General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems has completed the conceptual design of its helium gas-cooled fast reactor, the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy announced Nov. 25.
In DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy press release, the agency said that the San Diego-based nuclear company General Atomics demonstrated the feasibility of its reactor design through different modeling and lab-scale simulations. The tests were done to verify the performances of pivotal safety features, fuel and operations.
The completed work also included the fabrication of sample fuel rods that match the design intended for General Atomics’s reactor, the DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy added. Prototypes of the reactor’s fuel rods are undergoing irradiation testing at DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory.
General Atomics intends to have the reactor technology ready for potential demonstration in the 2030s, according to the release.
With the conceptual design completed, General Atomics will move forward to the maturation and preliminary design phase. The company has also submitted its principal design criteria and quality assurance plan description licensing documents to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
NRC has docketed several pre-applications documents that will be used as references for future formal license applications, DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy said.
General Atomics is developing a gas-cooled reactor that can generate 44 megawatts of electricity on a plot of land as small as 0.2 acres, according to the release. The company’s work is supported by DOE through an Advanced Reactor Concepts 2020 award, which is part of the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP).The company is one of three early-stage concept projects under DOE’s ARDP.