TVA Plans to Submit an Application for a Construction Permit to NRC for the BWRX-300 SMR

• TVA Plans to Submit an Application for a Construction Permit to NRC for the BWRX-300 SMR
• TerraPower Plans Kick-off of UK Generic Design Assessment Process
• Energy Alberta Plans to Build 2-4 GW of CANDU Reactors
• India to Commission Prototype Breeder Reactor by September 2026
• Vietnam’s Plans 6.4 GW of Nuclear Power

TVA Plans to Submit an Application for a Construction Permit to NRC for the BWRX-300 SMR

(NucNet contributed to this report) TVA has submitted a notification of intent to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that it plans to submit construction permit application (CPA) for a BWRX-300 small modular reactor (SMR) unit at its Clinch River nuclear site in Oak Ridge, TN, by June 2025. The BWRX-300 technology is being developed by GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH). Clinch River is 935 acre site in Roane County for which TVA holds the nation’s only early site permit from the NRC.

The application is essentially the blueprint for the plant’s design and safety systems. The NRC must approve the plans before construction can begin of the SMR. Once construction is complete, TVA must come back to the NRC with an application for an operating license.

“This intent letter is very important,” A TVA spokesperson said. “We are giving the NRC, the nuclear regulator, a formal heads-up that TVA plans to move to the next step and will submit the CPA.

“TVA will be the first to file a CPA for the BWRX-300, which lays the foundation for the many utilities waiting in the wings, ready to quickly follow,” the spokesperson said.

TVA is also working with GEH, Canadian utility Ontario Power Generation and Poland’s Synthos Green Energy through a technology collaboration agreement signed in 2023 that will develop the standard design for the BWRX-300.

In Canada the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has issued a construction license to Ontario Power Generation (OPG) to build the first of four 300 MWe GE-Hitachi BWRX-300 small modular reactor (SMR) at the utility’s Darlington site in Ontario, Canada.

The April 17th letter from TVA to the NRC said the CPA is an important step to de-risk the licensing aspect of a potential, future SMR deployment.

“Any decisions about deployment will be subject to support, risk-sharing, required internal and external approvals, and completion of necessary environmental and permitting reviews,” the spokesman said. Future market share for the BWRX-300 depends in part on the competitive actions of other SMR developers

The BWR type SMR faces an increasing crowd of new reactor developers in the US including; SMRs from Holtec, Westinghouse, X-Energy, and NuScale, which is licensed, and more than a dozen developers of micro reactors who plan to bundle their offerings by the dozen to match 300 MW SMRs.

What are the Next Steps?

TVA has been in preliminary conversations with the NRC over its construction permit application to ensure it is ready for the NRC to begin its review. TVA began its pre-licensing work with the NRC in 2019.

The staff of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is currently engaged in pre-application activities for the GEH BWRX-300 small modular reactor (SMR), including the review of a selected number of licensing topical reports (TRs) and technical design White Papers (WPs) describing the design approaches and methodologies for the BWRX-300 SMR in advance of a 10 CFR Part 50 application.

The BWRX-300 is a 300 MWe water-cooled, natural circulation BWR type SMR with a passive safety system. Using a combination of modular and open-top construction techniques, GEH says the Nth-of-a-kind BWRX-300 can be constructed in 24-36 months. The reactor uses low enriched uranium oxide fuel in the range of 3.81% (avg)/4.95% (max). The refueling cycle is 12-24 months.

The BWRX-300 is a scaled down version of the GE-Hitachi ESBWR, a 1,500 MW BWR design which was licensed by the NRC a decade ago. The first planned customer for the reactor, DTE in Michigan, shelved the project due to financial and market concerns including a downturn in demand for electricity resulting from the lingering effects of the 2008 recession.

DTE was not alone in the nuclear industry in throttling the nation’s enthusiasm for nuclear energy. Duke Energy stopped work on six AP1000s (Levy County, Harris, and Wm States Lee). French state owned enterprise Areva gave up on four EPRs and a uranium enrichment plant.

