US Nuclear Fuel Progress is a Mix Bag of Milestones

• GE Verona Gets NRC OK for 8% U235 Fuel Production
• Fuel Fabrication Efforts Show Progress for HALEU
• Cylinder Shortages Delay Centrus HALEU Production
• BWXT Awarded $122 Million for Uranium Downblending Services
• Westinghouse Submits AP300 to for Generic Design Assessment
• Hyundai is EPC Bidder for Bulgaria’s Kozloduy 7 & 8 AP1000s

The growing interest in nuclear power has in turn stimulated significant developments in the fabrication of fuel for advanced designs not yet built and existing plants in operation. Here is roundup to recent developments

GE Verona Gets NRC OK for 8% U235 Fuel Production

Global Nuclear Fuel, a business unit of GE Vernova, has received regulatory approval from the NRC to to manufacture, ship and analyze the performance of nuclear fuel with Uranium-235 enrichments of up to 8 percent.

With the latest NRC approval of GNF’s fuel fabrication license amendment, the company’s manufacturing facility in Wilmington, NC is the first commercial facility in the U.S. to hold a license to fabricate fuel enrichments up to 8 weight percent. The NRC has issued a Certificate of Compliance allowing GNF to ship nuclear fuel bundles up to 8 weight percent utilizing the company’s RAJ-II shipping container. The NRC has also approved licensing topical reports for advanced nuclear methods that enable GNF to analyze fuel with enrichments greater than 5 weight percent.

These approvals were made possible in part by work GNF and GE Vernova’s Advanced Research business have conducted for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF) Program. GNF is developing and deploying fuel technologies with enhanced accident tolerance and operational flexibility while enabling sustained economic performance by improving bundle efficiency.

The company isn’t resting on its laurels. A key future goal may be to fabricate fuel elements at higher enrichment levels.

Mike Chilton, Executive Vice President, GNF, said, “We will continue to innovate to help our customers run their plants even more efficiently and be ready to support the next generation of reactor technology with reliable, flexible fuel products as the industry progresses to the use of higher enrichments.”

Higher enrichment fuels are anticipated to improve nuclear fuel cycle economics including through power uprates for existing boiling water reactors and also for the next generation of reactor technology including advanced and small modular reactors.

Nuclear fuel with enrichment levels of between 5-20% U235 are also known as ‘high assay low enrichment uranium’ (HALEU) fuel. This type of enrichment level is needed for many types of advanced reactors now being developed in the US and Canada as well as in many other countries.

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Fuel Fabrication Efforts Show Progress for HALEU

Profound supply chain issues for HALEU affect the industry because until the Russian invasion of Ukraine, most HALEU came from Russia. US and European countries have mounted concerted efforts to develop supplies of HALEU to end dependence on Russia for it.

HALEU Fabrication. Image: US Department of Energy

Two developers of advanced reactors, TerraPower and X-Energy, are using cost shared funding from the Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) to build fuel fabrication plants to supply their respective designs with specific forms of HALEU.

TerraPower

Global Nuclear Fuel–Americas (GNF-A), a GE-led joint venture, and TerraPower have an agreement to build the Natrium Fuel Facility at the site of GNF-A’s existing plant site near Wilmington, NC. The Natrium Fuel Facility will be jointly funded by TerraPower and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) through the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program, which aims to speed the demonstration of advanced reactors through cost-shared partnerships with U.S. industry. The facility represents an investment of more than $200 million.

X-Energy

TRISO-X LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of X-energy, is building an advanced nuclear fuel facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The facility broke ground in October 2022. The $300 million TRISO-X Fuel Fabrication Facility (TF3) is set to be commissioned and operational by 2025. X-energy said it has chosen to manufacture its own proprietary version of TRISO fuel—to ensure supply, improve quality, and reduce costs. TRISO-X is a robust nuclear fuel that can withstand very high temperatures without melting, which is key to its safety.

