Dow and X-energy have announced the selection of Dow’s UCC Seadrift Operations manufacturing site in Texas for its proposed advanced small modular reactor nuclear project.
The project is expected to provide the Seadrift Site with safe, reliable, zero-carbon-emissions power and steam as existing energy and steam assets near their end-of-life. The project is expected to reduce the Seadrift Site’s emissions by approximately 440,000 MT CO2e/year. Dow and X-energy will now prepare and submit Construction Permit applications to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (“NRC”), an important milestone to bringing the project to fruition. Construction on the four-reactor project is expected to begin in 2026 and to be completed by the end of this decade.
Dow’s Seadrift Site covers 4,700 acres and manufactures more than 4 million pounds of materials per year used across a wide variety of applications including food packaging and preservation, footwear, wire and cable insulation, solar cell membranes, and packaging for medical and pharmaceutical products.
In March 2023, Dow and X-energy previously announced their entry into a joint development agreement to install an SMR nuclear plant at an industrial site in North America. The U.S. Department of Energy named Dow a subawardee under X-energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program Cooperative Agreement. The JDA provides for up to $50 million in engineering work, up to half of which is eligible to be funded through ARDP, and the other half by Dow.
“Dow is driving the adoption of technologies essential to decarbonizing hard-to-abate industrial applications to offer low carbon products to our customers. This advanced nuclear project builds upon Dow’s previous success in reducing the carbon emissions intensity of our manufacturing fleet and advances our path toward carbon neutrality by 2050.”
“X-energy will deliver our innovative technology to the Texas Gulf Coast to efficiently and reliably decarbonize the Seadrift Site’s heat and power assets. We will showcase the unique versatility and wide range of applications of the Xe-100 advanced small modular nuclear reactor for energy production and manufacturing.”
PROJECT TIMELINE
Source X Energy News
