X-energy is developing small modular reactors to satisfy some of the planet’s most power-hungry users: industrial manufacturers that need high temperatures to produce billions of tons of concrete, plastics, fibers, and chemicals.

Solar panels and wind turbines are great at producing electricity but what heavy industry also needs is raw heat—and lots of it. The manufacture of concrete, glass, and steel, as well as the production of many chemicals, plastics, and fertilizers, are still highly reliant on fossil fuels to produce that heat. 

Traditional nuclear reactors simply don’t get hot enough. The cooling systems they use require liquid water to work, and even applying pressure to raise the water’s boiling point leaves their maximum operating temperatures hundreds of degrees cooler than needed. 

X-energy’s proposed Xe-100 reactor will use helium gas as a coolant instead, allowing it to operate at much lower pressures and higher temperatures. The helium will heat water and create super-heated steam, which industry can use either directly or to generate 80 megawatts (MW) of electricity via a turbine, or a combination of the two. That’s about one-tenth of the capacity of most reactors operating today.

In common with other small modular reactors (SMRs), the Xe-100 will use a modern uranium-based fuel called TRISO (short for tristructural-isotropic) that is extremely resistant to corrosion and melting. Compact TRISO “pebbles” will be added continuously to the top of the reactor, then flow slowly to the bottom, where they will either be recycled or removed as waste. The company says the reactor will be intrinsically safe in the event of a loss of power—if temperatures inside rise, the nuclear reaction naturally slows and stops.

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