USNC

Ultra Safe Nuclear Corp (USNC) has a Pilot Fuel Manufacturing (PFM) operation in Oak Ridge, TN, established in 2022. The facility is located on the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP), site of Manhattan Project’s K-25 gaseous diffusion plant. USNC operates the production-scale modules involved in manufacturing of TRISO coated fuel particles and its proprietary Fully Ceramic Micro-encapsulated (FCM) fuel. USNC said its PFM facility is used to codify and demonstrate its manufacturing modules, enabling USNC’s advanced fuel factory licensing and scalable deployment of its fuel-production capability.

In November 2023  Framatome Inc. and Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation (USNC) signed an agreement to establish a joint venture (JV) to provide nuclear fuel for the fourth generation Micro-Modular Reactor (MMR) and other advanced reactor designs.

The fuel supply will include commercial quantities of Tri-structural Isotropic (TRISO) particles and USNC’s proprietary Fully Ceramic Microencapsulated (FCM) fuel. The JV will deliver finished TRISO-based fuel products, meeting the demands of USNC’s reactors as well as others in the advanced reactors market.

The joint venture expects to begin manufacturing TRISO particles and FCM fuel in late 2025. Its production capacity will be available to the broader commercial market, the partners said, adding that they have developed “concrete plans to support rapid expansion to meet demand growth in the US and global markets.” Framatome’s US fuel fabrication plant is located in Richland, WA.

According to a report in World Nuclear News on 01/27/24, FCM fuel will be used in the MMR, a 15 MW thermal, 5 MW electrical high-temperature gas-cooled reactor which the USNC is working toward deploying at Chalk River in Canada and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The company says the Chalk River project is on target for first power in 2026, with the Illinois reactor reaching first power in 2027.

BWXT

At its Lynchburg, VA, facility BWXT manufactures irradiation-tested uranium oxycarbide TRISO fuel using production-scale equipment. The firm’s Specialty Fuel Facility in Lynchburg, VA, is focused on making TRISO fuel for advanced reactors.

Under DOE’s Advanced Gas Reactor (AGR) Fuel Development Program, BWXT has manufactured and certified TRISO-coated kernels and fuel compacts in production-scale quantities.

BWXT said on its website that the firm’s existing TRISO fuel production line, along with ongoing increases in capacity, allow it to meet emergent client interests in Department of Defense microreactors, space reactors, and civil advanced reactors.

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Cylinder Shortages Delay Centrus HALEU Production

(WNN) CENTRUS, a key nuclear fuel and services company says it will no longer be able to deliver the anticipated 900 kg of material under the second part of its contract with the US Department of Energy. The reason is a shortage of storage cylinders expected to be supplied by DOE to store the HALEU fuel, in UF6 gaseous form, until it is needed for conversion and fabrication into specific types of uranium fuel, e.g., fuel pellets and assemblies, TRISO fuel pebbles, or uranium metal fuel.

DOE is contractually required to provide the storage cylinders needed to collect the output from the Piketon cascade. Neither DOE nor Centrus identified the specific cause of the delay in delivery of the cylinders.

CENTRUS said in a press statement to investors,  Centrus said. “The DOE is contractually required to provide storage cylinders (5B Cylinders) necessary to collect the output of the cascade, but supply chain challenges have created difficulties for the DOE in securing 5B Cylinders for the entire production year. Centrus anticipates that the delays in obtaining 5B Cylinders will be temporary, but no longer will deliver 900 kilograms of HALEU UF6 originally anticipated for Phase 2 of the contract, which extends to November 2024.”

Type B cylinders are regulator-certified casks that can maintain shielding from gamma and neutron radiation used for materials including enriched uranium. The Type 30B cylinders are used to transport low-enriched uranium to fuel fabricators cannot be used for HALEU, which is enriched above 5% uranium-235.

Centrus made its first delivery of 20 kg of high-assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU) produced at the American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio, to the Department of Energy (DOE) in November, marking the end of the first phase of a cost-share contract signed in 2022. The company then moved forward to the second phase of that contract – a full year of HALEU production at the 900 kg per year plant.

