Blog

Aug 11, 2023

Column: Dow's nuke plant comes into sharper focus, and it looks better and better

Executive Editor An artist’s rendering of the proposed nuclear plant at the Dow

Executive Editor

An artist's rendering of the proposed nuclear plant at the Dow facility in Seadrift.

TThe more you pore through facts and figures and presentations about the X-energy nuclear power reactors planned for the Dow plant in Seadrift, the more you like.

Keith Kohn, Victoria Advocate executive editor.

First off, it's the size of the reactors. The company disclosed on Wednesday each of the four nuclear reactors would be about 60 feet tall, but most of that height will be encased in concrete barriers and be underground. Only a fraction of the reactors would be above ground, and that would be inside buildings on the X-energy site at Dow.

Dow, meantime, gave a decent idea of where on its sprawling campus the 30-acre reactor site would be located. It would be off Jesse Rigby Road in what is now a corn field.

These disclosures and more came during a community town hall gathering at the Dow site, where government leaders, business leaders and members of the community who live oh-so-close to the proposed nuclear plant were gathered to learn about Dow's plans and to ask any questions.

Heather Lyons, the site director of Dow's Seadrift operations provided the approximate location after a few people in attendance asked where the plant would be. She had to give approximates because the site hasn't been fully set in stone — or in corn — and there really are no cross streets there to provide more specifics.

The 30-acre plant will be off Jesse Rigby Road in what now is a corn field.

J. Clay Sell, chief executive of X-energy, described in good detail how the reactors work and how safe they are. Can the Triso fuel "pebbles" be weaponized? "No." Can they support hundreds of thousands of others piled atop them in the reactor? "Yes." What happens if ...? "It can't"

Those are the types of questions and those are approximations of the answers. Some of the answers were given by Sell, a Texas man who cares deeply about the state and its people, and by Benjamin Reinke, who holds a master's and doctorate in nuclear engineering, as a bachelor's degree in physics. He's a key adviser to Sell and is a strategic planner for the company, among the many hats he wears.

Sell

In a quick nutshell, here's how the reactor works, and why it's so safe.

Each of the four 80-megawatt reactors hold about 220,000 Triso "pebbles." Each of these pebbles, which are about the size of a billiards ball, is a self-contained nuclear vessel surrounded by carbon and other elements to make them practically impenetrable. Inside each pebble is precisely 18,000 dust-size particles of uranium that is surrounded by four layers of carbon.

These 220,000 pebbles enter the reactor at the top and over the course of about six months travel through the reactor as if in a 60-foot-tall gumball machine. When they emerge at the bottom, they’re inspected and if they’re still radioactive enough they’re cycled back through the reactor. If not, they’re removed for storage on site and underground.

A graphic look at the Triso-X pebble

While in the reactor, all 220,000 of them combine to heat helium circling the inside to 750 degrees Celsius, or about 1,382 degrees Fahrenheit.

That's hot enough for the helium, which cannot absorb radioactivity, to go through to a heating vessel where water is superheated to steam to either power a generator or be used on the Dow site in the manufacturing process before the steam is cycled back to the vessel to be superheated once again.

Since helium is used, one person asked — OK, it was me — whether they’d noticed all the warnings that places like Party City and medical labs were having a hard time finding helium.

Sell said helium comes from natural gas, and there's an awful lot of natural gas buried in the planet. More than enough for these power plants. Reinke, the scientist, confirmed this assessment.

Reinke is a former official at the Department of Energy and was a Senate staffer focusing on energy. At the event last week, current Energy Department officials were there, including Christina Walrond, who said she and her colleagues are big fans of the X-energy contract with Dow. "We’re very excited about this project," she said after the gathering concluded. She said the department is a stakeholder in the Seadrift plant because it has invested in developing X-energy's nuclear program.

Local officials like Port Lavaca Mayor Jack Whitlow and Calhoun County Judge Richard Meyer attended the presentation and said afterward they were impressed.

In a statement when the project was announced in May, Meyer said, "We are excited that Dow has chosen its Seadrift site for this innovative technology and investment. Calhoun County welcomes this economic development and we appreciate Dow and X-energy's willingness to engage the community regarding the benefits and safety of the project."

Basically, this plant will generate enough energy — both power and steam — to keep Dow's Seadrift operation going well into the latter part of this century.

The technology is amazing, cutting edge, or, as I’d call it, cool. But beyond that, this power plant will give Dow the fuel it needs to succeed in South Texas, to grow and to bring more jobs and prosperity to the region. At the moment, there just doesn't seem to be a downside.

Keith Kohn is executive editor of The Victoria Advocate. He joined The Advocate after many years as local editor at newspapers in Florida, South Carolina, New York and California. Reach him at [email protected].

Executive Editor

Keith Kohn is executive editor of The Victoria Advocate. He joined The Advocate after many years as local editor at newspapers in Florida, South Carolina, New York and California. Reach him at [email protected]