The Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station and nuclear startup company ZettaJoule have signed an agreement to explore constructing a gas research reactor at College Station, Texas.
Founded in 2023, ZettaJoule is a small modular reactor developer headquartered in Houston, Texas. The company also has offices in Japan.
ZettaJoule will construct its research reactor, ZJ0, adjacent to Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station Nuclear Engineering and Science Center. The new reactor will be owned by Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station, a state research agency that is a part of the Texas A&M University System, according to the university’s Feb. 26 press release.
The high-temperature gas-cooled reactor will provide process-heat at temperatures up to 1,742 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the release.
ZettaJoule’s reactor technology is based on decades of the operations of Japan’s High Temperature Engineering Test Reactor. The test reactor is the first and only high-temperature gas reactor in Japan. It reached criticality in 1998 and shut down in 2011 after the Fukushima accident.
The project could attract up to $1 billion in research funding over the next decade, Texas A&M said in the release. With the reactor’s temperature being high enough for synthetic fuels, desalination and data centers, the ZJ0 could unlock new applied research pathways for industry, it added.
The two entities also said that the research reactor could potentially attract research money from government agencies such as National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Department of Energy.