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To secure federal funding, developers must navigate various financing and investment options related to grid resiliency and modernization, transmission deployment, and critical electric generation facilities. Responding to funding demands, however, […]
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The post Interest in DOE’s Versatile Test Reactor Heats Up appeared first on POWER Magazine.
GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) and TerraPower are jointly pursuing an opportunity to design and build the U.S. Department of Energy’s Versatile Test Reactor (VTR), an experimental fast neutron nuclear reactor that could start up by 2026.
The companies on Jan. 21 announced they collaborated on a response to an expression of interest (EOI) issued by Battelle Energy Alliance (BEA) in November 2019, to gauge stakeholder interest in forming a cost-sharing partnership arrangement to design and and construct the VTR. BEA, which is the day-to-day contractor for Idaho National Laboratory (INL), where the reactor will be likely sited, said the scope of the partnership could include “development and deployment of the VTR, other uses of VTR capabilities beyond just advanced reactor design and licensing, reducing the cost and schedule risk of new nuclear plant design and construction, and other compatible uses of VTR capabilities.”
GEH and TerraPower will be backed by Energy Northwest, a utility that operates the Columbia nuclear reactor in Washington State and has the option to operate 12 NuScale small modular reactor (SMR) modules that are planned for construction at INL by Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS).…
Battelle Energy Alliance—the management and operating contractor for the Idaho National Laboratory (INL)—selected GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy’s (GEH’s) PRISM technology to support the U.S. Department of Energy’s Versatile Test Reactor (VTR) program.
The VTR program is expected to accelerate the development of fuels and materials for U.S. advanced reactors, utilizing fast neutron spectrum technology. Rather than producing electricity, the VTR will conduct irradiation testing for fuels, materials, and equipment to be used in rapidly evolving designs for advanced reactors brought forward by U.S. companies, as well as public and private research institutions.
In October, the INL awarded nearly $ 3.9 million in funding through the VTR program for 13 university-led projects to develop instrumentation and tools needed to monitor and conduct experiments in the fast spectrum reactor.
The university-led projects selected for funding were:
| University of Pittsburgh | Disruptive Nuclear Technology: Resonance Sensors and Inductive Signal Transmission through Hermetic Walls | $ 450,000 |
| University of Wisconsin – Madison | Miniature Scale Liquid Metal Oxygen Purification and Measurement System | $ 350,000 |
| University of Utah | Development of Experiment Vehicle for Analyzing the Chemistry of Irradiated Molten Salt | $ 450,400 |
| Texas A&M University | Development of Innovative Measurement Techniques for Fission Product Transport Quantification | $ 250,000 |
| Oregon State University | In Situ Mechanical and Corrosion Testing | $ 440,000 |
| University of New Mexico | Preparatory Out-of-pile Lead Loop Experiments to Support Design of Irradiation Test Loop in VTR | $ 450,000 |
| North Carolina State University | VIM for VTR: Holistic Approach to Design and Construction | $ 319,000 |
| Texas A&M University | Rabbit System Design and Demonstration | $ 400,000 |
| Abilene Christian University | Investigation of Instrumentation, Data Analytics, and Simulation Synergies for the Versatile Test Reactor | $ 150,000 |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Advanced Data Acquisition and Simulation with Live Data Supporting VTR Experiments | $ 150,000 |
| University of Idaho | Advanced Molten Salt Flow Sensor | $ 100,000 |
| Colorado School of Mines | Big, Deep, and Smart Data to Support VTR Experiment Design and Validation | $ 169,000 |
| Georgia Tech | IBD Power Monitor for the VTR Experimental Program | $ 196,000 |
“The VTR is a vital and strategic project for the U.S.…
The Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) first loan guarantee under an $ 8 billion solicitation for advanced fossil energy projects may go to a methanol production facility in Lake Charles, La., that will employ carbon capture technology for enhanced oil recovery.
The DOE said in a statement on December 21 that it offered a conditional commitment to guarantee loans of up to $ 2 billion to help build the facility. If built, the facility will be the world’s first methanol production facility to use carbon capture technology. It would also be the first facility in the U.S. to derive methanol from petroleum coke (petcoke), which is a byproduct of oil refining.
The proposed plant will produce methanol, hydrogen, and other industrial gases and chemical products using petcoke as a feedstock. It proposes to capture 77% of carbon dioxide from the petcoke gasification plant. The gas will then be compressed and transported to oilfields in Texas for enhanced oil recovery.
The DOE’s solicitation issued in December 2013 under Title XVII of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 sought applications for loan guarantees to finance U.S.…