Construction Permit Issued in Texas

X-Energy, Inc., a leading developer of advanced nuclear reactors and fuel technology, and Down, through its wholly-owned subsidiary Long Mott Energy, LLC, announced that the Nuclear REgulatory Commission (NRC) has approved the construction permit application for the proposed construction of four Xe-100 advanced small modular reactors at Dow’s UCC Seadrift operations site in Texas. This approved is the first advanced nuclear facility approved for an industrial site in the U.S., under the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program.

The issuing of this permit marks the first NRC CPA approval of a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor in nearly 60 years, the first-ever pebble-bed HTGR approval and the first-ever for a nuclear industrial deployment. The NRC’s review found that the Xe-100 design can be safely sited and constructed within an operating industrial site. The proposed plant is intended to provide both electricity and high-temperature steam to Dow’s site, replacing existing energy and steam assets near their end-of-life. The four first-of-a-kind Xe-100s deployed at Seadrift are expected to provide clean industrial power to the site for 60 years.

X-energy’s Xe-100 is an 80 MWe/200 MWt high-temperature gas-cooled reactor designed to ensure safety through the passive physics of its advanced TRISO-X coated particle fuel, as well as traditional defense-in-depth systems. TRISO fuel encompasses, in one component, many barriers to the release of radionuclides, and has been described by the DOE as “the most robust nuclear fuel on earth.” This safety profile is expected to support a 400-meter emergency planning zone, compared to 10 miles for conventional light-water reactors, enabling new generation to be safely sited closer to the point of need.

For more information, visit X-energy’s website.