Application lodged for construction of Texas SMR plant

Monday, 31 March 2025

Dow's proposed advanced small modular reactor (SMR) project - announced in May 2023 - is being developed by its wholly-owned subsidiary, Long Mott Energy LLC. The project is focused on providing Dow's Union Carbide Corporation Seadrift Operations manufacturing site with safe, reliable, and clean power and industrial steam replacing existing energy and steam assets that are near end-of-life. The project is supported by the US Department of Energy's (DOE's) Advanced Reactor Demonstration Programme, which is designed to accelerate the deployment of advanced reactors through cost-shared partnerships with US industry.

Since 2018, X-energy, and subsequently Dow, have worked with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) through extensive pre-application engagements to demonstrate the safety profile of the Xe-100 advanced SMR through its advanced fuel design, passive safety features, and state-of-the-art analysis techniques. 

"This has culminated in a comprehensive application submittal that exceeds NRC regulations for the protection of public health and safety, as well as the environment, with substantial safety features," the partners said in a joint statement.

Once the permit is received - which could take up to 30 months - and upon Dow confirming the ability to deliver the project while achieving its financial return targets, construction could begin, they said.

"This is an important next step in expanding access to safe, clean, reliable, cost-competitive nuclear energy in the US," said Edward Stones, business vice president, Energy and Climate, Dow. "We look forward to engaging with the NRC, DOE, our business partners and the community throughout the application process."

"The construction permit application is a critical step to deliver on the vision of Congress and DOE to position the US at the forefront of commercialising advanced reactor technology," said X-energy CEO Clay Sell. "Together with our world-class partner, Dow, we will demonstrate how the technology deployed at Seadrift, Texas, can be quickly and efficiently replicated to meet incredible power demand growth across America."

Once complete, Long Mott Generating Station is expected to be the first grid-scale advanced nuclear reactor deployed to serve an industrial site in North America.

Each Xe-100 high-temperature gas reactor is engineered to operate as a single 80 MW electric unit, optimised as a four-unit plant delivering 320 MWe, on a roughly 30-acre site. The reactor can provide baseload power to an electricity system or support industrial applications with 200 MW thermal output per unit of high-pressure, high-temperature steam.

According to Dow, its Seadrift site covers 4700 acres and manufactures more than 4,000,000 pounds (1816 tonnes) of materials per year for use in applications such as food packaging, footwear, wire and cable insulation, solar cell membranes and packaging for pharmaceutical products. Around 1000 people work at the site. The companies believe that the project will reduce the Seadrift site's emissions by about 440,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year.

Dow was one of several tech giants and other major energy users that last month signed a pledge supporting the goal of at least tripling global nuclear capacity by 2050. The announcement, at CERAWeek 2025 in Houston, Texas, in the USA, of the Large Energy Users Pledge, followed earlier pledges by 31 countries, by 140 nuclear industry companies and 14 major global banks and financial institutions to support the tripling goal.

X-energy was selected by the DOE in 2020 to develop, license, and build an operational Xe-100 advanced SMR and TRISO-X fuel fabrication facility. Since that award, X-energy has completed the engineering and preliminary design of the nuclear reactor, has begun development and licensing of a fuel fabrication facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and has secured about USD1.1 billion in private capital to commercialise its technology.