Radiant, a company building transportable nuclear microreactors, signed a major deal with Standard Nuclear. They will supply Radiant with specialized fuel, called TRISO, through the early 2030s.

Radiant needs a steady supply of fuel to build and ship its reactors to customers. The company already has a 300,000-square-foot facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to handle manufacturing and storage. Now, they have the fuel locked in to start meeting customer demand.

“Securing the fuel supply chain is a strategic advantage to deploying at scale,” said Tori Shivanandan, President and COO at Radiant. “By executing this TRISO Fuel Supply Agreement for our planned deployments through the early 2030s, we have established a key partnership to support our mission. We’re decentralizing the grid 1-megawatt at a time.”

Microreactor That Travels

The Kaleidos portable 1-megawatt microreactor; Photo: Radiant

Radiant’s main product is called Kaleidos. It’s a 1-megawatt nuclear microreactor that can travel by land, sea, or air. You just drop it at a site and plug it in. It provides power for up to five years before it needs more fuel, and the whole unit is built to last 20 years.

As far as waste goes, Radiant handles all the refueling and spent-fuel storage at its own facilities. Customers never keep spent fuel on their property. Once a reactor is removed, the site can return to its natural condition in under two years.

Real Tests

Right now, Kaleidos is going through a full-scale testing campaign at the Idaho National Laboratory’s DOME facility. The Department of Energy gave Radiant exclusive access to the site for a full year to run the reactor at full power for an extended duration.

Radiant signed a commercial agreement to provide 20 Kaleidos units to Equinix. They were also picked by the Department of the Air Force and the Defense Innovation Unit to build and run a microreactor at Buckley Space Force Base.

With fuel secured and customers waiting, the company is getting ready for repeatable production.

Advertisement