The University of Illinois at the Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) has officially started a groundbreaking project to partially equip its 85 MW Abbott CHP unit with a Micro Modular Reactor (MMR) energy system from Ultra Safe Nuclear Corp. (USNC) to reactivate.
The UIUC announced on June 28 that it had submitted a letter of intent to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to build a “research and test reactor facility” on the site of its Abbott campus power plant built in 1941, into which an MMR is to be integrated. Submitting the letter of intent is the first formal step on the way to a building permit and finally to obtaining an operating permit. Two years of “engagement with the university and the surrounding area; local, state, and federal governments; and potential industrial partners, ”the university said in a statement.
The development is also notable for Seattle-based USNC, as it marks the advanced nuclear technology developer’s foray into the US licensing arena, where several other non-light water reactor developers are already collaborating with the NRC. USNC is already making progress in Canada. In May, the company initiated a formal license review For a 5-MWe (15-MWth) MMR with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission as part of a Global First Power project to build and operate a large-scale MMR reactor at Chalk River Laboratories, Ontario.
“The University of Illinois offers a unique environment for research and teaching innovation combined with the possibility of commercial implementation on a scale ideal for our microreactor product,” said Francesco Venneri, CEO of USNC, in a statement. “We expect the licensing process to be exceptionally comprehensive and open to public review and comment, just as it should be.”
A demonstration of electricity and district heating
USNC offers the MMR as part of an energy system that integrates one or more standardized gas-cooled micro-high-temperature reactors (HTGRs) that can generate between 10 and 100 MWe of electricity or process heat with a thermal store. A standard MMR unit is used Tristructural Isotropic (TRISO) from USNC All-ceramic microencapsulated (FCM) fuel (who developed it with Idaho National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory) between 15-30 MWth at a temperature of 650 ° C, the company said. The system’s heat store – a molten salt energy store – essentially decouples the nuclear system from the power conversion system, which considerably simplifies operation and enables flexible use of the energy generated, ”it said.
The MMR Energy System is a fourth generation nuclear power plant that provides heat and electricity through an integrated energy system. Courtesy: USNC US
As part of the project, USNC will work with the university’s Grainger College of Engineering (and its nuclear, plasma and radiological engineering department) to deploy the new reactor system. Upon successful completion, the project becomes make available “CO2-free demonstration of district heating and electricity for campus buildings as part of their initiative for a green campus, ”said the university. “The project team would like to show how microreactor systems can be integrated into the existing infrastructure for fossil fuels in order to accelerate the decarbonization of existing power generation plants.”
The Abbott plant currently supplies almost half of the electricity and almost all of the heat for the UIUC via two gas turbines, two heat recovery steam generators and three steam turbine generators. According to the UIUC, the facility was located near a major railroad line to enable rapid delivery of coal to power the original three coal-fired boilers. With numerous additions and changes, Abbott is now able to use natural gas, coal and heating oil for maximum steam production of about 800,000 pounds per hour.
Broad research opportunities
But for UIUC, the The project will also serve as a valuable workforce training tool for “a new generation of nuclear scientists, engineers and operators,” it said. It described “a variety of research opportunities that include “instrumentation and control, multi-physics validation, reactor prototype testing, microgrid operation, cybersecurity, hydrogen production for transportation and energy storage, and other energy-intensive, high” value products. “
“Universities have pioneered nuclear reactor technology and the safe operation of nuclear reactors for almost 80 years. TRIGA. the UIUC reactor operated for 38 years with a site license in the heart of the campus before it was decommissioned and brought back to the green field, ”said Rizwan Uddin, director of the nuclear, plasma and radiology department. “Next generation energy research institutions are critical to educating the emerging workforce who focus on clean energy.”
– Sonal Patel is Senior Associate Editor at POWER (@sonalcpatel, @POWERmagazine).
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