- DOE Awards Six HALEU Fuel Contracts
- Urenco Boosts US Enrichment Capacity
- US Navy Releases RFI for Nuclear Power at Seven Sites
- US Gov’t Wants to Re-start More Nuclear Reactors
- Blue Energy Secures $45M to Build Underwater SMRs for Data Center Power
- Zap Energy Lands $130M in New Capital
- General Atomics Releases FUSE ~ Open Source Fusion Software
DOE Awards Six HALEU Fuel Contracts for Fuel Advanced Reactors
- High-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU – 5-20% U235) is for use by advanced reactors
- The contracts will allow companies to compete for work to provide deconversion services
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) awarded contracts to six companies to spur the buildout of a U.S. supply chain for fuels for advanced nuclear reactors. Many advanced reactors will require high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) to achieve smaller designs, longer operating cycles, and increased efficiencies over current technologies.
These contracts will allow selected companies to bid on work for deconversion services, a critical component of the HALEU supply chain. Deconversion transforms the gaseous form of enriched uranium (uranium hexafluoride aka UF6) into either uranium oxide or uranium metal forms for fabrication into solid fuel elements intended for specific reactors.
The United States currently lacks commercial HALEU enrichment and deconversion services to support the deployment of advanced reactors. DOE also plans to award contracts for enrichment services to support the full breadth of the HALEU supply chain.
Progress towards commercialization of advanced reactors has been delayed by the lack of access to reliable supplies of HALEU. For instance, TerraPower, which is developing a 345 MW sodium cooled advanced reactor, funded in part with a cost shared contract with DOE, has postponed its startup date by two years to 2030 due to delays in getting HALEU fuel.
Selected companies awarded HALEU contracts include: BWXT, Centrus, Framatome, GE Vernova, Orano, and Westinghouse. In terms of market shares, the six companies will each receive a minimum contract of $2 million, with up to $800 million available for deconversion services over the 10-year contract period.
Cumulatively, the firms are expected to deliver 290 tonnes of fuel (638,000 lbs) during the decade long period of performance. DOE said in 2023 it has immediate needs for 22 metric tonnes of HALEU for first fuel loads of the advanced reactors it has funded including TerraPower and X-Energy.
The firms bring different capabilities to the program.
- Centrus through its enrichment operation began producing HALEU fuel last year under a DOE contract in the form of uranium hexafluoride (UF6). To be used in a reactor, the gaseous form of the fuel must be converted to either uranium oxide or uranium metal fuel and fabricated as solid nuclear fuel elements to meet the needs of specific customers.
- Orano has the capability to carry out the deconversion process from gas to oxide. The firm announced plans in September to build a multi-billion dollar uranium enrichment plant in Oak Ridge, TN. Once built and in production Orano says the plant will produce commercial quantities of low enriched uranium up to 5% U235 and some with higher enrichment levels up to 8% U235. The firm has not indicated, at least for now, that it has any plans to produce enriched uranium for use in HALEU fuel, e.g., 9-20% U235.
The other four firms – BWX Technologies, Framatome, GE Vernova, and Westinghouse – are positioned as fuel fabrication firms with a wide range of capabilities.
- BWXT inked a contract in August 2023 with DOE’s NNSA to produce HALEU from “scrap” materials” to produce 2 metric tonnes (4,400 lbs) of HALEU.
- Framatome last May announced a deal with TerraPower to produce HALEU at its Richland, WA, fuel fabrication plant. It will convert uranium oxide into uranium metal for eventual use in TerraPower’s 345 MW sodium cooled advanced reactor which the firm is building in Wyoming.
- In 2022 Global Fuel Americas (GE Verona) announced a $200 million deal with TerraPower to fabricate HALEU uranium metal fuel for the firm’s advanced reactor. In July 2023
- Westinghouse announced the UK government’s nuclear fuel fund had awarded the firm $11 million to upgrade its Springfields nuclear fuel production plant in the UK to produce HALEU as well as to produce accident tolerant fuels for light water reactors.
More information on the HALEU Availability Program can be found at HALEU Availability Program | Department of Energy.
& & &
Urenco Boosts US Enrichment Capacity
The project will provide an approximately 15% increase in enrichment capacity at the site, providing an additional 700,000 SWU per year. Urenco USA is on schedule to begin producing enriched uranium from newly installed centrifuges in 2025.
