CEA and Blue Capsule Cooperate To Decarbonise Industry

CEA (France’s Alternative Energies & Atomic Energy Commission, ENS Corporate Member) and Blue Capsule, a spin-off of CEA based in Aix-en-Provence, signed a partnership agreement to extend the support to fields such as equipment and components, materials, calculation codes and TRISO-based fuel.

Blue Capsule is developing a sodium-cooled, high-temperature small modular reactor (SMR) which can provide 150 MW of heat at 700°C, along with high-temperature steam and electricity.

The company aims to decarbonise industrial processes and sites used for ammonia and soda ash production, with subterranean capsules co-located onsite, close to demand.

This vital partnership with the CEA means that Blue Capsule benefits from world-class expertise across the board. It lays the foundations for our future industrial cooperation with the French nuclear supply chain, for manufacturing and assembling Blue Capsule units.

said Blue Capsule’s reactor architect Domnin Erard.

The company is planning to build a proof-of-concept sodium loop and a non-nuclear prototype by 2030. Its first-of-a-kind SMR is slated for construction by 2035 and is set to be built in France.

The new agreement has been signed under the umbrella is under the umbrella of financial support from French public investment bank Bpifrance.

Read more on World Nuclear News.

CEA is very active in supporting the development of innovative nuclear solutions.

Beyond the participation in the NUWARD project, CEA recently created two nuclear start-ups, Hexana and Stellaria, which will focus on the development of different technologies for SMRs

Similarly to Blue Capsule, Hexana aims to develop an SMR featuring a sodium-cooled fast neutron reactor, integrated with a high-temperature storage device, while Stellaria, aims to develop an energy system based on a chloride molten salt reactor (MSR).