TVA Set to Get NRC Construction Permit Tuesday for Tennessee Small Reactor as Nearby Fuel Plant Tops Out

Two Milestones, One Tennessee Corridor

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is scheduled to approve a construction permit Tuesday, Sept. 29, for the Tennessee Valley Authority to build a small modular reactor on the Clinch River near Oak Ridge, according to a joint news release from TVA and the NRC reported by Yahoo News and Knox News. Bloomberg News separately confirmed the approval was coming, citing a TVA media alert, after first reporting the news the week prior.

TRISO-X, a subsidiary of X-Energy Inc. (Nasdaq: XE), announced Sept. 24 that it finished the primary building structure of TX-1, its advanced nuclear fuel fabrication facility in Oak Ridge. Together, the two projects mark the clearest sign yet that the small modular reactor industry is moving from paper to concrete in East Tennessee.

The Reactor Permit

The Clinch River permit covers a single 300-megawatt BWRX-300 reactor from GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy, according to Bloomberg. It's only the second construction permit the NRC has ever issued for a commercial advanced reactor, and the first for this specific design, Yahoo News reported. TVA is weighing whether to eventually build up to four of the units at the site, per Bloomberg.

Yahoo News, citing Knox News reporting, notes the approval lands months ahead of schedule. The outlet attributes that to the NRC cutting review timelines on several projects since President Trump's second term began, alongside executive orders pushing faster energy permitting amid rising power demand from AI data centers. That's the source's framing of the cause, not an independent finding in this reporting, but it lines up with the administration's public posture on nuclear permitting.

A construction permit is not a green light to run the reactor. TVA still needs a separate operating license once construction is done, NRC spokesperson Scott Burnell told Knox News in August, as cited by Yahoo News. TVA hasn't set a construction start date and is projecting commercial operation for December 2033, eight years out. A faster approval timeline raises legitimate questions about whether regulatory review has been shortened in ways that historically shaped nuclear buildouts. But the record shows this permit only covers construction, with a full operating license and additional NRC inspections still standing between TVA and actually flipping the switch.

The Fuel Plant

Small modular reactors are useless without fuel, and that's where TRISO-X comes in. TX-1, a 214,000-square-foot facility, is designed to produce roughly 700,000 TRISO fuel pebbles a year, equivalent to 5 metric tons of uranium, enough to supply up to 11 of X-energy's Xe-100 reactors, according to the company and confirmed by NucNet and Construction Review Online.

TRISO-X President Joel Duling called finishing the shell "a major milestone," saying the team is now moving into interior utilities, manufacturing equipment installation, and support buildings, work still led by general contractor Clark Construction Group. Construction Review Online reports vertical construction began in November 2025 and hit its mid-2026 target, with the Department of Energy approving an extra $30 million to lock in long-lead equipment and keep the schedule on track.

The NRC granted TRISO-X a 40-year Special Nuclear Material License earlier this year, the first-ever Category 2 fuel fabrication license for processing high-assay low-enriched uranium, according to NucNet. Fuel fabrication isn't expected to actually begin until early 2028, after equipment installation, testing, and a final NRC operational readiness review, Construction Review Online reported. TX-1 will be the first new commercial-scale advanced nuclear fuel plant built in the U.S. in more than 50 years.

The Cost Question

None of this is cheap, and none of it is purely private capital. TVA, which doesn't receive congressional appropriations and funds itself mainly through ratepayers, has already collected $400 million from the Department of Energy for Clinch River, Yahoo News reported, on top of the $30 million DOE recently kicked in for TRISO-X equipment. Yahoo News noted the Clinch River project alone "could cost billions," without a specific total attached.

That's taxpayer and ratepayer money riding on a technology that hasn't produced commercial power in the U.S. yet. TVA customers across seven states will ultimately carry whatever isn't covered by federal grants.

What's Left

X-energy is also chasing Xe-100 deployments beyond Tennessee, including four reactors at Dow's UCC Seadrift site in Texas and a 12-reactor, 960-megawatt project with Energy Northwest and Amazon in Washington state, according to NucNet. Whether Clinch River and TX-1 stay on their current timelines through 2028 and 2033 remains to be seen, along with whether TVA ever announces an actual construction start date for the reactor it just got permitted to build.