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X-energy just landed another billion-dollar vote of confidence from the US government. The Department of Energy is directing $1 billion in funding toward XE’s small nuclear power plant project in Texas, a move that cements the company’s position as one of the most heavily backed players in the small modular reactor race.
The funding flows through the DOE’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP), which first tapped X-energy back in October 2020 with an initial $80 million seed allocation. With this latest tranche, total federal commitment to the project sits at approximately $1.23 billion.
What XE is actually building
The project centers on X-energy’s Xe-100 reactor, a high-temperature gas-cooled design that falls into the small modular reactor category.
X-energy plans to install four Xe-100 units at Dow Inc.’s UCC Seadrift Operations facility in coastal Texas. Each unit would generate 80 MWe, bringing total plant capacity to 320 MWe. The plant would supply zero-carbon electricity and process steam to Dow’s chemical operations, replacing aging fossil-fuel systems.
A construction permit application was expected to be submitted to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission by March 2025. The project’s environmental assessment has already cleared a key hurdle, yielding a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI), which was anticipated by May 2026 and reportedly tracked ahead of schedule.
X-energy’s path to public markets
X-energy, trading on NASDAQ under the ticker XE, went public in April 2026 in what was described as the largest nuclear IPO on record at the time. The listing raised approximately $1.02 billion, and shares climbed 27% on their debut day.
The company’s selection for the ARDP in October 2020 was a turning point. The DOE picked X-energy alongside another initiative as part of a broader push to accelerate advanced reactor designs. The program was designed to share costs between the federal government and private developers, with the goal of getting demonstration reactors operational within roughly seven years of selection.
Why this matters beyond Texas
In 2023, Dow joined X-energy as a sub-awardee and site host, shifting the emphasis of the project to its Texas facility to facilitate industrial decarbonization. Heavy industries like chemicals, steel, and cement account for a significant share of global emissions, and most of those processes can’t simply plug into a solar farm.
For investors watching XE, the $1.23 billion in total DOE backing significantly de-risks the financial equation. Federal cost-sharing means X-energy isn’t shouldering the full burden of first-of-a-kind construction risk.
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