The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is the nation’s largest public power provider. It serves more than ten million people with reliable, affordable and resilient energy. The TVA is working to meet the exciting growth of their region through investments in systems, innovative new technologies and a constant commitment to operational excellence.

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) said in a Notification of Intent to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that the TVA) intends to submit a Construction Permit Application (CPA) to license construction of a GE-Hitachi BWRX-300 small modular reactor (SMR) at TVA’s Clinch River Nuclear Site (CRN Site). According to the notification, it intends to submit the first part of the application, including the Clinch River Nuclear Site Environmental Report, this month and the remainder “by June 2025”.

The CPA is essentially the blueprint for the design of the proposed plant and safety systems. The TVA must obtain approval from the NRC approval before construction can begin.

In a letter dated the 17^th of April, 2025, the TVA said, “As communicated previously, the TVA Board has not yet authorized the deployment of a SMR at the CRN Site. TVA’s submittal of the CPA is an important step to de-risk the licensing aspect of a potential, future SMR deployment. Any decisions about deployment will be subject to support, risk-sharing, required internal and external approvals, and completion of necessary environmental and permitting reviews.”

The NRC awarded the TVA an early site permit for the construction of SMRs at Clinch River in 2019. It certified that the site was acceptable for the construction of a nuclear power plant from the point of view of site safety, environmental impact and emergency planning. However, the permit did not specify the choice of technology. A separate license would be required to construct and operate a nuclear power plant. The TVA entered an agreement with GE Hitachi in 2022 to support its planning and preliminary licensing for the possible deployment of a BWRX-300 at the site, near Oak Ridge.

This will be the first CPA for a BWRX-300. TerraPower submitted a CPA for its first-of-a-kind Natrium plant, at Kemmerer, Wyoming, to the NRC in March 2024, which the regulator scheduled for review the following May. More recently, Long Mott Energy submitted a CPA for an Xe-100 power reactor to be sited in Calhoun County, Texas, on the 31^st of March this year, for which the regulator is targeting a scheduled decision by the end of May, this year.

A TVA-led coalition including BWRX-300 developer GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy applied for an eight hundred million dollar grant earlier this year from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Generation III+ SMR program to support the deployment of SMRs at Clinch River. The GE Hitachi CEO Jeff Lyash said that the application for the grant would accelerate construction of an SMR at Clinch River by two years, with commercial operation planned for 2033.

Earlier this year, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee pledged to support nuclear power, with a proposal for some fifty million dollars for the SMR project in his 2025 State of the State address.

Tennessee Valley Authority

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and a master services agreement has just been signed by Westinghouse Electric Company and McMaster University with the aim to assist in the commercialization of the Westinghouse eVinci microreactor.

McMaster University is based in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Under the MoU and service agreement, Westinghouse will collaborate on the research and development of the eVinci microreactor. This includes material irradiation and examination studies.

The agreements build on existing collaboration arrangements between the company and university since 2022 which have included McMaster “completing a material properties literature review along with corresponding material handbooks to inform engineering design and determine future testing needs”.

McMaster is currently expanding its reactor testing capabilities with a high-temperature irradiated test rig “which will enable Westinghouse to gather key testing data to support design confirmation and subsequent licensing approval of the eVinci microreactor”.

Westinghouse’s eVinci is a heat pipe-cooled microreactor which can produce up to five megawatts of electricity with a fifteen megawatts thermal core design. The
TRi-structural ISOtropic (TRISO) particle fuel-fueled reactor core is designed to run for eight or more full-power years at full power before needing to be refueled. The factory-built and assembled eVinci reactor can be shipped to the operational site in a container to provide versatile, scalable energy for a variety of applications.

Jon Ball is the President of Westinghouse eVinci Technologies. He said, “McMaster University is a strong Canadian research partner, offering years of valuable experience and insights from operating its research reactor that can be applied to our microreactor technology. By broadening our collaboration and leveraging McMaster’s unique capabilities we can further accelerate the commercialization of our eVinci microreactor.”

Andy Knights is the McMaster’s acting Vice-President of Research. He said, “We’re proud to partner with Westinghouse and contribute our research expertise and world-class suite of nuclear facilities in support of their eVinci microreactor program. As Canada’s Nuclear University, McMaster is committed to working alongside our industry partners to advance materials and energy solutions for a cleaner world.”

Earlier this month, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approved the Principal Design Criteria. This is a key milestone towards licensing the eVinci microreactor in the U.S. Principal Design Criterias (PDC) define how each part of the reactor’s structures, systems, and components will function, and ensure that the design conforms to design bases outlined in NRC regulations. Approval of these PDCs provides a clear path to licensing the eVinci microreactor for deployment. They also simplify and streamline the licensing process for customers, according to Westinghouse.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) is also conducting a Vendor Design Review for the eVinci microreactor. It is currently assessing it as Phase 2 which “has a focus on identifying potential fundamental barriers to licensing the NPP design in Canada. It serves to give the CNSC a significant level of assurance that the vendor has considered CNSC design requirements. The results of a Phase 2 review help the vendor develop a preliminary safety analysis report to support an eventual application for a license to construct.”

eVinci Microreactor

A consortium led by the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute has been awarded a ten-million-dollar contract by the University of Missouri for the design and licensing of its planned new research reactor.

