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NRC grants Long Mott construction permit; Dow has not decided to build
The proposed four-reactor Texas project would supply industrial steam and electricity. Construction permission is not an operating license, a final investment decision or proof of completed generation.
By Greener Numbers Editorial Team · Published November 10, 2026 · Updated 11/10/2026
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced on November 9, 2026 that it had issued a construction permit for the proposed Long Mott Generating Station in Calhoun County, Texas. The four-reactor project would serve Dow's Seadrift industrial site. The permit is a regulatory milestone for a proposed facility, not an announcement that the reactors are operating.
The project is designed around four X-energy Xe-100 reactors. NRC says the facility would primarily generate high-temperature steam for industrial use, with excess electricity exported to the grid. Dow says the project is intended to replace existing energy and steam assets nearing the end of their life. Those are intended uses, not measured reductions in present-day fuel use.
NRC describes this as its first construction permit for a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor in nearly sixty years and its third advanced-reactor construction permit this year. It also identifies first approvals involving a multimodule advanced-reactor facility, a pebble-bed core and online refueling. These specific milestones should not be widened into a claim that no other advanced nuclear projects have been permitted.
The regulator says its staff completed the safety evaluation in October, one month ahead of schedule, following an environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact issued in May. The construction permit authorizes building the facility. It does not authorize fuel loading or operation, which require a separate NRC operating license.
Dow explicitly says receiving the permit is not a final decision to proceed with construction. Engineering and design work and review by its board remain among the steps before construction could begin. The company says construction could begin later this decade and startup could follow early next decade if approved; that is a conditional schedule, not a committed opening date.
For readers following industrial energy, the change is permission to advance a proposed nuclear steam-and-power project, with company and operating-license decisions still ahead. The announcements do not prove completed capacity, a guaranteed construction cost, elimination of all reactor risk or lower household electricity bills. Those outcomes should not be inferred from construction approval alone.