Grant to support expansion of TRISO-X nuclear fuel campus

The funding was awarded through the State of Tennessee's Nuclear Energy Supply Chain Investment Fund, established by Governor Bill Lee in 2023 to support nuclear investment, workforce development, and site development to expand Tennessee's nuclear manufacturing ecosystem. The expansion is expected to be built at the Oak Ridge Horizon Center adjacent to TRISO-X's first commercial-scale fuel fabrication facility currently being constructed and developed in partnership with the US Department of Energy.

Together, the three facilities are designed to establish domestic, commercial-scale manufacturing and research capabilities for TRISO-X fuel, the company's proprietary tristructural isotropic - or TRISO - fuel for advanced nuclear reactors. The TX-1 plant is expected to be the first purpose-built commercial TRISO fuel fabrication facility in the USA, currently under construction, and designed to establish domestic production of TRISO-X fuel. A second, larger fuel fabrication facility, TX-2, is anticipated to significantly expand capacity, with enhanced automation and production efficiency based on TX-1 operational experience, expected to create more than 1,000 permanent jobs. A dedicated fuel fabrication laboratory facility, TX-L, will focus on fuel innovation, testing, and continuous improvement of TRISO manufacturing processes.

X-energy said TX-1, TX-2, and TX-L are the product of nearly a decade of fuel development and qualification by X-energy and TRISO-X, beginning in 2016 with a pilot facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory to optimise established TRISO manufacturing processes for commercial scale production. In 2025, TRISO-X fuel became the first advanced nuclear fuel form fabricated for commercial use to undergo irradiation testing at Idaho National Laboratory's Advanced Test Reactor, with testing ongoing to qualify TRISO-X fuel for use in the Xe-100 and expand the performance envelope for TRISO fuels.

"When completed, the campus is expected to establish one of the world's largest commercial-scale nuclear fuel fabrication campuses, with the capacity to produce enough TRISO-X fuel to support approximately 55 of X-energy's Xe-100 advanced small modular reactors," X-energy said. "That represents nearly 4.5 gigawatts of new advanced nuclear power capacity, or enough to power 3.3 million US households."

"This is an important step in building a world-class nuclear fuel campus capable of powering next-generation nuclear," said TRISO-X President Joel Duling. "Oak Ridge stands as a cornerstone of nuclear innovation, and we are proud to carry its legacy forward with the continued support of the State of Tennessee."

Construction of the first facility, TX-1, began at the Oak Ridge Horizon Center last November. The plant is expected to be the first facility in the USA to exclusively manufacture fuel for advanced small modular reactors and will fabricate X-energy's proprietary TRISO fuel for the first proposed deployment of the Xe-100 in partnership with Dow Inc at Dow's Seadrift site on the Texas Gulf Coast, and future Xe-100 deployments.

In February, TRISO-X received a 40-year Special Nuclear Material Licence from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, enabling TRISO-X to commercially manufacture fuel using high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) covering both TX-1 and TX-2 under a single licence.

TRISO fuel is composed of small spheres of enriched uranium that are coated with multiple layers of carbon and ceramic materials, forming a robust shell that can withstand high temperatures. HALEU contains between 5% and 20% of fissile uranium-235 - a higher enrichment than that found in typical uranium fuel used in today's operating commercial reactors, which contains between 3.5% and 5% U-235.