A plan of Dow and X-Energy Reactor Co. LLC to build a nuclear plant with four small modular reactors in Texas is advancing, as companies submitted a construction permit application to the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission on March 31. The plant, known as the Long Mott generation station, would be the first advanced nuclear installation on a grid in an industrial place in the north.
Long Mott would use four Xe-100 advanced SMR developed by X-Energy and Dow to feed the UCC Seadrift Operations Manufacturing Site of the Chemical Firm in Seadrift, Texas, with a total capacity of 800 MWTH/320 MWE. Dow produces various plastics, glycols and oxide derivatives for a total of more than 4 billion LB of material per year at the Seadrift site of 4,700 hectares.
SMRs would replace existing energy and steam assets near the end of their useful life. Its in situ use would eliminate most of the emissions in the 1 and 2 of the installation, according to X-Energy. Scope 1 emissions are the direct greenhouse gas emissions of the combustion of property fuel, while emissions in area 2 are indirect emissions associated with the purchase of electricity, steam, heat or cooling, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
Details of the Commission’s application are not yet available. A representative of the agency said that officials were still in the process of writing their protected information.
Application of the application can take up to 30 months, according to Dow. Companies have been working with the commission since 2018 on pre-choice materials to demonstrate advanced security and design of the SMR.
“This is an important step in expanding access to secure, clean, reliable and competitive nuclear energy in the United States,” said Edward Stones, Dow’s Business Vice President of Energy and Climate, in a statement.
The project time is not yet clear, as it is allowed to allow, but Dow says that construction could begin later this decade for Long Mott to start operating in the early 2030’s.
The United States Energy Department selected the XE-100 for its support by 2020 through its advanced reactor demonstration program, which aims to accelerate the development of new nuclear reactor technology. Department officials gave X-Energy effort for $ 80 million initial funding and indicated that additional matching funds would be available for seven years.
