GE-HItachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) and Southern Nuclear Energy will collaborate to study the development and licensing of GEH’s PRISM sodium-cooled fast reactor design.

Southern Nuclear Development, a subsidiary of Southern Co. company Southern Nuclear Operating Co. signed a memorandum of understanding to study the high-energy neutron reactor design, as well as to work together toward participating in future U.S. Department of Energy advanced reactor licensing projects.

The companies said in a joint press release on October 31 that the PRISM design has benefited from the operating experience of EBR-II. Developed under the U.S. Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) program, the EBR-II was a 62-MWe prototype that began operations in 1961 at a Argonne National Laboratory site in Idaho Falls, Idaho, and operated for more than 30 years. The prototype was used for testing materials and design concepts and later used to generate power for other site facilities.

The reactor was shut down in 1994. In mid-2015, crews completed work to entomb the reactor, removing and treating the last of the sodium coolant from the reactor’s nine heat exchangers.…

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