Turning raw uranium into triso is a multistep process that begins by treating the uranium-either ore mined from the Earth or down-blended from weapons-grade material-with chemicals to turn it into gel-like beads. The other company, Maryland-based X-energy, is a relative newcomer to the nuclear energy business but has been operating a pilot triso production facility at Oak Ridge National Lab since early last year. “By the late ’20s and early ’30s, triso will take over as the dominant fuel type.”īWXT is one of just two companies in the US developing triso fuel for commercial production, and it is also supplying it to the US government for use in its experimental 3D-printed nuclear reactor. “We see a large demand from a wave of new reactors in the not-too-distant future,” says Duling. And it wasn’t until last October that BWXT announced that it was restarting its triso production line to supply fuel to the next generation of high-temperature nuclear reactors that will come online in the next few years. The renaissance didn’t start to materialize for another 15 years, after hundreds of millions in federal funding was injected into a wave of nuclear startups. Bush was promoting an imminent “ nuclear renaissance” in the United States, but the announcement turned out to be premature. But in 2003, BWXT partnered with the Department of Energy to make triso fuel for testing and demonstrated that it could produce the fuel at scale should the demand arise. “So if you take these reactor designs and combine them with a fuel that can handle the heat, you essentially have an accident-proof reactor.”Īmerica’s nuclear fuel production capacity has been in freefall since the mid-1980s, spurred by declines in uranium price and demand. “In the new reactor designs, it’s basically impossible to exceed these temperatures, because the reactor kind of shuts down as it reaches these high temperatures,” says Demkowicz. Out of 300,000 particles, not a single triso coating failed during the two-week long test. But during the INL tests, Demkowicz demonstrated that triso could withstand reactor temperatures over 3,200 degrees Fahrenheit. Most nuclear reactors today operate well below 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and even the next generation high-temperature reactors will top out at about 2,000 degrees. For the past few years, Demkowicz and his colleagues have been running qualification tests on triso fuel that involve putting them in a reactor and cranking the temperature. Paul Demkowicz is the director of the Advanced Gas Reactor Field Development and Qualification Program at Idaho National Laboratory, and a large part of his job is simulating worst-case scenarios for next-generation nuclear reactors. Each particle is smaller than a poppy seed, but its layered shell can protect the uranium inside from melting under even the most extreme conditions that could occur in a reactor. Triso- short for “tristructural isotropic”-fuel is made from a mixture of low enriched uranium and oxygen, and it is surrounded by three alternating layers of graphite and a ceramic called silicon carbide. It’s called triso fuel, and it’s like a radioactive gobstopper. Their secret? Millions of submillimeter-size grains of uranium individually wrapped in protective shells. Not only will these reactors be smaller and more efficient than current nuclear power plants, but their designers claim they’ll be virtually meltdown-proof. But a new generation of reactors coming online in the next few years aims to make these kinds of disasters a thing of the past. The last time this happened was less than a decade ago, when a massive earthquake followed by a series of tsunamis caused a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan. A nuclear reactor works best when the core is really hot, but if it gets too hot it will cause a meltdown and the environment will get poisoned and people may die and it will take billions of dollars to clean up the mess. There are several ways to do this, but in each case it involves a delicate balancing act between safety and efficiency. The basic idea behind all nuclear power plants is the same: Convert the heat created by nuclear fission into electricity.
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