The effort to bring small-scale, new nuclear technology to states like Wyoming has been dubbed the Frontiers Initiative. Stakeholders in Wyoming, Alaska, Idaho, Louisiana, North Dakota, South Carolina, and Utah have joined as “nuclear energy first mover states,” said Steven Aumeier, senior adviser to strategic programs with INL.

L&H Industrial and BWXT Advanced Technologies have signed a Joint Development Agreement aimed at deploying microreactors to provide heat and power for industrial users. This effort is the result of the groundwork laid by the Idaho National Laboratory’s (INL’s) Frontiers Initiative and the Wyoming Energy Authority (WEA) Governor’s Matching Fund project that is helping pave the way for new models of microreactor deployment.

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.

Doug Bernauer’s Radiant is not trying to make SMRs. His company — a VC-backed startup currently in the pre-application phase with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission — is designing a portable nuclear microreactor, which is intended to replace diesel generators.

Although many have thought it was an urban myth, it’s actually true. There was a working nuclear reactor in the basement of the University of Wyoming Engineering Building in the 1960s. Dr. Victor Albert Ryan, a nuclear chemist, brought it with him to establish UW’s nuclear research program.