US-based BWX Technologies (BWXT) has opened 170,000 square-foot Innovation Campus in Lynchburg, Virginia. The facility will focus on nuclear technology advancements for land, sea and space. The Lynchburg campus hosts BWXT’s Advanced Technologies business unit. The unit’s 350 team members will use the facility’s laboratories and workspaces to design, build and test advanced nuclear systems for NASA, the Department of Energy (DOE), Department of Defense (DOD), national research labs, state governments and commercial applications.
In 2021, BWXT received local and state tax grants worth up to $2m tied to an investment target of $65m and hiring 97 additional employees. BWXT has since hired an additional 115 employees and consolidated all Advanced Technologies operations in the Lynchburg area at the Innovation Campus. By the end of 2024, BWXT had invested $51m in the site and received $227,000 in tax incentives. The Virginia commonwealth’s grant payment is expected in the second quarter of 2026.
“The opening of the BWXT Innovation Campus in Lynchburg highlights Virginia’s leadership in advanced nuclear technologies and our commitment to fostering innovation that drives economic growth and contributes to America’s national security,” said Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin. “As we embrace the future of nuclear energy, space exploration, and defense, Virginia remains proud to be home to the brilliant minds at BWXT who are developing cutting-edge solutions that will shape the industries of tomorrow.”
BWXT president and CEO Rex Geveden said the new facility is “a long-term investment, not only in BWXT, but in Lynchburg and in the Commonwealth of Virginia”. He added: “Here in this Innovation Campus, our Advanced Technologies team is undertaking projects that are pushing the boundaries of nuclear technology and the domains of application. We are very excited for the future we are creating here.”
One of the projects in development at the Innovation Campus, Project Pele, involves deploying a demonstration mobile microreactor for DOD under the sponsorship of the Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO). In September 2024, DOD broke ground on the Project Pele transportable microreactor project at Idaho National Laboratory (INL). DOD is planning to design, build, and demonstrate a transportable high-temperature gas-cooled reactor that will operate at INL’s Critical Infrastructure Test Range Complex. The reactor, generating 1-5 MWe, will be manufactured by BWXT Advanced Technologies. According to DOD, the prototype reactor facility will be transported in 20-foot shipping containers and tested at INL.
“The origins of America’s first Generation IV nuclear reactor are the men and women who are bending metal and producing real hardware,” said Dr Jeff Waksman, SCO’s programme manager for Project Pele. “Through collaborative, efficient teamwork among DOD, the DOE laboratories, and our partners in industry, we are seeing in real time that Project Pele has the promise to provide a reliable, sustainable, resilient, and safe power source for the American warfighter without burdening them with a long logistics tail.”
Joe Miller, President for BWXT Advanced Technologies, noted: “Our products will revolutionise how nuclear is deployed. Bring us your ideas, the projects that you want to bring to life, and we will put a solution in your hands from this one-of-a-kind facility.”
In 2023, BWXT was selected, as part of a joint venture, to deliver the fuel and reactor for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (Draco) programme, a partnership between Darpa and NASA to develop a nuclear thermal rocket engine for an in-space demonstration.
The Advanced Technologies team is also working on the BWXT Advanced Nuclear Reactor, or BANR, a high-temperature gas reactor that is being designed to produce 50 MWt using TRISO fuel, and small enough to be transported by rail, ship or truck. BWXT recently signed a letter of intent with Tata Chemicals Soda Ash Partners to explore deploying up to eight BANRs at a mining site in Wyoming.
