NuScale fabricates boron pellets for 77 MW reactor safety

A small pellet now carries a specific job in NuScale Power’s 77 MW reactor module: if an emergency cooling system activates, the boron-oxide material is designed to dissolve into the reactor coolant and help control the core. The first pellets were fabricated by NuScale with MillenniTEK, an advanced nuclear materials manufacturer.

The component belongs to the ECCS, or emergency core cooling system. Its defining feature is passivity: the safety response is designed to occur automatically, without relying solely on active equipment or an operator’s intervention. Boron absorbs neutrons; introducing it into the coolant is intended to reduce the neutrons available to sustain the nuclear reaction and keep reactivity within safe limits during abnormal conditions.

The manufacturing step matters because a reactor design needs more than drawings and approval before it can be built. MillenniTEK converts powdered materials into solid technical ceramic components and develops prototype parts for small modular, microreactor and space-reactor applications. For NuScale, the first pellets demonstrate a process for producing a specialized ECCS component with the quality and consistency required for commercial nuclear projects.

NuScale’s Power Module is a pressurized-water reactor designed to generate 77 megawatts of electricity per module. The company’s current configuration can scale to as much as 924 MW across 12 modules, and it is targeting uses that include electricity generation, data centers and industrial heat. NuScale says its design is the first and only one to have received design certification from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission; that regulatory status is the backdrop to the harder physical task of making the parts.

In practice, the consequence is not an operating reactor but a clearer path from design to construction: one specialized safety component has reached first fabrication, while NuScale and MillenniTEK work on repeatable production and a supply chain for planned deployments. The milestone shows manufacturing progress, but it does not establish commercial operation.