X-Energy's Xe-100 clears NRC safety review as Poland and China push construction

For industrial buyers, the Xe-100 milestone puts a US construction permit for a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor within reach for the first time. Neither X-Energy nor Dow has said when construction would start or what the plant will cost.

The Xe-100 clears its safety review

X-Energy has been working with the NRC since 2018. The Final Safety Evaluation Report closes that stretch. It is the first high-temperature gas-cooled reactor construction permit application to use the agency's new modernized licensing framework, which is intended to be technology-inclusive, risk-informed and performance-based. Much of the underlying technology descends from the Department of Energy's research on high-temperature gas-cooled reactors.

The first plant is planned for the Long Mott Generating Station in Texas, a wholly owned subsidiary of Dow Chemical Company. Dow plans to use the facility's electricity and steam to power its operations. X-Energy's standard build is a four-pack: four 80 MWe units, 320 MWe of electricity or 800 MWt of heat in total. The Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards still has to review the NRC's evaluation independently before a construction permit can be issued.

"Licensing a new reactor is earned through the quality of the application and the rigor of the regulator's review," said Dragan Popovic, X-Energy's chief global operating officer.

Why the footprint matters

The emergency planning zone is 1,300 feet (400 m), compared with the 10 miles (16 km) required for conventional nuclear reactors. That gap is the commercial argument: a plant can sit next to an industrial site, and the steam does not have to travel far.

Fuel is the other half of it. The Xe-100 burns TRISO fuel, thousands of uranium kernels inside graphite spheres no bigger than a billiard ball, with uranium enriched to 20 percent HALEU. Pressurized helium carries the heat, and each unit delivers 200 MWt of process heat at 565 to 750 degrees Celsius. The fuel can be loaded while the reactor is online, so refuelling does not require a long outage.

Poland starts early works on its first plant

Poland's PEJ applied for an early works permit at the Lubiatowo-Kopalino site, World Nuclear News reported on 2 November. The plant will be built around three Westinghouse AP1000 reactors. The early works cover the onshore part of the circulating water system, a retention basin for rainwater and meltwater, internal roads and launch pits for a tunnel boring machine.

The mechanism is new. Poland introduced early works in an act of 3 July 2026, so that non-nuclear site preparation could begin before the main licences arrive. The cooling water pipelines are to be laid under the beach and the seabed of the Baltic Sea using a trenchless method. The second phase of preparatory works is already under way, with Bechtel carrying out geological surveys. "The construction of the nuclear power plant is the largest energy project in the history of Poland," said energy minister Miłosz Motyka.

Haiyang-5 pours first concrete

First concrete for the Haiyang-5 nuclear island was poured on Saturday 31 October, project contractor State Power Investment Corp said in a post on Chinese social media. Haiyang-5 is a 1,161-MW CAP1000 pressurized water reactor, China's Generation III version of Westinghouse's AP1000. The pour used about 6,626 cubic metres of concrete and ran for nearly 62 hours.

The State Council approved Units 5 and 6 on 27 April 2025. With all six units running, the site is projected to generate about 60.9 billion kWh a year. Installed capacity at the complex would reach about 7.5 GW. China has 120 nuclear power units in operation or approved for construction, with a combined installed capacity of 135 million kilowatts, the most in the world.

The Czech contract that fell apart

KHNP ended talks with the Daewoo E&C and Doosan Enerbility consortium over the Dukovany contract on 29 October and delivered a termination notice on 30 October. The contract was worth about 27 trillion won, or about $20.1 billion. Negotiations lasted about 15 months and failed on construction costs and contract terms.

Daewoo E&C asked South Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy to mediate. The ministry said on 2 November that it has no legal authority to mediate negotiations between companies with commercial interests. Daewoo E&C said its revised proposal, submitted on 29 October, offered to accept losses of hundreds of billions of won. It also argued that the contractor would carry the full construction risk on the APR1000, a model not yet built in Europe. The ministry said it would run an emergency management system, with the minister and vice minister reviewing project issues every week. KHNP plans to select a new contractor by July 2027.