Westinghouse Opens Plant to Build eVinci Microreactor

• Westinghouse Opens Manufacturing Plant for eVinci Microreactor
• X-Energy Inks MOUs with DOE & DOD for Mobile Micro Reactor Design Work
• Newcleo, Nuclear & UK AMRC Collaborate on LFR fabrication
• Zeno Completes Demonstration of its First Strontium-90 Radioisotope Heat Source
• INL’s Marvel Project Manager Joins Startup Aalo Atomics

Westinghouse Opens Manufacturing Plant for eVinci Microreactor

• Site in Etna, PA, broke ground in 2023 and is expected to be completed during 2024.

(NucNet contributed to this report) Westinghouse Electric Company is building a design and manufacturing facility near central Pittsburgh to accelerate commercialization of its eVinci microreactor. The eVinci hub in the borough of Etna, PA, will be home to engineering and licensing operations, testing, prototype trials, business development and sales.

It will also include manufacturing space for producing the innovative heat pipes that are central to the eVinci technology, as well as other components. The reactor core, which runs on TRISO fuel, is designed to run for eight or more full-power years before refueling. The eVinci design is for power outputs between 200 kWe to 5 MWe.

Conceptual image of the eVinci Reactor.
The actual mechanical configuration will be slightly different.  Image: Westinghouse

The company is one of three US-based advanced nuclear energy developers awarded federal funding to design experiments to test microreactor designs in the Demonstration of Microreactor Experiments (Dome) test bed at Idaho National Laboratory.

“We are in a race to bring advanced nuclear technology to market as swiftly as possible to help tackle climate change and meet diverse community needs,” said DOE assistant secretary for nuclear energy Kathryn Huff.

“We need this kind of approach that brings the right people together to hash out real-world solutions and deliver on the promise of advanced reactors.”

Westinghouse said the Etna location was chosen in part due to its proximity to Carnegie Mellon University, Penn State – New Kensington, and the University of Pittsburgh. These universities are partnering with Westinghouse on the eVinci technology.

Microreactors are compact nuclear reactors typically capable of producing 1 to 20 MW of thermal energy that could be used directly as heat or converted to electric power.

Pennsylvania contributed economic development grants to the project as part of a state initiative to build innovation and grow jobs. DOE continues to support the eVinci technology through its Nuclear Energy and Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA-e).

eVinci is Now a Distinct Business Unit within Westinghouse

In June, Westinghouse established eVinci Technologies as a separate business unit within the company to streamline all aspects of bringing the microreactor to the market. Westinghouse announced it appointed Jon Ball as President of the business unit that will develop, license, and sell the microreactor.

Previously, he served in a series of executive leadership roles at GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, including Executive Vice President of Market Development and Executive Vice President of Advanced Nuclear, in which he led the development and commercial adoption of small modular reactor technology, as well as a partnership to deploy a sodium cooled fast reactor.

He holds a bachelor’s degree and doctoral degree in Chemistry from Pacific Lutheran University and The Pennsylvania State University,

NRC/CNSC Joint Licensing

According to the NRC website, the NRC engaging in preapplication interactions with Westinghouse Electric Company.  The company has filed plans annually for its engagement with the regulatory agency. The technical submissions from the firm are proprietary so it isn’t possible to read in ADAMS what Westinghouse and the NRC are reviewing as progress towards a license application.

In February 2023 Westinghouse, fueled by a $27M grant from the Canadian government, began a joint licensing process for the eVinci microreactor in Canada and the US.

The company said in a press statement that it has filed a notice of intent to submit key licensing reports for the eVinci design to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for a joint review. The two nuclear regulatory agencies previously signed an MOU in 2019 to facilitate technical reviews of advanced nuclear technologies.

In March 2022 the Canadian Ministry of Innovation, Science and Industry granted Westinghouse Electric Canada CAD27.2 million (USD21.5 million) to support further development and progress towards licensing of its eVinci micro reactor.

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X-Energy Inks MOUs with DOE & DOD for Mobile Micro Reactor Design Work

X-Energy Reactor Company, LLC,  a developer of advanced small modular nuclear reactors and fuel technology for clean energy generation, and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) have signed a cooperative agreement through 2024 to further advance the development of a mobile microreactor design.

