- Awards focus on boosting efficiency and safety, lowering costs of advanced reactor designs
- Reactor control, load-following and prefabrication techniques win awards
- DOE’s Perry: Awards will help America retain its technological edge
In yet another example of the current administration’s continuing enthusiasm for nuclear energy, the U.S. Department of Energy this week announced up to $24 million to fund 10 projects that will boost advanced nuclear reactor designs.
The awards play a fundamental role in ensuring America retains its technological leadership in commercial nuclear energy, the Nuclear Energy Institute said.
“It’s gratifying to see DOE taking a leading role in investing in the long-term future of this critical American technology that enhances energy security and boosts grid resilience while lowering emissions,” NEI Senior Technical Advisor for New Reactor and Advanced Technology Everett Redmond said.
The awards are part of a new Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program, Modeling-Enhanced Innovations Trailblazing Nuclear Energy Reinvigoration (MEITNER), which will identify and develop technologies that enable designs for lower cost, more easily constructible and safer advanced nuclear reactors.
“Nuclear energy is an essential component of the U.S. energy mix, and by teaming up with the private sector to reduce costs and improve safety, we are keeping America ahead of the curve in advanced reactor design and technology,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry said in the DOE statement.
“These next-generation ARPA‑E technologies help us maintain our competitive, technological edge globally, while improving the resilience of the grid and helping provide reliable, baseload electricity to each and every American.”
Many of the awards focus on improving the efficiency and safety of several advanced nuclear technology designs now under development. The designs come in a range of sizes, from a couple of megawatts to more than a 1,000 megawatts of generating capacity. They feature a range of coolants including high-temperature gas, molten salt and liquid metal. Some of these reactors may even be capable of recovering and reusing elements in used fuel to produce even more energy.
The winning project teams will have access to DOE’s modeling and simulation resources as they develop their concepts and will coordinate regularly with experts from across DOE and the national laboratory system.
The winning projects and their award amounts include:
- A novel circulation pump for molten salt reactors to improve plant performance, increase pump lifetime and reduce cost will be developed by Terrestrial Energy USA ($3,150,000).
- A new reactor control technology to enhance passive safety and reduce costs for the molten salt reactor and other designs being developed by Yellowstone Energy ($2,599,185).
- A cost-saving construction method for concrete reactor components being developed by General Atomics that will use factory pre-cast modules of ultra high-strength concrete ($1,532,752).
- General Atomics also is developing a detailed, dynamic model of a nuclear power system with rapid load-following capability, enabling grid synergies with renewable wind and solar sources ($1,455,762).
- Westinghouse Electric Co. will develop a “solid core block” of materials that will self-regulate the reaction rate in a nuclear reactor, allowing it to achieve safe shutdown without external power or operator intervention ($5,000,000).
An overarching theme of the awards is the drive to increase the efficiency and economic performance of advanced reactor technologies under development, while lowering their construction costs, Redmond noted.
“New energy technologies can improve our quality of life, benefit the environment and create jobs, but they must also be economically viable if they are to see wide commercialization,” Redmond said.
“These awards acknowledge the fact that advanced nuclear technologies must not only be groundbreaking, they must also be affordable.”
The full list of projects and awardees is available.