- TerraPower Inks Term Sheet for HALEU with ASP Isotopes
- Sweden’s Blykalla and ABB To Develop Lead Cooled SMR
- Antares Lands $30 Million Series A for Microreactor Design
- Nuclear Propulsion System Proposed by Tractebel For European Space Missions
- China / First Gen III CAP1400 Nuclear Plant Connected To Grid
- NRC Seeks Comment on Advanced Reactor Licensing Proposed Rule
TerraPower Inks Term Sheet for HALEU with ASP Isotopes
- TerraPower has signed a term sheet with ASP Isotopes for the construction of a uranium enrichment facility in South Africa and a supply agreement for HALEU fuel delivery for the Natrium reactor.
The term sheet covers the preparation of definitive agreements in which TerraPower would provide funding for the construction of a high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) production facility.
The agreement is the first step towards a two-fold definitive agreement. TerraPower plans to invest in the construction of a HALEU enrichment facility in South Africa, and TerraPower would purchase HALEU from the facility. n addition, the parties anticipate entering into a long-term supply (10 years) agreement for the HALEU expected to be produced at this facility. The amount of HALEU to be produced under the agreement was not disclosed in press statements. Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.
“TerraPower has been working diligently to ensure a stable, secure HALEU supply chain for our Natrium reactors. This agreement is another example of our commitment and investments to commercialize HALEU production domestically and in allied countries,” said Chris Levesque, TerraPower President and CEO.
“We are optimistic about ASP Isotopes enrichment capabilities and planned timeline to help ensure advanced nuclear energy can achieve its necessary role in meeting climate energy targets.”
Under DOE’s ARDP cost shared funding program, Terrapower and X-Energy have told the agency the two firms need a combined total of 20 metric tonnes of HALEU for startup of their respective reactor designs.
Terra Power’s Nuclear Fuel Ecosystem
TerraPower has also made multiple strategic agreements and investments to help spur domestic production capabilities in the United States and ensure a robust and competitive front end of the nuclear fuel cycle.
These include MOUs and agreements with Centrus for HALEU commercialization, Framatome to develop a HALEU metallization plant and Uranium Energy Corporation to explore the use of Wyoming uranium as a potential fuel source for Natrium plants.
Once enriched, Natrium’s fuel will be fabricated at the Natrium Fuel Facility in Wilmington, North Carolina , which is under development at the Global Nuclear Fuel–Americas site through a significant investment by TerraPower and through cost shared funding via DOE’s Advance Reactor Demonstration Program.
About the Natrium Reactor
TerraPower is building the first Natrium plant in Wyoming, near a retiring coal facility. It is the first coal-to-nuclear project under development in the world. Non-nuclear construction activities began this summer, making it the first advanced reactor project to move from design into construction. The plant is being developed through a public-private partnership with the DOE’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP).
The Natrium technology features a 345 MWe sodium-cooled fast reactor with a molten salt-based energy storage system. The storage technology can boost the system’s output to 500 MWe for more than five and a half hours when needed. This innovative addition allows a Natrium plant to integrate seamlessly with renewable resources and leads to faster, more cost-effective decarbonization of the electric grid while producing dispatchable carbon-free energy.
About the ASP Isotopes Uranium Enrichment Technology
ASP Isotopes’ laser enrichment technology is not AVLIS or the SILEX technology developed in Australia and now being developed by Global Laser Enrichment, a joint venture by Silex Systems Limited and Cameco Corporation. However, all these technologies are based on the same clean photoionization revolutionary principle.
The basic concept behind the AVLIS system is to selectively ionize the desired atoms in a vaporized source material. AVLIS uses tunable dye lasers, which can be precisely adjusted so that only U-235 in gaseous form (UF6) absorbs the photons, selectively undergoing excitation and then photoionization. The ions are then electrostatically deflected to a collector, while the neutral unwanted uranium-238 passes through.
