoming company with international clout that’s bolstered the state’s energy industries for decades is jumping into the nuclear business.
Gillette-based L&H Industrial Inc., a 60-year-old stalwart industrial machinery company in the coal-rich Powder River Basin, has partnered with nuclear technology innovator BWX Technologies Inc. (BWXT) as part of a blockbuster deal to launch a multibillion-dollar industry in the micro nuclear reactor field.
The partnership was disclosed Wednesday by L&H CEO Mike Wandler and Marcio Paes Barreto, managing director of a new L&H business unit, Evercore Energy, in an interview with Cowboy State Daily.
The plan is to build a one-stop shop in Wyoming for everything from manufacturing reactor vessels, specialized fences and electrical control panels to piping, wires and pouring concrete needed to build a containment building.
The partnership also has plans to provide consulting services, operate and lease energy generated from the micro-nuclear reactors.
“I decided a couple of years ago that my life’s purpose was to innovate energy, and that everything I’ve done up to this point has kind of been me practicing to help the world do this,” Wandler said. “And it’s important for national security.”
BWXT Advanced Technologies is a Virginia-based company developing micro nuclear reactors that produce carbon-free energy.
While BWXT has its own industrial base to build the reactors, Wandler said his $111 million in annual revenue business wants to take on some of the vendor business from the larger BWXT, which boasts a market capitalization of $8.6 billion.
“I’ve got plants all over the U.S. and in other countries, and it’s really hard to recreate the culture in Wyoming for manufacturing and repair elsewhere,” Wandler said.
Wyoming Culture “We’ve got this culture that we still want to do this stuff,” said Wandler of Wyoming’s vendor network. “Other places don’t want to do this anymore. They don’t want it in their backyard, and that’s fine. So, let’s do it in Wyoming.”
BWXT has already established a beachhead in Wyoming.
In addition to the partnership with L&H, BWXT is participating with the Wyoming Energy Authority to understand the state’s “supply chain” of nuclear technology businesses.
Some of the urgency to get the business going is growing momentum in the state for a budding nuclear industry sparked by Bill Gates-backed TerraPower to build a nuclear demonstration plant in Kemmerer, and billionaire friend Warren Buffet’s electric utility giant PacifiCorp looking to add reactors for his Rocky Mountain Power utility in Wyoming.
BWXT is at the center of TerraPower’s work and is helping in the engineering design of the 345-megawatt reactor being built across from the Naughton coal-fired plant in Kemmerer.
The L&H and BWXT partnership is pursuing a different approach with its reactor that probably wouldn’t hit the market until 2030 at the earliest, said Wandler.
L&H and BWXT are considering potential customers such as energy-starved industrial factories, or even super-sized data centers in the Cheyenne area that pull from a grid, or others located in other parts of the United States.
Laramie, home of the University of Wyoming with a newly created nuclear program, and Wyoming’s capital city Cheyenne, which is about 100 miles north of Denver International Airport, are on a short list to become the corporate headquarters and spot to build a factory to assemble components for this emerging business, said Wandler.
Elon Musk-like The partnership will provide a commercialized variant of a reactor based off a transportable one that BWXT is developing for the military, called Project Pele. That reactor is under development and getting tested at the federal government’s Idaho National Laboratory (INL) later this year.
The commercial reactors — called BWXT Advanced Nuclear Reactor (BANR) — would produce roughly 50 megawatts of electricity, enough to power and heat several mining operations in Wyoming’s trona patch in southwestern Wyoming or mineral mines elsewhere in the world.
In the interview with Wandler, the executive likened what Wyoming is doing with building a nuclear infrastructure to that of what billionaire Elon Musk did with the launch of his SpaceX company in 2002 to manufacture and launch advanced rockets and spacecraft.
“That is a process that we need to get through,” Wandler said.
“We’re a little bit early, but we did that on purpose, because this is almost like the space race” in the early 2000s to privatize the rocket launch industry, he said.
“I looked at that and said, ‘That’s never going to happen.” That’s crazy, right?” he said. “But Elon Musk got the lead position.”
INL is building close ties with Wyoming and other states for aggressive research and deployment of advanced nuclear plants.
