French nuclear start-up Hexana, spun out the Alternative Energies & Atomic Energy Commission (CEA – Commissariat à l’énergie Atomique et aux énergies Alternatives) in March 2023 has secured €25m ($26m) to support the accelerated development of its modular sodium-cooled fast neutron reactor. This comprises fundraising of €15m and a grant of €10m from Bpifrance Financement, awarded under the France 2030 initiative for innovative nuclear reactor projects.
Hexana said the funding is supported by leading investors such as Blast. Club, Eren Industries, CEA Investment and South Region Investment, and with the strategic support of the Avolta teams. It will enable Hexana to complete the conceptual design of the reactor, submit the safety options file to the French regulator, and progress to the basic design phase. It added the funding also plays a pivotal role in securing its first industrial customers and strategic sites across Europe.
According to CEA, Hexana is looking to design a fast neutron and sodium heat transfer reactor type, incorporating a high temperature storage device. This installation comprises two small 400 MWt reactor units supplying a heat storage device. It will be able to cater for the variations in electrical power required by manufacturers. An adjoining conversion system will allow it to generate electricity if necessary and flexibly to compete with gas power plants. It will also be able to directly supply heat to energy-consuming industries nearby. This will enable those industries to capture CO2, as well as to produce steam, hydrogen and synthetic fuels.
HEXANA said it now has the means to finalise the preliminary design of its product in collaboration with its many French and European partners. “The RNR Sodium technology, whose feasibility has already been demonstrated with the Phoenix, Superphénix and ASTRID projects, is thus relaunched in this energy platform project combining an innovative reactor composed of two modules of 400MWth of power each and a’ energy storage system. With enhanced financial visibility and proven technology, HEXANA confirms the market prospects for its product by 2035.
However, while research on fast reactors took place in the 1960s and 1970s in the US and Europe, things began to change in the late 1970s as concerns about scarce uranium resources waned and public opinion became increasingly hostile in the wake of the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in the USA and the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. By the early 1990s the US, the UK and Germany had closed down their programmes. France continued with its Phenix and Superphénix projects for a few more years, finally closing Superphénix in 1998 and Phenix in 2009, Subsequently, in 2019, France also cancelled the Generation IV ASTRID sodium-cooled fast reactor demonstrator design project. Although interest is now reviving in Europe and the USA both through collaborative projects and government support for private company initiatives, it remains at the early design phase and is probably decades away from implementation.
Nevertheless, Hexana remain optimistic. “This financing underscores the credibility and relevance of our low-carbon technology as a replacement for fossil fuels,” said Hexana CEO Sylvain Nizou. “We are now well-positioned to accelerate growth in delivering a transformative energy decarbonization solution that is already in high demand among our customers. At the same time, we are catalysing the revival of a strategic sector, the large-scale fast-breeder reactor industry.”
