U-battery is a micro–

small modular reactor The small modular reactor (SMR) is a class of small nuclear fission reactor, designed to be built in a factory, shipped to operational sites for installation, and then used to power buildings or other commercial operations. The term SMR refers t ...

design of a nuclear reactor.

History

The design for U-Battery was created at

Delft University of Technology The Delft University of Technology (TU Delft; ) is the oldest and largest Dutch public university, public Institute of technology, technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands. It specializes in engineering, technology, computing, design, a ...

in the Netherlands and

Manchester University The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...

in the United Kingdom basing it on high temperature reactor (HTR) technology which was already available in Europe. A consortium was formed to develop the product, participants including consortium that includes

Urenco The Urenco Group is a British-German-Dutch nuclear fuel consortium operating several uranium enrichment plants in Germany, the Netherlands, United States, and United Kingdom. It supplies nuclear power stations in about 15 countries, and stat ...

, Kinectrics and

Jacobs Solutions Jacobs Solutions Inc. is an American international technical professional services firm based in Dallas. The company provides engineering, technical, professional, and construction services as well as scientific and specialty consulting for a ...

. Finance has been supported by grants from the UK government's Advanced Modular Reactor Feasibility and Development project, being selected for phase two in July 2020. Each reactor is targeted to cost £50m. The design is for a 10MWt / 4MWe micro-

. The design is

graphite Graphite () is a Crystallinity, crystalline allotrope (form) of the element carbon. It consists of many stacked Layered materials, layers of graphene, typically in excess of hundreds of layers. Graphite occurs naturally and is the most stable ...

-moderated,

helium Helium (from ) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol He and atomic number 2. It is a colorless, odorless, non-toxic, inert gas, inert, monatomic gas and the first in the noble gas group in the periodic table. Its boiling point is ...

-cooled and based on high temperature reactor (HTR) concepts some of which were pioneered from the

Dragon reactor Dragon was an experimental high temperature gas-cooled reactor at Winfrith in Dorset, England, operated by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA). Its purpose was to test fuel and materials for the European High Temperature Reactor ...

, while the fuel block is based on the earlier Fort St. Vrain reactor. The target fuel is

TRISO Nuclear fuel refers to any substance, typically fissile material, which is used by nuclear power stations or other nuclear devices to generate energy. Oxide fuel For fission reactors, the fuel (typically based on uranium) is usually based o ...

with 1720%

enriched uranium Enriched uranium is a type of uranium in which the percent composition of uranium-235 (written 235U) has been increased through the process of isotope separation. Naturally occurring uranium is composed of three major isotopes: uranium-238 (23 ...

which might be supplemented by

thorium Thorium is a chemical element; it has symbol Th and atomic number 90. Thorium is a weakly radioactive light silver metal which tarnishes olive grey when it is exposed to air, forming thorium dioxide; it is moderately soft, malleable, and ha ...

with a

beryllium oxide Beryllium oxide (BeO), also known as beryllia, is an inorganic compound with the formula BeO. This colourless solid is an electrical insulator with a higher thermal conductivity than any other non-metal except diamond, and exceeds that of most met ...

reflector. A £1.6million mock up has been set up at

Whetstone, Leicestershire Whetstone is a village and civil parish in the Blaby district of Leicestershire, England and largely acts as a commuter village for Leicester, five miles to the north. The population at the 2011 census was 6,556. It is part of the Leicester ...

. The first site in the UK could be at

Capenhurst Capenhurst is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire West and Chester and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. It is two miles south west of Ellesmere Port, at the southern end of the Wi ...

. In March 2023, Urenco ended its support, saying "we can no longer continue our support of the U-Battery Advanced Modular Reactor project, having exhausted our attempts to secure the commitment of new commercial investors." Intellectual property in the design will be transferred to the

National Nuclear Laboratory The United Kingdom National Nuclear Laboratory (UKNNL, formerly National Nuclear Laboratory and earlier Nexia Solutions) is a UK government owned and operated nuclear services technology provider covering the whole of the nuclear fuel cycle. It ...

History

References

Notes

Footnotes

Sources