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Awards/COOPERATIVE AGREEMENT (B)

$65,338,120

Department of Energy·Department of Energy

to SOUTHERN COMPANY SERVICES, INC.

energyactiveONGOING · MOD OF 2021 CONTRACT
WORK BEGAN2021-10-01·LATEST ACTION2026-03-31·SOURCEUSASPENDING·SOURCE IDASST_NON_DENE0009045_089
Award description

MCRE – WORLD’S FIRST CRITICAL MCFR TO CONFIRM KEY PHYSICS PHENOMENA RELEVANT TO MCFR-D, MCRE SOW WILL INCLUDE THE DESIGN, DOE AUTHORIZATION, CONSTRUCTION, AND OPERATION OF A LOW POWER, HIGHLY ENRICHED URANIUM (HEU) CHLORIDE SALT- FUELED CRITICAL REACTOR EXPERIMENT HOSTED AT INL. MCRE WILL BE THE FIRST DEMONSTRATION OF A FAST SPECTRUM MOLTEN SALT FUEL FORM IN A CRITICAL LOW-POWER NUCLEAR REACTOR IN THE WORLD. KEY RESULTS - DESIGN AND DELIVER MODULES FOR INTEGRATION AT LOTUS, SUPPORT INL EFFORTS TO OBTAIN DOE AUTHORIZATION, SUPPORT MODULE INSTALLATION WITHIN LOTUS, AND SAFELY OPERATE THE CRITICAL MOLTEN CHLORIDE REACTOR EXPERIMENT TO CONFIRM KEY, LOW-KNOWLEDGE PHENOMENA. - SUPPORT INL EFFORTS TO SYNTHESIZE SALT FUEL, LOAD SALT FUEL INTO THE REACTOR, AND OPERATE THE LIQUID SALT FUELED REACTOR EXPERIMENT. - SUMMARIZE KEY DATA TO SUPPORT MCFR-D LICENSING STRATEGY.

Verbatim from USAspending.gov. Capitalization, abbreviations, and codes are unchanged.

The Buildout's read

What the model surfaced from this award

Confidence: high
In plain English

Design, construct, and operate the world's first critical molten chloride fast-spectrum reactor experiment using highly enriched uranium fuel at Idaho National Laboratory.

Sub-sectors
nuclear-advanced-reactorsmolten-salt-reactorweapons-stockpile-related
Why this matters

Demonstrates feasibility of advanced molten salt reactor technology critical to next-generation nuclear fuel cycles and DOE's molten chloride fast reactor development program.

Supply-chain signal

Signals demand for specialized HEU fuel synthesis, salt chemistry expertise, reactor module fabrication, and instrumentation for advanced nuclear experiments.

U.S.–China competition angle

Advanced reactor designs and molten salt fuel technology are strategic priorities; this work positions U.S. leadership in next-generation nuclear fuel cycles.

Generated by award_classification v2.0.0 via claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 on 2026-05-15. Cost: $0.002641.

Period of performance
Start
2021-10-01
End
2026-09-30
Status
activein 135 days
Sources

The Buildout does not edit federal records. Any inaccuracy reflects the upstream source; it will update here when corrected there.