Apart from exploring development and deployment of ANEEL fuel in India, NTPC and CCTE intend to collaborate for exploring the possible indigenisation of its manufacturing with local supply chain development, establishing supply chain for HALEU, and supply of Uranium to India with sovereign guarantee.
Chicago-based nuclear fuel company Clean Core Thorium Energy (CCTE) announced that its patented ‘ANEEL’ fuel has completed its high burnup irradiation test in an Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) at Idaho National Laboratory (INL). The company said the final set of irradiation capsules have achieved more than 60 GWd/MTU of ‘burnup’ — a measure of how much energy is extracted from nuclear fuel that is typically expressed in gigawatt-days per metric tonne of heavy metal or GWd/MTU.
This burnup rate represents more than eight times the typical discharge burnup of traditional pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWRs) and Canada Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) reactors, the company said in a statement on Tuesday. This testing, the company said, highlights the potential of ANEEL nuclear fuel (Clean Core’s patented thorium-based fuel that blends thorium with a more concentrated type of uranium—HALEU—for PHWRs).
The significance of higher burnups derived from ANEEL fuel, the company said, translates to “several operational benefits when integrated with the existing reactor design: reduced nuclear spent fuel volumes, improved reactor economics, enhanced safety performance and improved proliferation resistance”. It said the irradiation results build on decades of global research into thorium fuel cycles to improve fuel utilisation and resource efficiency in existing heavy-water reactor fleets without reactor modifications.
Clean Core, whose founder and CEO Mehul Shah is of Indian origin, is only the second American company to have secured an export license from the US Department of Energy (DAE) to sell nuclear technology to India in nearly two decades.
“Surpassing 60 GWd/MTU of burnup in the Advanced Test Reactor marks an important milestone for the ANEEL fuel program,” said Shah. “This irradiation campaign provides meaningful performance data and demonstrates that thorium-HALEU fuel can achieve burnup levels comparable to those seen in PWR fuels while offering improved fuel utilisation, enhanced safety characteristics, inherent proliferation resistance, and meaningful reductions in long-lived nuclear spent fuel radioisotopes. Our objective has been to introduce thorium into the nuclear fuel cycle in a practical way using existing reactors, and this milestone represents a significant step toward that goal.”
CCTE is now planning its next milestone: a demonstration irradiation in a commercial power reactor that will move ANEEL fuel from proven test concept to commercial reality.
Earlier, in December 2024, state-owned NTPC Ltd and CCTE had announced a strategic partnership to explore the development and deployment of ANEEL for existing nuclear stations in India, subject to regulatory clearances. “The expected benefits of ANEEL fuel include the utilization of thorium as a fuel in existing PHWR reactors, significant reductions in nuclear waste, enhancing India’s energy security using domestically available thorium, and improved safety and proliferation resistance. Additionally, ANEEL fuel offers cost savings by delivering greater energy output within existing safety margins and lowering the operating costs of current reactors,” NTPC had said in December 2024.
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Apart from exploring development and deployment of ANEEL fuel in India, NTPC and CCTE intend to collaborate for exploring the possible indigenisation of its manufacturing with local supply chain development, establishing supply chain for HALEU, and supply of Uranium to India with sovereign guarantee.
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