Friday, 14 March 2025
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Newcleo said the FASTER (Fuel process Assembly Storage Training and Enhanced Reality) centre, which will not store or handle any radioactive materials, will play a key role in its strategy to close the nuclear fuel cycle “while safely producing clean, affordable, and sustainable energy, essential for low-carbon economies”.
FASTER will host: dedicated spaces for testing engineering solutions and maintenance, including office areas; advanced training facilities, featuring rooms equipped for virtual and augmented reality, simulators, and a training workshop with real production equipment; and development and qualification workshops designed to test and optimise manufacturing processes using cutting-edge technologies, such as 3D printing, within a high-tech environment dedicated to innovation and precision engineering.
The FASTER centre will be developed in collaboration with leading Italian design company Pininfarina.
“By combining technological innovation with an advanced aesthetic approach, the site will provide an optimised workspace that fosters learning and research in an immersive and functional environment – illustrating how nuclear energy can drive sustainability, support net-zero goals, and secure a safe, abundant, and virtually inexhaustible energy source,” Newcleo said.
“The acquisition of this site marks a key milestone in our strategic roadmap,” said Newcleo founder and CEO Stefano Buono. “This innovation and training centre, designed with Pininfarina’s renowned elegance and functionality in mind, will play a crucial role in preparing and anticipating the operations of our future pilot fuel manufacturing line … as a first structuring step, it will also support the successful deployment of our pilot line at another site in France.”
Newcleo plans to directly invest in a mixed uranium/plutonium oxide (MOX) plant to fuel its small modular lead-cooled fast reactors. In June 2022, the company announced it had contracted France’s Orano for feasibility studies on the establishment of a MOX production plant.
In December last year, Newcleo submitted its Safety Option File to France’s nuclear safety regulator for its fuel assembly testing facility. The regulator’s official opinion on the submitted safety options will contribute to securing the application for authorisation to construct such a facility.
According to Paris-headquartered Newcleo’s delivery roadmap, the first non-nuclear pre-cursor prototype of its reactor is expected to be ready by 2026 in Italy, the first reactor operational in France by the end of 2031, while the final investment decision for the first commercial power plant is expected around 2029.
Newcleo said its first-of-a-kind 30 MWe lead-cooled fast reactor will “serve as an industrial demonstrator, a showcase for Newcleo’s technology, and contribute to the development of the nuclear sector in France”.
Last month, Newcleo announced it had started the land acquisition process for its demonstration LFR-AS-30 small modular reactor in Indre-et-Loire in the Chinon Vienne et Loire community of municipalities in western France.
