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First American Nuclear, a startup developing a fast-spectrum small modular reactor for nuclear energy, is planning to invest more than $4 billion to establish its headquarters in Indiana and develop a nuclear plant and “energy park” in the state, the company announced Tuesday.
Indiana Gov. Mike Braun said in a news release that the move will bring 5,000 high-paying jobs to Indiana, “cementing our state as a leader in clean, reliable nuclear power.” The state doesn’t currently have any nuclear generators.
First American Nuclear, which goes by Fanco, is currently based in Richland, Washington, according to its website. The company’s headquarters are set to be established in Indianapolis, but a location for the manufacturing facilities and energy park is to be determined.
The company says the energy park will be the first “closed-fuel cycle” in the country. It is being designed to reprocess and reuse spent nuclear fuel on-site. According to Fanco, that will lead to 97% of long-lasting nuclear waste being eliminated.
CEO Mike Reinboth told Bloomberg on Tuesday that the company expects to begin providing electricity in 2028 by first using natural gas then shifting to nuclear power by 2032.
“In the flurry of America’s nuclear renaissance, Indiana and Fanco found a shared commitment to technical merit, authenticity, and follow-through,” Reinboth said in written remarks. “Collectively, our team has dedicated centuries to nuclear science, resulting in an unmatched nuclear solution that, fittingly, will take root in the crossroads of America.”
The energy park will utilize Fanco’s flagship technology, the EAGL-1 Small Modular Reactor, or SMR, which the company says is the only one of its kind in the United States to be cooled by a liquid metal alloy called lead bismuth. Its design also requires about 30% less hardware than other SMRs.
The company says the EAGL-1 design can generate 240 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 1.5 million homes, with a footprint one-tenth that of traditional nuclear power plants generating the same amount of power.
Indiana Secretary of Energy and Natural Resources Suzanne Jaworowski called the announcement “extremely significant” for Indiana.
“This is a great move for Indiana, and it’s a great move for the United States of America to be deploying a closed-loop nuclear energy park for the country and for the state of Indiana,” Jaworowski told Inside INdiana Business Television host Gerry Dick. “Being able to utilize what’s not been used in the spent-fuel cycle is a big accomplishment.”
Jaworowski described the jobs that will be created through Fanco’s investment as “generational jobs.”
“They’ll be manufacturing parts and pieces for their small modular reactors,” she said. There will be “construction jobs as they build their power plants, and then also the jobs that will come with the workforce development in all areas. The gas plants are usually online for about 50 to 60 years. The nuclear plants … look like they’ll be online for at least 80 years, up to 120 years.”
A spokesperson for Fanco said hiring will begin right away and continue over the next decade.
Braun has made development of nuclear energy in Indiana a key goal of his term, especially as the state’s energy needs continue to grow with the proliferation of large-load energy users such as data centers.
Jaworowski said the Fanco announcement puts a stake in the ground saying Indiana is the place for advanced nuclear development.
“It’s not just deploying nuclear energy; it’s also establishing Indiana as the home for manufacturing of new nuclear, modern nuclear,” she said. “And so we have taken our manufacturing routes as a state and been able to apply all the great things that make us a wonderful manufacturing state and put them to work for building the nuclear industry on behalf of the United States, and the governor is thrilled to be able to do that.”
Earlier this year, the Indiana General Assembly passed a bill to incentivize SMR development by letting utility companies raise rates to recover project costs on the technology.
First American Nuclear will be one of the companies attending the Global Nuclear Energy Economic Summit at Purdue University this week, where SMR technology will be a major focus, according to Jaworowski.
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