Innovating Nuclear Power Generation

Mission: Develop an Innovative Fully Integrated Modular Nuclear Engine www.nucdev.com

The NuGen Engine™, an innovative nuclear-fueled microreactor concept, offers competitive economics and superior safety, proliferation-resistance and factory-manufacturability, with a versatility of off-grid uses: electricity, high temperature process heat, desalination and hydrogen production.

OVERVIEW

NuGen is developing an innovative “advanced nuclear” high-temperature microreactor. NuGen has four US patents on the concept. It is called the NuGen Engine™ due to its versatility and compact robust configuration, which allows single- or multi-unit systems on a small footprint. It would be a “fission battery”, a recent term in the nuclear industry denoting microreactors that would be cost competitive, standardized, autonomous, reliable, and readily transportable and installable.

The microreactor would be extremely safe and highly proliferation resistant. Its hallmarks include its simplicity, efficiency, scalability and high manufacturability, including by advanced manufacturing technologies. The NuGen Engine™ has a unique simple integrated design, including a spiral fuel core. The spiral fuel core and highly integrated design offer higher efficiency. Its simplicity enhances its safety, manufacturability and transportability.

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The simple integrated design would take advantage of advanced manufacturing to reduce production costs and time and to enable the needed component integration to optimize the system’s operating parameters. The NuGen Engine™ would be broadly deployable for a wide range of potential uses, including to provide off-grid electricity generation and high-temperature process heat. Its deployment for these uses would significantly contribute to reducing carbon emissions, assist in decarbonizing our industrial processes, and provide energy resilience and accessibility.

NuGen’s current focus is on a transportable microreactor to be used at remote locations in Alaska and northern Canada; mining sites and desalination plants; mini- and micro-grids (e.g., for resiliency to counter weather and cyber events); and critical off-grid sites, such as domestic military installations and data banks, for secure 24/7 electricity. These are uses for which microreactors are considered cost-competitive without policy changes or other incentives.

Longer term, the NuGen Engine™ would be used for applications with even greater impacts on lowering carbon emissions and decarbonizing our economy. These include: “load following” for grid stabilization (needed with the continued growth of renewables); process heat/cogeneration to produce synthetic fuel, chemicals, fertilizer, hydrogen and ammonia; clean energy for propulsion of tankers and ships; and operating in tandem or as part of hybrid systems with other energy sources, including renewables.

The NuGen Engine™ is also adaptable for use in space applications, including as a lunar reactor or for space travel.

NuGen was formed in 2006 to develop an advanced nuclear modular reactor, including potentially two concepts previously patented by its CEO, Steve Rhyne. https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-rhyne-930201b/ It is a CEO-funded, veteran-owned lean organization.

NuGen has been supported since 2011 by Texas A&M, most recently by a team of professors in the nuclear engineering, aerospace engineering and mechanical engineering departments.

The NuGen Engine™ entered the early stages of the conceptual design stage in 2020. Concurrently, the concept’s feasibility was confirmed and a detailed R&D program formulated to develop a scaled non-nuclear-powered prototype.

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The R&D program includes additional team members and utilizes an “agile” iterative digital design process.

Due to restrictions on travel and in-person meetings, this R&D program was paused in August because in-person meetings were considered critical due to the iterative design process, integrated nature of the design, and 3D printing of prototype components. This was necessary notwithstanding the significant progress made earlier in 2020 while working remotely.

In 2021, NuGen resumed the R&D program. It also plans to buildout an internal lean team, while continuing to engage the TAMU team along with others in the industry, to design, demonstrate and deploy the NuGen Engine™. NuGen will also begin actively exploring funding from outside of its CEO.

NuGen has submitted a Concept Paper to ARPA-E under its current “open” solicitation for an R&D proposal to be done by a consortium including it, the TAMU team, a simulator and an expert on remote controls and sensors. These initiatives are timely due to the following: the advances in NuGen’s technology and IP in 2020; advances in 2020 in related technology; the increasing interest since 2019 in advanced nuclear technology, especially microreactors; favorable regulatory initiatives that are underway; continued robust government support of advanced reactors, including for microreactors; and the pressing need for solutions to climate change, which has been the prime motivator for NuGen’s CEO.

The NuGen Engine™ is a direct-cycle gas-cooled microreactor. All of the major components of the system are encapsulated in a single module. It is a high-temperature reactor, with higher efficiencies, which uses the gas as the working fluid to cool the reactor and as the propellant to rotate the turbine at a high angular velocity. A direct-cycle nuclear power system is characterized by its single loop, a simpler configuration than the multi-loop configurations of typical nuclear power systems. The signature features of the NuGen Engine™ are its compact robust design and its integrated simple configuration. This makes the reactor easily scalable and adaptable through computer modeling and rapid prototyping. The reactor would be transportable, extremely safe and highly proliferation resistant. It would also be capable of autonomous or semi-autonomous operation, thereby reducing staffing and operating expenses and expanding the universe of potential customers.

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Significantly, the compact simple design makes the reactor highly manufacturable, enabling full factory-manufacture with significant reductions in production time and costs and a predictable production schedule and budget. The single-loop configuration eliminates the “balance of plant” (ie., those systems and components outside the nuclear reactor, its coolant system and related auxiliary components). “Balance of plant” costs are generally estimated to be a substantial majority of the capital costs and operating and maintenance expenses of a typical nuclear power plant. This schematic of the NuGen Engine™ is not to scale nor intended to include all components or their configuration. The lack of specificity is to protect ongoing R&D work. The USPTO issued NuGen four patents in 2020: Integrated System for Converting Nuclear Energy into Electrical, Rotational, and Thermal Energy, US Patent Nos. 10,685,755 (6/17/2020), 10,685,756 (6/17/2020), 10,755,826 (8/25/2020) and 10,784,006 (9/22/2020).

For more information, see the accompanying “Intro to NuGen and Detailed Technology Description” in NuGen’s booth and NuGen’s website, www.nucdev.com. Contact: Steve Rhyne CEO NuGen, LLC steve@nucdev.com