Over the next six months, the collaboration partners said they intend to prepare a comprehensive research program and jointly develop a plan for the construction, operation and maintenance of the MMR.

The first stage of the unusual nuclear-based cross-border project will see construction of a 30 MW MMR facility to serve as a training, research and test facility connected to the existing energy infrastructure of Grupa Azoty.

The partners say they believe the plans will provide a “unique opportunity” to study, test, optimize and integrate the MMR as a zero-carbon generation source into an industrial plant.

The collaboration is planned to ultimately lead to the full-scale use of nuclear energy to power chemical processes and to generate steam and hydrogen at Grupa Azoty’s plant, the company said, adding that this represents “another major step” toward decarbonization.

A potential gas shortage following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has proven how important the diversification of energy sources is for Poland’s industry, said Karol Rabenda, the country’s deputy minister of state assets. The goal of the new nuclear technologies, he said, is to develop sources of stable and low-emission energy in the country.

Cooperation on energy security is a critical component of the US-Polish relationship and helping to develop Poland’s nuclear energy sector is a core part of that effort, Mark Brzezinski, US ambassador to Poland asserted.

Zbigniew Bogucki of the West Pomeranian university called the agreement “yet another step in advancing our shared prosperity and security.”

In the West Pomeranian Hydrogen Valley currently taking shape in the region, Bogucki said, scientists and students will have the opportunity to conduct research on the advanced technology of nuclear micro reactors while providing “safe, reliable and emission-free energy to the chemical industry.”

The transatlantic project has the potential to be somewhat controversial within the EU, as France and Germany continue to squabble over whether hydrogen made with nuclear energy can be declared as sustainable.

Grupa Azoty’s flagship “Green Azoty” project targets renewable capacities totaling nearly 380 MW across its production slate by 2030. The company’s plans also foresee an engagement in wind power and small nuclear sources, including MMRs.

Ultra Safe Nuclear, headquartered in Seattle, Washington, USA, bills itself as a “global leader and strong vertical integrator of nuclear technologies and services, on earth and in space.” Its MMR is a fourth-generation high-temperature gas-cooled “nuclear battery” that it says offers a simple, scalable, carbon-free energy source that protects the industrial facilities it powers.

The cooperation with Grupa Azoty is part of the US-Polish cooperative framework formally established through a February 2021 intergovernmental agreement.

Author: Dede Williams, Freelance Journalist