A week after becoming a public company, Standard Nuclear said July 22 that construction is nearly finished on two of its new nuclear fuel facilities in Idaho and Tennessee.
SN-TN in Tennessee and SN-ID in Idaho are two identical fuel facilities, which once operational, should produce up to one metric ton of uranium of tri-structural isotropic – or TRISO fuel, Standard Nuclear said in a press release. Once fully scaled, the two facilities could collectively produce up to five metric tons of uranium annually.
Standard Energy, which which is part of the Department of Energy’s nuclear fuel line pilot program, said DOE approved the preliminary documented safety analyses for its two fuel facilities. When the facilities are fully authorized by DOE, the company said it will operate the fuel lines as Hazard Category 2 nuclear facilities. Under DOE regulations, Hazard Category 2 nuclear facilities contain sufficient amounts of radioactive hazardous materials that would require on-site emergency planning, according to a DOE Federal Register document.
“This comprehensive milestone represents the core of our mission at Standard Nuclear: focused execution to scale quickly to meet the increasing customer demand for advanced nuclear fuel,” Standard Nuclear CEO Kurt Terrani said in the release.
Terrani continued,“Our ability to deploy additional production lines rests on the maturity of our modular manufacturing framework, allowing replication of safe and proven systems that allows us to scale quickly, reducing time-to-market while maintaining a lean capital footprint.”
The company said it will continue with commissioning and licensing activities for its two fuel facilities over the summer. Standard Nuclear currently operates an existing TRISO fuel facility, SN-0, in Oak Ridge, Tenn. that produces 0.5 metric tons of uranium annually.