Companies to submit permit application with construction start planned for 2026
US chemicals company Dow and advanced nuclear reactor and fuel developer X-energy have chosen Dow’s UCC Seadrift Operations manufacturing site in Texas for their proposed Xe-100 advanced small modular reactor nuclear project.
The project is focused on providing the Seadrift site with power and steam as existing power generation is retired.
Seadrift, on the Gulf of Mexico coast and about 150 miles (240 km) from Houston, is the second largest Dow facility in Texas, spanning about 4,700 acres (1,900 hectares) and employing more than 1,200 people.
Dow and X-energy said they will now prepare and submit a construction permit application to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Construction on the four-reactor project is expected to begin in 2026 and to be completed by the end of this decade.
Dow, based in Midland, Michigan, said last year when it first announced the plans that the plant is expected to be operational by 2030.
In March, Dow and X-energy signed an agreement to demonstrate the first grid-scale advanced nuclear reactor for an industrial site in North America.
Dow said it would to work with Rockville, Maryland-based X-energy to install its Xe-100 high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) plant at one of Dow’s US Gulf Coast sites, providing the site with low-carbon power and steam within this decade. At the time a site had not been chosen.
‘Major Step’ In Reducing Emissions
Jim Fitterling, Dow chairman and chief executive officer, said using X-energy’s Generation IV nuclear technology will enable Dow to take a major step in reducing its carbon emissions while delivering lower carbon footprint products to our customers and society.
“The collaboration with X-energy and the DOE will serve as a leading example of how the industrial sector can safely, effectively and affordably decarbonise,” he said.
Dow has also said it intends to take a minority equity stake in X-energy, working with the company to deploy SMR nuclear technology.
Dow operates more than 100 manufacturing sites in 31 countries. Its portfolio consists of plastics, industrial intermediates, coatings and silicones businesses.
In 2020 X-energy was chosen by the advanced reactor demonstration programme to deliver a four-unit Xe-100 plant in Washington state, which will make it among the first operational grid-scale advanced reactor plants in North America.
In July 2022, X-energy and Ontario Power Generation signed an agreement to look for opportunities to deploy the Xe-100 reactor at industrial sites in Ontario and identify further potential end users and sites throughout Canada.
The Xe-100 is a Generation IV HTGR. Each reactor is engineered to operate as a single 80 MW unit and can be optimised as a four-unit plant delivering 320 MW. It can provide baseload power to an electricity system or support industrial applications with 200 MW thermal output per unit of high pressure, high temperature steam.
The Xe-100 is fuelled by X-energy’s Triso-X fuel. Last year work began on the construction of a $300m (€275m) fabrication plant for the fuel in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
