Supply Chain & Deployment

Supply chain: manufacturability first

The scalability of nuclear energy is often limited by boutique fuel and heavy-forging supply chains. ReCore explores whether a serial, modular manufacturing model — using existing material classes and factory content — could reduce those bottlenecks. That is central to the Why?: schedule, sovereignty, and constructability are design drivers, not afterthoughts. This page is part of an engineering hypothesis, not a claim that serial production is already proven for this plant.

Fuel Independence

The greatest bottleneck for modern advanced reactors is the fuel supply. Most “Generation IV” designs require specialized fuels that do not yet have an established industrial supply chain.

The Problem with Modern Fuel Cycles

Many proposed SMRs and advanced reactors rely on:

• LEU / HALEU: High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium requires massive enrichment infrastructure, much of which is currently controlled by a few global powers.
• TRISO Fuel: Complex “pebble” or “compact” fuel forms that are expensive to manufacture and currently have limited production capacity.

The ReCore.One Solution: Legacy Waste as “Kickstart”

ReCore.One bypasses the enrichment bottleneck by using what the world already has in abundance. Our “kickstart” fuel consists of two primary legacy streams:

1. Depleted Uranium (DU): A byproduct of the enrichment process. Globally, there are over 1.5 million tonnes of DU stored in containers. It is currently categorized as “long-term waste,” but in a Fast Spectrum reactor, it represents a nearly infinite energy supply.
2. Plutonium (Pu): Extracted from legacy Light Water Reactor (LWR) spent fuel. There are roughly 2,000 tonnes of plutonium currently stored globally in the form of spent nuclear fuel.

The Storage Burden: A Costly Liability

Storing these materials is not only expensive but requires centuries of continuous security and environmental monitoring.

• Economic Burden: Nations spend billions annually on the upkeep, security, and integrity of these storage sites.
• Security & Safety: These stockpiles are a permanent proliferation and environmental risk, requiring hardened facilities to prevent unauthorized access or environmental leakage.
• Turning Liability into Asset: For the global community, these stockpiles are a multi-trillion dollar energy reserve. By transitioning from a “storage-focused” model to a “resource-circular” model, we eliminate these ongoing security costs and convert a massive liability into the primary fuel source for the ReCore.One fleet.

Full Sovereignty

Once the first generation of reactors is operational, ReCore-Processing closes the cycle completely. From that point forward, the fleet is self-sustaining, requiring no enrichment, no fuel imports, and no external suppliers for centuries.

Manufacturing Simplicity

By shifting the complexity from the construction site to the factory, ReCore.One makes nuclear energy a product rather than a mega-project.

The Atmospheric Pressure Advantage

Traditional Light Water Reactors (LWRs) are defined by their pressure vessels—massive, monolithic steel forgings that only a few foundries globally can produce.

• No Complex Vessel: The ReCore-Reactor operates at Atmospheric Pressure (~1 bar). This allows the vessel to be manufactured using standard high-precision steel fabrication rather than specialized nuclear-grade forgings.
• Lower Supply Chain Risk: By eliminating the need for heavy-walled pressure vessels, we open the market to a much broader range of precision manufacturers.

Prefabrication & Component Testing

• >90% Factory Content: Each of the six modular sections is built and tested in a controlled factory environment.
• Serial Quality: Every component, from the Helical Heat Exchanger to the ALIP Pumps, undergoes rigorous qualification before arriving at the site. This eliminates the “found-at-site” defects that cause decade-long delays in traditional projects.

Standardized Working Fluids

• Sodium & Nitrogen: We utilize industrial-grade liquid sodium and pure nitrogen (N₂). These are abundant, well-understood materials with established global supply chains.
• Argon Cover: The inert Argon atmosphere, required for sodium handling, is managed via modern Robotic Automation and precision control systems, ensuring safe, hermetic operation without the need for complex, manual high-pressure seals.

Heat-exchanger and materials supply

Advanced helical HX units (primary Na→N₂ and Brayton recuperator / precooler) rely on industrial high-temperature tube and shell supply: 316LN seamless tubes, internal fins, twisted-tape inlets, helical bending, bonding of inserts, and NDE. The design target is high heat-transfer rate at very low pressure drop using conventional nuclear and process heat-exchanger fabrication.

Summary: A Manufactured Product

ReCore.One decouples nuclear energy from the 20th-century “monolithic supply chain.” By leveraging Multiplicity (building many identical modules) and Automation, we enable the rapid deployment of safe power without the need for decades of industrial mobilization.