{"id":168059,"date":"2026-02-17T12:23:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T12:23:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/168059\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T12:23:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T12:23:15","slug":"momentum-is-building-to-meet-electricity-demand-in-texas-with-small-nuclear-reactors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/168059\/","title":{"rendered":"Momentum is building to meet electricity demand in Texas with small nuclear reactors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Less than three years after Gov. Greg Abbott<\/a> announced the creation of the Texas Advanced Nuclear Reactor Working Group, Texas has become one of the main testing grounds in the United States for small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs), a technology long discussed but with few real-world examples to show for it.<\/p>\n

Officials and companies are betting that small nuclear reactors could help provide needed power to the Texas grid while bringing investment and jobs \u2014 even as serious questions remain about cost, timelines and whether the technology can deliver on its promises.<\/p>\n

The Bureau of Business Research at the University of Texas at Austin estimated that average demand on the grid could nearly triple by 2050, driven by data centers, electric vehicles and the electrification of the Permian Basin oil fields.<\/p>\n

Unlike the large nuclear plants that have operated in Texas for decades, the new generation of small modular reactors is designed to be built in factories and shipped in pieces to be assembled on site. Supporters say they could provide reliable electricity with lower emissions. Critics counter that no one has yet proven the technology can be built on time and at a cost that makes economic sense.<\/p>\n

In Texas, a handful of projects are now moving beyond studies. Each uses a different technology and targets different uses. And this summer, several of them face tests that could shape the trajectory of the entire industry.<\/p>\n

Texas\u2019s main electric grid, operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, drew about 45% of its electricity from natural gas in 2023, followed by wind at 24%, coal at 14%, nuclear at 9% and solar at 7%. The grid has grown increasingly reliant on wind and solar over the past decade, but both are intermittent \u2014 they depend on weather to produce power.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if we\u2019re going to have enough wind, solar and (battery) storage for the 200, 300 gigawatts of load that are coming over the coming decades,\u201d Thomas Gleeson, chair of the Public Utility Commission of Texas, said at a Feb. 11 conference in Austin. \u201cIf you believe in clean energy and care about the environment, nuclear has to be a part of that solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Olivier Beaufils, head of U.S. Central at consulting firm Aurora Energy, said: \u201cThe difference with nuclear power is two-fold: natural gas generation is emissions-intensive and more expensive to run than a nuclear plant once it has been built,\u201d said.<\/p>\n

But small nuclear reactors are expensive to build, and Beaufils said they require customers willing to sign a long-term agreements to buy the power at a high enough price to make the economics work.<\/p>\n

The explosion of data centers coming to Texas helps solve part of that challenge. Unlike most electricity consumers, large data centers operate around the clock, they need consistent, high volumes of power and they are built by big tech companies that can afford the long-term power purchase agreements.<\/p>\n

What are SMRs?<\/p>\n

Small modular reactors are nuclear power plants designed to produce 300 megawatts of electricity or less \u2014 a fraction of the more than 5,000 megawatts generated by the two large reactors that operate in Texas today: the Comanche Peak plant southwest of Fort Worth and the South Texas Project near Matagorda Bay.<\/p>\n

The technology is not entirely new. Small reactors have powered submarines since the 1950s. But the current generation is designed to be fabricated in factories and shipped for assembly on site.<\/p>\n

Engineers are exploring several approaches: high-temperature gas reactors that use uranium encased in graphite spheres; molten salt reactors that use liquid fuel instead of solid rods; and sodium-cooled fast reactors that can use conventional fuel in a more compact design. Each comes with trade-offs in cost, safety, scalability and regulatory readiness.<\/p>\n

No small modular reactor has yet reached commercial operation in the United States. In 2023, NuScale Power, the first company to receive federal licensing for a small modular reactor design, canceled its planned project in Idaho after costs rose and the company could not secure enough utility commitments.<\/p>\n

Globally, Russia has operated a floating nuclear plant \u2014 a reactor mounted on a barge that supplies power to remote Arctic communities \u2014 since 2020, and China connected a high-temperature gas reactor to its grid in 2021. In Canada, construction began in 2025 on an SMR in Ontario that\u2019s intended to supply power to the grid.<\/p>\n

Texas is positioning itself as a leading site for commercial-scale nuclear reactors. Backed by $1.2 billion from the Department of Energy\u2019s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program, X-energy plans four 80-megawatt reactors at Dow\u2019s Chemical\u2019s Seadrift chemical plant on the Texas coast. It\u2019s expected to start producing power for the plant \u2014 and sending any excess electricity to the state grid \u2014 in the early 2030s.<\/p>\n

From working group to law<\/p>\n

The AI and data center \u201cgold rush\u201d has accelerated interest in the technology in Texas, where the state\u2019s push for nuclear energy has moved from executive directive to legislation in less than two years.<\/p>\n

In August 2023, Abbott issued a directive to the Public Utility Commission to create the Texas Advanced Nuclear Reactor Working Group, which brought together industry, academia and government to study how to position Texas as a hub for advanced nuclear.<\/p>\n