The contract is part of DOE efforts to ensure the supplies of HALEU – uranium enriched to between 5% and 20% uranium-235 – for advanced nuclear fuel for next-generation reactor designs and to build a domestic HALEU supply chain. The material is to remain on site in Piketon in a specially constructed storage facility until it is needed.

Other HALEU Cylinder Developments

Last September Urenco and Orano signed consortium agreement to develop 30B-X cylinder for LEU+ and HALEU fuel transport.  These are not the 5B cylinders DOE is obliged to deliver to Centrus.

The announcement said two versions of the 30B-X cylinder are available for transport capacity depending on the level of uranium enrichment, with a different number of CCS control rods.

One model with a capacity of 1,460 kg of uranium enriched up to 10%, and a second with a capacity of 1,271 kg of uranium enriched up to 20%. The DN30-X package was licensed in March 2023 by the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

Partnered with Orano, Urenco is taking part in a test-pilot to qualify a transportation package for advanced nuclear fuels enriched to higher levels. It is to test and qualify the new 30B-X cylinder model in which uranium enriched to up to 10% (LEU+) would be contained for transportation to fuel fabricators. This cylinder is part of the DN30-X package. Urenco will be using depleted uranium hexafluoride (UF6) for the pilot and testing will be performed on site only.

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BWXT Awarded $122 Million for Uranium Downblending Services

BWX Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: BWXT) announced that its Nuclear Fuel Services, Inc. (NFS) subsidiary was awarded a $122 million contract extension from the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) for the downblending of highly enriched uranium (HEU) into low enriched uranium (LEU).

Under this contract, NFS will continue to provide downblending services to the TVA in support of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) defense programs objectives. This contract extension continues the current downblending operations from July 2025 to June 2027.

“We are proud of the role we play in national defense and pleased that we can continue our work with the TVA and NNSA in support of this mission,” said Ronald K. Dailey, NFS president. “This contract extension also enables operations and engineering continuity with our uranium conversion and purification contract with NNSA.”

Downblending is a process in which HEU is mixed with natural uranium resulting in LEU needed for various commercial and national defense purposes. NFS has been downblending HEU since 1995, when it was selected by the U.S. Government to downblend a stockpile of HEU as part of Project Sapphire.

A TVA spokesperson told Neutron Bytes via email that the downblended uranium will be used to fabricate commercial nuclear fuel assemblies, with enrichment levels of less than 5% U235, for the utility’s fleet of nuclear reactors.

TVA operates seven nuclear reactors.

• Browns Ferry – three BWR
• Sequayoh – 2 PWR
• Watts Bar – 2 BWR

Plans for SMRs

Additionally, the utility has preliminary plans under consideration to build multiple units of the BWRX300, a LWR type SMR, at its Clinch River site, which will use the same type of uranium fuel as supplied to the utility’s current fleet.

The BWRX-300 is a 300 MWe water-cooled, natural circulation SMR with passive safety systems that leverages the design and licensing basis of GEH’s 1500 MWe ESBWR boiling water reactor, which has been certified by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

It is also undergoing a pre-licensing vendor design review by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. Ontario Power Generation in December announced its selection of the reactor for construction at its Darlington site, with a view to operation as soon as 2028.

In 2023 GE-Hitachi, which is the developer of the BWRX300, conducted a pre-application readiness assessment for submitting a license application to the NRC. Similar meetings are ongoing in 2024 on various technical aspects of the SMR’s design.

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Westinghouse Submits AP300 to for Generic Design Assessment

• Licensing process to support multiple SMR deployments in the United Kingdom
• An agreement was recently announced to build four units for an industrial customer in northeast England

Westinghouse Electric Company announced it has formally submitted an application to the U.K. Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) for approval to enter the General Design Assessment (GDA) of the AP300 Small Modular Reactor (SMR). This is the first step in the formal licensing process within the U.K.

