Two much-watched superior nuclear gasoline expertise corporations—Oklo and Lightbridge—will contemplate co-locating their industrial metallic gasoline fabrication amenities to discover synergies and doubtlessly speed up innovation throughout the nuclear provide chain.
Beneath a Jan. 28–introduced memorandum of understanding (MOU), the businesses plan to conduct a feasibility examine that may discover co-locating a Lightbridge Industrial-scale Gasoline Fabrication Facility at Oklo’s proposed industrial gasoline fabrication facility. The hassle may even discover superior gasoline recycling alternatives.
“The potential co-location of our industrial gasoline fabrication amenities may provide important synergies by way of upfront capital expenditures and ongoing working prices,” stated Lightbridge President and CEO Seth Grae. “Moreover, exploring superior gasoline recycling alternatives with Oklo aligns completely with our dedication to sustainable nuclear power options.”
The businesses didn’t disclose a possible website for the co-located fabrication amenities, and Oklo confirmed it has not but finalized a website for its deliberate industrial contemporary uranium gasoline fabrication facility. Nonetheless, Lightbridge and Oklo, notably, have every individually explored Centrus Vitality’s American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio—the place Centrus is producing high-assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU) beneath an illustration undertaking.
Lightbridge final 12 months got down to conduct a front-end engineering and design (FEED) examine, led by Centrus, so as to add a devoted Lightbridge Pilot Gasoline Fabrication Facility (LPFFF) on the website, working to determine infrastructure and licensing necessities and an estimated price and building schedule. In 2023, Centrus and Oklo partnered to discover growing a complete HALEU gasoline cycle, together with producing, deconverting, and fabricating superior nuclear gasoline for Oklo’s Aurora reactors whereas additionally making Centrus a possible energy off-taker for Oklo’s deliberate microreactors in Southern Ohio.
A Excessive-Stakes Gasoline Alignment
The partnership marks one other notable instance of collaboration throughout the superior nuclear sector as a part of an pressing bid to safe a dependable provide chain, together with for superior nuclear gasoline and associated supplies. In November, DeepGEO, a multinational spent nuclear gasoline (SNF) repository developer, and Danish thorium reactor developer Copenhagen Atomics moved to align waste administration options with next-generation reactor applied sciences.
On the core of the issue is that the U.S. nuclear gasoline fabrication business has seen little change in many years, and it largely stays rooted in a legacy designed to assist gentle water reactors (LWRs). In the present day, gasoline for the nation’s 95 industrial reactors is basically fabricated by business heavyweights like Westinghouse, International Nuclear Fuels (GNF), and Framatome, which primarily produce uranium dioxide (UO₂) ceramic pellet gasoline with enrichments under 5% U-235, categorized as Class III materials. The pellets are usually stacked into zircaloy tubes, assembled into gasoline bundles, and shipped to energy vegetation. Whereas modernization has resulted in efforts to supply barely larger enriched LEU+ gasoline, and specialty amenities have emerged to produce superior fuels for analysis reactors and naval propulsion, large-scale fabrication of superior fuels stays elusive.
Burgeoning prospects for superior nuclear reactors have launched daring new calls for on the gasoline provide chain. Not like conventional LWRs, many superior reactors require larger enrichments (as much as 19.75% U-235, Class II materials) and modern gasoline kinds, together with metallic fuels, TRISO particle gasoline, and molten salts. These fuels typically contain intricate geometries, specialised coatings, and distinctive chemical processes, necessitating solely new fabrication strategies and infrastructure. With no commercial-scale infrastructure but in place, superior gasoline fabrication faces steep challenges. Scaling up from pilot operations to full manufacturing would require important investments in licensing, security techniques, materials safeguards, and regulatory oversight. An absence of standardization in superior gasoline sorts additionally presents financial and technical hurdles. Business has steered a number of small-scale amenities will doubtless wanted to accommodate numerous reactor designs till the market converges on most well-liked applied sciences.
Superior Gasoline Alignment: Lightbridge’s Progress
Lightbridge, based in 1992 as Thorium Energy, has transitioned from its early deal with thorium-based nuclear gasoline applied sciences to change into a pioneering developer of superior metallic gasoline for nuclear reactors. Its flagship product, Lightbridge Gasoline, incorporates a patented design consisting of extruded metallic rods manufactured from a zirconium-uranium alloy matrix inside zirconium alloy cladding.
In comparison with conventional ceramic pellet-in-tube designs, Lightbridge’s multi-lobed and helically twisted rod construction (impressed by many years of profitable use of uranium-zirconium alloy gasoline in nuclear-powered icebreaker ships) is designed to extend the floor space for warmth switch, permitting the gasoline to run cooler and extra effectively, and the absence of a fuel-cladding hole additional enhances security by lowering mechanical failure dangers and guaranteeing higher thermal conductivity.
