Industry decarbonization moves ahead with Dow Chemical / X-energy partnership

Dow Chemical has signed a development agreement with X-energy Reactor Company to build its DOE-funded demonstration 4-pack Xe-100 advanced nuclear plant at a Dow Chemical Gulf Coast site. Dow's very strategic move makes it one of the first industrials to acknowledge that decarbonization will not be possible without advanced nuclear energy.

This is a key watershed moment, marking the imminent arrival of an entirely new category of clean energy power plants that are entering the market with an ability to provide both carbon-free electricity and clean, high-temperature steam for industrial purposes. Dow's interest reflects the likely appetite among large industrials for clean energy alternatives in their very hard-to-decarbonize sector and the appeal of having the DOE as a funding partner in the development of a first-of-a-kind plant.

Nuclear power has been serving the electricity needs of grid-scale utilities for six and a half decades. But until now, it has not been able to compete in the industrial process heat market. Now, X-energy and a number of other advanced nuclear ventures are designing more functional and flexible power plants that generate extra high-temperature stream. This steam can be piped directly to an industrial processing area which needs high-temperature heat for chemical processing or it can be converted into electrons with a turbine and generator to provide electricity.

Accordingly, for a company like Dow Chemical and hundreds of other industrial companies producing steel, ammonia, hydrogen, hydrocarbons or doing desalination, the Xe-100 provides a very compelling energy choice, as it can provide a lot of reliable, flexible power with stable pricing that can also feed electrons into the grid, when grid prices are high.

X-energy was one of two awardees of the DOE's Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (the other awardee being TerraPower), entitling it to an initial grant of $80 million towards the demonstration of its Xe-100 power plant, consisting of four 80 MWe/200 Mwth reactors and a fuel fabrication facility within seven years (by 2028). The ARDP received an additional $2.5 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for the demonstrations of two advanced reactor technologies, which will build on the initial $160 million received from the Office of Nuclear Energy prior to OCED’s creation.

X-energy initially planned to build is X-100 up in Washington state, in a partnership with and at a site hosted by Energy Northwest. Since receiving the award, X-energy has completed the engineering and basic design of its reactor and its fuel fabrication facility and is preparing to submit an application with the NRC, which has not yet happened. Meanwhile, the company has also agreed to go public via a merger with the Ares SPAC later this spring and these have likely helped give Dow Chemical the confidence to make an offer to partner with X-energy. If that isn't enough, the company just announced plans to open its first support center, to service its initial deployments of its Xe-100 plants.

Learn more at Power, X-energy and Dow Will Deploy a 320-MWe Xe-100 Nuclear Facility at Gulf Coast Site, by Sonal Patel, Mar 1, 2023. See Bloomberg for "Ares SPAC is Merging with Nuclear Energy Firm X-Energy, Dec. 6, 2022. Read more about the X-Energy Plant Support Center at X-energy: X-energy to Open First Plant Support Center for Xe-100 Advanced Small Modular Reactor Fleet, March 7, 2023. More about the DOE's ARDP Awards.

Published by Nucleation Capital in Advanced Nuclear, Capital reallocation, Carbon emissions, Climate policy, Future of Energy, History Timeline, History-making, LINKS, Nuclear competitiveness, Nuclear financing, Nuclear-inclusive energy policy, Politicians supporting nuclear, Solving climate, Zero emission energy

March 28, 2022

Katy Huff

Dr. Kathryn D. Huff serves as the Acting Assistant Secretary and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Nuclear Energy. Prior to her current role, she was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she led the Advanced Reactors and Fuel Cycles Research Group. She was also a Blue Waters Assistant Professor with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.

Before joining the Department of Energy, Dr. Huff was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she led the Advanced Reactors and Fuel Cycles Research Group and taught reactor theory and the future of energy. She was also a Blue Waters Assistant Professor with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. She was previously a Postdoctoral Fellow in both the Nuclear Science and Security Consortium and the Berkeley Institute for Data Science at the University of California - Berkeley.

