The financial commitment from Puget Sound Energy adds to the approximately $10 million contributed by Energy Northwest and supporting partners, including nearly $1 million in combined investment from 17 northwest public utilities.

Energy Northwest has been exploring the possible addition of advanced nuclear reactors in Washington state for several years.

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In July 2023 the utility and small modular reactor developer X-Energy signed an agreement to bring multiple Xe-100 SMRs to central Washington state. Energy Northwest said it expects to bring the first Xe-100 module online by 2030.

The project includes the potential deployment of “up to 12 Xe-100 advanced small modular reactors” capable of generating up to a 960 MW of electricity.

The Xe-100 project is expected to be developed at a site controlled by Energy Northwest adjacent to Columbia Generating Station in Richland. Energy Northwest owns Columbia Generation Station, which is the only commercial nuclear energy facility in the region. The agency also owns and operates hydroelectric, solar, battery storage and wind assets.

X-energy’s Xe-100 SMR is a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor. The Maryland-based company said its SMR can address a broad range of uses, including applications that currently rely on fossil fuels to produce steam and heat for processes like manufacturing, petroleum refining and hydrogen production.

MORE: X-energy’s reactor technology “begins with the fuel”

Each Xe-100 module can provide 80 MW of electricity or 200 MW of high-temperature steam, according to X-energy.

Energy Northwest and X-energy have discussed plans for an Xe-100 facility in central Washington since 2020. At one point X-energy’s goal was to have an operational unit by 2028, starting with a 320 MW four-unit Xe-100 power plant in the state.

That fireside chat was several months after Dow agreed to become the first industrial manufacturer in North America to announce the deployment of advanced nuclear technology. The chemical giant plans to site X-energy’s small modular reactor (SMR) plant at its UCC1 Seadrift Operations manufacturing site, which is located on the Gulf of Mexico coast in the Lonestar State.

As the demand for carbon-free power grows, X-energy is one of the innovators re-thinking nuclear to be smaller, more modular and easier to build. The company believes its Xe-100 SMR is uniquely positioned in the energy mix for a range of utilities and industrial customers.

X-energy’s Xe-100 is a high-temperature, gas-cooled reactor that can produce 80 MW of electricity or 200 MW of high-temperature steam. A four-unit plant delivering 320 MWe is the plan for Dow’s Seadrift site.

Ben Reinke, who is X-energy’s Vice President of Global Business Development, spoke to Power Engineering about the Xe-100 design, a leading example of what is expected to be nuclear’s next chapter.

“Our technology really begins with the fuel,” Reinke said.

Key safety features

As Reinke explained, central to the Xe-100 reactor are fuel pebbles, which are made of graphite and each about the size of a cue ball. Inside each pebble are more than 18,000 small uranium particles.

Those particles are enriched to 15.5% and then wrapped in three layers of high-temperature tolerant ceramics. The inside and outside layers are made of pyrolytic carbon, while the middle later is silicon carbide.

Reinke said it’s these three layers that help retain radioactive fission products when the reaction occurs, even in a worst-case accident scenario. X-energy believes as a result, the Xe-100 is “meltdown-proof.”

“We designed a reactor that stacks roughly 220,000 of these pebbles inside of a graphite core, and then we flow helium through that reactor,” said Reinke, “And that together allows for this incredible safety case.”

The whole concept of wrapping uranium in these high-temperature ceramics is the basis of Tristructural Isotropic, or TRISO fuel. Reinke said a similar concept was developed decades ago, but X-energy has been taking this a step further, working to develop and commercialize its pebble-based design, a fuel called TRISO-X.

X-energy’s technology was derived from research that came out of a mid-2000’s DOE program known as the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP). The idea behind that program is that a large reactor would be used for process heat and electricity to help create a hydrogen economy.

But Reinke said that program never took off, and when X-energy founder Kam Ghaffarian started the company in 2009, he scooped up some of the talent involved in these efforts and in TRISO-based fuel work around the world.

Enter Dow, which was actually part of an industry group that informed those mid-2000’s DOE efforts.

