France-based advanced nuclear company welcomes ‘significant milestone’
Advanced reactor and nuclear fuel company Newcleo has submitted a regulatory engagement plan to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission for its planned US mixed oxide (MOX) fuel manufacturing facility in the US.
The France-based company said the submission marked a significant milestone in establishing a source of advanced nuclear fuel for its planned advanced modular reactors.
The regulatory engagement plan is the second submitted by Newcleo in recent weeks. Last month the company submitted a regulatory engagement plan to the NRC for its lead-cooled fast reactor, the LFR-AS-200.
“This submission to the NRC is a concrete step to advance our MOX fuel facility in the US, building on the work of over 100 engineers with decades of industrial experience,” said Newcleo chief executive officer Stefano Buono.
The regulatory engagement plan establishes a regulatory pathway in the US and sets out the proposed framework for the company’s pre-application engagement with the NRC.
The pre-application process is intended to promote early communication between the company and the NRC, enabling the NRC to develop an understanding of the proposed facility, planned for the at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
The submission marks an important step in Newcleo’s plans to develop a US facility capable of manufacturing MOX fuel from recovered or surplus nuclear materials for use in compatible advanced reactors.
Newcleo said MOX provides a complementary fuel pathway for compatible reactor designs. Rather than relying exclusively on newly mined and enriched uranium, MOX combines uranium with plutonium recovered from spent nuclear fuel or other existing nuclear material inventories.
Newcleo’s reactors are designed to use MOX within a closed nuclear fuel cycle. In a conventional “once-through” cycle, uranium is mined, enriched and used only once in a reactor, after which the spent fuel is held in interim storage pending final disposal in a geological repository.
In a closed cycle, usable materials are recovered from spent fuel, manufactured into new fuel and returned to reactors to produce additional energy. When combined with fast-reactor technology and repeated recycling, this approach can substantially reduce demand for freshly mined uranium and enrichment services while decreasing the volume and long-term radiotoxicity of material requiring final disposal.
Newcleo said it is also continuing to develop an engineering and testing centre in Chusclan, southern France. The facility is designed to accelerate the development of the company’s fuel manufacturing pilot line in a non-nuclear environment.
The company is planning to deploy a pilot LFR-AS-30 plant, a smaller version of the LFR-AS-200, as a demonstrator in France in the early 2030s.
The facility, known as Precursor, will emulate the size, complexity and thermal hydraulic performances of the LFR-AS-30 reactor design.