The site’s expansion project is the first to be delivered under Urenco’s capacity expansion program, and will strengthen the nuclear fuel supply chain both in the U.S. and globally. In total, under Urenco’s current expansion, an additional 1.8 million SWU will be delivered across three projects, including two others at Urenco’s sites in Germany and the Netherlands.
Urenco’s Eunice, NM, site is the only commercial enrichment facility in the U.S. In 2023, its annual production was 4.4 million SWU. The site has the physical space and the NRC license to further expand its annual production up to 10 million SWU. The firm has not announced plans to produce HALEU fuels at levels of enrichment for between 9-20% U235.
Urenco CEO, Boris Schucht, said, ““This is only the latest step. We are intending to further expand our capacity in the U.S., subject to market needs, as the strong momentum in the nuclear industry continues.”
& & &
US Navy Releases RFI for Nuclear Power at Seven Sites
The Department of the Navy has released a Request for Information (RFI) to industry, seeking to explore concepts for the development of nuclear power facilities aimed at enhancing energy security at seven Navy and Marine Corps installations in the United States.
According to the RFI installation reliance / tactical readiness are a top priorities for the Navy “to achieve full resilience and operational continuity.”
“We welcome input from developers, utilities, and consortia on innovative approaches that may include, but are not limited to, Shore Based Nuclear Technologies and other advanced technologies.”
“Contractors who own or operate nuclear power sites on Navy or USMC installations would be responsible for the possession, storage and management of nuclear and spent fuel, as well as complying with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing requirements.”
Locations Of Interest
- Virginia
– Naval Air Station (NAS) Oceana (VA)
– Naval Support Activity (NSA) South Potomac (includes Naval Support Facility (NSF)
– Dahlgren, VA and
– Naval Weapons Station (NWS) Yorktown (VA)
– Marine Corps Base (MCB) Quantico (VA)
- Maryland
– NAS Patuxent River (MD)
– NSF Indian Head, MD)
North Carolina
– Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Cherry Point (NC)
– MCB Camp Lejeune (NC)
Nuclear reactors, including small modular reactors (SMRs) and microreactors, have the potential to provide defense installations with resilient energy for several years, even in the face of physical or cyberattacks, extreme weather, pandemics, biothreats, and other emerging challenges that could disrupt commercial energy networks.
This announcement builds on recent Department of Defense initiatives in this area, including an announcement earlier this year by the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy, and Environment regarding the release of an RFI last June to support a deployment program for advanced reactors to power multiple Army sites across the United States.
In related congressional testimony, the Secretary of the Army, Christine Wormuth, stated: “We are certainly very focused on energy and resilience at our installations and being able to operate in a more resilient manner. We are interested in the potential of micro reactors.”
This effort is also complemented by other initiatives, such as the Department of the Air Force’s microreactor pathfinder project at Eielson AFB and the Office of the Secretary of Defense Strategic Capabilities Office Project Pele, a transportable microreactor prototype that recently broke ground at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory.
& & &
US Gov’t Wants to Re-start More Nuclear Reactors
He referenced two projects including the planned recommissioning of Holtec’s Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan and the potential restart of a unit at Constellation Energy’s Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania.
Asked if additional shuttered plants could be restarted, Zaidi said: “We’re working on it in a very concrete way. There are two that I can think of.”
Zaidi declined to identify the two power plants or provide further details about the effort.
One of the likely restarts is the Duane Arnold plant in Iowa which faces expensive repairs. On August 10, 2020, the plant cooling towers were damaged during a severe storm and repairs were assessed to be uneconomical, as the plant had was scheduled for decommissioning in October 2020. The operator and majority owner is NextEra Energy Resources (70%). The Central Iowa Power Cooperative owns 20% and the Corn Belt Power Cooperative owns 10%.
In Iowa NextERA CEO John Ketchum, said that the firm will consider reopening the plant to meet the demand for power from data centers. Ketchum told Bloomberg on June 12th he had inquiries from potential data center customers interested in the 600 MW of power that could be provided by the reactor. Google and other data center users are building computing facilities in Iowa and will need power to run them.
“I would consider it, if it could be done safely and on budget.”
