News brief
The U.S. issued its first commercial construction permit for a nuclear reactor in eight years.
The commission granted the permit Wednesday for a Bill Gates-backed company to build a sodium-cooled nuclear reactor in Wyoming. The reactor, 130 miles northeast of Salt Lake City, Utah, is expected to be completed in 2030. Mr. Gates is eyeing next-generation nuclear plants as a power source for the electricity-hungry data centers behind artificial intelligence. He is a founder of and primary investor in TerraPower, the company building the plant.