BWXT employee Chris Glass oversees production of TRISO nuclear fuel at BWXT’s Lynchburg factory. BWXT owns the only private, licensed facilities in the U.S. capable of producing the fuel. Photo courtesy of BWXT.
Lynchburg-based BWX Technologies Inc. has begun producing the nuclear fuel that will power the first microreactor built and operated in the United States, the company announced Wednesday.
BWXT will manufacture a nuclear core for Project Pele under a $37 million award from the Idaho National Laboratory, as well as tristructural isotropic particle fuel, known as TRISO, for additional reactors and coated particle fuel for NASA.
The Department of Energy calls TRISO “the most robust nuclear fuel on earth.” Its small, energy-dense coated uranium particles withstand high temperatures and enable smaller, more advanced reactor designs.