A look inside a lab making the advanced fuel to power growing US nuclear energy ambitions

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OAK RIDGE, Tenn. (AP) — Near signs that warn of radioactive risk at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a half-dozen workers from the nuclear power company X-energy are making what appear to be gray billiard balls. Inside, they’re packed with thousands of tiny black spheres that each contain a speck of uranium enriched beyond what today’s power plants use.

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The United States is chasing a new age of nuclear power that banks on domestic production of reactor fuel like X-energy is making, and though the work at Oak Ridge is unfolding across just 3,000 square feet, X-energy and others are already revving up for big production.

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President Donald Trump set a goal of quadrupling domestic production of nuclear power within the next 25 years, signing executive orders in May to speed up development. A new wave of advanced nuclear reactors could be operational around 2030.

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But just like cars won’t run without gas, those plants won’t run without fuel. To expand nuclear energy long-term, the nation must maximize its nuclear fuel production, according to Trump.

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In Oak Ridge, X-energy has broken ground on a massive, nearly $2 billion campus for a new fuel fabrication facility, the first in the United States in over half a century. The nuclear fuel company Standard Nuclear, also in Oak Ridge, aims to produce metric tons of fuel for advanced reactors. A supplier named Orano is likewise looking to build a multibillion-dollar uranium enrichment facility nearby.

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“This is a unique time,” said Tyler Gerczak, Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s principal investigator for the cooperative with X-energy’s subsidiary TRISO-X. “The momentum is incredible.”

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Making the ‘most robust nuclear fuel’

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The Associated Press toured the lab where X-energy is making small amounts of fuel for testing. Anyone beyond a magenta-and-yellow chain that warns of radioactivity must wear gowns, two layers of gloves and radiation monitors. When they leave, they’re tested for radioactivity.

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X-energy, a Maryland-based company, uses uranium to make so-called TRISO fuel — inside what’s known as “pebbles.” Those are the billiard balls. The Energy Department says it’s the most robust nuclear fuel on Earth because the particles cannot melt in a reactor.

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At the lab, the first step is making a uranium cocktail that resembles dark yellow lemonade.

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Uranium powder, in the form of triuranium octoxide, gets added to nitric acid, said Dan Brown, vice president of fuel development for TRISO-X. Then carbon and an organic solution are added. They have two glass containers set up — one wears a heated jacket, looking almost like a little sweater, that helps the uranium dissolve into the acid solution. The second cools the acid solution while the carbon source is added, which turns the mix near-black, he said.

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At another station, in a long clear tube, the cocktail solidifies into small black spheres with a jellybean-like consistency. Those black balls, about the size of poppyseeds, then travel through machines under temperatures as high as 1,800 degrees Celsius to get protective carbon coatings — like candy dipping _ that make them look like very tiny BBs.