There is no guarantee nuclear energy industry’s uptick in interest in SMRs won’t be affected by a downturn in the nation’s economy and the global economy as a whole. In recent remarks by Jerome Powell, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, he said inflation is likely to go up as cost of US tariffs makes its way to consumers. He emphasized that the Administration’s tariff polices will likely result in negative economic effects (for the US and globally), “which will include higher inflation and slower growth”

Funding Options

TVA’s Board of Directors has authorized up to $350 million for the expenses related to the construction permit application, activities related to potential, future deployment of an advanced reactor at the Clinch River Nuclear Site. These activities include completion of the standard design of a small modular reactor – and engineering support and activities to study potential, future deployment of advanced reactors of various designs at various sites.

It announced in January that it was leading a consortium of government and industry leaders that is applying for an $800 million US Department of Energy grant to accelerate the Clinch River project. TVA applied to “accelerate construction of an SMR at TVA’s Clinch River Project, in Oak Ridge, TN,, by two years—with commercial operation planned for 2033.”

TVA’s partners include Bechtel, BWX Technologies, Duke Energy, the Electric Power Research Institute, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, Indiana Michigan Power, Oak Ridge Associated Universities, Sargent & Lundy, Scot Forge, and North American Forgemasters.

If TVA receives the DOE funding, the utility says it will be able to roll into site-specific engineering. It may also allow it to procure some long lead items and do grading of the site itself. TVA is also evaluating alternative approaches to funding that could include investors

TVA, a federally owned power company, owns and operates the Sequoyah and Watts Bar nuclear stations in Tennessee and the Browns Ferry nuclear station in Alabama.

A single BWRX300 will have an estimated cost of between $1.2-to-$1.5 billion. GEH has published ambitious cost containment numbers but these will have to be proven once the firm starts to build one. TVA plans to build multiple units of the SMR. The first-of-a-kind (FOAK) will undoubtedly be most expensive than later units that will benefit from labor for experience and supply chain maturity. It is an well-understood axiom, based on NuScale's experience, that no SMR construction plan survives first contact with the supply chain.

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TerraPower Plans Kick-off of UK GDA Process

• TerraPower Takes First Step Toward Regulatory Approval of the Natrium® Reactor¹ in United Kingdom

TerraPower has informed the UK Office of Nuclear Regulation that it intends to submit the Natrium[tm] reactor design for review and approval under the Generic Design Assessment (GDA) process. Once submitted it will take about four years for the UK Office of Nuclear Regulation to decide on whether to approve the design.

The GDA is a complex and expensive multi-step regulatory review. Applicants learn early whether their submissions contain the information the agency needs to complete its reviews.

TerraPower announced it submitted a letter to the United Kingdom’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) that formally establishes the company’s intention to enter the UK Generic Design Assessment (GDA) process. This is the first step in efforts to deploy the Natrium technology in an international market.

The UK’s GDA process will allow the company to establish deployment timelines for Natrium sites in the country. TerraPower’s regulatory milestones with its first Natrium plant, currently being developed in the United States, will be used as the basis of its GDA application.

TerraPower President and CEO Chris Levesque said in a media statement the company has been in active discussions in the UK “for years”, adding that there is “immense interest and opportunity for the United States and United Kingdom to cooperate on deploying advanced nuclear plants over the coming decade”.

These efforts include:

• Pre-application meetings with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRCS
• Successful submission and acceptance of the construction permit application (CPA) to the NRC
• The NRC recently announced it is ahead of schedule on the review in the review of topical reports
• Award of a state-level construction permit from the State of Wyoming; where the first Natrium project is being built.
• TerraPower broke ground for non-nuclear construction  on the first Natrium project in 2024.

The Natrium technology features a 345 MWe sodium-cooled fast reactor with a molten salt-based energy storage system. The storage technology can boost the system’s output to 500 MWe for more than five and a half hours when needed. This innovative addition allows a Natrium plant to integrate seamlessly with renewable resources and leads to faster, more cost-effective decarbonization of the electric grid while producing dispatchable carbon-free energy.

“I am incredibly excited to begin of the process of licensing the Natrium technology in the UK,” said Chris Levesque, TerraPower President and CEO.

“TerraPower is committed to deploying Natrium units globally and has been in active discussions in the UK for years. There is immense interest and opportunity for the United States and United Kingdom to cooperate on deploying advanced nuclear plants over the coming decade.”

