Week 16 of 2024

Three nuclear energy innovation news!

🏋‍♂️ Blykalla closes a 80 mSEK (6.9m€) funding round led by Norrsken Launcher and Nucleation Capital, with participation from Earth Venture Capital, Farvatn, and several private investors. The funds will be used to advance the advanced the development of the SEALER, which stands for Swedish Advanced Lead-cooled Reactor. One of the immediate next steps is to build an electric test reactor, together with OKG and the KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

🪨 Researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) discover that a bacterium called Desulfosporosinus can convert soluble hexavalent uranium into insoluble tetravalent uranium, reducing its mobility and toxicity. This bacteria is present in clay rock formations, which are considered for deep geological repositories. This insight opens up novel strategies for enhancing the safety and efficiency of nuclear waste management.

🚀 Ultra Safe Nuclear and Peregrine Turbine Technologies (US) start a collaboration to integrate the former's Pylon microreactor with the latter's supercritical carbon dioxide energy conversion system and advanced heat exchanger technologies. The Pylon is a containerised system designed to deliver 1-5 MWe for up to three years.

👨‍🎓 Paper of the week: "Overview of Small Modular and Advanced Nuclear Reactors and Their Role in the Energy Transition", preprint on TechRxiv (2024).

👉 SMRs have benefits as a complementary source in a deeply decarbonized power and energy system.

👇 Did you spot anything else? Let me me know!