INSERT ART. This graphic illustrates the helically twisted, multi-lobed design of Lightbridge Gasoline rods. The metallurgically bonded construction combines a corrosion-resistant zirconium-niobium cladding, a uranium-zirconium alloy gasoline core for improved thermal conductivity, and a central displacer to decrease centerline temperature. These options are designed to boost coolant mixing, enhance warmth switch, and scale back radiation publicity dangers throughout operation. Courtesy: Lightbridge
The alloy composition—roughly 50% uranium and 50% zirconium by weight—reduces the manufacturing of plutonium and different long-lived transuranics, however it could possibly additionally use enrichments as much as 19.75 wt% U-235—excessive assay low enriched uranium (HALEU)—“which has enough fissile materials to assist reaching excessive burnups and to allow power-uprates and cycle-length extensions,” the firm says. A outstanding benefit of the gasoline is that it’s “anticipated to boost the protection, economics, and proliferation resistance of nuclear gasoline by working about 1000C cooler than commonplace gasoline, enabling energy uprates and prolonged cycle lengths, and producing much less plutonium than commonplace gasoline,” the corporate says. As well as, the gasoline is designed to work in each new and present reactors.
To date, Lightbridge has made important strides in refining its fabrication course of for the modern metallic gasoline design. In March 2024, Idaho Nationwide Laboratory (INL) demonstrated the extrusion course of for Lightbridge Gasoline materials composed of a depleted uranium-zirconium alloy. The essential fabrication course of concerned casting ingots, assembling billets with central displacer supplies, and co-extruding them by means of a specialised die to create helically twisted, multi-lobed metallic gasoline rods.
Lightbridge continues working with INL and the U.S. Division of Vitality on irradiation experiments within the Superior Check Reactor (ATR) and Transient Reactor Check (TREAT) amenities to generate efficiency information for regulatory licensing. Extra analysis features a examine with the Romanian Institute for Nuclear Analysis to discover the potential use of Lightbridge Gasoline in CANDU reactors. The corporate can be collaborating with Texas A&M College and MIT to look at the gasoline’s software in small modular reactors, together with the NuScale VOYGR design.
In line with CEO Grae, Lightbridge Gasoline, for now, is positioned at a expertise readiness degree (TRL) of 4–5. “At this stage, Lightbridge Gasoline has moved past theoretical analysis (TRL 1-3) and entered into the realm of validation in a laboratory setting (TRL 4) and initiation of validation in consultant working situations (TRL 5),” he famous in a February 2024 letter to shareholders. “Attaining TRL 4-5 is a crucial milestone which validates the Lightbridge Gasoline design to date and units the stage for subsequent growth steps, transferring us nearer to commercialization and widespread adoption of our superior nuclear gasoline (TRL 8-9).” Over the subsequent three years, Lightbridge will search to advance its expertise into the later phases of validation, with an emphasis on scaling up fabrication processes, increasing experimental testing, and producing regulatory information to pave the way in which for licensing and market entry, he stated.
Oklo Exploring Fabrication in Tandem With Recycling
Oklo, based in 2013, is in the meantime growing a set of nuclear options beneath a “full worth chain” strategy that entails managing smaller reactors’ design, construct, and operation by means of energy buy agreements (PPAs). It’s focusing on the primary deployment of its flagship providing, the 15-MWe–100 MWe Aurora powerhouse—a compact passive fast-spectrum reactor—at Idaho Nationwide Laboratory (INL) by 2027. The corporate has already secured a buyer pipeline of two.1 GW, together with agreements with main information heart operators. In December, it partnered with Swap, a Las Vegas-based information heart designer, builder, and operator, to deploy 12 GW of Aurora powerhouses by means of 2044 in a historic deal hailed as “one of many largest company clear energy agreements ever signed.”
The corporate’s liquid metal-cooled, metal-fueled quick reactors will depend on superior metallic gasoline primarily based on HALEU. 5 metric tons of HALEU for Oklo’s first industrial powerhouse will likely be sourced from the previous EBR-II reactor and fabricated at its Aurora Gasoline Fabrication Facility at INL, a undertaking presently beneath growth. Pre-application actions for the ability started with the Nuclear Regulatory Fee (NRC) in 2023, and the DOE accepted its conceptual design in October 2024.
As well as, Oklo is planning a industrial contemporary uranium gasoline fabrication facility to assist its broader deployment targets. The deliberate facility is predicted to play a pivotal function in scaling up gasoline manufacturing to fulfill the wants of Oklo’s rising reactor fleet, together with its 15-MWe and 100-MWe Aurora designs.
Individually, Oklo can be trailblazing in gasoline recycling, searching for to transform SNF from LWRs (which is within the type of ceramic oxide) to usable metallic HALEU gasoline. In July 2024, the corporate achieved a major milestone by finishing an end-to-end demonstration of its pyroprocessing expertise in collaboration with Argonne Nationwide Laboratory and Idaho Nationwide Laboratory. This course of entails separating useful parts like uranium and transuranic supplies by means of electrorefining in a molten salt setting. Oklo in Nov. 2024 moved to amass Atomic Alchemy, a U.S. agency specializing in high-value radioisotopes, in a $25 million all-stock transaction.
Oklo is growing a industrial recycling facility focused for the 2030s. Whereas a particular website has not but been introduced, Oklo is actively collaborating with the NRC on features of the license software.
“Collaborating with Lightbridge represents a singular alternative to speed up innovation throughout the nuclear provide chain,” stated Jacob DeWitte, co-founder and CEO of Oklo. “The potential to co-locate amenities and collaborate on cutting-edge applied sciences is aligned with our dedication to delivering cost-effective, carbon-free power options. Collectively, we’re exploring new frontiers in nuclear gasoline growth and recycling to make sure a cleaner and extra sustainable power future.”
—Sonal Patel is a POWER senior editor (@sonalcpatel, @POWERmagazine).