Less than three years ago, X-energy met with Dow about the latter’s desire to decarbonize its industrial sites by 2050. At the time, Reinke said X-energy had already received a large grant from DOE’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) to develop the Xe-100 reactor design. Through the ARDP X-energy was awarded $1.2 billion in federal cost-shared funding.

Enabling industrial decarbonization

At its Seadrift site, which is currently powered by three natural gas-fired boilers, Dow manufactures more than 4,000,000 pounds of materials per year for use in applications that include food packaging, footwear and wire and cable insulation. Seadrift has substantial needs for power and steam, and like many industrial sites, operates continuously and cannot tolerate interruptions.

“When you lose steam, it’s a bad day because that means that you’ve got to go back in and start your systems back up,” said Reinke. “Every moment that you’re not producing product is a moment you’re not producing revenue as a company.”

That’s why the challenge to decarbonize the industrial sector is huge, and renewables alone cannot do the job. In looking toward X-energy’s reactor, Dow is seeking a high degree of reliability for its power and steam production.

Speaking of the Xe-100, Reinke said: “We wanted to design something that specifically could address industrial needs.”

Along with Dow, X-energy plans to submit a construction permit application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in early-2024. The company believes the subsequent application review period could take between 24-30 months.

Around early-2026, X-energy expects to begin site prep and pre-construction on non-nuclear activities. The company could begin nuclear construction later that year as it works concurrently to receive an operating license in advance of any hot start of its reactors. Reinke envisions a three-year construction period, with the first reactor coming online sometime in 2029.

Why Texas could be ideal

While X-energy has an agreement to bring multiple Xe-100 SMRs to the Pacific Northwest, the Dow site in Texas is expected to be home of the first to reach operation.

It’s the Lonestar State that could prove most friendly to X-energy, with the state’s rapid renewable energy growth and large number of industrial sites that require significant amounts of electricity and steam for their processes.

“You need firm capacity, especially when you have a heavy industrial load like Texas does, where you need firm capacity for those industrials,” said Reinke. “In that case, technology like ours is extremely well-suited.”

During the fireside chat in August, Gov. Abbott issued a directive to the state’s Public Utilities Commission to formulate a working group that would study and provide recommendations on the issue of nuclear energy. This includes coordinating with ERCOT to begin addressing the technical challenges of incorporating advanced nuclear technology into the state’s grid.

The working group would also consider all potential financial incentives available, determine nuclear-specific changes needed in the ERCOT market, identify any federal or state regulatory hurdles to development and analyze how Texas can streamline and accelerate permitting for building new reactors.

“We’re looking at Texas as a great example of a multiple source technology kind of testbed, where we’re going to see a lot of technologies come to the fore,” said Reinke.

Merger terminated

Update 10/31: X-Energy Reactor Company and Ares Acquisition Corporation announced they have mutually agreed to terminate their previously announced business combination agreement, effective immediately.

The announcement comes on the day X-energy shareholders were set to vote on the merger.

X-energy cited “challenging market conditions, peer-company trading performance, and a balancing of the benefits and drawbacks of becoming a publicly traded company under current circumstances.”

X-energy first announced its intention to merge with special-purpose acquisition company Ares Acquisition Corporation in late-2022.

In June 2023, the company’s pre-money equity value was revised to $1.8 billion from approximately $2.1 billion to establish “a more attractive entry point for investors.” At that time, X-energy updated cost estimates to complete the full ARDP scope to a total of between $4.75 and $5.75 billion, reflecting higher costs for construction materials and labor, increasing interest rates and supply chain constraints for equipment.

Abbott issued a directive to the Public Utilities Commission of Texas Aug. 16 to formulate a working group that would study and provide recommendations on the issue. This includes coordinating with ERCOT to begin addressing the technical challenges of incorporating advanced nuclear technology into the state’s grid.

The working group would also consider all potential financial incentives available, determine nuclear-specific changes needed in the ERCOT market, identify any federal or state regulatory hurdles to development and analyze how Texas can streamline and accelerate permitting for building new reactors.

Abbott issued the directive while highlighting the role of nuclear energy during a discussion with Dow and X-Energy at the University of Texas at Austin.

In May Dow announced its UCC1 Seadrift Operations manufacturing site in Texas as the location of an X-Energy small modular reactor (SMR) project.

