Posted on September 26, 2024 by djysrv
- DoD Breaks Ground on Project Pele at INL
- Oklo to Start Site Selection at INL
- DOE Looking at SMRs for Data Centers at SRS
- Four Firms Selected in UK SMR Competition
- South Korean SMR Design Approved by Regulator
- Marvel Fusion Lands $70 Million for Laser Powered Fusion
DoD Breaks Ground on Project Pele at INL
- A Mobile Nuclear Reactor for Energy Resiliency
The Department of Defense (DoD) has broken ground at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) on the Project Pele transportable nuclear reactor. The reactor, under a Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO) initiative, is being manufactured by BWXT Advanced Technologies, LLC, Lynchburg, Virginia.
Assembly of the final reactor is set to begin in February 2025. The current schedule includes transport of the fully-assembled reactor to INL in 2026, where it would become the first ever Generation IV nuclear reactor to generate electricity in the United States.
The prototype reactor facility is designed to be transported within four 20-foot shipping containers, and tested at INL. The Project Pele team will construct a concrete shield structure at the test site next year in order to be ready for reactor placement in 2026.
Upon arriving at INL, the reactor will be transported by truck to the test site and positioned within the concrete shield structure. Piping and electrical wiring will tie the reactor to INL’s specialized electric microgrid.
Once the reactor’s final safety review is completed, the Pele project team will then proceed with the initial Test and Evaluation plan. If successful, transportable nuclear power could meet the increasing demand for a resilient, carbon-free energy source capable of delivering reliable 24/7 power to mission-critical DoD operations in remote and austere environments.
The reactor is expected to operate for a minimum of three years at the lab and will help demonstrate the use of clean, reliable, and transportable nuclear power to help meet the increasing energy demands at military bases across the country.
BWXT will also leverage its experience from Project Pele to advance its civil-focused BANR microreactor, which is being supported from DOE’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program. The work will help stand-up a domestic supply chain for high-temperature gas reactor components and services, and manufacture TRISO fuel at production quantities.
“We are thrilled to move beyond the era of PowerPoint advanced reactors,” said Dr. Jeff Waksman, Project Pele program manager. “Our tight partnership with INL and the Department of Energy Idaho Operations Office is leading the way forward not just for manufacturing advanced reactors, but also for regulating them in an efficient and safe manner.
“The DoD has a long record of driving American innovation on strategic and critical technology,” said Mr. Jay Dryer, SCO director. “Project Pele is a key initiative for improving DoD energy resilience and will also play a crucial role in advancing nuclear power technology for civilian applications.”
Project Pele is a whole-of-government effort, with significant contributions from the Department of Energy, the National Nuclear Security Administration, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The contractor team, led by BWXT Advanced Technologies, also includes critical roles played by Northrop Grumman, Rolls Royce Liberty Works, and Torch Technologies.
“For 75 years INL has been the home of nuclear innovation, and we are pleased to partner with the Department of Defense on this trailblazing demonstration,” said Dr. John Wagner, INL director. “We anticipate Pele will be among the first of a new generation of advanced experimental reactors hosted here before the end of the decade.”
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Oklo to Start Site Selection at INL
Oklo Inc. (NYSE:OKLO) a fast fission power technology and nuclear fuel recycling company, announced the final steps in completing the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Idaho Operations Office. This MOA grants Oklo access to conduct site investigations at its preferred site in Idaho, marking a key step toward the next phase of site preparation and construction. The site investigations enabled by this MOA will focus on geotechnical assessments, environmental surveys, and infrastructure planning.
“Our partnership with the DOE has been instrumental. Beginning with the site use permit and fuel award in 2019,” said Jacob DeWitte, Co-Founder and CEO of Oklo. “Signing this MOA reflects our commitment to timely deployment and operational readiness while also helping to manage costs and maintain our project schedule.”
The MOA builds on Oklo’s longstanding collaboration with the DOE and reinforces its commitment to efficiently moving toward its commercialization plans. By addressing critical site preparation tasks early, Oklo is working towards a streamlined transition to construction and aims to keep the project on track for timely completion.
About Oklo Inc.: Oklo Inc. is developing fast fission power plants to provide clean, reliable, and affordable energy at scale. Oklo received a site use permit from the U.S. Department of Energy, was awarded fuel material from Idaho National Laboratory, and is developing advanced fuel recycling technologies in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. National Laboratories.
The firm is working on its second attempt to secure a license from the NRC for its advanced sodium cooled micro reactor. Earlier in 2024 Jacob DeWitt, CEO, said the process of developing the license appication for submittal and completing the NRC’s review will take several years. Under new legislation, the NRC has been mandated by Congress to complete reviews of advanced reactors within 25 months.
