Part 2 of 4 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
     What most of the advanced reactor designers and developers who are seeking Nuclear Regulatory approval share is that they would not burn the form of uranium that is used to fuel most of the commercial nuclear power plants in operation today. Instead, they would use a type of uranium that is more highly enriched. This blend of uranium isotopes is made more fissionable by the use of technology such as centrifuges that increase the ratio of fissionable U-235.
      This fuel is commonly known as high-assay low-enriched uranium or “HALEU”. Creating a steady supply of this fuel will take time to develop. Individual states have created their own carbon emission reduction goals and corporations and utility companies typically have milestones that they hope to achieve in the 2030 to 2050 timeframe. There is a concern among nuclear advocates that the promised next generation reactors could miss opportunities to meet that growing demand for emissions-free energy.
     The NEI letter to the DoE estimated that the cumulative demand for HALEU from the next generation reactors will ramp up from 2.8 metric tons in 2021 to over 400 metric tons by 2030. Korsnick wrote in the letter, “Without a HALEU supply chain or fuel supply certainty, many advanced reactor designs and advanced fuels will simply not be commercialized.”
      Unfortunately for the nuclear industry, HALEU is only produced for commercial purposes in Russia. Building new facilities capable of producing HALEU can take about seven years according to Kirk Schnoebelen who is the head of sales at Urenco, one of the few companies that operates uranium enrichment facilities in the U.S. Centrus Energy is another nuclear fuel supplier. They just signed a new three-year agreement with the DoE to produce HALEU on a pilot project level. The company says that when they receive a federal license, it will begin HALEU production in 2022. That pilot project will only produce about six hundred kilograms of HALEU which is under twenty percent of the amount needed by reactor developers in 2022. This projection is based on NEI’s figures.
     Seven advanced reactor designs are currently engaged in “pre-application” activities with the NRC. All but one of these designs would use the HALEU fuel. Okla is a startup that became the first advanced reactor design to formally apply to the NRC for a license for its 1.5 megawatt “micro-reactor” design that also plans on using HALEU fuel.
      The one out of the seven designs mentioned above that is not going to use HALEU fuel is Terrestrial Energy’s Integral Molten Salt reactor which would use a molten-salt-cooled rather than water-cooled core. It would still run on the same uranium mixture that conventional water-cooled reactors burn.
     Simon Irish is the CEO of Terrestrial Energy. He said that it was important for his company to move forward with a design that utilizes a common reactor fuel that is currently available instead of choosing a fuel that would be available at some undetermined future date. Irish added, “There’s no point in building the perfect reactor if it takes 50 years to get to market.”
Please read Part 3 next