TerraPower’s Progress in the US

In the US, TerraPower says has held what it calls “robust” pre-application meetings with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) accepted TerraPower’s construction permit application for review in May 2024. A final safety evaluation is expected in June 2026.

The advanced reactor company, based in Bellevue, Washington, is seeking permission to build its Natrium reactor in Kemmerer, WY, as part of a demonstration project supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) through its cost-shared Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program.. If approved, the construction permit will be the first ever issued by the NRC for a commercial non-light-water power reactor.

The balance-of-plant (BOP) systems proposed for Kemmerer Unit 1 are like those used in the current fleet of light-water reactors (LWRs), with the exception of the molten salt tanks which can be used as an energy storage feature. The Kemmerer Unit 1 design includes a condensate and feed system, a steam generating system, heat rejection system, circulation water, mechanical draft cooling tower, and a steam turbine. The primary difference between a traditional LWR BOP and the Kemmerer Unit 1 BOP is that heat for steam and electric power generation is provided by the molten salt storage tank system and is largely independent of the reactor.

Other Advanced Reactors in the GDA Process

World Nuclear News noted in its report that GDAs have previously been completed for the EDF/Areva UK EPR, the Westinghouse AP1000, the Hitachi-GE UK ABWR and the CGN/EDF/GNI UK HPR1000 designs.

GDAs are currently ongoing for Rolls-Royce SMR Limited’s small modular reactor design, which at 470 MW is larger than all other SMRs, the GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy’s BWRX-300 and Holtec International’s SMR-300.

Westinghouse’s AP300 was accepted for a GDA review in August 2024, and in December, France-based reactor developer Newcleo submitted an application for its LFR-AS-200 small modular lead-cooled fast reactor to begin the process.

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Energy Alberta Plans to Build 2-4 GW of CANDU Reactors

Energy Alberta announced the submission of its Initial Project Description (IPD) to the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (IAAC) for the proposed Peace River Nuclear Power Project, which aims to diversify Alberta’s energy portfolio by providing safe, secure and affordable electricity while creating jobs and economic opportunities.

The Impact Assessment (IA), led by the IAAC and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), will evaluate the potential effects of the Project on the environment, health, society and economy. It will also assess the impact on Indigenous peoples and their rights.

The IPD provides an early overview of the proposed Project, including key aspects of the design and regulatory process, and is intended to inform stakeholders and support engagement efforts that will help refine the final project design.

An IA is a phased planning process spanning over multiple years, involving extensive community and public engagement, as well as comprehensive environmental and socioeconomic studies. Upon completion of the IA process, the federal government determines whether the Project is in the public interest before granting approval for it to proceed.

“Our goal is to help build a new, secure and sustainable economy for all Albertans utilizing Canada’s world-class CANDU nuclear technology,” said Scott Henuset, CEO & President of Energy Alberta. 

Energy Alberta is proposing to build a nuclear power generating station in the Peace River area of Northern Alberta that would include two to four 1,000MW-class CANDU MONARK reactors.

The facility would be licensed to produce up to 4800 MW of electricity, making a significant contribution to the province’s electricity generation. CANDU reactors use natural uranium mined and processed in Canada providing lower costs and a stable, secure energy supply which is essential for the growth and development of Alberta’s communities.

Early estimates indicate a peak construction workforce of 5,000 and a full operations workforce of 2,000 to 3,000 direct and indirect workers. 

History of Proposals for Reactors in Alberta and Tar Sands Operations

Currently, there are no nuclear reactors in Alberta. The province is hosting a proposal by X-energy to study the feasibility of  building its 80 MW Xe-100 advanced small modular reactor (SMRs) as part of a partnership with TransAlta. X-energy and TransAlta are evaluating the economics, regulatory impacts, licensing requirements, timelines and overall suitability of deploying the plant. The study would also focus on identifying and building Alberta-based supply chain partners, vendors and economic benefits for Canada’s fourth-largest province.

The province is home to Canada’s tar sands which are a major source of exports of crude oil to other provinces and the US. For decades various proposal have been made to use electricity and steam from nuclear reactors to power the mining processes in the tar sands.