The effort has coalesced around a push that the Department of Energy nuclear lab in Idaho Falls calls the Frontiers Initiative, an effort designed to help the United States stay competitive with low-emission industrial activity through leading-edge nuclear technology.
To date, stakeholders in Wyoming, Alaska, Idaho, Louisiana, North Dakota, South Carolina and Utah have joined this initiative focused on “nuclear energy first mover states,” said Steven Aumeier, senior adviser to strategic programs with the Idaho National Laboratory.
“Frontiers is what lit up talk of all of this,” Barreto said.
INL is one of the nation’s national laboratories that performs nuclear energy research for commercial and military applications.
Nearly two years ago, WEA signed a memorandum of understanding agreeing to collaborate on the research, development, demonstration and deployment of nuclear energy technologies with INL.
The initiative is touching all corners of Wyoming.
The partnership announced by L&H and BWXT is one of the first tangible signs that Wyoming is getting a leg up on the race to build micro nuclear reactors.
BWXT Technologies Director of Product Development Erik Nygaard talked with Wyoming energy insiders this week about the potential for micronuclei reactors in the Cowboy State. The company recently was awarded a contract to build a small reactor unit for Hitachi, shown in this illustration. BWXT Technologies Director of Product Development Erik Nygaard talked with Wyoming energy insiders this week about the potential for micronuclei reactors in the Cowboy State. The company recently was awarded a contract to build a small reactor unit for Hitachi, shown in this illustration. (BWXT via Facebook) Global Opportunities The emerging market of leasing to global customers who want to reduce pollutants in their emissions is valued at billions of dollars over the next decade, Wandler told Cowboy State Daily.
“We are not looking to build up and sell this business,” he said. “This is a matter of national security. We are behind Russia and China.”
Wandler has a vision of making Wyoming the “energy capital of the world,” thanks in part to the edge given to his business through L&H’s newly formed nuclear reactor business.
The Gillette headquarters of L&H already is at the center of the world’s coal industry, where the lion’s share of thermal coal gets mined and shipped to public utilities to burn in coal-fired plants throughout the nation.
At the core of the L&H business, given a name of Evercore Energy last fall, is becoming a distributor to global customers who want to lease the reactors.
Probably after the commercial reactor market is operational in the next several years, Wandler wants to raise $1 billion a year to get the cash flow for building the reactors from private investors.
L&H wants to raise equity with outside investors to “derisk” the business and shield parent L&H from any downturns in the future, said Wandler, adding that he personally owns roughly half of the privately held L&H.
A worker at L&H Industrial in Gillette works on a component for a large piece of machinery. A worker at L&H Industrial in Gillette works on a component for a large piece of machinery. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) It’s Evolving The Evercore business model is still in the early stages of development.
One idea is to build it like a practice used by large commercial aircraft leasing companies whereby they acquire jet aircraft from plane manufacturers and then lease them to airlines.
Leasing allows airlines to optimize their fleet size, respond to market demands quickly and avoid the risks of aircraft ownership. It also provides leasing companies with a steady revenue stream and the ability to manage their asset portfolio effectively.
“We’ll run the micro nuclear plant for them,” said Wandler of global customers.
One of the first things Wandler did last fall after setting up Evercore Energy was appoint Barreto as managing director to build up the nuclear services business from scratch.
Barreto was formerly a director of industrial development with the WEA and Wyoming Business Council.
Even the mayor of Gillette is interested in the L&H foray.
In February, Gillette Mayor Shay Lundvall said that he wanted to bring a components manufacturer and assembly factory for very tiny nuclear power plants to the Powder River Basin.
He said that discussions have begun about bringing a small nuclear plant factory to the city’s still-to-be developed Pronghorn Industrial Park, located near its sprawling 1,000-acre Cam-plex complex.
Wandler anticipates that much of the reactor inventory will be paid by private investors, with other funding sources coming from the military and Energy Department.
“We know reactors are five years away, but most of my customers can’t wait,” Wandler said.
Pat Maio can be reached at pat@cowboystatedaily.com.
OK: a 50 MW power plant is enough to power XXXX people annually.
