GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, headquartered in Wilmington, is creating jobs in Canada to advance its small modular reactor technology worldwide. The company is now hiring in both Canada and Wilmington, officials said this week.
According to its website, GE Hitachi is hiring more than 30 jobs at its Wilmington headquarters, from engineers to financial reporting analysts.
GE Hitachi (GEH) is a joint venture between General Electric and Hitachi providing advanced nuclear technology and services to industry. The head office is located near Castle Hayne Road and shares the premises with GE Aviation.
The company also announced 80 job openings this week in Ontario, where it is headquartered in Canada Small Modular Reactor (SMR) in Markham, Ontario, to support the worldwide deployment of the GEH BWRX-300 SMR model, according to a press release.
Research and development for GEH SMR technology is now happening at both headquarters in Wilmington and Canada, with engineers and other staff working together to bring the BWRX-300 SMR model forward to commercialization, GEH spokesman Jon Allen said Friday.
The Canadian SMR base is an important step for the Wilmington-based company to expand its business and cement its position in spreading SMR technologies to the world, officials said.
According to the US Office of Nuclear Energy, advanced SMRs are nuclear reactors of various sizes that can be used to generate electricity that has heat, desalination, or other industrial purposes.
GE Hitachi has worked with multiple countries and in the United States to advance the technology and licenses required to market and build its BWRX-300 model.
GEH’s BWRX-300 model is a water-cooled 300 megawatt electric (MWe) natural circulation SMR with passive safety systems that utilizes the design and licensing principles of GEH’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission-certified Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor.
The company intends to leverage its already licensed GNF2 fuel design and supply chain capabilities when the model is rolled out, should it get commercialized.
The GNF2 fuel assembly is an advanced fuel technology developed and manufactured by Global Nuclear Fuel (GNF), a GE-led joint venture with Hitachi Ltd., and primarily through Global Nuclear Fuel-Americas LLC of Wilmington and Global Nuclear Fuel-Japan Co. Ltd. is operated. in Kurihama, Japan.
With the combination of these products and services, “GEH believes the BWRX-300 may become the lowest risk, lowest-cost, and fastest-to-market SMR,” officials said in the press release.
Last week, GEH announced another agreement with Cameco Corp. based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, is a major uranium fuel supplier and manufacturer of Canadian fuel assemblies and reactor components.
“Cameco intends to be a major fuel supplier for these innovative reactors. We look forward to working with GEH and GNF to see what opportunities may arise around their novel SMR design, ”said Tim Gitzel, President and CEO of Cameco, in last week’s press release.
This collaboration would also help advance the efforts and global commercialization of the BWRX-300 SMR model. The two companies are working to commercialize the fuel technology to support the proposed design.
“With the announcement that we entered the Letter of Intent with Cameco last week, we are obviously continuing our efforts to further develop our SMR technology,” said Allen. “Through Canada and the SMR action plan that the country presented late last year, they have made it clear that there is an interest there in small modular reactors and that they want to be the world leader in this type of technology.”
Earlier this year, GEH founded a new company in Canada, GEH SMR Technologies Canada Ltd., to support the deployment of the BWRX-300 in Canada. GEH named Lisa McBride as the new SMR country guide in Canada for the Ontario-based company.
“This is just the beginning of our forecast growth and we look forward to posting more positions as we continue to build our SMR team,” said McBride in this week’s press release.
The recent announcement of the SMR headquarters in Canada comes as GEH continues its licensing efforts through several different agreements for its SMR technology in Canada, the United States, Poland, Estonia and the Czech Republic.
In recent years, GEH has been gaining traction to get its BWRX-300 design commercialized and all of GEH’s agreements in European countries remain in effect, Allen said.
The U.S. Department of Energy also announced $ 5.8 million last week to develop three construction technologies that, together, can cut the cost of new nuclear power plants by more than 10 percent.
These construction technologies could potentially be used for SMRs, including GEH’s BWRX-300 model, Allen said on Friday.
GEH leads the A-Proposal Team to Black & Veatch, the Electric Power Research Institute, Purdue University, Caunton Engineering, Modular Walling Systems Limited, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, the Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Center, and Tennessee Valley Authority belong.
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