U.S.-based NuScale Power, which is developing small modular reactors for commercial and industrial use, said Thursday that the National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) in Britain had confirmed that its SMR design could operate with mixed uranium-plutonium oxide fuel (MOX).
The NNL “confirmed that MOX could be used in the NuScale core with minimal effect on the reactor's design and operation. The stud also demonstrated that a 12-module NuScale plant with 100 percent MOX cores could consume a 100 metric-ton stockpile of discharged plutonium in roughly 40 years, during which time it would generate approximately 200 million megawatt-hours of carbon free electricity,” the company said in a release.
With the study, NuScale asserts that its SMR design is viable with either MOX fuel or conventional light-water reactor fuel.
MOX fuel for civil nuclear reactors is already in operation in France, Japan, Belgium, Switzerland and Germany. It has been employed in 43 reactors worldwide over a span of more than 40 years, according to AREVA, which signed a contract last month to provide NuScale with fuel assemblies and assorted fuel-related services.
NuScale Chief Executive Officer John Hopkins called the UK study “an important step in the continued development of additional flexibility of the NuScale Power Module to operate various fuel forms.”
NuScale has said it is possible it could have a SMR in service in Britain by 2025 once the technology meets with regulatory approval in both the United States and Britain. Currently, the first SMR unit expected to be operational is slated for a site in Idaho, which could have a unit operational by 2023, according to a World Nuclear Association report.