Repowering of the existing global coal plant fleet with small modular reactors (SMRs) represents an immense carbon abatement opportunity suggests non-profit Terra Praxis. The key to rapid implementation is digital innovation in infrastructure, design, engineering, and construction. The Terra Praxis REPOWERl concept is a fast, low-cost, and repeatable strategy to repower hundreds of existing coal plants that would otherwise continue to burn coal, and whose closure is likely to encounter fierce political resistance and cause economic harm to communities. It will deliver a substantial portion of the clean electricity required to achieve net zero by 2050 by replacing coal-fired boilers at existing power plants with SMRs, which could be ready for deployment as soon as 2028.

Kirsty Gogan of Terra Praxis joined Umair Irfan, Senior science reporter from Vox and Shaun Burnie, Former senior nuclear specialist at Greenpeace East Asia at Al Jazeera's The Stream show, where the role of nuclear energy in the climate emergency was discussed in terms of its pros and cons. On this episode Kirsty said: 'Nuclear energy is delivering, has delivered and will continue to deliver'... 'Nuclear energy has proven time and again it is the fastest way to decarbonize... Nuclear energy has a very large output with a very small footprint. It's like a million more times dense in producing power than coal'.

How Much Would It Cost to Reduce Global Warming? $131 Trillion Is One Answer. Money is a sticking point in climate-change negotiations around the world. U.S. utilities and startup firms are trying to convince lawmakers, regulators and customers that they can convert aging coal power plants to house small nuclear reactors, a so-far unproven way to deliver electricity. The burgeoning idea would place fleets of small, modular nuclear reactors at or near former coal-fired power plants and is taking hold across the electricity industry. Utility companies see it as a way to repurpose coal plants they are set to retire and are joining with startups developing the reactors, looking to tap into billions of dollars in federal funding.

Kirsty Gogan is an internationally sought-after advisor to governments, industry, academic networks and NGOs. She is regularly invited as an expert speaker on science communication, climate change, competitiveness and innovation. In this interview, she explains the Repowering Coal initiative, Terra Praxis' goals and partners, the algorithmic design tools being created with Bryden Wood, the digital platform being developed, the pros and cons of SMRs and Advanced Modular Reactors, and provides some advice for energy utilities.

The authors of this article, experts in nuclear engineering, set the record straight and explain the risks of nuclear power plants in war zones, which is surprisingly small. "Nuclear reactors cannot 'explode' like a nuclear weapon, because of their fundamental differences in materials and designs." Furthermore, "nuclear power plants must, by law, be able to withstand a broad range of natural disasters, such as earthquakes, tornadoes, wildfires, and floods, as well as terrorist attacks. Ukraine’s nuclear power plants have multiple layers of protection." It is important to note that while "Civilian infrastructure isn’t built to withstand military assault. Nuclear power plants, however, are exceptionally hardened facilities, as we have seen. By comparison, other power plants, dams, ports, chemical plants, the food supply chain, long-span bridges, the electric grid, oil and gas pipelines, and the internet, just to mention a few, are much softer targets. An attack on these targets could inflict considerably greater suffering and disruption to the civilian population and the environment." Note that two of this article's authors are advisors to Terra Praxis: Jacopo Buongiorno (MIT, Director of Nuclear Engineering) and Andrew Whittaker (U Buffalo-expert in nuclear seismic isolation).

As the war in Ukraine continues to impact energy supplies, what's the future for nuclear power in Britain? Kirsty Gogan of Terra Praxis participated in the discussion of some of the most crucial questions we are facing today, such as—Where does this situation leave the international and UK's climate strategy and the race to Net Zero? And what are the risks facing nuclear power generation? She said, "We have to look at any of these risks in context and right now the reality is that we see 7 million premature deaths per year around the world from air pollution. So focusing on this and cleaning up all of our fossil fuel based energy infrastructure is really an incredible opportunity not only to address the climate challenges that we face but also the public health challenges that we face."

This NEA workshop explored recent experiences and the development of construction and manufacturing techniques—focusing on near-term advances in nuclear construction, while also providing some indication of more long-term improvements that could be made on the basis of design innovations. Finally, workshop participants examined the role of regulators as well as codes and standards organizations to facilitate a wider adoption of advanced construction and manufacturing methodologies. Day 2 of the workshop was opened by Kirsty Gogan, who urged the nuclear industry to lower costs substantially through programmatic learning—because nuclear energy is needed in order to reach Net Zero, and at present: "What we are looking at now is a 3-4º and we have no plan to avoid that outcome." Eric Ingersoll presented Terra Praxis' Repowering Coal project in the Session 3: Panel on improving constructability with small, modular and innovative nuclear designs.

