Seaborg Joins TerraPraxis’ Global REPOWER Consortium Working to Decarbonize Coal Plants

TerraPraxis, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that innovates, designs, and accelerates scalable solutions for the toughest-to-decarbonize sectors of coal-for-power, industrial heat, and heavy transport, is pleased to announce Seaborg as the latest heat source vendor to join its global REPOWER Consortium working to develop solutions to decarbonize coal plants.

 

TerraPraxis is leading a global REPOWER Consortium to develop a standardized building system and project delivery model for the fast, low-cost, and repeatable repurposing of 2,400 carbon-intensive coal plants (2-Terawatts) to run on emission-free heat (advanced fission, fusion, and geothermal) by 2050. 

 

TerraPraxis and Seaborg have agreed to assess Seaborg’s CMSR as a potential heat source in the standardized, systematic method of repurposing existing coal-fired power plants with nuclear reactors, developed by TerraPraxis. Many coal power plants are located close to industrial water courses or oceans providing direct site access for Seaborg's floating power barge product.

 

“Seaborg wishes to participate in TerraPraxis REPOWER and provide engineering services in-kind to investigate more fully with TerraPraxis the techno-economic feasibility of integrating Seaborg’s CMSR with existing coal-fired power plants. We are strongly aligned with TerraPraxis in their goal to enable the rapid replacement of 2-Terawatts of global coal capacity by 2050,” said Jonas Stampe, Chief Business Officer, Seaborg

 

“Replacing coal burners in coal-fired power plants with emission-free heat sources would result in the elimination of 40% of emissions from energy or around 15 billion tonnes of CO2 from the planet each year. Repowering Coal is an effective way to accelerate an inclusive, sustainable, and emission-free energy transition. We are pleased to have Seaborg on board to help us investigate the innovations needed to make it happen,” said Chirayu Batra, Chief Technology Officer, TerraPraxis.

 

TerraPraxis is actively engaged with global leaders and diverse stakeholders – heat source vendors, coal plant utilities, nuclear service providers, digitalization and automation solution developers – to develop highly standardized and easily licensable designs that allow for a variety of emission-free heat sources, like Seaborg’s compact molten salt reactor (CMSR), to replace the coal burner in coal-fired power plants, while significantly utilizing the other existing systems in the balance of the plant. Parties anticipate that the success of TerraPraxis’ Repowering Coal system will be a dramatic reduction in regulatory licensing scope, project duration, project costs, and commercial risks to enable the rapid decarbonization of coal plants to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.  

 

TerraPraxis was founded as a nonprofit, not only to expose the risks to the global energy transition that constrain the deployment of clean energy (e.g., land availability, transmission build, public support/opposition, and project risk), but to design strategies that anticipate and mitigate those risks.

 

TerraPraxis leads broad coalitions of governments, regulators, academics, and industry stakeholders to design solutions that address the risks of failing to achieve the global clean energy transition within climate timescales.