The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has completed the environmental assessment for the proposed Long Mott Generating Station in Texas, a key step in licensing what could become North America's first grid scale advanced nuclear reactor deployed at an industrial site. The project pairs X-energy's Xe-100 high temperature gas cooled small modular reactor design with Dow's manufacturing complex on the Texas Gulf Coast, where the units would supply steam and power to chemical production operations and cut site emissions by an estimated 440,000 tons per year.
The milestone moves the construction permit review toward completion and adds to a quickening SMR licensing tempo at the NRC. The agency's chairman has said publicly that a small modular reactor could be operational in the United States by 2030. NuScale Power holds the only full NRC design certification for an SMR, its 77 megawatt US460 design approved in May 2025, while TerraPower's 345 megawatt Natrium plant in Kemmerer, Wyoming remains the most advanced new build under active construction permit review.
Kairos Power has already received a construction permit for its Hermes test reactor in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Oklo broke ground on its Aurora powerhouse at Idaho National Laboratory in September 2025. Together the projects form the front line of US efforts to commercialize smaller reactors for industrial and data center loads.
Source: Interesting Engineering - https://interestingengineering.com/energy/us-advanced-nuclear-project-cut-emissions