World Nuclear News reported the agreement has been awarded through the DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy and supports X-energy’s continuing work on architecture and key technologies for the preliminary design of the microreactor, which is expected to produce 3-5 MWe at a commercially competitive price.

The award is worth a total of about $2.5 million and the company will use it to continue advancing X-energy’s mobile microreactor beyond technical feasibility to commercial reality, the company’s Vice-President of Government Program Georgette Alexander-Morrison said.

In 2020, the Department of Defense’s Strategic Capabilities Office selected X-energy, as part of its Project Pele initiative, to design a prototype mobile microreactor capable of producing between one and five megawatts of electricity to support mission-critical operations in remote military locations. The DOD recently expanded its agreement with X-energy to develop a cost-effective design for a transportable advanced nuclear microreactor prototype for use in remote military locations or other strategic missions.

X-energy’s teams are working in parallel, through DOE and DOD-funded agreements, on advanced microreactor designs that will make the technology commercially viable in the marketplace.

“We are excited to continue to advance the engineering technology that went into our initial high-performance designs for Project Pele. With the combined support of the DOE and DOD, we are confident that we can reduce costs and deliver a solution that meets the needs of both civilian and military users,” said Dr. Hans Gougar, X-energy’s Lead Microreactor Engineer.

“This project brings us closer to deploying emission-free power to replace diesel in hard-to-reach locations, for disaster relief, maritime power delivery, and when critical infrastructure resiliency is threatened.”

The DOE, through its Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program, is also supporting X-energy’s initial deployment of the Xe-100 advanced reactor and the creation of the nation’s first commercial facility to manufacture TRISO-X high-assay low-enriched uranium-based fuel for next-generation reactors.

DOE awards under its Advanced Reactor Concepts program helped X-energy complete conceptual and basic design of the Xe-100 reactor and the TRISO-X fuel facility. Funding from the DOE’s ARPA-E program helped develop operational innovations – such as automation, robotics, remote and central maintenance, and diagnostic monitoring – in the Xe-100 nuclear power plant design.

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Newcleo, Nuclear AMRC Collaborate on LFR fabrication

(WNN) Newcleo has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the UK’s Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) to collaborate on manufacturability, supply chain and development studies for its small modular lead-cooled fast reactor (LFR) technology.

The partners said the MOU “establishes the foundation of a partnership for exploring a range of technical and business operations, including supply chain readiness assessments, investigation into potential supply chain partners, identification of entities for potential acquisition, modularization studies, manufacturability and fabrication assessments, material and metallurgy studies, and any other future areas of interest that are in the scope of agreement between the two parties.”

The Nuclear AMRC – based at the University of Sheffield and part of the UK’s High Value Manufacturing Catapult – collaborates with companies of all sizes to help them win work in the nuclear sector and bring new technologies to market.

The first step of London-headquartered Newcleo’s delivery roadmap will be the design and construction of the first-of-a-kind 30 MWe LFR to be deployed in France by 2030, followed by a 200 MWe commercial unit in the UK two years later.

At the same time, Newcleo will directly invest in a mixed uranium/plutonium oxide (MOX) plant to fuel its reactors. In June 2022, Newcleo announced it had contracted France’s Orano for feasibility studies on the establishment of a MOX production plant.

Earlier this month, Newcleo signed a cooperation and investment agreement with the Tosto Group to advance the industrialization of Newcleo’s reactors. The partners will collaborate on several activities aimed at studying and perfecting manufacturing, fabrication and installation encompassing the whole reactor life, underpinning the technological development of the LFR-AS designs with proven manufacturing and implementation expertise.

Newcleo also recently completed its acquisition of SRS Servizi Ricerche e Sviluppo Srl and of Fucina Italia Srl, jointly referred to as the SRS-Fucina Group. Both based in Italy, SRS and Fucina design and build nuclear systems deploying liquid lead technology.

In March this year, Newcleo signed an agreement with Italian utility Enel to cooperate on Newcleo’s power plant projects, including taking a stake in the first plant. Under the agreement, Enel will collaborate with Newcleo on projects related to its LFR technology, providing specialized expertise through sharing a number of the company’s qualified personnel. In view of the support provided, Newcleo has committed to securing an option for Enel as first investor in its initial power plant.

