en.Wedoany.com Reported - US small modular reactor (SMR) developer Deep Fission has announced a partnership with engineering services company Day & Zimmermann (D&Z) to jointly construct Deep Fission's Gravity reactor. Designed to be placed in a borehole one mile (1.6 km) underground, the reactor uses conventional pressurized water reactor technology and low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel, with a single-unit power generation capacity of 15 MWe. Deep Fission stated that its small footprint and high power density allow ten reactors at the same site to provide 150 MWe, or 100 reactors to generate 1.5 GWe, requiring far less land than traditional surface nuclear power plants. The passive shielding and natural containment provided by the surrounding geological conditions, combined with mature technologies from the nuclear, oil and gas, and geothermal industries, as well as off-the-shelf components and readily available low-enriched uranium fuel, aim to enhance safety and security while enabling faster and more cost-effective deployment.

Deep Fission broke ground on its pilot project in December last year at the Great Plains Industrial Park in Parsons, Kansas, and plans to build a full-scale commercial power plant at the same site after demonstrating the test reactor. In August last year, Deep Fission was selected by the U.S. Department of Energy as one of 10 companies supported by its nuclear reactor pilot program, which aims to achieve criticality for at least three designs by July 4 of this year.

Ross McConnell, Chief Nuclear Officer at D&Z, stated that Deep Fission's advanced reactor technology, combined with the company's quality programs and nuclear expertise, will turn first-of-a-kind nuclear construction into reality. D&Z claims to be one of the few companies qualified for both nuclear code work and natural gas power plant construction, which is critical for building the non-nuclear above-ground turbine generator system for the Gravity reactor. Mike Brasel, Chief Operating Officer of Deep Fission, said that the partnership with D&Z will bring proven nuclear construction expertise and execution discipline to project deployment, supporting the company's model for providing low-carbon, reliable power that is easier to build, inherently safe, and scalable. Deep Fission was founded in 2023 by the father-daughter team of Elizabeth Muller and Richard Muller, who co-founded Deep Isolation in 2016 to develop the concept of burying radioactive waste canisters hundreds of meters underground through boreholes.

Meanwhile, NX Atomics, a high-temperature small modular reactor developer headquartered in Indiana, announced a partnership with Sciaky, a division of Morphix Metals, to apply Sciaky's proprietary electron beam additive manufacturing (EBAM) process to the production of components for NX Atomics' SMR platform. Sciaky's EBAM process can produce fully dense, high-quality metal parts from a variety of alloys, including titanium, tantalum, Inconel, and stainless steel, and the technology is used by leading manufacturers in the global aerospace, defense, energy, and other industries. John Warden, CEO of NX Atomics, said: "This is what it truly looks like to bring nuclear manufacturing into the modern era. 3D printing gives us the potential to produce nuclear-grade parts faster and at lower cost, replace them during their service life when appropriate, and significantly reduce the unit cost of every small modular reactor we build." John Criso, CEO of Sciaky, added: "Sciaky has spent over eighty years building the metal manufacturing technology that the world's most demanding industries rely on. Parts produced by our EBAM process are used in commercial aircraft, naval ships, and in orbit around the Earth. Bringing this capability into America's clean energy infrastructure alongside NX Atomics is a natural next step, and we are proud that two Midwest companies are leading this transformation."

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