Texas petrochemical site gets permit to build four small helium-cooled reactors

The NRC has issued a construction permit for Dow and X-energy's Long Mott project: four 80-megawatt Xe-100 reactors on the Texas Gulf Coast.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a construction permit this week for the Long Mott Generating Station in Texas. Dow and the nuclear startup X-energy are developing it. The plan is to install four 80-megawatt X-energy reactors at Dow's Seadrift Operations, a petrochemical complex on the rural Gulf Coast between Houston and Corpus Christi.

The reactor is the Xe-100. It is cooled by helium gas instead of water. Its fuel is pelletized and held in a moving bed of pebbles, not in traditional fuel rods. The design relies on what is called functional containment. The resilience of the fuel pebbles and their circulation are meant to prevent the runaway heating that could cause a meltdown. As a result, the units are not expected to need the large concrete containment structures of existing reactors, or a 10-mile emergency planning zone.

This matters for abundance because it puts new firm, clean power next to the industrial site that will use it. Smaller units with no emergency zone could make it easier to place reactors beside factories. Reliable power at the point of use is a basic input to making goods more cheaply. Long Mott was also one of two flagship projects the Department of Energy chose in 2020 for its Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program, so it is a test case for the whole approach.

Watch for construction progress and, eventually, real operating performance. Scientists have described the safety features as revolutionary, but that is a characterization, and the design has yet to prove itself in service. This permit allows construction to proceed. It does not show that the reactors will deliver power at a competitive price.

Source: HumanProgress