The United States Department of Energy (DOE) has selected four more projects for a pilot program for producing nuclear fuel to support the development of advanced reactors.
Santa Clara, California-based Oklo Inc joins the program for its project to build three fuel production facilities that will support its Aurora and Pluto reactors and potentially other fast reactors, according to a DOE statement.
Charlotte, North Carolina-based Terrestrial Energy Inc has been selected to develop fuel for its molten salt reactor design.
Terrestrial Energy said separately it will use Standard Assay Low-Enriched Uranium (SALEU) fuel, enriched to less than five percent uranium-235.
Oak Ridge, Tennessee-based TRISO-X Inc is part of the cohort for an additional fuel fabrication laboratory to enable pilot-scale integration, training and system validation for the TX-1 commercial TRISO fuel fabrication facility.
TRISO-X is owned by X Energy LLC. X Energy says TRISO-X fuel is a proprietary tri-structural isotropic (TRISO) particle fuel designed to withstand high temperatures without melting.
Hawthorne, California-based Valar Atomics Inc rounds up the latest additions. The fuel pilot program will support its TRISO fuel fabrication for the Ward250 reactor and potentially other high-temperature gas reactors.
Oklo, Terrestrial Energy and Valar Atomic have already been selected for the Reactor Pilot Program, which currently comprises 11 reactors.
Being picked for the Fuel Line Pilot Program allows a project to “leverage the department’s authorization process to ensure a robust supply of fuel is available for research, development and demonstration purposes”, DOE said.
“Each company will be responsible for all costs associated with the construction, operation and decommissioning of their fuel fabrication facilities, and must manage the sourcing of nuclear material feedstock”, it said.
“Companies may apply to receive high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) through DOE’s HALEU Availability Program.
“Development of these pilot projects could drive private sector investment and create a fast-track approach to commercial licensing”.
The list of projects under the fuel pilot program has now expanded to five. Oak Ridge-based Standard Nuclear Inc was the first to be selected for the program, as announced by DOE August 4.
Standard Nuclear says it owns commercial-scale facilities covering 19,000 square feet on its 36.8-acre campus at the former K-25 Nuclear site in Oak Ridge. The company says its fully permitted radiological facilities manufacture and supply TRISO fuel forms with different specifications for commercial and government customers.
DOE’s Fuel Line Pilot Program, unveiled July 16, seeks U.S. companies to build and operate production facilities outside of national laboratories under the DOE authorization process. It supports the Reactor Pilot Program announced June 18.
For the reactor program, DOE announced 11 initial selections on August 12: Aalo Atomics Inc, Antares Nuclear Inc, Atomic Alchemy Inc, Deep Fission Inc, Last Energy Inc, Natura Resources LLC, Oklo, Radiant Industries Inc, Terrestrial Energy and Valar Atomics.
The reactor program implements an order issued by President Donald Trump May 23 that seeks to reform the national lab process for reactor testing, establish a pilot program for reactor construction and operation outside of national labs and streamline environmental reviews for reactor facilities. The order aims to have at least three advanced reactors achieve “criticality” by July 2026.
Under U.S. law, advanced nuclear reactors include fusion reactors or radioisotope power systems that use heat from radioactive decay to generate energy. Fission technology may also be considered advanced reactors if they provide significant improvements compared to reactors operating as of 2020, according to Title 42 Section 16271(b)(1) of the U.S. Code.
To contact the author, email jov.onsat@rigzone.com
element
var scriptTag = document.createElement(‘script’);
scriptTag.src = url;
scriptTag.async = true;
scriptTag.onload = implementationCode;
scriptTag.onreadystatechange = implementationCode;
location.appendChild(scriptTag);
};
var div = document.getElementById(‘rigzonelogo’);
div.innerHTML += ” +
‘
‘ +
”;
var initJobSearch = function () {
//console.log(“call back”);
}
var addMetaPixel = function () {
if (-1 > -1 || -1 > -1) {
/*Meta Pixel Code*/
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,
‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
fbq(‘init’, ‘1517407191885185’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);
/*End Meta Pixel Code*/
} else if (0 > -1 && 81 > -1)
{
/*Meta Pixel Code*/
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,
‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
fbq(‘init’, ‘1517407191885185’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);
/*End Meta Pixel Code*/
}
}
// function gtmFunctionForLayout()
// {
//loadJS(“https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=G-K6ZDLWV6VX”, initJobSearch, document.body);
//}
// window.onload = (e => {
// setTimeout(
// function () {
// document.addEventListener(“DOMContentLoaded”, function () {
// // Select all anchor elements with class ‘ui-tabs-anchor’
// const anchors = document.querySelectorAll(‘a .ui-tabs-anchor’);
// // Loop through each anchor and remove the role attribute if it is set to “presentation”
// anchors.forEach(anchor => {
// if (anchor.getAttribute(‘role’) === ‘presentation’) {
// anchor.removeAttribute(‘role’);
// }
// });
// });
// }
// , 200);
//});