The University of Missouri launched an initiative in March 2023 to construct a new, larger research reactor, NextGen MURR. The university’s existing MU Research Reactor has been in operation for more than half a century. It is the highest-powered university research reactor in the U.S. and is currently the country’s only producer of certain medical radioisotopes.

The Korea-U.S. University of Missouri Research Reactor Consortium is comprised of the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, the Hyundai Engineering Company, Hyundai Engineering America and U.S.-based engineering firm MPR Associates. It has been contracted for the design studies phase to develop the ‘roadmap’ for the new reactor.

The new Consortium project will include detailed programming studies and a preliminary site evaluation. It will create an initial project cost and schedule estimate for the entire site. This project is expected to take approximately six months to complete. The results of the studies and site evaluation will be integrated into the preliminary design and licensing phase under a separate contract. The conceptual design of the reactor is expected to be finished by the end of 2026. The total project is expected to take eight to ten years.

The university’s existing research reactor is called MURR. It was originally constructed as a five megawatts thermal reactor, and began operations in 1966. Its power was increased to ten megawatts thermal in 1974. It now operates six-and-a-half days per week, all year. The reactor is currently the only producer in the U.S. of the medical isotopes yttrium-90 which is used for the treatment of liver cancer; molybdenum-99 which is for analysis of heart functions; iodine-131 which is used for treatment of thyroid cancer; and lutetium-177 which is used for treatment of pancreatic and prostate cancers.

The new twenty megawatts NextGen MURR research reactor will expand the current capabilities of MURR and address new innovative demands such as cancer treatment. The university stated that the new reactor and supporting infrastructure will be the largest capital investment in its history. The investment will “position Missouri as a national hub for innovation, investment and manufacturing in nuclear health technologies”.

Mun Choi is the President of the University of Missouri. H said, “This is a historic moment for our university, our state and the future of nuclear science and medicine. NextGen MURR represents our commitment to research that changes lives. It will allow Mizzou to lead the nation in producing critical medical isotopes while opening new frontiers in science, engineering and patient care.”

Todd Graves is the chair of the University’s Board of Curators. He said, “The Board of Curators is proud to support this bold step forward. NextGen MURR is more than a reactor – it’s an engine of progress. It will enhance Missouri’s role as a leader in nuclear science, medical research, economic development and education for generations to come.”

University of Missouri Research Reactor Consortium

Moltex Energy Canada Inc has started pre-licensing consultation with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission in relation to the development of its Waste to Stable Salt (WATSS) process for converting spent uranium oxide fuel into molten salt reactor fuel.

The innovative process extracts valuable materials and radioactive byproducts from spent nuclear fuel in oxide form, including Candu, light water reactor and certain fast reactor fuels, such as mixed oxide (MOX) fuels. It accomplishes this in a single, streamlined twenty-four-hour chemical process, with a versatile pretreatment step that the company says can accommodate exotic, experimental, or advanced reactor fuels.

The extracted transuranic elements are concentrated to create molten salt fuel, while fission products are removed. This reduces the volume of the waste dramatically but also transforms spent nuclear fuel into clean, dispatchable energy, permanently eliminating long-lived transuranic elements like plutonium, Moltex says. Coupled with the company’s Stable Salt Reactor-Wasteburner (SSR-W) reactor technology, the process enables the creation of a closed fuel cycle.

Moltex states that it has now signed a Service Level Agreement with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), which “lays out a framework for engagement and discussions with the regulator to receive feedback on key topical areas such as safety, security and safeguards, to ensure that regulatory requirements are suitably taken into account at every stage of the development”.

Moltex added, “This framework will in turn allow the CNSC to facilitate engagement with the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure that the WATSS facility and associated fuel cycle will be compatible with the application of international obligations under the treaty on the non-proliferations of nuclear weapons, and ensure best practices are incorporated into the design as early as possible.”

Last month, Moltex announced that its WATSS process had been successfully tested on spent nuclear fuel bundles from a “commercial reactor in Canada” through hot cell experiments carried out by Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) which has the only facilities in Canada equipped to handle spent nuclear fuel. The experiments demonstrated that the process can extract ninety percent of the transuranic material from spent nuclear fuel in twenty four hours, with greater efficiency over longer periods of time, the company said.

The company intends to deploy the first WATSS unit at NB Power’s Point Lepreau site in New Brunswick. Molex also plans to deploy the first SSR-W by the early to mid-2030s. The commercial-scale demonstration facility will recycle an anticipated two hundred and sixty spent nuclear fuel bundles from existing Candu pressurized heavy water reactors and create recycled fuel for the entire sixty-year operating life of one three-hundred-megawatt demonstration SSR-W. Moltex said it is now progressing with the engineering design and safety analysis of the commercial facility.

Olivier Gregoire is the Licensing Manager at Moltex. He said, “We appreciate the opportunity to get early feedback on the design from the CNSC to ensure we are designing a facility that meets the highest standards. “Early engagement minimizes the risk of late-stage additions to the design which can create needless cost increases. This engagement will streamline site specific licensing.”

Moltex Energy Limited is the U.K.-based parent company of MoltexFlex Limited and Moltex Energy Canada Inc. Earlier this month, it was announced that the company had entered administration. When a company enters administration, it means that the company is insolvent and unable to pay its debts. Offers are currently being requested to acquire the business and assets of Moltex Energy Limited and/or shares in the company’s subsidiaries. The deadline for such offers is the 7^th of May.

Molex Energy