The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff this week recommended NRC issue a construction permit allowing the Tennessee Valley Authority to build a small modular reactor (SMR) at the Clinch River site in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
In the final supplemental environmental impact statement, published Monday in the Federal Register, NRC staff recommended issuing the permit to TVA, barring any safety issues. No “environmentally preferable” alternative was identified, the staff added.
NRC staff approved the construction application after consulting with federal, state, tribal and local agencies and considering public comments. The draft supplemental environmental impact statement was released in November 2025.
According to NRC’s website, there is no expected date yet for the Commission to make a decision on construction permit.
TVA filed for a construction permit with NRC in May 2025, proposing to build a GE Hitachi Vernova BWRX-300 SMR near the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site. The BWRX-300 SMR uses boiling water reactor technology capable of producing 300 megawatts of electricity.
In 2022, TVA partnered with GE Hitachi to support TVA’s planning and early licensing for a potential deployment of a BWRX-300 SMR at its Clinch River site. By 2023, TVA, Ontario Power Generation (OPG) and Synthos Green Energy entered into an international agreement to advance the deployment of BWRX-300 technology.
The Clinch River SMR project is also receiving $400 million funding from the Department of Energy. TVA and Holtec International split the $800 million award in December 2025 to support the Donald Trump administration’s goal of having SMRs deployed by the 2030s.
The Clinch River Nuclear Site is approximately 1,200 acres of land located on the northern bank of the Clinch River arm of the Watts Bar Reservoir in Oak Ridge. The site was previously selected to site the Clinch River Breeder Reactor project, but that project was canceled in the 1980s due to cost projections.
The breeder reactor project also brought up concerns about nuclear proliferation as the demonstration liquid metal fast breeder reactor was designed to produce plutonium, which is typically used for nuclear weapons.