OAK RIDGE, Tenn. – A pair of new and smaller nuclear reactor designs got the go-ahead for further development during an announcement here on Tuesday, but the first of the small modular reactors will probably not be built in Oak Ridge on the Clinch River site where the U.S. Department of Energy once planned to also build a breeder reactor.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced Tuesday it has selected two U.S.-based teams to receive $160 million in initial funding under the new Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program. The initial funding is aimed at building two advanced nuclear reactors that can be operational within seven years under proposals from X-energy, a Rockville, Maryland-based company that is proposing a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor, and TerrePower, a Washington State corporation that is planning to build a sodium-cooled fast reactor.
“The awards are the first step of a new program that will strengthen American leadership in the next generation of nuclear technologies,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette said. “Our goal is to demonstrate an advanced reactor and we want to make nuclear more affordable to operate.”
The Tennessee Valley Authority, which received an early site permit to potentially build small modular reactors on a 1,200-acre site on the Clinch River in Oak Ridge, had sought additional DOE funding to demonstrate the Clinch River project. The DOE award to other projects “certainly does not make or break this project,” TVA spokesman Jim Hopson said. But it likely will mean other reactors are built before any new nuclear units are erected by TVA in Oak Ridge.
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