When Dow decommissions the pure fuel generators at its Seadrift, Texas, plastics manufacturing website later this decade, it plans to change on a first-of-its-kind small nuclear plant as a substitute.
The mission, awaiting a building allow from the Nuclear Regulatory Fee that was requested in March, is backed by as much as $1.2 billion from the Division of Power’s Superior Reactor Demonstration Program. Superior gas-cooled nuclear expertise from X-energy that operates at greater temperatures than legacy gear will present the commercial steam Dow wants for plastic pellet manufacturing.
Dow owns or contracts providers from dozens of fuel generators and different mixed warmth and energy techniques throughout its petrochemical manufacturing footprint. A number of years in the past, it started evaluating the potential of small modular reactors to assist attain its objective of decreasing emissions by 5 million metric tons yearly by 2030, in accordance with an govt who anaylzes Dow’s capital investments in vitality techniques.
“Don’t low cost the potential for nuclear,” stated Kreshka Younger, North America enterprise director for vitality and local weather at Dow. “There are an enormous quantity of advantages. It supplies clear, agency energy, and the price could be very aggressive. I’d suggest that individuals not be afraid to have a look at it.”
Excessive hopes for small nuclear
X-energy’s expertise classifies as a small modular reactor — that’s, one with a capability of lower than 300 megawatts. The present pipeline of such reactors is greater than 47 gigawatts, which would require an funding of at the least $360 billion, in accordance with analysis agency Wooden Mackenzie.
Dow’s set up will initially embody 4 X-energy base modules, which have a capability of about 80 megawatts. The power to stack the models was essential for reliability, Younger stated. Dow additionally discovered the compact dimension of X-energy’s system — in regards to the dimensions of a fuel turbine — interesting. The mission is topic to ongoing evaluate and ongoing authorities funding. “We take a really measured method to this,” Younger stated, referring to Dow’s vitality investments. “We’re not in a scenario to put in writing clean checks.”
Small modular reactors are enticing as a result of the timeline for constructing them is extra predictable and cost-effective than legacy nuclear mission growth, stated Alison Hahn, technical adviser for brand spanking new nuclear applied sciences on the Nuclear Power Institute. That’s as a result of elements could be constructed on an meeting line, enabling builders to standardize design and handle a number of processes in parallel, Hahn stated.
The three largest synthetic intelligence and cloud computing corporations — Amazon, Google and Microsoft — are all contemplating superior nuclear to energy their knowledge facilities. Amazon was a part of a $500 million funding spherical for X-energy in October 2024, which was elevated to $700 million in February.
“X-energy supplies an impactful answer to a vital problem — and the assist Amazon, Dow and different main firms have offered underscores its potential and advantage,” stated Ken Griffin, founder and CEO of lead investor Citadel, when the preliminary funding was introduced.
Amazon is trying to deploy as much as 5 gigawatts of X-energy’s expertise by 2039, beginning with a four-unit, 320-megawatt mission in central Washington that’s being developed by Power Northwest. The plan requires the set up to be tripled over time.
The Dow mission, nonetheless, is more likely to be on-line first — as early as 2028, if mission timelines keep on schedule. Its building allow could possibly be accepted inside 18 months, because of a brand new govt order by the Trump administration. After building is full, Dow and X-energy might want to apply for an working license.
The Amazon and Dow commitments atop X-energy’s DOE funding will give backers the boldness to finance X-energy’s manufacturing and provide chain ramp-up in addition to the workforce coaching that will likely be wanted to assist operations, stated Hahn.
“Constructing out that order ebook lets you confidently make investments,” she stated.
X-energy’s innovation: the ‘pebble mattress’
What makes X-energy’s providing distinctive is the tristructural-isotropic (a.okay.a TRISO) gasoline utilized by its reactors — poppy seed-size particles of uranium clumped into billiard-size balls and unfold out in a pebble mattress. Helium is pumped by means of the pebbles, and warmth is extracted for steam era. TerraPower, which raised $650 million in June from buyers together with Invoice Gates and NVDIA’s enterprise arm, makes use of an analogous design.
X-energy’s reactors function at temperatures greater than lava’s, making them acceptable for energy-intensive processes akin to hydrogen manufacturing or petroleum refining. The design is explicitly meant to stop meltdowns.
X-energy will manufacture its TRISO gasoline at a facility it’s constructing in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The corporate, which employs about 600 individuals, relies in Rockville, Maryland.
The spent pebbles in X-energy’s reactors could be changed by new ones each day, so shut down will not be essential, stated Harlan Bowers, senior vp and director for the Dow mission.
“We see that as a bonus,” Bowers stated, “however it does pose some further challenges for the regulator, as a result of most fuels aren’t transferring, so there are some statistical points to calculating reactivity inside that core. Meaning there are new methods that the NRC must use to judge our security case and in the end approve our design.”