X-energy’s Xe-100 SMR is a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor. The company said its SMR can address a broad range of uses, including applications that currently rely on fossil fuels to produce steam and heat for processes like manufacturing, petroleum refining and hydrogen production.

The project includes the potential deployment of “up to 12 Xe-100 advanced small modular reactors” capable of generating up to a 960 MW of electricity.

The Xe-100 project is expected to be developed at a site controlled by Energy Northwest adjacent to Columbia Generating Station in Richland. Energy Northwest owns Columbia Generation Station, which is the only commercial nuclear energy facility in the region. The agency also owns and operates hydroelectric, solar, battery storage and wind assets.

X-energy’s Xe-100 SMR is a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor. The Maryland-based company said its SMR can address a broad range of uses, including applications that currently rely on fossil fuels to produce steam and heat for processes like manufacturing, petroleum refining and hydrogen production.

Each Xe-100 module can provide 80 MW of electricity or 200 MW of high-temperature steam, according to X-energy.

Energy Northwest and X-energy have discussed plans for an Xe-100 facility in central Washington since 2020. At one point X-energy’s goal was to have an operational unit by 2028, starting with a 320 MW four-unit Xe-100 power plant in the state.

In May 2023, Dow selected its UCC Seadrift Operations manufacturing site on the Texas Gulf Coast for X-energy’s first Xe-100 deployment as part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP).

Through the ARDP X-Energy was awarded $1.2 billion in federal cost-shared funding to develop, license, build and demonstrate an operational advanced reactor and fuel fabrication facility by the end of the decade.

X-Energy announced the completion of a Reactor Protection System (RPS) prototype, a key safety feature of the company’s Xe-100 small modular nuclear reactor.

The prototype utilizes Paragon’s highly integrated protection system. X-energy worked with Paragon for two years to develop, deliver, install, and test the RPS prototype in the company’s control room simulator at its Rockville, Maryland headquarters. Paragon would build and deliver the four-division RPS to all Xe-100 plants around the world when they are deployed.

The RPS is a set of independent and redundant instrumentation and control components that enable the nuclear reactor to automatically and safely shut down, providing an added layer of protection for the plant and its environment.

X-energy said Paragon’s system’s structure and design insulate it from coding errors and reduce cybersecurity risks, thus addressing regulatory concerns about digital safety systems.

X-energy’s Xe-100 SMR is a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor. The Maryland-based company is also developing its proprietary tri-structural isotropic (“TRISO”) encapsulated particle fuel, TRISO-X.

X-energy completed the basic design of the Xe-100, a development announced by the U.S. Department of Energy’s nuclear office in August.

The company plans to try to license the reactor through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The goal is to have a unit operational by 2028, starting with a 320 MW four-unit Xe-100 power plant in Washington state.

X-energy said its SMR can address a broad range of uses, including applications that currently rely on fossil fuels to produce steam and heat for processes like manufacturing, petroleum refining and hydrogen production.

The company also hopes to license the country’s first commercial facility dedicated to fueling HALEU-based reactors as part of DOE’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP). The company submitted their application to build this facility in early April. According to DOE, it could be operational as soon as 2025.

The DOE said the fuel fabrication facility has the capacity to produce eight metric tons per year of TRISO pebble fuel, enough to power 12 of X-energy’s proposed Xe-100 SMRs. The facility would also be capable of manufacturing TRISO fuel for other advanced reactor designs. X-energy said it plans to double its fuel production by the 2030s.

Advanced nuclear reactor company X-energy will become a publicly-traded company after a business combination agreement with special-purpose acquisition company Ares Acquisition Corporation.

The merger with Ares Acquisition Corp. would value X-energy at about $2 billion, according to the Dec. 6 announcement. The deal, expected to close in the second quarter of 2023, would generate cash proceeds of about $1 billion for X-energy from the trust account of Ares, assuming no redemptions.

Institutional investors have also committed $120 million in financing, which includes $75 million from Ares Management and $45 million from Ontario Power Generation and Segra Capital Management.

