X-energy calls TRISO-X “the first commercially produced SMR fuel to undergo testing of this rigor.” It’s also the linchpin of the company’s three major projects, which are in various stages of development.
The testing: X-energy will carry out its testing in close collaboration with the Department of Energy and its National Reactor Innovation Center. The testing will take place at Idaho National Laboratory’s Advanced Test Reactor.
Officially called the X-energy Pebble Reactor Test (or XPeRT), the testing will allow the DOE to independently evaluate how TRISO-X fuel “performs under various power levels, temperatures, and burnup conditions relevant to the Xe-100 SMR design,” according to X-energy. The Xe-100 is the company’s flagship reactor. The postirradiation examination to measure the fuel’s fission-product retention and structural stability will be shared between INL and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
While X-energy stated that this testing is “largely confirmatory in nature,” the company maintained that the data gathered by XPeRT will be critical to gaining future Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval for the eventual commercial deployment of TRISO-X.
Broader context: XPeRT is part of an ongoing, multifaceted collaboration between X-energy and the DOE. TRISO-X (the X-energy fuel fabrication subsidiary shares the name with the fuel it fabricates) was one of five companies selected for the DOE’s Fuel Line Pilot Program, which allows selected companies to build and operate a fuel fabrication facility under DOE authorization as opposed to conventional NRC approval.
The Fuel Line Pilot Program is being offered as a solution to quickly build up a robust fuel supply chain to support the research, development, and demonstration of new reactors, especially the 11 projects progressing through the DOE’s Reactor Pilot Program.
The Fuel Line Pilot Program is accelerating the construction of TX-1, the company’s fuel fabrication facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The fuel fabricated at TX-1 would be used in X-energy’s Xe-100 SMR, its 80-MWe high-temperature, gas-cooled reactor, which can be deployed as a four-pack, 320-MWe power plant.
X-energy so far has plans to deploy this technology at two locations. The first, Long Mott Generating Station, is a project with Dow Chemical Company for a four-unit nuclear plant at Dow’s manufacturing site in Seadrift, Texas. The companies announced the submission of a construction permit application to the NRC for that project in March of this year. This project is being supported by the DOE’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program, which predates the Reactor Pilot Program.
The second project is the Cascade Advanced Energy Facility in Richland, Wash., which is being pursued in collaboration with Amazon and Energy Northwest. This plant, which will be used to power Amazon data centers, will be built near the existing Columbia nuclear power plant. As of now, the scope of the project is contained to a single four-pack of Xe-100s, though as many as 12 total reactors may eventually be deployed at the site.
