The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Friday approved its first licenses for new nuclear fuel facilities in over half a century, including its first-ever factory for the specialized fuel used by many next-generation nuclear power reactors.
TRISO-X, a subsidiary of Maryland startup X-energy, got the licenses for two of its facilities in Tennessee. The “TRISO” fuel they plan to make is known by the Energy Department as the “most robust nuclear fuel on Earth” and is needed for many of the extremely high temperature next-generation reactors being developed by nuclear companies.
“Commercial-scale production of this fuel is key to enabling the deployment of advanced reactor designs,” NRC Chair Ho Nieh said in a statement. “This license represents an important milestone that supports the Department of Energy’s program to accelerate deployment of nuclear technologies and deliver more power to the grid.”
The announcement comes as the Trump administration has called for a “wholesale revision” of the independent NRC to speed the rollout of new reactors. The White House hopes to quadruple nuclear power capacity over the next 25 years in a bid to power energy-intensive data centers, which it considers a national security priority for supporting artificial intelligence models.