Another possible candidate is Indian Point Energy Center – located north of New York city in Buchanan, NY. It is now owned for the purpose of decommissioning by Holtec International. It isn’t clear how much work has been done so far or whether the decommissioning work has gone past the point that would prevent the reactor from being restarted.
Holtec said on its website that Indian Point’s fuel has been removed from the reactor vessel and placed in the spent fuel pool to cool. An April 2024 technical briefing shows significant work to decommission the twin reactors is underway.
Indian Point’s reactors, which each generated 1,000 MW of power, were shut down as a result of intense political pressure from New York State’s then governor Andrew Cuomo due to the extraordinary influence of green groups who’s support was essential to his re-election. The reactor’s capacity has since been partially replaced by natural gas plants.
Three-prong Nuclear Strategy
Speaking at the Reuters IMPACT conference in New York, Zaidi said repowering existing dormant nuclear plants was part of a three-pronged strategy of President Joe Biden’s administration to bring more nuclear power online to fight climate change and boost production.
The other two prongs include development of small modular reactors (SMRs) for certain applications, and continuing development of next generation, advanced nuclear reactors.
Biden has called for a tripling of U.S. nuclear power capacity to respond to energy demand that is accelerating in part due to expansion of power hungry technologies like artificial intelligence and cloud computing.
Last week, the Biden administration said it closed a $1.52 billion loan to restart the Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan, which would take at least two years to re-open.
Constellation and Microsoft signed a power deal last month but the Redmond, WA, computer giant will only pay for power once the reactor is running. Constellation hopes it will receive government support based on its expected request to the DOE Loan Program Office for a similar level of financial support that was given to Holtec at Palisades.
Zaidi told the conference that the U.S. Navy had requested information to build SMRs on a half dozen bases. “SMR is a technology that is not a decades-away play. It’s one that companies in the United States are looking to deploy in this decade.”
& & &
Blue Energy Secures $45M to Build Underwater SMRs for Data Center Power
Blue Energy, a nuclear power plant company, emerged from stealth mode with a $45 million Series A funding. The investors were co-led by Engine Ventures and At One Ventures, with investment from Angular Ventures, Tamarack Global, Propeller Ventures, Starlight Ventures, and Nucleation Capital. The firm is a spinoff from MIT.
Blue Energy introduced its modular nuclear power plant that can be centrally manufactured in existing shipyards. Shipyard manufacturing reduces the cost and build time of deploying nuclear power safely, making nuclear power economically competitive with fossil fuels and renewables. The funding will be used to advance Blue Energy’s core engineering work and site development, and secure additional partners.
Blue Energy said it is reactor agnostic, partnering with reactor vendors and designing modular power plants to house them. By partnering with reactor vendors, Blue Energy can leverage existing regulatory progress to further accelerate the time to market for their modular nuclear power plant.
Blue Energy says it will use mature light water reactor designs and the latest passive safety advancements to create a plant that is 100% walk-away safe. The reactor building is submerged in a pool that provides additional physical protection and backup cooling. The firm says customers can start with one reactor and add additional reactors over time.
Multi-unit underwater reactor complex – Image: Blue Energy
The reactor and passive safety functions are fully isolated from the rest of the power plant, allowing the turbine hall and other non-nuclear systems to be manufactured in non-nuclear shipyards.
Candidate SMR Scale Reactors
The prospects of sinking an entire nuclear reactor into the ocean or other large body of water immediately brings to mind the question of size. Small modular reactors, with less than 300 MW of generating capability, are plausible candidates for this approach to avoiding the need for a containment structure to protect against airplane crashes or drone attacks.
In the US only NuScale, as a LWR type SMR, has completed the NRC licensing process for its 50 MW SMR. A 77 MW SMR upgrade is expected to be approved by the NRC by the end of 2024.
Two other LWR type designs are the GE-Hitachi BWRX300 and the Holtect SMR300. Both designs are in pre-licensing status with the NRC and are seen as completing that effort by the end of this decade or early 2030s. Westinghouse recently announced its AP300, a scaled down version of its PWR type AP1000, but work on licensing the design has just gotten underway.
In the UK the Rolls Royce 470 MW, a PWR, is making its way through the UK Office of Nuclear Regulation (ONR) generic design assessment process (GDA), which can take up to four years to complete. The firm is hoping for near term funding for its mid-size PWR from the UK government and has been pushing the for it as being the ‘home town’ team in the UK to gain an edge in the competition for SMR funding sponsored by the government.