This event showed how communities can be uplifted by advanced heat source technologies and breakthrough innovations. Learn the ways countries and organizations are working to bring the social, economic, and environmental benefits of nuclear energy to communities around the world as they make clean energy transitions. Moderator: Jon Carmack, Senior Technical Advisor, Office of Nuclear Energy, U.S. Department of Energy. Speakers: • Kirsty Gogan, Founder and Managing Director, Terra Praxis. • Christine King, Director, Gateway for Advanced Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN). • Chuck Tack, Vice President, Nuclear Operations, PacifiCorp. • Guy Lonechild, Chief Executive Officer, First Nations Power Authority, Canada. • Paweł Gładysz, Faculty of Energy and Fuels, AGH University of Science and Technology, Poland. • Princess Mthombeni, Founder, Africa4Nuclear.

Terra Praxis' partner, Bryden Wood, joined our team at CERAWeek in Houston, where we presented our work on Repowering Coal.

The world has more than 2TWe of coal-fired power plants, adding roughly 12 gigatons of CO₂ emissions per year, representing almost one-third of global total net emissions of 38.8 gigatons a year. But shutting coal plants down worldwide is not a solution when the majority are less than 14 years old, and energy demand is soaring, writes Eric Ingersoll and Kirsty Gogan of Terra Praxis, a non-profit organization focused on accelerating the energy transition through innovation.

Microsoft has joined the Terra Praxis-led team working on Repowering Coal. Microsoft is helping create Azure tools to enable automated analysis of the US (and ultimately global) coal power generation fleet for retrofit. Microsoft will build the analytics tools with Terra Praxis and help undertake strategic partnerships with #REPOWER consortium stakeholders. At the Microsoft booth during #CERAWeek, Terra Praxis will offer demonstrations of the Azure tools showcasing the opportunity for retrofitting coal power plants. If you're in Houston, please visit us at the Microsoft Agora House, in the George R. Brown Convention Center March 8-9.

CERAWeek brings together global leaders to advance new ideas, insight and solutions to the biggest challenges facing the future of energy, the environment, and climate. CERAWeek is widely considered to be the most prestigious annual gathering of CEOs and Ministers from global energy and utilities, as well as automotive, manufacturing, policy and financial communities, along with a growing presence of tech. It has been described by the Financial Times as the "the Davos of energy," and by Politico as the “industry’s Super Bowl.” CNBC called it “the world’s preeminent energy conference.” CERAWeek was rated one of the top five overall “corporate leader” conferences in the world.​

Microsoft continues to support its commitment to the energy industry by joining the CERAWeek 2022, March 7 to 11, in Houston. Darryl Willis, Microsoft Corporate Vice President Energy Industry, promises to tackle the challenges the energy industry faces together with various Microsoft’s energy and sustainability leaders.

SUNY Distinguished Professor Andrew Whittaker is part of a consortium led by Terra Praxis developing a digital platform to repower coal plants using advanced heat sources. The aim is to retrofit retired and operating coal-fired power plants with modular nuclear reactors while retaining the balance of the plant. Other members include the UK-based architectural and engineering consultancy—Bryden Wood, along with MIT, Microsoft, and a group of utilities. Whittaker and the multidisciplinary Terra Praxis team, which includes civil, mechanical and nuclear engineers and designers, are adapting proven seismic isolation and damping technologies to standardize equipment, drive down cost and accelerate construction. Researchers are targeting a five-fold reduction in capital cost.

Bryden Wood has joined Terra Praxis in working on the “REPOWER” initiative to help countries meet net-zero emissions targets by replacing coal-fired boilers at existing power plants with Generation IV advanced modular reactors (AMRs)—creating a new design and construction solution that would make such a program possible at scale and speed, in part by deploying a new digital platform.

Watch this presentation by Kirsty Gogan and Eric Ingersoll of Terra Praxis to the Effective Altruism community about why they founded Terra Praxis—to come up with Climate 2.0 strategies that address the actual risks to the energy transition—cost, speed, scale, space, and political support—these are the obstacles that are standing in the way of achieving the progress on decarbonization the world needs and expects. These risks include public opposition and legal constraints to the future development of renewable energy. For instance, two-thirds of the counties in the U.S. state of Iowa have added restrictions or prohibitions to future wind development; this is true for many states across the US. Based on analysis Terra Praxis and its partner LucidCatalyst performed with McKinsey, it is clear that there is very little potential for onshore wind development left in Germany. However, climate modelers do not take this into consideration and continue to model large additions to wind resources, allowing policy makers to believe we are on the right track when in fact the reality is very different. Along similar lines, Terra Praxis is leading a project to repower the world's 2TW of coal plants, which make up the single largest source of global carbon emissions.

