Joint study validates SMR use for chemical plants

The study, funded through the US Department of Energy's Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) initiative, saw a composite engineering team drawn from NuScale and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) use actual chemical plant conditions and historical data to perform a techno-economic assessment (TEA) of nuclear and natural gas as energy sources in a number of steam and power configurations. It followed on from an earlier study, carried out in 2020, in which ORNL evaluated the feasibility of using advanced SMRs, including NuScale's 50 MWe reactor design, to supply energy to the Eastman Chemical Plant.

The new study focuses on NuScale's uprated 77 MWe design - approved by US regulators in May 2025 - with the introduction of a high-temperature, high-pressure, steam heat-augmentation system, revised capital costs, a 10-day refuelling outage time, reduced plant staffing, higher capacity factors, and a site boundary Emergency Planning Zone methodology.

The uprated NuScale Power Module design and the steam heat-augmentation capabilities incorporated in the new analysis produced "significantly more positive results" compared with those in the 2020 report, specifically finding that "NuScale with steam heat-augmentation can meet the industrial steam and power requirements of a large chemical plant and provide spare capacity in a reliable, cost-efficient and flexible manner".

Modelling results showed a 12-module scalable NuScale plant provides the configuration with greatest profitability, availability, and flexibility, although a minimum of four modules, combined with boilers, could meet all the needs of the chemical plant.

The study showed that the NuScale integrated energy system could meet the chemical plant requirements of 1.3 million kg/h of process steam, at 400^oC, and 4.1 MPa, while also providing 73 MW of electric power. Excess power generated could be exported to the grid for increased profitability.

"As the first and only SMR to have our designs certified by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NuScale continues to lead in the development of new technologies to provide process heat and electricity," NuScale co-founder and Chief Technology Officer José Reyes said. "As we saw in the results of this assessment, delivering high-temperature steam with NuScale's scalable architecture provides industrial users with unparalleled flexibility that can be integrated into their processes and offers a promising new path for them to explore."

The NuScale Power Module is a pressurised water reactor with all the components for steam generation and heat exchange incorporated into a single 77 MWe unit, using standard light water reactor fuel. A 12-module plant can generate up to 924 MWe of electricity.

The technical report, Assessment of NuScale SMR Steam Heat Augmentation for Chemical Plant Decarbonization, can be downloaded from the US Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information.