Westinghouse and Radiant Industries have secured a $5 million Division of Power (DOE) award to advance their microreactor designs for testing on the Demonstration of Microreactor Experiments (DOME) testbed at Idaho Nationwide Laboratory (INL)— the world’s first facility, particularly designed to assist fueled reactor experiments for superior nuclear applied sciences.
The 2 firms, together with Extremely Protected Nuclear Corp. (USNC), acquired a mixed $3.9 million in October 2023 as a part of the DOE’s preliminary funding spherical to advance their microreactor designs via a front-end engineering and experiment design (FEEED) course of. The second spherical of funding, a mixed $5 million, introduced on Nov. 18, builds on that progress, permitting Westinghouse and Radiant to enter the detailed engineering and experiment planning (DEEP) part, which incorporates finishing a Preliminary Documented Security Evaluation (PDSA)—a vital step earlier than reactor fabrication and testing, the DOE mentioned.
First Experiment at DOME Might Start in 2026
DOME, one in all two new testbeds being developed for fueled reactor checks at INL, is designed to supply infrastructure for business to check their ideas and generate information to assist design verification and licensing actions, the DOE has advised POWER. Managed by the DOE’s Nationwide Reactor Innovation Middle (NRIC), the power repurposes the long-lasting Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II) containment construction. The 80-foot-tall steel-and-concrete dome is being retrofitted with upgraded electrical, mechanical, and HVAC techniques to host microreactors of as much as 20 MWth, together with these utilizing high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) fuels. (The 20-MWth vitality restrict permits the DOE to categorise the testbed as a Hazard Class 2 nuclear facility.) Already halfway via building, the primary fueled reactor experiment might start in 2026, the DOE mentioned on Monday.
To qualify for the DOME take a look at mattress, superior reactor experiments have to be decentralized vitality sources with self-contained designs requiring minimal upkeep. The DOE expects these reactors to be factory-built and simply transportable to the INL web site for integration into the power. DOME will assist testing of a number of reactors, one experiment at a time, sequentially, roughly each 12 to 24 months. The company mentioned the testbed is required to “spur the testing of superior reactors by expediting the testing course of and lowering total challenge threat.”
In accordance with the DOE’s Oct. 8–launched draft environmental evaluation, experiments performed within the DOME take a look at mattress should adhere to complete plans authorized by NRIC. These plans doc each part of testing, from start-up and regular operation to emergency shutdowns, and embody procedures for root-cause evaluation and corrective actions. Check campaigns could contain load-following checks, energy ramping, and contingency situations for recognized failure modes. Submit-irradiation examinations (PIE) could observe testing cycles, with gas and element samples analyzed at INL’s specialised services. Upkeep, restore, and reconfiguration of the take a look at mattress are built-in into take a look at plans to make sure seamless reactor set up and operation.
Milestones for Westinghouse, Radiant
NRIC developed each the FEEED and DEEP processes “as a part of a phased strategy to assist builders extra shortly obtain vital milestones within the improvement and deployment of superior reactors,” the company famous on Monday.
Westinghouse is poised to check its eVinci microreactor, a conveyable idea of as much as 5 MWe that it’s readying for the market by 2027. A industrial heat-pipe cooled microreactor, the eVinci is designed for broad purposes starting from powering distant communities to mining operations and information facilities.
The corporate accomplished the FEEED course of in September, submitting a doc that supplies complete security and operational reference supplies. “We’re concentrating on deployment of a number of eVinci microreactors internationally by the top of the last decade, and the sturdy and continued partnership with INL and the Division of Power is instrumental to our efforts,” mentioned mentioned Jon Ball, president of eVinci Applied sciences at Westinghouse, in September.
El Segundo, California–based mostly Radiant Industries is trying to take a look at its Kaleidos Battery microreactor design. Based in 2019 by former SpaceX engineers, Radiant has been growing a 1.2-MWe high-temperature gas-cooled (HTGR) design, which can use TRISO gas, a helium coolant, and a graphite moderator. Radiant CEO Doug Bernauer final 12 months advised POWER that the corporate plans to check a full-scale 3.5-MWth microreactor at DOME for 150 steady hours below managed situations. “The take a look at will present managed situations, well-trained employees, proximity to waste storage and take a look at services together with a sizzling cell that total cut back the danger to check a primary of a form,” he mentioned.
USNC, an preliminary DOE choose, was slated to check Pylon D1, a spinoff of its Pylon nuclear system structure that the corporate is growing for analysis, transportable, and house purposes. In October, nevertheless, USNC filed for Chapter 11 chapter, although it has mentioned the transfer serves as a vital restructuring part aimed toward facilitating a sale course of, and it intends to protect operational continuity.
—Sonal Patel is a POWER senior editor (@sonalcpatel, @POWERmagazine).
