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Reactor operators peer into the reactor pool to look at a blue glow emitting from Texas A&M University’s Training, Research, Isotopes, General Atomics (TRIGA) nuclear research reactor Monday, March 11, 2024 in College Station.
The new energy race

Small nuclear reactors may be coming to Texas, boosted by interest from Gov. Abbott

A nuclear power plant hasn’t been built in Texas in decades because of cost and public fears of a major accident. Now the governor wants to find out if smaller reactors could meet the state’s growing need for on-demand power.


Updated technology

Where the nuclear power goes on the grid at STP Nuclear Operating Company which provides power to CPS San Antonio, Austin Energy, and NRG, in Wadsworth, TX, December 6, 2013. 


The South Texas Project Electric Generating Station, is a nuclear power station southwest of Bay City, Texas, United States. STP occupies a 12,200-acre site west of the Colorado River about 90 miles southwest of Houston.

Nuclear power grows in Texas

J. Clay Sell, CEO of X-energy, holds a billiards ball-sized model of a uranium "pebble," capable of fueling scalable nuclear reactors with reduced costs and heightened safety, in Austin on March 10, 2024.
Nuclear "pebbles" — uranium fuel surrounded by layers of carbon materials, encased in graphite and ceramics — in Austin on March 10, 2024. These models, manufactured as demonstrations without radioactive uranium, illustrate a possible safer approach to scalable nuclear reactors without the redundant and highly expensive safety redundancies required of traditional nuclear facilities.

No fear of nuclear power here

Texas A&M University’s Nuclear Science Center is seen Monday, March 11, 2024 in College Station. The center contains a Training, Research, Isotopes, General Atomics (TRIGA) nuclear research reactor which is used for academic research and training.
Texas A&M University Nuclear Engineering instructional professor Cable Kurwitz diagrams a simple explanation for the process of nuclear fission Monday, March 11, 2024 in College Station.
Texas A&M University reactor operator Thomas Freyman stands in a scanner to measure accumulated contaminates after working in the university’s Training, Research, Isotopes, General Atomics (TRIGA) nuclear research reactor control building Monday, March 11, 2024 in College Station.
From left, Texas A&M University reactor operators Sean Yeatts, Alexander Smith and Harley Rex monitor reactor readings from the university’s Training, Research, Isotopes, General Atomics (TRIGA) nuclear research reactor Monday, March 11, 2024 in College Station.

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