X-Energy has awarded Clark Construction Group a $48.2-million contract for the building phase of its advanced nuclear fuel fabrication facility, TX-1, in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
The contract award, encompassing Phase 2A of the facility construction, will include the completion of the core and shell of the 214,812 square foot facility, according to X-Energy’s Tuesday press release. No nuclear equipment will be installed during this phase, an X-Energy spokesperson added.
Phase 2A is expected to begin in September, following the completion of the site development work, which is managed by Geiger Brothers.
The X-Energy facilities in Oak Ridge will make tristructural-isotropic or TRISO fuel for an advanced reactor project planned for the Texas Gulf Coast.
The fuel fabrication facility TX-1 is the first of two planned facilities at X-Energy’s site at Oak Ridge that will manufacture its TRISO fuel for its first commercial deployment of Xe-100, in partnership with Dow Chemical, in Seadrift, Texas and future deployments X-Energy said.
X-Energy’s project is a part of the Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program. The company will also receive approval from the DOE to use an additional $30 million to pre-purchase important equipment and materials.
The additional money was approved to aid in successful construction phases and keep the program on schedule, according to the press release.
X-Energy said the construction contract milestone is significant as TX-1 will be the first Category 2 Fuel Fabrication Facility licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The company anticipates regulatory approval by May 2026 and to be in production by December 2027. A Category 2 fuel fabrication facility is a facility licensed to possess special nuclear material of moderate strategic significance, according to the NRC. These facilities include high-assay low-enriched fuel cycle plants.
TX-1 is expected to have an output of 5 metric tons of uranium or 700,000 TRISO pebbles per year, which would be enough to fuel up to 11 Xe-100 reactors, X-Energy said.
In November 2024, X-Energy announced it is also working to deploy a nuclear plant in Washington state with Energy Northwest in collaboration with Amazon. The project is part of a larger strategy with Amazon to bring more than 5,000 megawatts or 5 gigawatts of new energy online by 2039, according to the press release.