X-energy is developing a small modular nuclear reactor (SMR), a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor known as the Xe-100. The Maryland-based company is also developing its proprietary tri-structural isotropic (“TRISO”) encapsulated particle fuel, TRISO-X.

X-energy completed the basic design of the Xe-100, a development announced by the U.S. Department of Energy’s nuclear office in August.

The company plans to try to license the reactor through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The goal is to have a unit operational by 2028, starting with a 320 MW four-unit Xe-100 power plant in Washington state.

X-energy says its SMR can address a broad range of uses, including applications that currently rely on fossil fuels to produce steam and heat for processes like manufacturing, petroleum refining and hydrogen production.

X-energy said it also hopes to license the country’s first commercial facility dedicated to fueling HALEU-based reactors as part of DOE’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP). The company submitted their application to build this facility in early April. According to DOE, it could be operational as soon as 2025.

The DOE said the fuel fabrication facility has the capacity to produce eight metric tons per year of TRISO pebble fuel, enough to power 12 of X-energy’s proposed Xe-100 SMRs. The facility would also be capable of manufacturing TRISO fuel for other advanced reactor designs. X-energy said it plans to double its fuel production by the 2030s.

Westinghouse was awarded a grant from the United Kingdom’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to support the development of advanced nuclear fuel.

The nuclear power giant is partnering with Urenco to complete a pre-front end engineering design (FEED) study regarding TRISO fuel production to support potential high-temperature gas-cooled reactors that are under development.

The work will occur at Westinghouse’s Springfields fuels facility in Preston, Lancashire.

“This award is an important step in creating commercial-scale advanced fuel production in the UK at our Springfields facility for the reactors of tomorrow,” said Patrick Fragman, Westinghouse President and CEO.

TRISO, or Tri-structural Isotropic, is made up of a poppy seed-sized carbon and oxygen fuel kernel. The kernel is encapsulated by three layers of carbon- and ceramic-based materials that prevent the release of radioactive fission products, according to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The small kernels are considered to have very “robust” energy capabilities and be very flexible in application.

TRISO fuel is intended to be tough enough handle the higher operating temperatures of advanced reactors.

Westinghouse will also receive support on this study from TRISO-X, a subsidiary of X-energy. Maryland-based X-energy is working to develop its Xe-100 high-temperature gas-cooled reactor design and TRISO-X particle fuel.

X-energy now plans to try to license the reactor through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The goal is to have a unit operational by 2028, starting with a 320 MW four-unit Xe-100 power plant in Washington state.

X-energy also recently broke ground on a pilot-scale nuclear fuel facility at Oak Ridge to further develop its TRISO-X fuel and support the Xe-100 design.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) said the fuel fabrication facility has the capacity to produce eight metric tons per year of TRISO pebble fuel, enough to power 12 of X-energy’s proposed Xe-100 SMRs. The facility would also be capable of manufacturing TRISO fuel for other advanced reactor designs. X-energy said it plans to double its fuel production by the 2030s.

X-energy said it completed the basic design of its high-temperature gas-cooled reactor, a milestone development announced by the U.S. Department of Energy’s nuclear office.

Maryland-based X-energy has received funding from DOE to further develop its Xe-100 advanced reactor design and TRISO-X particle fuel.

The six-year project resulted in X-energy completing the Xe-100’s basic design and fabricating its first TRISO fuel pebbles using natural uranium at a pilot facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.

The company now plans to try to license the reactor through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The goal is to have a unit operational by 2028, starting with a 320 MW four-unit Xe-100 power plant in Washington state.

The Xe-100 reactor is intended to provide flexible electricity output as well as process heat for industrial heat applications, such as desalination and hydrogen production. 

MORE: X-energy and OPG agree to explore SMR opportunities

X-energy said it also hopes to license the country’s first commercial facility dedicated to fueling HALEU-based reactors as part of DOE’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP). The company submitted their application to build this facility in early April. According to DOE, it could be operational as soon as 2025.

The DOE said the fuel fabrication facility has the capacity to produce eight metric tons per year of TRISO pebble fuel, enough to power 12 of X-energy’s proposed Xe-100 SMRs. The facility woukd also be capable of manufacturing TRISO fuel for other advanced reactor designs. X-energy said it plans to double its fuel production by the 2030s.

