Standard Nuclear, which bills itself as a “reactor-agnostic” maker of advanced nuclear fuel, has received a shipment of High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU) feedstock at its facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn, the company said last week.
This makes Standard Nuclear the first company to get both Department of Energy authorization as well as physically receive HALEU in order to make Tri-structural Isotropic particle (TRISO) fuel, the company said in a Jan.7 news release.
The HALEU material was shipped from Lynchburg, Va., under management provided by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and its prime contractor, Consolidated Nuclear Services (CNS), which operates the Y-12 National Security Complex. Y-12 is located at DOE’s Oak Ridge Site in Eastern Tennessee.
TRISO fuel is considered vital to many next-generation nuclear reactors in various stages of research and development.
The December shipment of HALEU is enough to make a fuel core load for first reactor startup by Radiant, Standard Nuclear said in the release.
Radiant plans to build a microreactor facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn.