Nuclear scientists and engineers at the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois are working with industry partners to further advance U.S. nuclear energy projects as part of efforts to reduce the country’s dependence on fossil fuels.
Experts from Argonne and industry are also developing nuclear technologies using funding from agencies such as the DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy and the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, the national lab said Thursday.
Some of the companies partnering with Argonne are ARC Clean Technology, Oklo, TerraPower, Terrestrial Energy USA, Westinghouse and X-energy.
ARC Clean Technology, for instance, has worked with the national lab on a sodium cooled reactor development project that could lead to the development of small reactors.
“Nuclear is responsible for about 20% of total U.S. electricity and 50% of the country’s carbon-free electricity,” said Mark Williamson, director of the chemical and fuel cycle technologies division at Argonne National Laboratory.
“More impressively, since 1992, U.S. nuclear reactors have produced power — carbon-free — at 92% capacity per year. That is far better than the capacity of gas and coal,” added Williamson.