TRISO is a uranium oxycarbide tri-structural isotropic fuel form first developed in Germany decades ago. Compared with traditional reactor fuels, TRISO fuels are structurally more resistant to neutron irradiation, corrosion, oxidation, and high temperatures due to the application of multiple layers of silicon and carbide coatings cannot melt in the reactor.

Proponents also believe such facilities could be built quicker and less expensively than traditional models.

The Xe-100 is a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor that is designed to combine high-temperature steam and power production. The two said the reactor can support heavy industry including oil sands operations, mining applications, and other industrial processes.

One unit can generate up to 80 MW of electricity from 200 MW of thermal power, and can produce steam at 565 Celsius. The partners said it offers flexible co-generation options.

A press release said that Natural Resources Canada’s (NRCan) SMR Action plan shows an estimated global value of C$150 billion ($115.4 billion) per year by 2040 by replacing coal-fired generation; by providing heat and power for mines; by providing steam for heavy industry; and for remote island nations and off-grid communities.

Last November, OPG said it would work with GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy to deploy a BWRX-300 SMR at the Darlington new nuclear site, the only site in Canada currently licensed for a new nuclear construction, to be completed by the end of the decade.   

In 2020 the U.S. Department of Energy named X-energy as an awardee for its Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP), which provides initial funding to build two advanced nuclear reactors that can be operational before the end of the decade. 

The Xe-100 is an 80 MWe (scalable to a 320 MWe four-pack) high temperature gas-cooled reactor. It uses TRi-structural ISOtropic particle fuel (TRISO), manufactured by Rockville, Maryland-based X-energy, that can integrate into large, regional electricity systems as a base and load-following source of low-carbon power. 

Earlier this year, TRISO-X LLC, a unit of X-energy, chose a site in Oak Ridge, Tennessee for its commercial advanced nuclear reactor fuel fabrication facility, one of the nation’s first High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU) based fuel fabrication facilities.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) chose X-energy’s TRISO-X fuel fabrication facility to produce fuel for future advanced nuclear reactors and small modular reactors (SMR).

TRISO-X becomes the nation’s first high-assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU) fuel fabrication facility. HALEU is enriched between 5% and 20% and is required for most U.S. advanced reactors to achieve smaller designs that get more power per unit of volume. HALEU also is expected to allow developers to optimize their systems for longer life cores, increased efficiencies and better fuel utilization.

The industry anticipates it may need nearly 600 metric tons of HALEU by 2030 in order to deploy new reactors to the market. DOE is supporting the fuel development effort under its Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP), which aims to speed the demonstration of advanced reactors through cost-shared partnerships with the U.S. nuclear industry.

The design and license application development of X-energy’s fuel fabrication facility was previously supported through $18 million in federal dollars awarded to X-energy in 2018.

The facility, to be commissioned at the Horizon Center Industrial Park in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, will initially provide the TRISO fuel for X-energy's Xe-100 high-temperature gas reactor. Site preparation and construction will start this year with possible startup as early as 2025.

The DOE said the facility has the capacity to produce eight metric tons per year of TRISO pebble fuel, enough to power 12 of X-energy's proposed Xe-100 SMRs. The facility woukd also be capable of manufacturing TRISO fuel for other advanced reactor designs. X-energy said it plans to double its fuel production by the 2030s.

TRISO is a uranium oxycarbide tri-structural isotropic fuel form first developed in Germany decades ago. Compared with traditional reactor fuels, TRISO fuels are structurally more resistant to neutron irradiation, corrosion, oxidation, and high temperatures due to the application of multiple layers of silicon and carbide coatings cannot melt in the reactor. Proponents also believe such facilities could be built quicker and less expensively than traditional models.

This is the latest DOE effort to advance nuclear technologies including advanced reactor designs, and TRISO fuel and HALEU research and testing.

DOE has provided more than $200 million to support development of TRISO fuel with a specific focus on enhancing its safety performance and manufacturing methods to further develop the capabilities of advanced high-temperature gas reactors.

In 2020, the DOE announced X-energy as one of two awardees through the ARDP. That funding helped advance the development of the Xe-100.