All-European team leads lead-cooled EAGLES reactor project

The nuclear regulators of Belgium, Italy, and Romania signed on this week to the first "prelicensing" project under the IAEA's Nuclear Harmonization and Standardization Initiative (NHSI) during the opening day of the International Atomic Energy Agency's 69th General Conference, pledging to work with the EAGLES Consortium to clarify regulatory requirements for a lead-cooled reactor ahead of formal licensing.

European lead-cooled reactor development efforts predate this announcement by more than a decade, but if you haven't heard of EAGLES-300, the 300-MWe reactor concept under development, that's not surprising. The consortium leading the effort was formalized just three months ago, in June, with the goal of operating a demonstration reactor in Belgium by 2035 and commercializing the technology in 2039.

Consortium partners: The four EAGLES Consortium partners are Italian nuclear engineering, procurement, and construction contractor Ansaldo Nucleare and three national research institutes: ENEA, RATEN-ICN, and SCK CEN (of Italy, Romania, and Belgium, respectively).

Back in November 2023, Westinghouse Electric Company was also on board with the project, but within a year it had withdrawn and was "focusing on its water-cooled projects," according to SCK CEN, giving the consortium a new "European orientation."

The prelicensing premise: By bringing national regulators together early in the development process, the EAGLES prelicensing project "aims to reduce duplication, clarify requirements, and accelerate the safe worldwide deployment of advanced SMRs," according to a September 16 press release issued by Ansaldo Energia, owner of Ansaldo Nucleare. The consortium's own website is still under construction.

Prelicensing, the EAGLES Consortium said, is "not about granting approval, but about building mutual understanding of safety expectations, technical challenges, and regulatory frameworks." The work "helps identify potential issues early and supports a more efficient, better-informed licensing process later on. The approach is typically top-down: starting from high-level safety principles and gradually moving toward more detailed technical discussions."

IAEA backed: In a General Conference blog post dated September 17, the IAEA said the international prelicensing pilot project for the EAGLES-300 SMR will "help the nuclear regulators of Belgium, Romania, and Italy harmonize their regulatory approaches-with the goal of building a lead-cooled SMR demonstrator in Belgium by 2035."

IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi attended the signing ceremony between representatives of the EAGLES Consortium and the nuclear regulators of Belgium (FANC), Italy (ISIN), and Romania (CNCAN).

"Our support of this prelicensing joint review effort is a natural next step of the IAEA's Nuclear Harmonization and Standardization Initiative (NHSI), which is helping to ensure SMRs move from development to deployment in a safe and timely way," Grossi said.

What do we know about the reactor? According to the press release from Ansaldo Energia, EAGLES-300 is a lead-cooled SMR with an electrical output of about 300 MWe that can also provide heat for industrial applications, including hydrogen production. The fast reactor's "advanced fuel strategy" would include the use of "recycled materials."

A quote attributed to the EAGLES Consortium stated, "We are technically and scientifically on track. With our two key test facilities, LEANDREA and ALFRED, we will work step by step towards the commercialization of the EAGLES-300 in 2039 and its broad rollout."

ALFRED (the Advanced Lead Fast Reactor European Demonstrator), already planned for construction in Romania under an earlier consortium named FALCON, will be upgraded to support EAGLES-300 commercialization, while LEANDREA, in Belgium, will focus on fuel and materials testing.

The EAGLES-300 concept was selected in 2024 as "one of the lead-cooled fast reactor proposals by the Governing Board of the European Industrial Alliance on Small Modular Reactors."