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2026 Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
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X-energy raises $700M in latest funding round
Advanced reactor developer X-energy has announced that it has closed an oversubscribed Series D financing round of approximately $700 million. The funding proceeds are expected to be used to help continue the expansion of its supply chain and the commercial pipeline for its Xe-100 advanced small modular reactor and TRISO-X fuel, according the company.
Kirk Drumheller
Nuclear Technology | Volume 24 | Number 3 | December 1974 | Pages 418-424
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste | doi.org/10.13182/NT74-A31505
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
If a stable non-Earth intercept trajectory or orbit can be assured, extraterrestrial disposal offers the complete removal of long-lived nuclear waste constituents from Earth. The primary unfavorable features are that the concept deals with only part of the waste; possible launch safety problems exist, retrievability and monitoring are difficult, and the concept will require international agreements. Extraterrestrial disposal of the total waste constituents and of only the transuranic elements were considered. However, space disposal of the transuranics only is believed to be the most practical scheme, primarily because of the very high space transport cost per unit of weight. The implementation of space disposal of transuranic waste could be achieved with current technology. This technology is considered to include the space shuttle and the space tug, advanced vehicles that use existing engineering technology. The safety aspects for space disposal primarily include safety during launch and control of the extraterrestrial destination of the waste constituents. The potential for an abort that could cause a release of radionuclides during any one space launching is modestly high; however, relatively small amounts of waste constituents are associated with each launch; and package integrity is high even in an abort. The major energy consumption in space disposal is for propelling the waste to its final destination. This energy consumption for disposal of actinide waste is about 4 to 5 orders of magnitude less than the electrical energy from the original nuclear fuel, depending on the final space destination.