Founded to deliver on the promise of nuclear energy, practically
FANCO began with a group of nuclear engineers and scientists whose careers were shaped by America’s fast reactor programs. Many worked directly on the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF), a 400-megawatt thermal (MWt) sodium-cooled fast reactor at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Hanford site in Washington state.
FFTF demonstrated that advanced fast-reactor systems could be operated safely and reliably at meaningful scale: it conducted the first passive safety tests of their kind, set a world record for fuel performance, and exposed workers to roughly 1/100th the radiation of commercial reactors, a record the American Nuclear Society later recognized as a National Nuclear Historic Landmark. It was shut down in the early 1990s as federal funding priorities shifted, despite strong technical performance.
Experience built in the field
What remained was a team of engineers who had tested its fuel assemblies, ran its sodium loops, and built its safety record firsthand. Advanced-reactor development is often discussed through models, simulations, and conceptual designs. The people behind FANCO came from a different starting point. Advanced-reactor physics has already been demonstrated. The unresolved challenge was turning that technical foundation into a reactor that could be licensed, manufactured, financed, and deployed repeatedly.
That team has grown to include experts covering all aspects of the industry, from regulatory and licensing to commercial reactor operations to supply chain and project delivery. FANCO prides itself in a team made up of hands-on doers.
Solving the hardest problems first
That’s why this team designed the FANCO deployment platform and EAGL-1 around the industry’s unsolved problems: short-term power needs, constrained supply chains, siting, and fuel-cycle management.
Collaboration across the industry
The FANCO team draws on decades of trusted relationships to bring together expertise from across the nuclear industry. FANCO’s technical development is informed by current and historical contractual work with the U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. national laboratories, along with decades of experience across federal advanced-reactor programs.