The AP300 SMR design utilizes Westinghouse’s AP1000 Gen III+ advanced technology, which has regulatory approval in Great Britain, the U.S. and China, as well as compliance with European Utility Requirements (EUR) standards for nuclear power plants. This brings licensing advantages and substantially reduces delivery risk for customers in the utility, oil & gas and industrial space.

This GDA application comes after the AP300 SMR was selected for the next phase of Great British Nuclear and selected by Community Nuclear Power, Ltd. (CNP) to build four AP300 SMRs in Northeast England. These projects will also leverage Westinghouse’s 75-year history of nuclear manufacturing and fuel fabrication operations in the UK at its facility in Springfields, Lancashire, UK.

David Durham, Westinghouse Energy Systems President, said, “The AP300 SMR builds on the pedigree of the already approved AP1000, and we are very optimistic that the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero will approve our GDA application. The U.K. regulators are already very familiar with the AP300 SMR’s underpinning technology, so we look forward to working with them to progress the timely development and deployment of this advanced, proven technology in the U.K.”

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Hyundai is EPC Bidder for Bulgaria’s Kozloduy 7 & 8 AP1000s

• The company was only one that met both technical and financial prerequisites

(NucNet) South Korea’s Hyundai Engineering and Construction will be invited to submit a binding bid to build Bulgaria’s proposed Kozloduy-7 and -8 nuclear power units using Westinghouse’s AP1000 reactor technology, according to Delyan Dobrev, chairman of the Bulgarian national parliament’s energy commission.

Dobrev told the local BTV broadcaster that out of the previously undisclosed five companies which responded to a tender in early February for the project, Hyundai was the sole contender to meet both the technical and financial prerequisites.

Next steps will include inviting Hyundai to submit a binding price offer encompassing the design, manufacture, supply, installation, and commissioning of the two new units Kozloduy, an existing nuclear site on the Danube river in northern Bulgaria, close to its border with Romania. The Engineering Procurement Construction (EPC) firm will be expected to work with US-based Westinghouse Electric, which is providing the two AP1000 nuclear plants.

Applicants were required to have experience of construction and commissioning of a minimum of two nuclear units and a track record of contracts for detailed design in nuclear or turbine islands. They also needed to have supplied and installed equipment for such islands within the last 15 years.

According to the Bulgarian energy ministry, one of the financial requirements for the companies was to show that their revenue and earnings reached at least €5.6B ($6B) during the five-year period between 2018 and 2022. Potential candidates from Russia would be excluded from the tender.

Dobrev said two US companies, Fluor and Bechtel, and two unnamed Chinese companies “did not meet the requirements” of the tender.

He said Bulgaria’s parliament will ask the government to begin negotiations with Hyundai, but conditions will apply including a fixed price requirement and a 60-month construction schedule for the first AP1000 unit.

Earlier this week, Bulgaria and the US signed an agreement to cooperate on the development of the country’s civil nuclear power program including plans to build up to two new AP1000 units at Kozloduy. The units would be the third and fourth operational plants at the Kozloduy site. Bulgaria expects the first of the two new 1150 MW AP1000 reactors to be ready in 2035 with a second one two years later.

The minister of energy Rumen Radev said in an earlier statement that Bulgaria would like the cost of the two-unit project to not exceed $14B (€13B) or about $6,000/Kw. Bulgaria’s financing plans reportedly involve a mix of government funding and private investment.

The Bulgarian parliament last December approved a government proposal to inject up to 1.5 billion levs (€766M, $837.6M) into the state-owned Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant (KNPP) corporation to fund the planned construction of the first of two proposed reactors using Westinghouse Electric’s AP1000 technology.

In May 2022, Hyundai signed an agreement with Westinghouse to jointly participate in global AP1000 plant opportunities. Hyundai was part of a South Korea’s consortium that built four nuclear reactor units at the Barakah nuclear power station in the United Arab Emirates.

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