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DOE Looking at SMRs for Data Centers at SRS
(Data Center Dynamics) The Department of Energy (DOE) is seeking proposals to build clean energy sources on its land at Savannah River, South Carolina.
At the same time, the previously unreported RFQ notes that proposals could include end-user loads such as data centers.
As part of a broader government effort to help the US decarbonize, the DOE plans to lease out unused land to clean energy providers.
At the Savannah River site, the government “anticipates that there may be multiple carbon-free energy (CFE) generation facilities, with each located on a different tract of the property.”
Solar power is specifically mentioned in one leasing letter, but in a Q&A document the DOE said that “any carbon free technology will be considered,” with additional consideration given to projects with “higher CFE production output given the characteristics of the site and market conditions.”
Another potential CFE power source highlighted by the DOE are small modular reactors (SMRs), with the department originally announcing plans to deploy three SMRs at the site way back in 2012.
The SMRs from Hyperion Power Generation and NuScale never arrived, but the DOE did complete an SMR siting study available to CFE proposals.
“The Government is also open to considering proposals that include development of colocated load, such as data centers,” and hydrogen plants, the RFQ said.
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Four Firms Selected in UK SMR Competition
GE Hitachi, Holtec, Rolls-Royce SMR and Westinghouse enter UK SMR negotiations
(WNN) Great British Nuclear has announced that there are four companies remaining in the contest to select technology for the UK’s proposed small modular reactor program.
There were initially six companies shortlisted last year by Great British Nuclear. It is the arms-length body set up to oversee the UK’s plans for new nuclear. The six were EDF, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy International, Holtec Britain, Nuscale, Rolls-Royce SMR and Westinghouse Electric Company UK. The six were invited to submit initial tenders by July, and EDF, whose Nuward SMR was in the running, dropped out at that stage.
Great British Nuclear (GBN) said it had now concluded the initial tender phase of the technology selection process and selected GE Hitachi, Holtec, Rolls-Royce SMR and Westinghouse.
NuScale, which offered the 77 MWe VOYGR SMR, was eliminated from the bidding. GBN did not say why, in its short press statement, why the firm was not amoung the firms chosen to be included in the next stage of the procurement process in which bidders will be invited to enter negotiations with GBN.
Profiles of Selected SMRs
GE Hitachi is putting forward its BWRX-300, a boiling water reactor, Holtec’s SMR-300 is a 300 MWe pressurized water reactor, the Rolls-Royce SMR is a 470 MWe pressurized water reactor and Westinghouse’s AP300 is a 300 MWe/900MWth pressurized water reactor. They all stress that their designs are based on existing technologies and will be able to be quickly constructed in factories and will benefit from modular production techniques.
GBN Timelines
In an interview earlier this year for the World Nuclear News podcast, GBN Chairman Simon Bowen said the planned timeline was for the SMR selection shortlist to be cut to around four after the submission of responses to the tender, with the goal of placing contracts by the end of the year with two or three technology providers
GBN would provide co-funding of the technology all the way through to completion of the design, regulatory, environmental and site-specific permissions process, and the potential to place a contract for the supply of equipment. Each selected technology would have an allocated site with the potential to host multiple SMRs.
The aim is then for a final investment decision to be taken in 2029. It follows that the first SMRs would enter revenue service in the UK sometime in the mid-2030s.
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South Korean SMR Design Approved by Regulator
(WNN) 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.
In September 2019, South Korea and Saudi Arabia agreed to collaborate on the commercialization of the SMART SMR. Under the memorandum of understanding (MOU), the two countries agreed to work together to refine the design of the SMART reactor. Korea will also assist in gaining Saudi design approval of the reactor, as well as cooperating in the construction and operation of a SMART reactor in Saudi Arabia. The partners will also promote the SMART design for export to other Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian countries considering the use of SMRS.
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Marvel Fusion Lands $70M for Laser-powered Fusion Tech
(Tech Crunch) Marvel recently raised €62.8 million in a Series B round, According to TechCrunch. HV Capital led the round with participation from b2venture, Bayern Kapital, Deutsche Telekom, SPRIND, and Tengelmann Ventures. The company was also selected by the European Innovation Council for a €2.5 million grant and up to €15 million in equity investment, which if made will be an extension of this round.
Marvel’s first prototype should be finalized around 2032 or 2033 and it will contain hundreds of kilojoule-class lasers. Each will fire around 10 times per second.
Those lasers will fire faster than the blink of an eye — in the femtosecond range, or one-billionth of second — bombarding a nanostructured target with photons that blast away its electrons and scatter the remaining positively charged ions. Those ions will then hit Marvel’s fuel, igniting a fusion reaction. Currently, Marvel Fusion is using a mix of mainly hydrogen and boron.
If the Colorado experiments go as planned, the company will increase the lasers’ energy and multiply their number in another facility starting in 2028 or 2029.
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