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Centrus Energy And Clean Core Thorium Energy Advance To Next-Generation Nuclear Fuel - ANEEL

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Nuclear fuel supplier Centrus Energy Corporation and new innovative nuclear fuel designer Clean Core Thorium Energy have been working together under a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed earlier this year to promote an advanced nuclear fuel.

The fuel combines thorium (Th) with High-Assay, Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU) and is called Advanced Nuclear Energy for Enriched Life, or ANEEL.

Today Daniel B. Poneman, Centrus President and CEO, congratulated Clean Core and Texas A&M on successfully fabricating the first sample pellets of this next-generation nuclear fuel. The key component, the HALEU, will be produced by Centrus.

This is crucial since America has not had a commercial supply of HALEU. The nuclear industry has been focusing on new reactor designs to address a variety of issues like climate change, backing up renewables, and replacing fossil fuels with a reliable baseload alternative, and HALEU is critical for their operation. 

Many factors seem to be falling into place for new reactors and new fuels. Just yesterday, the Department of Energy issued a press release on its plans to create a new program that will ensure the availability of high-assay-low-enriched uranium fuel in the United States. 

The establishment of a HALEU Availability Program is essential to the demonstration and commercial deployment of advanced reactors, including two demonstration projects that will receive $2.5 billion in funding through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to help support the nation’s bold climate, national security, and job creation goals.

“I am pleased that the Department of Energy is moving ahead with this announcement that will lead to a domestic supply of high-assay low enriched uranium in the United States,” said U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “I have long supported the commercialization of advanced nuclear technologies as a zero-emission source of baseload energy, and I am committed to funding the Advanced Nuclear Fuel program as authorized in the Energy Act of 2020 to prevent reliance on Russia or other foreign suppliers to fuel the next generation of nuclear power.”

The advanced HALEU-Thorium ANEEL fuel, in particular, is suitable for existing and new CANDU and other Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs). ANEEL can reduce the amount of waste produced in CANDUs/PHWRs by more than 80%, minimizing waste management costs and safety concerns, while offering nonproliferation benefits.

“Working with Centrus Energy to promote our ANEEL advanced nuclear fuel will help bring clean, reliable power within reach for emerging countries that need it. Our innovative technology using thorium and HALEU offers tremendous cost savings, safety, and nonproliferation benefits for CANDU/PHWR-type nuclear power plants,” said Mehul Shah, CEO of Clean Core Thorium Energy.

ANEEL is a proprietary combination of Th and HALEU, with much less U-238 than ordinary fuel, less than 20% compared to over 94% used in LWRs. HALEU itself is enriched to between 5% and 20% U-235. The bulk of the fuel is a Th matrix with U-235 in the HALEU as a fissile driver, providing sufficient neutrons for continued fissioning.

Th-232 captures a neutron and converts to U-233 which is also fissile and begins providing more neutrons and more power. At the same time, U-238 captures a neutron, converting to Pu-239 which also fissions, almost as fast as it’s created. 

With all this fissioning going on, the burn-up rate in the ANEEL fuel is high, providing more power in the reactor from the same amount of fuel. In fact, ANEEL’s burn-up rate of over 50 GWd/t, is so much more than the 7 GWd/t rate of CANDU/PHWRs current natural uranium fuel, that the reactor only needs about seventh of the amount of fuel over its life, translating into significant savings and benefits in operations, fuel and waste management costs.

ANEEL fuel is designed to be proliferation resistant throughout its life cycle by higher burn-up rates that cause deep burning of Pu quickly. That also increases the amount of Pu-240 and Pu-242 that breeds into the fuel, which are neutron poisons to the uncontrolled chain reactions needed for a nuclear weapon. This makes the spent ANEEL fuel prohibitively difficult to make into a weapon.

Finally, CANDUs/PHWRs have an issue from using natural uranium in that they can have a positive coolant void reactivity (CVR) affecting the safety of the reactor. But using ANEEL fuel lowers the CVR resulting in improved safety while producing more energy.

According to the World Nuclear Association, there are 48 CANDUs/PHWRs in operation worldwide, with a combined electric generating capacity of 24 million kilowatts. The largest fleet of such reactors is in Canada, where 19 CANDU PHWRs with a capacity of nearly 14 million kilowatts supply 15 percent of the country’s electricity. Since these reactors currently operate on unenriched natural uranium, they would potentially represent a new market for Centrus as well as Clean Core Thorium Energy.

“Producing the first ANEEL test pellets is an important step forward in the development of this new, advanced nuclear fuel,” said Poneman. “With a large fleet of PHWR reactors already operating in Canada and elsewhere, ANEEL could both accelerate and expand early demand for HALEU in the next few years. We value our partnership with Clean Core to support the commercialization of ANEEL and look forward to the opportunity to become their long-term HALEU supplier.” 

Clean Core plans to commercialize the fuel by late 2024. Texas A&M University’s Nuclear Engineering and Science Center successfully fabricated the ANEEL fuel samples under quality requirements and supervision of INL.

Under the MOU signed earlier this year, Clean Core and Centrus are collaborating to promote the use of ANEEL advanced nuclear fuel in CANDU reactors around the world, together with other PHWRs. While the initial test pellets being fabricated by Texas A&M are using a small quantity of HALEU supplied by INL, Clean Core Thorium Energy plans to use HALEU from Centrus for commercial-scale production of ANEEL fuel. 

Under a three-year contract signed with the U.S. Department of Energy in 2019, Centrus is constructing the first NRC-licensed HALEU production line in Piketon, Ohio. Centrus has met every contract milestone to date and is continuing its work under the contract.

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