By June 2025, the Texas Legislature had passed House Bill 14, which established a $350 million Texas Nuclear Development Fund to encourage development of nuclear projects \u2014 the largest state-level commitment to nuclear energy in the country. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the federal ADVANCE Act, signed in July 2024 with bipartisan support, directed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to streamline its review processes and cut licensing fees for advanced reactor developers by more than half. <\/p>\n

Two different models in Texas<\/p>\n

In Abilene, about 200 miles west of Dallas, Natura Resources is building the nation\u2019s first advanced liquid-fuel research reactor in nearly 40 years. The project is housed at Abilene Christian University, where a $25 million research facility was completed in September 2023.<\/p>\n

Natura has raised $120 million in private funding and received another $120 million from the Legislature. <\/p>\n

Natura\u2019s technology uses molten salt as both fuel and coolant \u2014 a design last tested at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the 1960s. The company is first building a 1-megawatt research reactor in Abilene, intended to demonstrate to regulators and investors that the technology works and is safe. <\/p>\n

Its commercial reactor, still under development, is designed to produce 100 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 65,000 to 70,000 Texas homes. <\/p>\n

And the excess heat from power generation can drive thermal desalination systems. In the Permian Basin, where oil and gas operations produce vast quantities of contaminated water known as produced water, that means a single reactor could simultaneously generate clean electricity and treat water that would otherwise be a waste stream. <\/p>\n

The heat from the reactor could vaporize the water, leaving salts and other contaminants behind for disposal, before condensing the vapor into clean water, said Douglass Robinson, Natura\u2019s founder and CEO.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we\u2019re producing the electricity, the waste heat off of that electrical generation is the heat we could utilize for the desal,\u201d Robison said. \u201cSo we do both at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company hopes to have the Abilene research reactor operational by the end of 2026 or early 2027. If successful, the next step would be commercial deployment of its larger 100-megawatt design.<\/p>\n

Aalo Atomics is taking a different approach. The startup, founded by Canadian-born engineer Matt Loszak and based in Austin, is designing a sodium-cooled fast reactor, a technology that uses solid fuel, like conventional nuclear plants, built specifically for factory mass production.<\/p>\n

Each unit would produce 10 megawatts, enough to power roughly 6,000 to 7,000 homes in Texas, and the reactors will be sized to fit on a standard truck. Aalo\u2019s commercial model would consist of five of these units, totaling 50 megawatts. <\/p>\n

Loszak said the company plans to activate its first 10 megawatt test reactor within about five months, after completing prototype testing at the end of December, as part of its effort to move toward commercial deployment. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal is to have a factory that can produce 20 or 30 gigawatts per year,\u201d Loszak said. \u201cAll of our decisions stemmed around this mentality around factory mass manufacturing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cost and waste challenges<\/p>\n

For all the momentum, fundamental challenges remain.<\/p>\n

Cost is perhaps the biggest. A grid modeling analysis conducted for the UT study tested at what price point SMRs would start to be built in the ERCOT market when competing against wind, solar and natural gas. <\/p>\n

The conclusion: nuclear only gets built when upfront capital costs fall to $3 million per megawatt or below. But current industry projections from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory place SMR costs between $2.9 million and $10.1 million per megawatt \u2014 which means without significant cost reductions through regulatory reform, construction efficiency or financial tools, nuclear may not be cost competitive in Texas before 2040.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere needs to be some pretty serious thinking about if we want to choose as a state to become a leader in this field, we need to incentivize participation,\u201d said Matt Kammer-Kerwick, a researcher at the UT Bureau of Business Research.<\/p>\n

Licensing presents another hurdle. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission\u2019s review process, even at its fastest, takes 18 months or more. For companies developing newer reactor designs, the NRC requires operating data from demonstration reactors before approving commercial licenses.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the dilemma of where to put the waste. Nuclear waste has no permanent solution in the United States, and used fuel rods can remain radioactive for thousands of years. <\/p>\n

Abbott joined environmentalists and oil companies in 2020 to oppose a federal license for a company that wanted to store spent nuclear fuel in West Texas. Critics of SMRs argue the smaller plants will still produce waste that has nowhere to go permanently.<\/p>\n

Kammer-Kerwick compared this moment for the budding small nuclear industry to the history of artificial intelligence, which went through decades of false starts before its current surge.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre we ready for SMR now? There are a lot of indications that we are,\u201d he said. \u201cLet\u2019s talk in six months.\u201d<\/p>\n

Disclosure: Dow Chemical and the University of Texas at Austin have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune\u2019s journalism. Find a complete\u00a0list of them here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Less than three years after Gov. Greg Abbott announced the creation of the Texas Advanced Nuclear Reactor Working…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6040,6083,451,287,1564,27,29,293,28,19025,2877],"class_list":["post-168059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-abilene","tag-electric-reliability-council-of-texas","tag-energy","tag-politics","tag-state-government","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-legislature","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-public-utility-commission","tag-university-of-texas-austin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}