The combustion processes to produce the tar sands oil are also a significant source of CO2 emissions. Paradoxically, the application of a nuclear reactor to power tar sands operations would reduce these emissions while also potentially increasing the volume of fossil fuels for use by various industrial and transportation sectors.

With estimated reserves of about 161 billion barrels, the Canadian oil sands are among the largest oil deposits on the planet. They are so large that Canada ranks third behind Venezuela and Saudi Arabia in terms of oil reserves. The oil sands are a significant part of Canada’s oil production. In 2023, about 58% of all production was from the oil sands.

The tar sands have turned Alberta into a magnet for oil exploration and extraction companies. Despite winters with steel-shattering temperatures of ¬40º F. and a wilderness landscape with few roads or towns, business is booming.

In 2007 the oil companies working in Alberta’s Athabasca tar sands said they were thinking of placing a CAD 6 billion bet on nuclear reactors to help recover 180 billion barrels of oil. The reactors would supply the oil companies with the huge quantities of heat for steam and electricity they need to extract the oil—and maybe even the hydrogen needed to refine it.

Most of the oil is hundreds of feet below ground. The extraction process requires high-pressure steam to liberate the tar like bitumen from the sand so it can be pumped it out. Hydrogen is then used to refine the heavy crude into a marketable product.

The Alberta Geologic Survey says it takes tens of thousands of cubic feet of natural gas and hundreds of gallons of water to make enough steam to produce one 55-gallon barrel of bitumen crude oil. Canadian Energy Resource Institute studies indicate that a nuclear reactor can generate the heat needed to make high-pressure steam without emitting CO2 and at a lower cost than natural gas.

For instance, in 2007 Suncor Energy, one of the major tar sands energy companies, said it used 400MW of electricity from a natural-gas fueled plant to extract the oil, process the bitumen, and then pump it to refineries.

The previous nuclear energy proposal related to the tar sands was for two 1,100MWe CANDU reactors to be installed at Peace River and Whitecourt, Alberta. An application filed at the time with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission was swiftly rejected by the agency as being “incomplete.”

One of the reasons is that the application never progressed is that Energy Alberta was depending on a new, advanced CANDU design being developed by AECL while it was still on the drawing board. AECL never completed the design.

Since then it has been an article more of faith than reason that every developer of advanced nuclear reactors in Canada has proposed offering their products for use to supply electricity and process heat the tar sands oil companies.

For their part, the oil companies seem satisfied using the oil itself, and natural gas, to make the steam needed to free the heavy crude from the grips of the tar sands formations. The oil firms also are pointedly not interested in the long lead time and huge capital requirements for 1,000 MW class nuclear reactors.

Alberta may need a portion of the power from the CANDU reactors for its own needs, separate from the tar sands. It is a long way from the current proposals to actually funding and building 2-4 GW of power in the province.

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India to Commission Prototype Breeder Reactor by September 2026

The Times of India reports that India’s first prototype-breeder reactor in Tamil Nadu’s Kalpakkam is set to be commissioned next year marking the second stage of India’s three-stage nuclear program aiming to recycle spent fuel to reduce the inventory of radioactive waste.

The first of its kind nuclear reactor, at 470 MWe, is being developed in Kalpakkam to use plutonium-based mixed oxide fuel (MOX) and liquid sodium as coolant. It has a blanket with thorium and uranium to breed fissile U-233 and plutonium respectively.

It will also utilize the spent fuel of Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs), which form the mainstay of nuclear power in India. India is building 10 more 700 MW PHWRs and has plans for a fleet of dozens of 220 MW SMRs using PHWR designs.

Department of Atomic Energy officials recently told the parliamentary standing committee on science and technology “Bhavini’s 500 MW PFBR is in the advanced stage of integrated commissioning, with expected first criticality by 2025-26.”

Last year in March, as a gesture of the importance of the project to India and political support for it, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was present during the commencement of core loading in the nuclear reactor. Later in July, the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) granted permission for loading of fuel, first approach to criticality and conducting low-power physics experiments for the PFBR.

While the state-run Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) operates nuclear power plants in the country, the PFBR in Kalpakkam is being developed by the Bharatiya Nabhikiya Vidyut Nigam (BHAVINI). The approved cost is $850 million. It is not under IAEA safeguards.