By definition a 50 MW power plant is capable of producing 50 MW continuously.
“Because demand has to be there if all 7500 people turn on their AC at the same time while they’re cooking, etc.”
Not all are going to have all on at the same time. Some would be out shopping or entertain during peak time.
The average family size is 3+ people. No way the average family would demand 25kw.
It is a totally unfounded rumor that they are called “Le Petite Chernobyls.”
For example, with my home solar I have to consider not just the total solar in kWh collected and stored into batteries during the day, and how much total kWh in power my home needs throughout the day, but also how much I need at any one time. If I had enough inverter capacity to provide just 10kW of continuous AC power, then when we get home with the EV and charge it at 9.5kW, I'd have just half a kW of capacity to run the rest of the house. Even if my 20kW of solar panels was easily keeping my 92kWh of battery storage full, if I can get only 10kW of AC at a time I would have to pull from the grid a lot if I ran some of my appliances while I was charging the EV while my electric furnace was on. For that reason, I realized it was worth spending a little extra to increase my inverter capacity to meet the demand my electrical panels often need. Even if my inverters don't have to produce that kW demand all day, when I need it I need it.
That's why I say that you're right to make the averages part of the equation, but respectfully I say you're wrong to just discard demand.
There is lots of talk and damned little action on the nuclear energy front. The Saudi promised the same sort of thing more than a decade ago with Thorium reactors.
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Saudi...
Saudi plans 16 reactors by 2030: World Nuclear News [Arab News, 1 June 2011]. “Saudi Arabia plans to construct 16 nuclear power reactors over the next 20 years at a cost of more than 300 billion riyals ($80 billion).”
To date one uranium reactor has been built and has just begun to function.
Congress would crap themselves (if they didn’t already) if we were nuclear powered. Not gonna happen.
I agree with that...as long as the average family is allowed to drive gas cars and use natural gas heat (particularly since this is about cold Wyoming and not warm Florida).
If you’re in Gillette, go eat at Pokey’s BBQ. Have some of everything. Especially the gator tail.
Business must be booming...
“The enviro-nutjobs will shut this down before you can blink. “
Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are building one too.
Correction:
I used 50 Mw. That would be about 17 MWe so disregard my actual numbers.
I’d like one, please.
“I agree with that...as long as the average family is allowed to drive gas cars and use natural gas heat (particularly since this is about cold Wyoming and not warm Florida).”
The will build in Wyoming and sell world wide.
Your hair will fall out...
Gillette, the best a man can get.
I wish them luck. Several decades ago the Army tried to develop small nuclear energy plants to supply its remote bases. That experiment didn’t work out well. It was designed to be operated by three specialists and was being tested at the Idaho National Laboratory (formerly known as INEL, the NRTS, etc.) which is located in a desert area where experimental plants could be widely isolated to minimize danger.
One late night, the central administration site received an alarm from the Army reactor. It responded and everything from the outside looked quiet and normal. Men went inside the site which seemed to be deserted but their radiation monitors pegged out. The search crew thought it was a malfunction of the monitor so they proceeded to the reactor room. Three highly radiated and highly dead operators were there (although it took awhile to find the third member who had been impaled by a reactor fuel rod and stuck to the ceiling of the large dome of the reactor room. Cleanup involved climbing a ladder/stairs outside to the top of the dome, descending the stairs to the reactor room floor, ascending the stairs again and down, all of which had to be accomplished in ten minutes to avoid radiation poisoning. They could make the trip only once. Even so, every rescuer was pensioned because they exceeded their lifetime exposure to radiation.
The blame was attributed to a feud between two of the operators resulting in a murder suicide. The Army was put out of the reactor business. The site was sealed in concrete and stories abound about what was done to the bodies of the victims. There’s at least one youTube video about the incident but my information came from talking with people at the INEL who had been there and involved in the cleanup.
Switched to BIC right after that, didn’t see the difference but no Gillette razors for me anymore
Sounds like a gay love triangle. I lived next door to a gay couple. They were quiet and peaceful until another gay moved in next door on the other side. Then all hell broke loose.............
Whatever happened to Thorium power plants?
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