For its part, the UK agency responsible for making the funding award has dithered repeatedly in terms of choosing one or more winners. The ministry named four short list contenders last month eliminating NuScale. In the next stage of the procurement process bidders will be invited to enter negotiations with GBN for funding and contract awards. EDF withdrew its SMR entry from the competition citing the need for further design work.
China is building its ACP100 small modular reactor demonstration project at the Changjiang site on China’s island province of Hainan. According to World Nuclear News, it has been under development since 2010. The 125 MWe ACP100 integrated PWR’s preliminary design was completed in 2014. In 2016, the design became the first SMR to pass a safety review by the International Atomic Energy Agency. So far China National Nuclear Corporation has not announced plans to export the design.
In South Korea the SMART100 small modular reactor design has been granted standard design approval by South Korea’s Nuclear Safety and Security Commission.
The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI), Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) and Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy (KA-CARE) applied for standard design approval of the SMART100 in December 2019. The Nuclear Safety and Security Commission (NSSC) began its review of the application in August 2021. The NSSC announced it has now granted standard design approval for the reactor.
SMART is a 330 MWt pressurized water reactor with integral steam generators and advanced safety features. The unit is designed for electricity generation (up to 100 MWe) as well as thermal applications, such as seawater desalination, with a 60-year design life and three-year refueling cycle.
Business Case
The business case promoted by the firm is that there is no required upfront capital investment from customers. Blue Energy finances, builds, owns, and operates its power plants. Customers buy new nuclear megawatts through risk-managed power purchase agreements.
The firm posted on its website that it projects it can build its reactors in two years and deliver power from them at $5/kw.
“Blue Energy is addressing the biggest obstacles to wide adoption of nuclear power: cost and build time. Using the traditional approach, it takes thousands of workers several years to construct nuclear power plants on site. We’ve designed a modular plant that can be fully prefabricated centrally in shipyards and transported to its operating location,” said Jake Jurewicz, CEO of Blue Energy.
About Blue Energy
Blue Energy was founded by Jake Jurewicz, based in Edinburgh, and Matt Slotkin, located in the New York city metro area.
Jurewicz previously co-founded Entropy Power and served on the corporate strategy team at Exelon Corporation. He holds a Masters in Nuclear Science & Engineering, and a dual Bachelors in Physics and Nuclear Science & Engineering from MIT, where he did his thesis on shipyard construction of offshore nuclear power plants.
Slotkin previously co-founded Vowel, an AI/video company acquired by Zapier, and led engineering in the Systemized Intelligence Lab at Bridgewater Associates. He graduated from Yale University in 2011 with a degree in economics and spent a year studying at Tsinghua University. He is fluent in Chinese.
Blue Energy’s leadership team also includes Chief Commercial Officer and Corporate Counsel Tom O’Neill, the former General Counsel and Vice President of Licensing at Exelon. CJ Fong, formerly Chief of Staff to NRC Commissioner Wright and NRC staff for 23 years, joins Blue Energy as VP of Regulatory. Charlie Bowser, who engineered, built and commissioned the NETPower pilot plant, joins as SVP of Engineering.
Blue Energy said in a press statement it has signed a letter of intent with an un-named datacenter and cloud provider to serve as the offtaker for the first plant. The firmis hiring and lists open positions for offices in Edinburgh, Scotland, and Bethesda, MD. The locations indicate a possible interest in both US and European markets.
& & &
Zap Energy Lands $130M in New Capital
- Demo power plant system begins operations and aims for first milestone. Total funding now at $330M
- Zap Energy is building a test platform for liquid metals and other key fusion energy technologies
Zap’s $130 million Series D was led by Soros Fund Management LLC, with participation by new investors that include BAM Elevate, Emerson Collective, Leitmotif, Mizuho Financial Group, Plynth Energy and Xplor Ventures.
Current investors participating in the new round include Addition, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Chevron Technology Ventures, DCVC, Energy Impact Partners, Lowercarbon Capital and Shell Ventures.
The new funding will be used to continue parallel development of both plasma R&D and systems-level plant engineering and integration, including the next generation in the company’s FuZE device series and a cutting-edge pulsed power capacitor bank. The firm is located in San Diego, CA.
