Fuel Technology

Lightbridge is developing innovative, proprietary nuclear fuel technologies designed to significantly enhance the nuclear power industry’s economics and increase power output by:

• Extending the fuel cycle length to 24 months or longer while simultaneously increasing the power output by up to 17% in existing pressurized water reactors (PWRs), including Westinghouse 4-loop reactors, which are currently limited to an 18-month fuel cycle;
• Enabling increased reactor power output (up to 30% increase) without changing the core size in new-build PWRs; and
• Addressing fuel cycle concerns related to the volume of used fuel per kilowatt-hour as well as proliferation of weapons-usable materials.

There are significant technology synergies among Lightbridge’s primary fuel products due to utilization of the proprietary metallic fuel rod technology that is at the core of each of them. As a result, full-scale demonstration and qualification of the metallic fuel rod technology will simultaneously advance all of the fuel product families currently under development by Lightbridge.