Construction work has begun for TRISO-X’s TX-1 advanced nuclear fuel fabrication facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which will be the first plant of its kind in the U.S.
The plant will be the first facility in the U.S. to exclusively manufacture fuel for advanced small modular reactors (SMRs) and will fabricate X-energy’s proprietary tristructural-isotropic (TRISO) fuel for the first proposed deployment of the Xe-100 reactors in partnership with Dow, Inc at Dow’s Seadrift site on the Texas Gulf Coast, and future Xe-100 deployments.
Deployment of the Xe-100 high-temperature gas-cooled modular reactor is receiving support from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DoE) Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP). The program is providing up to fifty percent cost-shared funding for the Xe-100 ARDP, including construction of the TX-1 fuel fabrication facility
In August of this year, TRISO-X announced that it had selected Clark Construction Group for a forty-eight million dollars award, including the completion of the core and shell of the two hundred fourteen thousand eight hundred and twelve square foot facility. At the same time, the company said it had received DoE approval to authorize an additional thirty million dollars for early procurement of critical long-lead equipment and materials to support the successful delivery of subsequent construction phases, and to help keep the project on schedule.
TX-1 is the first of two planned TRISO manufacturing facilities at X-energy’s location in Oak Ridge. It is set to be the first Category II Fuel Fabrication Facility licensed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in the U.S. with an estimated output of five tons of uranium or Seven hundred thousand TRISO pebbles per year, enough fuel for up to eleven Xe-100 reactors.
Pebbles of TRISO-X fuel recently began thirteen months of irradiation testing at the Idaho National Laboratory to evaluate fuel performance across operating scenarios and qualify them for commercial use.
The NRC groups what it calls special nuclear materials including plutonium, uranium-233, or uranium enriched in the isotopes uranium-233 or uranium-235 and the facilities that possess them into three categories based upon the materials’ potential for use in nuclear weapons or their strategic significance. The NRC’s physical security and safeguards requirements are based on these categories. Category I materials are classed as having high strategic significance, Category II materials are classed as having moderate strategic significance, and Category III materials have the lowest significance.
Currently, three U.S. fuel fabrication plants processing low-enriched uranium have been licensed as Category III facilities by the NRC. Two U.S. fabrication plants are licensed as Category I facilities and can produce nuclear fuel containing high-enriched uranium. They are under government contracts to produce fuel for the US Naval Reactors program as well as low-enriched uranium. The high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) that will be required to fuel many of the SMRs currently under development will need to be fabricated in Category II-licensed facilities. The NRC has received applications for several proposed plants from several different companies.
Joel Duling is the President of TRISO-X. He said, “The start of vertical construction marks another significant milestone in bringing our bold vision for the future of nuclear energy to life. As TX-1 takes shape, it will stand as a symbol of our team’s relentless dedication and determination to bring this transformative project forward in just a few years, not decades.”