How Quantum Enrichment Works. Quantum Enrichment, as used by ASP Isotopes, is used for the enrichment of elements that are in a solid form or are not easy to transform into gases. Image: ASP Isotopes
The Quantum Enrichment process involves the use of heat to vaporize a metal and pass it through a laser beam. The laser is tuned to a specific wavelength that matches the energy required to remove an electron from the isotope, which ionizes the isotope of interest. The positively charged target isotope (e.g. light isotope) is then attracted to a negatively-charged collector plate and thus separated from the other isotope material. The precision of the laser system ensures that only the desired isotope is ionized and separated, improving the efficiency and purity of the enrichment process.
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Sweden’s Blykalla and ABB To Develop Lead Cooled SMR
Memorandum of Understanding signed between Blykalla and leading global engineering company ABB to collaborate on small modular reactor (SMR) technology to support clean electricity production and decarbonization goals.
The collaboration will initially concentrate on constructing an electrical SMR pilot facility near the coastal town of Oskarshamn, approximately 340 km south of Stockholm, to test proof of concept before expanding to future plants.
Within the scope of the MoU, ABB will explore how its automation, electrification and digitalization solutions can support Blykalla’s SMR prototype SEALER, which features an electric lead-cooled reactor. This includes cyber security frameworks to ensure compliance with nuclear safety regulations.
About the Blykalla SMR
Blykalla is building a first of a kind lead-cooled SMR concept, using a combination of proven technology and proprietary materials. By developing a patented, aluminum alloyed steel exhibiting perfect corrosion resistance, the firm says it has solved the number one challenge with using lead as a coolant in nuclear reactors.
Liquid lead
Liquid lead has historically been used in SMRs onboard submarines. The main inhibitor to more long-term use of liquid lead is that it may corrode and erode stainless steel structures. However, Blykalla has developed a patented, aluminum alloyed steel exhibiting perfect corrosion resistance. This will be used to protect the SMR’s fuel capsules against corrosion.
Lead as a coolant has a number of intrinsic advantages: it is radiation shielding, and cools the system while simultaneously ensuring that radioactive elements are retained. It has a boiling temperature of 1700°C, which enables a low pressure system and makes it possible to achieve passive safety in its most compact form.
The SEALER Reactor
The Swedish Advanced Lead Reactor (SEALER) is a passively safe reactor designed for commercial power production in a highly compact format. Its fuel is never replaced during operation, which minimizes costs related to fuel management. The integrity of steel surfaces exposed to liquid lead is ensured by use of alumina forming alloys.
Passive safety is ensured by removal of decay heat from the core by natural convection of the lead coolant. In the event of a core disruptive accident, volatile fission products are retained in the lead coolant and no evacuation of persons residing at the site boundary would be required.
The design has an output of 55MW and fuel residence time of 25 years. It has no overpressure system (1 atm), no exothermic reaction with structural materials nor water, and passive decay heat is removed by natural convection.
Uranium Nitride Fuel
Fuels that have a higher uranium density can be used longer than the standard UO2 fuel. Uranium nitride features 40% more uranium per volume unit, which equals a 40% longer life for the fuel. This also leads to better safety margins (operating at > 1,500°C below its melting point), with seven times higher thermal conductivity in the fuel.
While this fuel is difficult to manufacture using conventional methods, Blykalla has a solution that enables the direct conversion of enriched UF6 in streaming NH3. Using “Spark Plasma Sintering” – current (1000 A) assisted hot pressing – pellets can be sintered in just 3 minutes at 1450°C. In comparison, this takes 8 hourfs at 1900°C using conventional methods.
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Antares Lands $30 Million Series A for Microreactor Design
Nuclear energy start-up Antares, based Redondo Beach, CA,, has raised $30M in Series A financing to expand its R&D and manufacturing capabilities to support the demonstration of its first microreactor.