The team is now attempting to reach a milestone outlined as part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program, and hopes to do so by the end of the year.
“The race for fusion commercialization has historically been thought of as a triathlon: science, then engineering, then commercialization,” says Zap CEO Benj Conway.
“But at Zap, we’re attempting to swim, cycle and run at the same time – such a parallel approach is key to delivering commercial fusion on a timescale that matters. Century is a vital part of the engineering leg and we’re quickly coming up to speed.”
According the company supplied information Zap Energy is building a low-cost, compact and scalable fusion energy platform that confines and compresses plasma without magnetic coils or high-power lasers. Zap’s sheared-flow-stabilized Z-pinch technology provides fusion economics and requires orders of magnitude less capital than conventional approaches.
About Century
Century is the world’s first 100-kilowatt-scale repetitive Z-pinch system. Its goal is to integrate and test three major aspects of Zap’s power design: repetitive pulsed power supplies, plasma-facing circulating liquid metal walls, and technology for mitigating electrode damage.
It is circulating 70 kilograms of hot liquid bismuth in its initial configuration and well over a ton in its final configuration. Air-cooled heat exchangers will remove the intense plasma heat absorbed by the liquid metal. The firm is testing critical strategies for mitigating electrode damage due to extreme heat and neutron flux.
“Zap’s fusion approach is pulsed, so ultimately it will run like an internal combustion engine with cylinders firing all day long to produce steady energy output,” explains Thompson.
“As you do that you also generate large neutron flux and heat loads in the system over time, which is exactly the energy output that you want, but requires unique engineering solutions. Century will test a lot of our assumptions and define the best path toward our first plant.”
Next year the platform will gradually ramp to 100 kilowatts of average input power. For comparison, the 100 kilowatts that drives Century is roughly equal to taking the average power draw of 75 U.S. homes and concentrating it into a chamber the size of a hot water heater.
Century, with a central stack about the size of a double-decker bus, is close to the eventual size of a single Zap Energy module that will produce 50 megawatts of electricity. Future power plants will have multiple modules.
Founded in 2o17 the firm’s collaborators include the University of Washington, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, UC Berkeley, Los Alamos National Laboratory, UC San Diego, University of Nevada, Reno, TransAlta A
& & &
General Atomics Releases FUSE ~ Open Source Fusion Software
- A Powerful Tool to Fast-Track the Development of Fusion Power Plants
- New Open-Source Software Aims to Drive Fusion Innovation for a Clean Energy Future
This month San Diego, CA, General Atomics (GA) took a big step towards achieving this goal by releasing the Fusion Synthesis Engine (FUSE)—a state-of-the-art, open-source software designed to help build fusion power plants.
Created by GA, the software is now accessible to anyone under the Apache 2.0 license, guaranteeing its free usage, modification, and commercialization. Written in “Julia”, a popular programming language, FUSE combines key elements needed to develop fusion power—such as plasma physics, engineering, and cost analysis—into one easy-to-use system.
GA developers explained that other researchers can easily install and run the program on their own systems, enabling more effective collaboration on fusion energy projects. This approach helps reduce costs and makes it easier to achieve the goal of fusion energy.
By integrating various complex models, researchers can generate simulations that are both faster and more accurate, including how a fusion plant operates in both steady and dynamic conditions.
“Releasing FUSE is a bold and exciting step that offers a powerful tool to the entire fusion community,” said Wayne Solomon, vice president of Magnetic Fusion Energy for the General Atomics Energy Group.
“This platform encourages teamwork and new ideas while fulfilling GA’s commitment to openness and progress. By making FUSE available to everyone, we’re not just advancing our own developments—we’re giving others the ability to build on it, with the goal of accelerating discoveries throughout the entire field.”
“FUSE could have a big impact on the future of fusion energy,” said Orso Meneghini, a theory and computational science manager for the General Atomics Energy Group.
“One of its strengths is that it uses machine learning to speed up simulations, making it useful for improving plant designs and reducing uncertainties. Overall, Fuse’s flexibility and generality make it an important tool for advancing research in this critical area of energy research.”
GA also operates the DIII-D National Fusion Facility, a Department of Energy user facility that houses the only operating fusion reactor (tokamak) in the U.S., where scientists collaborate to find the best solutions for bringing fusion power to market.
For more information and full documentation about FUSE, visit https://fuse.help
###