International design company Bryden Wood is working alongside Terra Praxis to create a new digital platform to decarbonize electricity by 2050. The ‘Repowering Coal’ initiative will deliver a substantial portion of the clean electricity required to achieve net zero by 2050, by replacing coal-fired boilers at existing power plants with Generation IV Advanced Modular Reactors (AMRs) which will be ready for deployment by 2027.

Engineering and architecture firm Bryden Wood has revealed the digital platform for its ambitious Repowering coal project, which aims to retro-fit coal-fired power plants to accommodate modular nuclear reactors. The strategy, developed in collaboration with non-profit Terra Praxis, will see coal-fired boilers at existing power plants replaced with Generation IV Advanced Modular Reactors (AMRS), which will be ready for deployment by 2027. This initiative is seen as a way to make gains on worldwide decarbonization of the energy sector.

Terra Praxis is working with Bryden Wood to create a new digital platform for making the replacement of coal-fired boilers at existing power plants with advanced modular nuclear reactors possible at scale and speed. Terra Praxis co-founder Eric Ingersoll said: "This ambitious project will design a process to repower the world's coal fleets via a fast, repeatable system resulting in carbon negative power plants that are cheaper to operate than before and ensure continuity for communities reliant on these plants for energy and jobs."

Eric Ingersoll and Kirsty Gogan of Terra Praxis and LucidCatalyst attended the annual CleanTech Forum. Kirsty was featured on panel—The Terawatt Transition; Thinking Scale, Think Differently—about near-term climate-scale strategies that can compete on price and performance with fossil fuels that can address the largest and most difficult carbon emissions challenges—coal and liquid fuels. Customers, investors, and political leaders are aligning around strategies to accelerate the affordable repowering of 2 terawatts of coal, and delivery of 100 million barrels per day of carbon-neutral liquid fuels. These large-scale solutions would repurpose trillions of dollars of existing infrastructure and continue supplying reliable energy, without emissions, and can advance groundbreaking progress toward Net Zero by 2050. Co-hosted by Terrestrial Energy. Eric was on the panel—Carbon to Fuels: Pathways and Innovations—Electrification is set to revolutionize the emissions profile of the transportation sector. However, liquid fuels are likely to remain an important energy carrier, at least for long range flights and shipping. The potential challenges and opportunities for fuels derived from captured carbon were discussed. We invite you to watch the video of the Terra Praxis panels.

In this episode, Jaimie Johnston MBE and Kirsty Gogan from Terra Praxis discuss how to achieve a practical, global-scale solution to the very biggest issue facing humanity – climate change.

The World Nuclear Exhibition 2021 took place in Paris (Nov 30 – Dec 2) with a series of in-person panel sessions. On December 1st, Westinghouse sponsored a session with Kirsty Gogan of Terra Praxis moderating a panel that included Patrick Fragman, President and CEO, Westinghouse; Petro Kotin, Acting President of SE NNEGC “Energoatom”; and Sama Bilbao y Leon, Director General of the World Nuclear Association.

Terra Praxis has been listed among seven of the most high-impact, cost-effective, evidence-based organizations fighting climate change. Why Johannes Ackva and Luisa Sandkühler of Founders Pledge recommend Terra Praxis: “We believe that Terra Praxis continues to do incredibly important work around shaping a conversation for advanced nuclear to address critical decarbonization challenges, such as the decarbonization of hard-to-decarbonize sectors and the conundrum of how to deal with lots of very new coal plants that are unlikely to be prematurely retired.”

Update, November 29, 2022, 9 am: This story was originally published in 2019 and has been updated throughout.

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You can contribute to our work at by making a donation at every.org/terrapraxis — to our US-based 501(c)3. By donating through this channel, you will receive a receipt for your donation from Every.org which is a US-based 501(c)3. If you are based in Europe or the United Kingdom and interested in donating to Terra Praxis, please contact us. Donations support our work in the US, UK, and Europe.

Donations support our work in the US, UK, and Europe.

The flurry of new policies and announcements raises the question: Are we at the dawn of a nuclear renaissance? We’ve heard these claims before. But the mounting scale of the climate and energy conundrum is fueling more money and favorable policies into atomic power. Kirsty Gogan, co-founder of Terra Praxis is quoted: “There have been years of indecisiveness, but the climate is changing around nuclear"... “We need Impossible burgers for energy, a drop-in substitute. We’re not bending the curve on emissions because in the power sector we still need reliability, making the idea that we’re going to phase out coal unforgivably unrealistic right now.”