The round was co-led by Alt Cap and existing lead seed investor Caffeinated Capital, with participation from Rogue, Uncommon Capital, Shrug, Banter Capital, Box Group, and Shine Capital. Jack Altman of Alt Cap will be joining the Antares Board of Directors. This round brings Antares total capital raised to date to more than $38M.
In October 2023 the Antares has received $8M in seed funding. Investors include Caffeinated Capital, Humba Ventures, Pathbreaker, Rogue VC, Shrug, Uncommon Capital, and unnamed angel investors.
Antares focuses on high-value use cases in power-constrained environments that wouldn’t be possible without nuclear power. They are developing resilient fission-based power systems for critical assets for the Department of Defense on earth and in space for static power supporting lunar missions.
For terrestrial applications, the Antares R1 reactor is designed to fit on standard 463L pallets or a single CONEX container. Once onsite, it can be deployed without specialized equipment. The reactors can supply 100-300 KW of power for three years on a single fuel load. The reactor uses HALEU fuel in the form of TRISO graphite pebbles and sodium heat pipes to transfer heat for power generation.
Unlike grid-scale reactors, these use cases primarily favor much smaller kilowatt-scale systems. This focus on non-commodity energy applications with smaller scale reactors will enable Antares to develop its first deployments on faster timelines with less research and development and capitalization risk. Antares also partners with commercial companies in extractive industries, edge computing, and space power, in turn bringing the benefits of commercial scale back to the DOD.
“America needs to return to iterative development of nuclear reactors through a design, build, and learn approach. Nuclear energy will increase our national security, and the same technology will enable human and industrial expansion into outer space and contribute substantially to industrial decarbonization. This is mission-critical technology, and Antares wants to become America’s industrial base partner for special-purpose microreactors” says Jordan Bramble, CEO of Antares.
The Antares reactor is built for reliability in the field and modularity to enable factory production and scalability. Antares will open an R&D facility in early 2025 to support development of high-temperature heat pipes, thermosiphons, and graphite machining. The firm’s design approach involves rapidly building and testing electrically-heated demonstration units (EDU) to validate their simulations. The firm is building its first 240-kilowatt thermal EDU, scheduled to turn on by mid-2025.
DOE and Lab Contracts
Their multi-disciplinary team of 23 people currently has $4.3M in DOD and DOE contracts supporting the development of controls, heat rejection, and power conversion systems. The firm is partnered with Idaho National Laboratory and the DOE’s National Reactor Innovation Center to demonstrate their first reactor.
The firm will partner with Idaho National Laboratory and the National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC) front-end engineering and experiment design (FEEED) program. The program supports reactor developers in planning for the design, fabrication, construction and testing of fueled reactor experiments in preparation for testing at the DOME facility at INL as soon as 2027.
Additionally, the firm partnered with Sandia National Laboratories on Brayton Cycle development, Savannah River National Laboratory on deployment & energy resilience, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory through a GAIN voucher supporting independent design verification.
Antares will work with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to perform an independent, technical audit of the company’s heat-pipe cooled microreactor, Antares R1, to verify core neutronics and thermal hydraulics.
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Nuclear Propulsion System Proposed by Tractebel for European Space Missions
(WNN) A consortium led by Belgian engineering firm Tractebel has completed the European Space Agency-commissioned RocketRoll project on nuclear electric propulsion for space exploration. The consortium has defined a comprehensive technology roadmap to equip Europe with advanced propulsion systems capable of undertaking long-duration missions.
The RocketRoll project – or ‘Preliminary European Reckon on Nuclear Electric Propulsion for Space Applications’ – brought together leading stakeholders in aerospace and nuclear within a consortium led by Tractebel that includes the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), ArianeGroup, Airbus and Frazer Nash. It also included researchers from the University of Prague, the University of Stuttgart and engineers from OHB Czechspace and OHB System in Bremen.