Prior coverage on this blog:
Newcleo Powers Up a Combination of Reactor Technologies

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Zeno Completes Demonstration of its First Strontium-90 Radioisotope Heat Source

Zeno Power, a developer of commercial radioisotope power systems (RPSs), has completed the design, fabrication, and testing of its first strontium-90 (Sr90) heat source – the first ever commercially-developed radioisotope heat source. The completed heat source is a key milestone for Zeno to begin delivering RPSs to customers in 2025.

The demonstration, performed at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Richland, WA, confirmed that Zeno’s patented innovation increases the specific power (Wth/kg) of its Sr-90 heat source compared to historic Sr-90 heat sources. It also verifies that Zeno’s fabrication process can be translated and demonstrated in a hot cell environment using radiological material.

Radioisotope heat sources are the “building blocks” of Zeno’s RPSs. They supply constant thermal energy that can be converted into electricity. Given its relative abundance, Sr-90 has been used and deployed in RPSs before but historically the systems were heavy, constraining their use to limited terrestrial applications. Zeno’s key innovation is a novel design that increases the specific power of Sr-90 heat sources, enabling broad use of its RPSs in space and terrestrially.

Strontium-90 is a radioactive isotope of strontium produced by nuclear fission, with a half-life of 28.8 years. Strontium (chemical symbol Sr) is a silvery metal that rapidly turns yellowish in air. Naturally occurring strontium is not radioactive. (Fact Sheet)

The most common man-made radioactive form of strontium is strontium-90 (Sr-90). Strontium-90 is produced commercially through nuclear fission for use in medicine and industry. It also is found in the environment from nuclear testing that occurred in the 1950s and 1960s as well in nuclear reactor waste.

Work at PNNL involved radioactive and non-radioactive activities, including chemical processing and fuel fabrication, materials handling, and heat source characterization. Testing performed during heat source characterization has provided valuable first-of-a-kind benchmarking data that will support the development of future Zeno heat sources.

Zeno is currently executing on contracts with NASA, the U.S. Space Force, and the U.S. Navy – and plans to deliver its initial RPSs to customers in 2025.

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INL’s Marvel Project Manager Joins Startup Aalo Atomics

Yasir Arafat, the Chief Designer and Project lead for the Marvel microreactor project  (fact sheet) at the INL, has joined Aalo Atomics of Austin, TX, as the firm’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO).

Arafat was the project lead behind the MARVEL microreactor. This effort is a revival of a promising type of reactor that uses liquid-metal as the coolant.

Recently, the INL announced that DOE has certified that the design work on the Marvel device was 90% complete. MARVEL had already been authorized to start procuring/constructing some parts as of this past summer, but design work was ongoing.

Prior to joining INL in June 2020, Yasir was the principal engineer at the eVinci microreactor project at Westinghouse. He will complete a Ph.D. (2024) and holds a Masters Degree, both in Nuclear Engineering, from North Carolina State University.

About Aalo Atomics’ Commercial Plans

Aalo Atomics intends to commercialize a scaled up, more economical reactor, inspired by MARVEL. It too will use unpressurized liquid-metal coolant.

In a statement on its website, Aalo Atomics says first first product will be a 20 MWt micro-reactor, inspired by MARVEL from INL. The firm says it has raised a $6.26M seed round to help get started.

The firms says it plans to pair scaled-down nuclear test data from MARVEL (100 kWth) with full-scale non-nuclear test data. This will provide regulators with a thorough picture of our reactor’s performance. In our early conversations with the NRC, feedback on this approach has been positive

Aalo’s first reactor will have a power output of 20 MWth (8 MWe), and will target an LCOE of $0.10- 0.20/kWh. The firm said its eventual second reactor will be much larger (100–300 MWth), which it hopes will achieve the important $0.03–$0.05/ kWh threshold (cheaper than coal). Both reactors will be sodium-cooled, LEU+ UZrH-fueled, and factory-fabricated.

The first step in commercialization, the firm says, once Marvel is complete and its design is available, is for Aalo Atomic to build a full size non-nuclear test stand.

Next steps will be to pursue licensing through the Canadian Nuclear Regulatory Commission (CNSC) Vendor Design Review process and licensing in the US with the NRC.

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