X-energy scores $700M investment to make SMR dream come true

"On Monday, X-energy revealed that it had gotten Jane Street and a slew of other private equity firms to deliver a $700 million Series D funding round to keep the lights on while the startup waits for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to sign off on a four-unit deployment of its Xe-100 reactors at Dow's Seadrift Operations manufacturing site in Texas."

"Among the first of these will be the Cascade Advanced Energy Facility in Washington state, which will supply "up to" 960 megawatts of clean energy when it comes online sometime in the 2030s. The other 6 gigawatts of power will supposedly be deployed in the United Kingdom as part of a collaboration with British energy and services firm Centrica. However, the reactors aren't expected to begin producing electricity until the "mid-2030s.""

"Nuclear power, and in particular SMRs, has become a hot topic amid the AI boom as power has increasingly become a bottleneck for datacenter expansion across the US and much of Europe. Fuel for the reactors comes in the form of TRISO-X fuel pebbles, which use high-assay low-enriched uranium that is encased in three densely packed layers of carbon. Hundreds of thousands of these pebbles are gravity fed through the reactor in a continuous loop."

X-energy has booked orders for 144 small modular reactors that could deliver over 11 gigawatts of power if built. The company raised $700 million in a Series D from Jane Street and other private equity firms as it awaits Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval for a four-unit Xe-100 deployment at Dow's Seadrift Operations in Texas. The Xe-100 is a fourth-generation high-temperature gas-cooled reactor producing 80 MW over a 60-year lifespan. Funding will shore up supply chains and attract customers. Amazon committed $500 million to deploy about 5 GW in the US by 2039; 6 GW is planned for the UK with Centrica in the mid-2030s. The reactors use TRISO-X fuel pebbles of high-assay low-enriched uranium encased in three carbon layers, gravity-fed in a continuous loop.

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