The partners studied the feasibility of an electric nuclear propulsion (NEP) system where the electricity produced by a nuclear power reactor powers electric ion thrusters – ionizing a gas and accelerating the ions produced, which are then ejected to generate thrust. This method’s thrust is lower but continuous, and with far greater fuel efficiency it has higher speeds and could cut 60% off the Mars travel time of traditional chemical rockets.
The RocketRoll project, which started more than a year ago and concluded last month, has now submitted a technology roadmap to develop an NEP system, including a candidate design for a demonstrator spacecraft that could flight test NEP systems for deep space missions by 2035.
“Thanks to its huge energy density, NEP offers disruptive advantages in terms of speed, autonomy, and flexibility,” Tractebel said.
“This innovative propulsion technology has the potential to transform space exploration and space mobility by enabling longer-duration missions, potentially shaping the future of interplanetary exploration.”
Currently, European space missions depend on external sources for nuclear capabilities. Tractebel says its strategy is to engineer a range of nuclear power solutions, from radioisotope to fission systems, while also contributing to developing a European value chain for nuclear solutions in space applications.
According to the European Space Agency: “NEP would enable exploration and in-space logistics in Earth Orbit and beyond on a scale that neither chemical nor electrical propulsion could ever provide. The ultimate raison d’être of NEP is to explore beyond Mars orbit where solar power is limited. In addition, NEP could have strong synergies with other space application. For instance, nuclear power could be used on the Moon or Mars surface to power future habitats or robotic exploration of the solar system, or in space for other purpose than propulsion.”
National Academy of Sciences
Basics of Nuclear Electric Propulsion
Nuclear electric propulsion (NEP) systems convert heat from the fission reactor to electrical power, much like nuclear power plants on Earth. This electrical power is then used to produce thrust through the acceleration of an ionized propellant.
An NEP system can be defined in terms of six subsystems, which are depicted in Figure 3.1 and briefly described below.
Reactor As with a nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) system, the reactor subsystem produces thermal energy. In an NEP system, this thermal energy is transported from the reactor to the power conversion subsystem through a fluid loop.
Shield As with an NTP system, the shield subsystem reduces the exposure of people and materials in the vicinity of the reactor to radiation produced by the reactor.
Power conversion The power conversion subsystem converts some of the thermal energy transported from the reactor to electrical energy through either dynamic mechanical or static solid-state processes, such as flowing a heated fluid through turbines as in terrestrial power plants, or through use of semiconductor or plasma diodes to move charged particles through a material. The remaining thermal energy is rejected as waste heat.
Heat rejection Terrestrial power systems can use ambient water and air for convective cooling. The thermal energy created by NTP systems is transferred to the cryogenic propellant and exhausted into space. High-power NEP systems require heat rejection radiators with large surface areas to provide adequate cooling, and, as power levels increase, the size and mass of the heat rejection subsystem has the potential to dominate over other subsystems. Heat rejection at high temperatures reduces the radiator area since radiation increases proportionally to the fourth power of the absolute temperature of the radiator.
High-temperature operation thereby increases performance, but it becomes a challenge for other aspects of the system. Mission length also impacts radiator area. For longer missions’ larger radiators are required to account for possible damage from micrometeorites.
Power management and distribution (PMAD. Electrical power from the power conversion subsystem is often generated near the reactor to avoid thermal losses; however, the power must be controlled and distributed over relatively large distances to the electric propulsion (EP) subsystems. The PMAD subsystem consists of the electronics, switching, and cabling to manage the electrical voltage, current, and frequency of the transfer efficiently.
EP The EP subsystem converts electricity from the PMAD subsystem into thrust through electrostatic or electromagnetic forces acting on an ionized propellant. The EP subsystem consists of the power processing unit (PPU), propellant management system (PMS), and thrusters. The PPU converts the power provided by the PMAD to a form that can be used to generate and accelerate a plasma. A “direct-drive” system would directly drive the EP subsystem from the PMAD subsystem with a commensurate reduction in PPU mass. Power control hardware for switching and power quality would still be required for starting, throttling,
CITATION – National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Space Nuclear Propulsion for Human Mars Exploration. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/25977
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China / First Gen III CAP1400 Nuclear Plant Connected To Grid
- China officially launched the CAP1400 design in 2020 following 12 years of research and development.