Dr. Huff received her Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2013 and her undergraduate degree in Physics from the University of Chicago. Her research focused on modeling and simulation of advanced nuclear reactors and fuel cycles.

She is an active member of the American Nuclear Society, Chair of the Nuclear Nonproliferation and Policy Division, a past chair of the Fuel Cycle and Waste Management Division, and recipient of both the Young Member Excellence and Mary Jane Oestmann Professional Women's Achievement awards. Through leadership within Software Carpentry, SciPy, the Hacker Within, and the Journal of Open Source Software, she also advocates for best practices in open, reproducible scientific computing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnsOPodptHQ&t=86s

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Sources:

University of Illinois Alumni: In Class Power Source: Nuclear engineer Katy Huff on teaching with IPythons, reactor theory and the future of energy
DOE Office of Nuclear Energy: Dr. Kathryn Huff, Senior Advisor, Office of the Secretary.

Published by editor in Brilliant thinkers, History-making, Nuclear R&D, Women in Nuclear, WOMEN IN NUCLEAR GRID

March 1, 2022

Rita Baranwal

Dr. Rita Baranwal is the Chief Nuclear Officer at Radiant, a Nucleation portfolio company that pioneers the world’s first mass-produced portable nuclear microreactor. She brings decades of leadership in nuclear innovation, policy, and engineering.

Dr. Rita Baranwal was nominated by the President to serve as the Assistant Secretary for the Office of Nuclear Energy (ONE) and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on June 20, 2019 (by a vote of 86 to 5), becoming the first woman to ever lead the Office of Nuclear Energy.

In that role, Dr. Baranwal directed programs to promote research and development (R&D) on existing and advanced nuclear technologies that sustain the existing U.S. fleet of nuclear reactors, enable the deployment of advanced nuclear energy systems, support nuclear technology for space and defense applications, and enhance the U.S.A.'s global commercial nuclear energy competitiveness. She also:

Launched innovative programs to demonstrate advanced nuclear reactor designs, launched a new U.S. reactor innovation center, and a unique private-public partnership to develop new U.S. nuclear testing capabilities
Collaborated with U.S. intergovernmental agencies (e.g. Departments of State, Commerce, and Treasury, National Security Council, Office of Science & Technology Policy, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Development Finance Corporation) to globally deploy new U.S. civil nuclear technology.
Implemented civil nuclear agreements with two countries; initiated civil nuclear agreement discussions with eleven countries.
Partnered with NASA on nuclear technology and expertise for space exploration. Contributed to the National Strategy for Space Nuclear Power and Propulsion, Executive Order on Reactors for Space Exploration, and DOE’s Space Strategy.
Managed Congressionally-enacted budget of $1.5B (FY20).
Served as the Equity in Energy Champion for DOE’s Office of Economic Impact and Diversity.

Following her service as the #1 at ONE, Dr. Baranwal served as the VP of Nuclear and Chief Nuclear Officer for the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) for over a year. As of 2022, Dr. Baranwal has returned to Westinghouse as the Chief Technology Officer.

Prior to her appointment to the ONE, Dr. Baranwal served as the director for the DOE's Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) since 2016, an initiative hosted at Idaho National Laboratory. GAIN is the way the U.S. Government connects industry with national laboratories to help commercialize nuclear technologies. Under her leadership, GAIN positively impacted 112 projects and companies.

Before that, Dr. Baranwal worked for Westinghouse in the nuclear fuel division, leading a number of research and development programs. She started her career at Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory helping to develop advanced nuclear fuel materials for US naval reactors.

Dr. Baranwal has a bachelor’s degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in materials science and engineering and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in the same discipline from the University of Michigan.

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Sources:

LinkedIn: Dr. Rita Baranwal
NayaFace: Rita Baranwal sworn in as 1st woman US Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy at DOE, July 25, 2019.

Published by editor in Brilliant thinkers, History-making, Nuclear R&D, Venture capital support for nuclear, Women in Nuclear, WOMEN IN NUCLEAR GRID