Company has plans to deploy nuclear plant in Texas and Washington states
Canada-based advanced small modular reactor developer X-energy announced that it has successfully completed key milestones in the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s (CNSC) pre-licensing vendor design review for its Xe-100 nuclear power plant.
The Toronto company submitted the design of its Xe-100 advanced small modular reactor to CNSC for a combined Phase 1 and 2 review process.
CNSC has now completed these phases and concluded there are no fundamental barriers to licensing the Xe-100, an outcome that “increases confidence in proceeding with formal licence applications in Canada”, X-energy said.
The vendor design review is an optional service provided by CNSC so staff can provide feedback early in the design process for a reactor technology. It is not an application for a licence to prepare a site or to build or operate a nuclear power facility, and it does mean that the project will go ahead.
The completion of the pre-licensing milestone underscores the regulatory and commercial readiness of the Xe-100 and demonstrates the opportunity to bring our advanced high-temperature gas reactor technology to the Canadian market,” said J. Clay Sell, X-energy’s chief executive officer.
“The work performed through the vendor design review and our engagements with the CNSC well position X-energy for future licensing applications. This is a great step forward for our high-temperature gas reactor technology and our future industrial and power generation deployments across Canada.”
The Xe-100 is an 80 MW high-temperature reactor that can be scaled into a “four-pack” 320 MW power plant, fuelled by the company's proprietary Triso-X tri-structural isotropic particle fuel.
Plans for initial deployment of the Xe-100 at US chemical company Dow’s Seadrift facility in Texas and a new commercial facility to manufacture Triso-X are receiving support from the US Department of Energy’s advanced reactor demonstration program.
X-energy has also signed a joint development agreement with utility Energy Northwest for the deployment of up to 12 Xe-100 plants in central Washington State.