Kirsty Gogan Alexander FRSA FEI, an internationally known advocate of nuclear energy, advisor to governments and co-founder of Terra Praxis and Energy for Humanity (EFH), has been named the first WNE Fellow at a ceremony in Paris. Bigot Bernard, director general of ITER Organization and chair of the judging panel, said Gogan has introduced “fresh arguments that make sense to the public at large. She plays a quite remarkable and unique role.” Bigot said the new WNE award is important because it honors someone in civil society whose work supports the development of civil nuclear energy. “It is important to show that nuclear energy, especially in the context of an urgent energy transition to fight against climate change, is supported by people from all horizons,” he said. Eleven people were nominated for the award by the nuclear advisors network in French embassies around the world based on their work, media and social impact, and their commitment to international institutions. Gogan was the unanimous choice of the jury of eight, including Sama Bilbao y Leon, William D Magwood IV, François Jacq, Toshio Kodama, Jean-Bernard Lévy, Alexey Likhachev, and Satish Kumar Sharma.

While wind and solar ramp up, several countries, including France and Britain, are looking to expand their nuclear energy programs. Germany and others aren’t so enthusiastic. “Nuclear is going mainstream in the climate movement,” said Kirsty Gogan, a member of Britain’s Nuclear Innovation Research and Advisory Board and a founder of Terra Praxis, a nonprofit that supports nuclear energy in the shift to a green economy. “This is a critical decade, and I think we’re going to see real change.” ... As investors look at where to deploy trillions of dollars in assets in the shift away from fossil fuels, nuclear power is becoming harder to ignore. “The general consensus in climate circles is nuclear is a clean energy source,” said Marisa Drew, chief sustainability officer at Credit Suisse. “If someone can deliver something that is economically viable and scalable and truly green, and do it in a safe way,” she said, “then we have to embrace that.”

Founders Pledge issued a guide to the changing landscape of high-impact climate philanthropy, which includes Terra Praxis and the reasons why they have decided to support our work. "We believe that Terra Praxis continues to do incredibly important work around shaping a conversation for advanced nuclear to address critical decarbonization challenges, such as the decarbonization of hard-to-decarbonize sectors and the conundrum of how to deal with lots of very new coal plants that are unlikely to be prematurely retired."

SUPPORT OUR WORK
You can contribute to our work at by making a donation at every.org/terrapraxis — to our US-based 501(c)3. By donating through this channel, you will receive a receipt for your donation from Every.org which is a US-based 501(c)3. If you are based in Europe or the United Kingdom and interested in donating to Terra Praxis, please contact us. Donations support our work in the US, UK, and Europe.

This webinar explored the advantages of floating low-carbon power plants — unique energy solutions ideal for remote regions, autonomous power grids, and offshore processing plants. Resistant to tsunamis and other natural disasters, floating plants supply cheap and clean energy where it is needed. With Kirsty Gogan of Terra Praxis, Elena Pashina of Rusatom Overseas, Mikal Boe of Core Power, Peder Norborg of Seaborg Technologies and Richard Jones of EDF Energy.

John Gibbons, climate journalist contributing to The Sunday Business Post and The Irish Times, and Kirsty Gogan talked to Eamon Dunphy about the outcomes of COP26. Kirsty is founder and managing partner of Terra Praxis, an advisor to Governments and NGOs on innovative ways to decarbonize, and chairs the UK Government’s Nuclear Innovation Research and Advisory Board (NIRAB) Cost Reduction Working Group. "The COP is half full rather than half empty because there was progress made. 1.5 [°C] is still on the table, but there's a heavy dose of realism that is needed here."

Thanks to a grant from Founders Pledge, Terra Praxis hosted a high-level, high-impact event in parallel with COP26 in Scotland on November 3, 2021: De-risking the Terawatt Transition at the Climate Action Solution Centre. Read this article on Grant II: Changing how we think and act about the challenge of committed emissions to learn why Founders Pledge decided to make this grant, what they expect from it, and how they will track impact and what it has achieved so far.

SUPPORT OUR WORK
You can contribute to our work by making a donation at every.org/terrapraxis — to our US-based 501(c)3. By donating through this channel, you will receive a receipt for your donation from Every.org which is a US-based 501(c)3. If you are based in Europe or the United Kingdom and interested in donating to Terra Praxis, please contact us. Donations support our work in the US, UK, and Europe.