StarCore Nuclear

StarCore Nuclear Moving Forward in Manitoba In the week of December 9, several of the StarCore Nuclear team were in Manitoba to continue discussions with several parties who are participants in Project Whiteshell. Project Whiteshell is a 9.6 MWe HTGR which is intended to demonstrate StarCore’s offering for off-grid sites in Canada. Project Whiteshell will closely follow the NGNP design developed at INL in the late 1990’s and will incorporate the lessons learnt at sites who ran similar HTGR reactors, such as the ones at Fort St Vrain and Peach Bottom.  During last week the StarCore team held meetings with the Manitoba Provincial Government, Manitoba Hydro, The Mayor of Pinawa LGD, Blair Skinner, Southern Chiefs Organisation, the Brokenhead Ojibway Nation and other first nations groups. David Dabney - CEO, Leo Eskin - Director of Engineering and Joe Wiendl - Director of Corporate Strategy made good progress for StarCore and Project Whiteshell.  StarCore is expecting to commence licensing early in 2025 and work will include: discussions with CNL for siting of the demonstration plant at Whiteshell, initiating the Vendor Design Review with CNSC, engagement with contractors on various scopes of work, preparing the 19 focus areas for the VDR and early engagement for critical materials to meet schedule requirements. Merry Christmas to all of our followers and a bright start to 2025! 🌲

Providing the Benefits of Nuclear Power Remote off-grid communities around the world suffer from energy poverty. That means that those communities cannot flourish in the way that city dwellers are able to. That limits their options in health care, education and basic needs to provide for themselves and flourish. First, because the source of their energy is unreliable. Second it is expensive. StarCore Nuclear is focused on providing affordable reliable energy via its HTGR SMRs to allow those remote off-grid communities to flourish. Reliable electricity will also support communications and household needs and in combination with reactor heat makes less expensive potable water, temperature control for buildings, local fresh food provision and local industrial enterprises. The Southern Chiefs organisation in Manitoba and individual First Nations within Manitoba and StarCore are actively working toward the provision of those benefits for First Nations lands. They will also be continuing working with Canadian Nuclear Labs site in Whiteshell for its demonstration facility to provide those benefits with the Local Government District of Pinawa.

HALEU Fuel The growth of nuclear power is a key factor to achieve the goal of moving away from the use of fossil fuels that governments have set for themselves. Securing supplies of enriched uranium fuel is one of the challenges that developers of SMRs will have to overcome to bring their designs to market. Many SMR’s, particularly the Gen IV designs, require a High Assay Low Enriched Uranium (HALEU). HALEU fuel is typically enriched above 5% and less than 20% U235. HALEU fuel will make for smaller designs, longer cycles and increased efficiency which in turn will deliver more power with a higher power to weight ratio. The demand for HALEU is growing rapidly as the pace of new reactor development accelerates, but there is a growing gap between projected requirements and planned production. Russia has been a major supplier of HALEU. A recent bill passed by the US Congress bans the importation of enriched uranium into the US from Russia. That ban is due to come into effect by August 11 2024. Russia currently produces nearly half of the world’s enriched uranium with Europe, Japan and China each supplying a smaller proportion. Although the bill had bipartisan support, it puts further pressure on the expanding gap between supply and demand for domestic suppliers of new nuclear power in the US and North America. Terrapower has said that it has had to delay the opening of its development in Wyoming by at least two years, at least in part, due to its decision not to use Russian enriched uranium fuel. To ensure that countries can move to higher energy density fuels and thereby secure the economic and health benefits that reliable electricity supply brings, some are opting to boost production of HALEU fuels. These moves will underpin the critical supply of these fules as SMR developments move forward. Even in the light of the likley demand gap for the fuel, the licensing, building, operation and securing of such facilities require significant investment. The IAEA says that European companies could start producing HALEU within 5 years and plans for exanding French capacity  and the construction of new facilities in the United Kingdom and the USA are under consideration. The NRC issued a manufacturing license to Centrus in the US, who produced the first samples for analysis in November 2023. While those advances of Centrus and the intention of the UK and others to supply HALEU are encouraging, the supply is likely to severely lag the overall needs of the market. It is essential therefore, that regulatory authorities like the US DOE, together with current and potential industry suppliers better align current production plans with emerging demand. This area of fuel supply will certainly be of interest to SMR developers like StarCore as these fuel expansions will be critical to maintaining its current determined schedule. They are expecting to have further discussions with potential suppliers in the near term.

Energy Poverty - Not Just Poor Countries The IEA/UNDP/UNIDO, in its 2010 World Energy outlook, described Energy Poverty, as the lack of access to sustainable modern energy services and products. The term sustainability is popular these days and is used prolifically and perhaps misused. It is not just a matter of sustainability, or lack of access, energy poverty can be found in all conditions where there is a lack of adequate, affordable, reliable, quality, safe and environmentally sound energy services to support economic and community development. But why is it that we should consider a rich country like Australia as having areas of energy poverty? In those circumstances energy poverty can occur even when there is an abundance of fuels. Take for example, a mining prospect in northern Australia that must use natural gas as fuel for generating electricity and heat, whereas its competitors in a nearby country have the benefit of cheap electricity via coal or nuclear power. Or, the cost of developing an industrial site in Northern Australia is prohibitive, because "renewables are 85% of the cost of the multibillion dollar project. This immediately puts the prospects for the new development at an economic disadvantage because the Australian government will not allow the development of nuclear power. This is by no means a hypothetical situation and may limit the availability of funding for the project because of the energy cost. Estimates, such as that for StarCore’s Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) put the price of electricity at only slightly above that for hydro and much less than many remote mining operations in technologically developed nations like Australia and Canada actually pay for energy. StarCore’s SMR is specifically designed to help alleviate many of these issues. Using High Temperature Gas Reactors (HTGRs), which are designated as “inherently safe” by the IAEA, are built to address many of these critical needs in an affordable manner. Providing an abundance of low cost latent heat and electricity, the SMR outputs can be used in multiple ways for heating, power, cooking, hydroponics, water purification, and other industrial requirements. Thus, StarCore’s SMR is designed to be a provider of so much more than just electricity over the fence. It is our objective to address the more critical issue of Energy Poverty and help create a better standard of living in remote communities across the globe. StarCore is a Canadian company developing small modular reactors, initially in Canada, with applicability in remote and off-grid areas around the world. See more about the StarCore Vision at: https://lnkd.in/gnjCysq4