(NucNet) China’s first indigenous Generation III CAP1400 nuclear power plant has been connected to the grid and generated electricity for the first time, the National Energy Administration (NEA) announced on 10/31/24. The plant is the first of two demonstration CAP1400 plants being built at the Shidaowan nuclear site in Shandong province, northeastern China. China officially launched the CAP1400 design in 2020 following 12 years of research and development.
The 1,400 MW plant, also known as Guohe One, is intended for deployment both in China and overseas. It is China’s second indigenous Generation III reactor design, following the HPR1000, or Hualong One. China has proposed to build multiple CAP1400 reactors for Turkey on that country’s western Black Sea coast north of Istanbul.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the CAP-1400, which can also operate on mixed-oxide fuel )MOX), was developed through cooperation between China’s State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation (SNPTC) and US-based Westinghouse. The design is based on Westinghouse’s AP1000 reactor which uses passive safety systems and simplified systems to increase safety and operational flexibility.
“The valuable lessons learned from the construction of AP1000 units in China have further helped to reduce issues faced during the construction process,” the IAEA said. “Modularization and advanced construction techniques have helped minimize delays during construction.”
The IAEA said the CAP1400 reactor safety designs have been improved since the March 2001Fukushima- Daiichi accident to accommodate enhanced seismic design and enhanced response capacity under beyond-design-basis type events.
According to the NEA, the Guohe One is “a completely independently designed nuclear project using Chinese technologies. Research and development for Guohe One began in 2008 and was completed in 2020. About 700 institutions and more than 30,000 technicians participated in the R&D.
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NRC Seeks Comment on Advanced Reactor Licensing Proposed Rule
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is seeking comment on a proposed rule and draft guidance for a commercial nuclear power plant licensing process that uses risk insights to set performance standards applicable to any reactor technology. This is the first comprehensive regulatory framework, called Part 53, developed for advanced technologies and designs that
includes non-light-water reactors. (Federal Register Notice)
The proposed rule will create a Part 53 section under the NRC’s regulations (10 Code of Federal Regulations) as an alternative to the existing licensing approaches under Parts 50 and 52. The rule will give plant designers and plant operators flexibility in determining how their nuclear power plant will meet safety criteria. The proposed rule also modifies agency regulations for
operator licensing, employee fitness-for-duty, physical security, and site access authorization among others.
For a review of various expert perspectives on how the draft document is being assessed, see this report at the ANS Newswire.
Major Provisions of the Draft Regulation
Major provisions of this proposed rule, supported by accompanying guidance,include the following:
A new alternative technology-inclusive, risk-informed, performance-based framework that includes requirements for licensing and regulating nuclear plants during the various stages of their life cycles.
A new alternative technology-inclusive, risk-informed, and performance-based framework in 10 CFR part 26, “Fitness for Duty Programs,” developed from existing requirements in subpart K, “FFD Programs for Construction,” of part 26.
A new alternative technology-inclusive and performance-based security framework in10 CFR part 73, “Physical Protection of Plants and Materials,” that includes requirements for protection of licensed activities at commercial nuclear plants.
Public Information Meeting
NRC staff members will conduct a multi-day public meeting to answer questions on the proposed rule and supporting documents; meeting details will be available in the near future. During the meeting the staff will discuss sections of the proposed rule.
Comments may be submitted through 12/30/24 at regulations.gov with a search for Docket ID NRC-2019-0062, and may be emailed to [email protected].
Comments may also be sent via U.S. mail to Office of Administration, Mail Stop TWFN-7-A60M, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001. The comment period for this proposed rule closes on Dec. 30.
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