PFBRs (Prototype Fast Breeder Reactors) play a vital role in India’s nuclear energy strategy, as the spent fuel from these reactors will be repurposed to fuel thorium-based reactors in the third stage of the country’s closed fuel cycle. The three stages are:

• Natural uranium fueled Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs)
• Fast Breeder Reactors (FBRs) utilizing plutonium-based fuel.
• Advanced nuclear power systems for utilization of thorium.

India’s Indigenous Prototype Fast Breeder Nuclear Reactor and abundant thorium reserves hold key to India’s future energy security. Thorium-232 is the only naturally occurring isotope of thorium that is considered ‘fertile’ for fission.  But it needs a “driver”, such as uranium and plutonium, to “trigger and maintain a chain reaction”. When sufficiently irradiated, Thorium-232 undergoes a series of nuclear reactions. This leads to forming Uranium-233 which can then be “split” to release energy to power a nuclear reactor.

India has one of the world’s largest reserves of thorium ore, but in the three decades it has been experimenting with thorium as a nuclear fuel, it has only recently reach the point with the fast breeder reactor to use it in an operating plant.

Separately, China has invested heavily in developing thorium fuel for molten salt reactors. In a report in IEEE Spectrum in December 2024 it was noted the 10-megawatt reactor project, managed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (SINAP), is scheduled to be operational by 2030. It will operate at 700 °C and have a thermal output of 60 MW, along with 10 MW of electricity. This past week it was reported that China had accomplished “live refueling” of the research reactor.

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Vietnam’s Plans 6.4 GW of Nuclear Power

• Planned milestones for revenue service may not be realistic

(Reuters) Vietnam aims to significantly ramp up its power generation capacity by 2030, focusing on renewable energy and adding nuclear power to the mix, according to the country’s newly amended national power plan.

The first nuclear power plants would be online between 2030 and 2035, with combined capacity of up to 6.4 GW, the government said, adding that another 8 GW would be added to the mix by mid-century.

The figure of 6.4 GW may be more of a target than an achievable milestone within that time frame since it is the equivalent of four 1600 MW ED EPRs. Vietnam historically has not considered EDF as a vendor focusing on offers from Japan and Russia.

As a practical matter if Vietnam broke ground in 2025 for four new full size reactors, under ideal conditions it would be eight-to-ten years before the first unit was in revenue service or 2035, and at least 12-14 years to complete all four reactors or 2039.

The baseline for comparison is Rosatom’s schedule for building and commissioning four 1,200 MW VVER reactors in Turkey. Even with all of the experience Rosatom has building VVER in India and at domestic Russian sites, it still took eight years to complete the first unit. Subsequent units are expected to come online in two year increments.

Officials have said Vietnam has also discussed small modular reactors, which the International Atomic Energy Agency says are still under development but would be more affordable and faster to build than large power reactors.

Korea Electric Power Corp reportedly expressed interest in Vietnam’s nuclear projects, as the company’s chief recently visited the country.

Last February Vietnam said it planned to hold talks with foreign partners about projects to develop its first two nuclear power plants. State utility EVN and oil and gas firm PetroVietnam have been assigned as the investors for the first two plants. It will discuss the projects with partners that include Russia, Japan, South Korea, France and the United States, according to state media.

The Southeast Asian country, a regional manufacturing hub, is seeking to boost electricity supplies to support its fast-growing economy, with a focus on cleaner energy. Electricity is also needed to power development of a finish goods aluminum industry to get more bang for the buck from bauxite mining in the central highlands. The addition of aluminum smelters will require large amount of electricity for their operations.

In 2009, Vietnam had approved plans to develop its first two nuclear power stations of 4 GW each, but those were shelved in 2016 due to costs and a lack of government capacity to manage the safe construction and operation of multiple large nuclear reactors. The proposed plants were planned to be built by Russia’s Rosatom and Japan Atomic Power Co in the central province of Ninh Thuan. Both nations offered packages of up to 4 GW each.

In January 2015 Hoang Anh Tuan, then head of the Vietnam Atomic Energy Agency, told western news media that the reason for the delays is that the government isn’t ready to manage the project nor does it have a mature and independent nuclear safety and regulatory oversight agency. A national nuclear safety agency was set up in 2010, but much more work is needed.

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