On April 27, Energy Secretary Rick Perry said, “Promoting early-stage investment in advanced nuclear power technology will support a strong, domestic, nuclear energy industry now and into the future. Making these new investments is an important step to reviving and revitalising nuclear energy, and ensuring that our nation continues to benefit from this clean, reliable, resilient source of electricity. Supporting existing as well as advanced reactor development will pave the way to a safer, more efficient, and clean baseload energy that supports the U.S. economy and energy independence.”
The Department of Energy has a program called the U.S. Industry Opportunities for Advanced Nuclear Technology Development initiative for this purpose. Last December, the DoE announced that eight projects will receive sixty million dollars. There are three types of funding for this new initiative.
First-of-a-Kind (FOAK) Nuclear Demonstration Readiness Projects provides funding for projects that focus on “major advanced reactor design development projects or complex technology advancements for existing plants which have significant technical and licensing risk, and have the potential to be deployed by the mid-to-late 2020s.” Advanced Reactor Development Projects focuses on “covering a broad scope of concepts and ideas that could improve the capabilities and commercialization potential of advanced reactor designs and technologies.” Regulatory Assistance grants provide support for “obtaining certification and licensing approvals for advanced reactor designs and capabilities.”
These funding opportunities will run for five years. Applications will be accepted any time of the year and there is a quarterly selection process. As much as forty million dollars will be available for the remainder of fiscal year 2018.
Under the First-of-a-Kind Nuclear Demonstration Readiness Projects NuScale Power will receive forty million dollars for its modular reactor development.
X-Energy received four and a half million dollars for the design and license application for a fuel fabrication facility. This facility will handle high-assay, low-enriched uranium to produce U.S. developed Triso fuel. X-Energy is working on a seventy-five megawatt small modular high temperature gas-cooled pebble bed reactor called the Xe-100. The company is currently manufacturing uranium oxide/carbine-based fuel kernels, Triso particles and fuel pebbles at a pilot facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratories.
Under the Advanced Reactor Development Projects funding, BWXT Nuclear Energy received five million four hundred thousand dollars. They will work in conjunction with Oak Ridge National Laboratories on the development of additive materials manufacturing (also known as 3D printing) for the fabrication of nuclear components that will be acceptable in structure and strength to the U.S. national code organizations and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Projects from General Atomics, Elysium Industries USA, and NuVision Engineering Inc will also receive funding from the Advanced Reactor Development Projects pool of funds.
Regulatory Assistance Grant funds will be made available to two projects. Analysis and Measurement Services Corporation receive half a million dollars for their work on the development of guidelines for online monitoring for the extension of calibration intervals for nuclear power plant instrumentation. General Atomics will receive three hundred and eighty-one thousand dollars for a pre-application review of a silicon carbine composite-clad uranium carbide fuel system for use in their gas-cooled fast reactor.
An additional five companies have been selected to receive technology development vouchers under the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) initiative. The following companies have received vouchers worth the dollar amounts in parentheses: Terrestrial Energy USA (USD500,000); Vega Wave Systems, Inc (USD130,000); Oklo, Inc (USD417,000); Urbix Resources, LLC (USD320,000); and ThorCon US, Inc (USD400,000). These companies will be able to use their vouchers to pay for services or use of facilities at any of the DoE national laboratories or Nuclear Science User Facility partner facilities.