Energy company X-energy and a subsidiary will build a $300 million commercial advanced nuclear fuel facility in Oak Ridge.
It’s the first commercial-scale facility of its kind in North America and is expected to create more than 400 jobs, the company told Knox News.
It’s a critical time for the conversation around nuclear energy, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine highlights a need for energy security and climate change urges the move away from coal power.
The company, which already has a presence in Oak Ridge, says its reactor defies the stereotype of unsafe nuclear power with proprietary fuel and reactors that “neutralize both the risks and the traditional arguments against its use—giving next gen nuclear energy, one that emits no carbon dioxide, a chance to contribute far more to the nation’s grid,” according to a company press release.
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The company chose Oak Ridge for its historic ties to harnessing nuclear power and proximity to hubs of science and technology in the area, including Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
“We’re extraordinarily proud of our relationship with Oak Ridge,” Clay Sell, CEO of X-energy, told Knox News. “It’s an original nuclear town, it’s an extremely well-informed community, it’s an extremely talented community, so it has the skill set that we aspire to attract.”
What will happen inside this nuclear fuel facility?
Maryland-based X-energy and TRISO-X LLC., its subsidiary, will physically break ground next month.
The 500,000-square-foot nuclear fuel manufacturing facility at Horizon Center Industrial Park is slated to open in 2025.
TF3 Commercial Fuel Facility will manufacture the company’s proprietary fuel form, TRISO-X, which will be sold for use in its proprietary reactors across the country.
The facility will produce eight tons of fuel per year, according to Sell, but executives hope to double the figure by the early 2030s. Pete Pappano, the president of TRISO-X, said the company plans to build an identical facility to eventually produce 32 tons of fuel.
Pappano said eight tons of fuel is enough to power about 20 reactors, which could supply enough electricity for the entire eastern seaboard for a year.
The reactors that will use the company’s fuel are Xe-100 high temperature gas reactors, also developed by X-energy. The factory also can manufacture fuel for reactors not designed by X-energy.
TRISO-X fuel, the company claims, cannot melt, and its reactors are “meltdown-proof,” according to a press release.
In 2020, the Department of Energy awarded funding to the company as part of a multi-billion-dollar effort to develop advanced reactors in this decade.
The first Xe-100 reactor, being developed in Washington State, should be operational by 2028, Pappano said.
In a press release, X-energy said the Xe-100 reactors are small enough to transport using roads and railways and can provide energy to an electric grid or support industrial applications.
Job creation in Oak Ridge
X-energy already has 50 employees working in Oak Ridge between a pilot-scale fuel facility inside Oak Ridge National Laboratory and a research and development facility in the Centrus Technology Manufacturing Center.
X-energy estimates it could employ an estimated 1,000 workers if it was producing 32 tons of fuel annually.
Sell said about 80% of the jobs would be hourly positions such as fuel fabrication line workers. The other 20% would consist of managers and engineering positions.
TF3 will be built on industrial land that’s been vacant.
“The Industrial Development Board of the City of Oak Ridge has been looking to sell this bottom land at Horizon Center for some time,” Pappano said.
Addressing safety concerns
Public trust in the safety of nuclear power has had its ups and downs over the decades. The company contends this new technology will help change that perception.
“Our plant cannot melt down,” Sell said. “What happened in (Three Mile Island), what happened to Fukushima, what happened to Chernobyl, It’s physically impossible for that to happen with our plan.”
That’s because of the form of the fuel and the materials that make up the facility, the company says.
The TRISO-X fuel is made up of graphite and ceramic “pebbles” packed full of thousands of kernels of enriched uranium coated in graphite and ceramics.
These pebbles can be inserted into the reactor and rotated continuously, meaning there’s no down-time needed for refueling, Sell said. Those pebbles can power the reactor core for about three years.
“Some of my reactor friends almost get a little like annoyed with me, but it’s basically just a gumball machine. Like a cylindrical gumball machine,” Pappano said. “You fill it up, it’s got a rotating bottom, (and) pebbles go down… just by gravity.”
The ceramic and graphite coatings, according to Sell, won’t melt at any possible temperature they might face inside a reactor.
The reactor is self-cooling and will automatically shut off on its own if it detects an accident, Pappano said.
Because the fuel is self-contained, the X-energy executives explained, there is no need for large, concrete and steel containment vessels often found at traditional nuclear sites.
The company plans to engage in a robust public outreach campaign to build trust and educate the public on how the technology works.
“I believe that it is incumbent upon us to do our analysis, be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it’s incredibly safe,” Sell said. “It’s incumbent on us to make that case to the communities in which we operate.”
Nuclear energy’s role in our future
It’s not a question of if nuclear technology will play a larger role in producing the world’s energy.
Today, about 19% of the country’s electricity is generated by nuclear power, according to a fact sheet from the University of Michigan Center for Sustainable Systems.
Increasingly, governments, utilities and commercial enterprises are considering the viability of nuclear power.
The Tennessee Valley Authority operates two nuclear reactors in Tennessee: the Sequoyah plant Soddy-Daisy and the Watts Bar plant near Spring City. The utility also has proposed an advanced nuclear reactor technology park at the Clinch River Nuclear Site in Roane County.
In March, Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation announced it would invest $13 million over five years to establish a manufacturing facility at the East Tennessee Technology Park near Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
In 2020, the US generated about a third of the world’s electricity made by nuclear technology. There are 93 reactors in the US.
There were 55 nuclear reactors under construction as of May 2022, two of which are in the US, according to the fact sheet.
Politically, Sell said nuclear companies have become “the bipartisan darling” as views on climate change and nuclear energy safety have changed.
“The environmental community, even the leftist environmental community, now will tell you that you cannot deal with climate change, we cannot effectively decarbonize the global economy without a massive build out of nuclear,” Sell said.
X-energy is based in Rockford, Maryland, and focuses on developing next-generation, zero-carbon nuclear energy.
Knox News reporter Anila Yoganathan contributed to this story.
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