Triso-X Completes TX-1 Construction and Secures Historic HALEU License

X-energy’s subsidiary, Triso-X, has reached a monumental milestone in the U.S. advanced nuclear sector by completing the vertical construction of the 214,000-square-foot TX-1 advanced nuclear fuel fabrication facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Concurrently, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) granted Triso-X a 40-year special nuclear material license for TX-1. This marks the first NRC Category 2 fuel fabrication license issued specifically for processing High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU) to produce TRISO fuel.

Unprecedented Production Capacity

Once fully operational, the TX-1 facility is expected to produce approximately 700,000 TRISO advanced nuclear fuel pebbles annually, equivalent to five tonnes of uranium. This robust production capacity is specifically tailored to meet the fuel requirements of next-generation reactors. Notably, this output is sufficient to provide HALEU-based fuel for up to 11 of X-energy’s Xe-100 small modular reactors (SMRs), establishing TX-1 as the first new commercial-scale advanced U.S. nuclear fuel fabrication facility built in decades.

The completion of TX-1 and the receipt of the NRC license are critical steps in commercializing the Xe-100 reactor and delivering reliable, high-performance fuel to the market.

Xe-100 SMR Deployment Plans

The availability of domestically produced TRISO fuel directly supports X-energy's aggressive deployment plans for its HALEU-fueled Xe-100 SMRs. Key projects include the construction of four 80-MW reactors at Dow’s UCC Seadrift Operations in Texas. Additionally, X-energy is collaborating with Amazon on the Cascade Advanced Energy Facility in Washington state, a massive 12-reactor project capable of generating 960 MW of clean, baseload power.

By securing both the physical facility and the regulatory license, X-energy is effectively removing one of the most significant bottlenecks in the advanced nuclear industry: the domestic availability of specialized HALEU fuel for SMRs.

This article was assisted by AI analysis. Please refer to the original source for official information.