Nuclear SMR developer X-energy to merge with Ares Management-backed SPAC, creating $2B company

X Energy Reactor Co., a developer of small modular nuclear reactors and fuel technology, is merging with a special purpose acquisition company backed by private equity firm Ares Management Corp., X-energy announced Tuesday. The deal would establish a combined publicly traded company valued at $2 billion. The company will receive about $1 billion in cash in …

Chinese SMR project enters installation phase

Installation work has started within the reactor building of the Changjiang SMR (Image: CNNC) Equipment installation work has commenced at the ACP100 small modular reactor (SMR) demonstration project at the Changjiang nuclear power plant on China’s island province of Hainan. Welding began in the JR110 room of the R11 area of ​​the nuclear island reactor …

Japan and Poland to begin work on high-temperature reactor design

The agreement was signed by NCBJ Krzysztof Kurek and JAEA President Koguchi Masanori in Tokyo on 22 November (Image: JAEA) A new agreement between the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) and Polish National Centre for Nuclear Research (NCBJ) has added the basic design of a research reactor to their ongoing collaborative R&D on high-temperature gas-cooled …

How NRIC Is Helping Advance Technology for the Nuclear Power Industry

The National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC) is a national Department of Energy (DOE) program led by the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) that allows collaborators to harness the world-class capabilities of the U.S. National Laboratory System. NRIC supports the construction and demonstration of advanced reactor systems through a suite of services and capabilities. “Our vision is …

Rising steel prices, interest rates could push NuScale Utah project cost to $100/MWh, but support remains

Rising steel prices, interest rates could push NuScale SMR cost to $100/MWh, threaten UAMPS project NuScale Power Higher steel prices and interest rates are driving up the projected cost of energy from Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems’ planned 462 MW small modular reactor project, multiple municipal utilities have reported. Previous cost estimates were for the project …

China Approves Commissioning of Thorium-Powered Reactor

4. This graphic visualizes the thorium-based molten salt reactor (TMSR-LF1) engineering design. A 2-MWth version of the TMSR is under commissioning in China. Courtesy: SINAP China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment on Aug. 2 gave Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (SINAP) the green light to commission the experimental 2-MWth thorium-based molten salt reactor (TMSR-LF1) at …

Japan to consider developing high-temperature gas reactor

The Japanese government plans to consider developing and building next-generation nuclear reactors. One of them is known as a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor. One feature of such a reactor is the use of helium gas to cool the reactor’s core. That theoretically makes it possible to extract extreme heat in an efficient manner compared with existing …