A Hopeful Narrative for the Nuclear Industry

Although there is only one nuclear power plant construction project in progress today in the U.S., that doesn’t mean the nuclear industry has gone dormant. A lot of research and development are ongoing, and the federal government is putting millions of dollars behind some of the efforts.

The Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program

“The Department of Energy’s [DOE’s] Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program [ARDP] is a real gamechanger for the industry,” Marc Nichol, senior director of new reactors with the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), a policy organization of the nuclear technologies industry, said as a recent guest on The POWER Podcast. “It offers an opportunity for DOE to directly cost-share with different companies developing technologies to help accelerate technology development.”

In October, the DOE awarded TerraPower and X-energy $80 million each in initial funding under the ARDP to build two advanced nuclear reactors that can be operational within seven years. The DOE plans to invest a total of $3.2 billion over the next seven years, with industry partners providing matching funds.

For its part, TerraPower plans to demonstrate its Natrium reactor, a sodium-cooled fast reactor that supposedly leverages decades of development and design work undertaken by TerraPower and its partner GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy. The high-operating temperature of the Natrium reactor, coupled with thermal energy storage, will reportedly allow the plant to provide flexible electricity output that complements variable renewable generation such as wind and solar.

X-energy is expected to deliver a commercial four-unit nuclear power plant based on its Xe-100 reactor design. The Xe-100 is a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor that is said to be ideally suited to provide flexible electricity output as well as process heat for a wide range of industrial heat applications, such as desalination and hydrogen production.

“There’s a lot of new and innovative things that these types of reactors can do,” Nichol said, referring to the ARDP-funded designs.

Microreactors

Among other designs that Nichol spoke about were microreactors (units with power output ranging from 1 MW to 10 MW). “The best way I can describe it is a microreactor would be able to fit on the back of a flatbed semi-truck. The building itself would be about the size of an average home. The size of the site itself would be about the size of a suburban lot. And, so, that gives a visual perspective of how small these things are—you can put them just about anywhere,” he said.

Commercial interest for microreactors is coming largely from remote areas, such as in Alaska and northern Canada. Nichol said microreactors can operate 24/7 for years at a time without refueling, and at prices cheaper than what diesel generators can do today.

Mobile reactor designs are also being developed. Although there is little interest for mobile rectors from a commercial perspective, the Department of Defense (DOD) sees a use for these types of units. In March, the DOD awarded three teams—BWX Technologies Inc., Westinghouse Government Services, and X-energy—contracts to each begin design work on a mobile nuclear reactor prototype under a Strategic Capabilities Office initiative called Project Pele.

“That design effort should conclude sometime next year, in 2021, maybe early 2022,” Nichol said. “From there, they'll move into the manufacturing and operations to test that.”