For immediate release

NRC Assigns RankShield Energy Pre-Application Project Number for HELIX Microreactor

Project No. 99902183 puts the company's engagement with the agency on the record. No application has been filed, and the company holds no NRC approval.

Published September 15, 2026 · RankShield Energy, Inc.

NAPLES, Fla., Sept. 15, 2026 -- The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has assigned RankShield Energy, Inc. project number 99902183 under the docket name "RankShield Energy Pre-application Activities," the company said today. The NRC has assigned a project manager to the engagement.

The number was issued Aug. 31, 2026. On Sept. 15 the company completed the identity proofing and multifactor credentialing required to submit documents through the NRC's external partner submission gateway.

A project number is an administrative tracking identifier. It creates a docket name under which correspondence and meeting summaries are filed, assigns a staff point of contact, and establishes the basis on which NRC staff time is billed. It is not a license, a permit, a certification, a design approval, or an endorsement, and it reflects no NRC finding on any technical matter.

“A project number is a file number, not a finding. It means the agency has somewhere to put our correspondence and someone assigned to read it. We have not filed an application, the staff has not reviewed our design, and we are not going to present an administrative step as a technical result. What changed is that our engagement is on the record, and we intend to publish what happens there, including the parts that do not go our way.”

Jamie Kloncz, Founder, RankShield Energy

RankShield Energy submitted a letter of intent to the NRC Document Control Desk on Aug. 4, 2026, stating its intent to begin pre-application engagement and requesting a project number. An introductory, non-technical meeting was held with the staff on Aug. 25. Nothing was submitted for review at that meeting, and the staff took no position on any technical matter.

The fee mechanism behind the milestone

The practical consequence of the engagement is the basis on which it is billed. Section 201 of the Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy Act of 2024, the ADVANCE Act, directs the NRC to apply a reduced hourly rate to advanced nuclear reactor applicants and pre-applicants. Under 10 CFR 170.20, the professional hourly rate for fiscal year 2026 is $337 and the reduced hourly rate is $154, which the NRC describes as "an over 50 percent reduction."

For pre-applicants, the reduced rate attaches to review of materials described in a licensing project plan. The provision is time limited: the NRC's fiscal year 2026 final fee rule states that the pre-applicant paragraph "shall cease to be effective on September 30, 2030."

RankShield Energy's next submittal is its Regulatory Engagement Plan, submitted as a licensing project plan. That document is written and staged and has not been submitted. Its first topical report will be a Quality Assurance Program Description committing to ASME NQA-1-2022 as endorsed by NRC Regulatory Guide 1.28, Revision 6.

The plan names a standard design approval under 10 CFR Part 52, Subpart E as the application type the company intends to build toward, on the basis that the instrument exists in final regulation today. The NRC's proposed 10 CFR Part 57 microreactor framework, a proposed rule published May 1, 2026 that is not final and under which no developer is licensed, remains the company's preferred destination if it is finalized substantially as proposed.

Status of the program

HELIX is a factory-fabricated heat-pipe microreactor in the 11.0 MWth and 4.40 MWe class using HALEU TRISO fuel. It is a design under development. It is not operating, not licensed, and not approved, and no aspect of it has been demonstrated to or accepted by the NRC.

As of this release, RankShield Energy has filed no application of any kind, has not submitted its licensing project plan, has no accepted quality assurance program in place, and has identified no site. Analysis completed to date is unqualified screening work rather than qualified analysis, a distinction the company states in its filings and in its public material.

The company does not publish enrichment levels, core geometry, fuel loading, reactivity coefficients, or lifetime figures for its design, on export-control grounds under 10 CFR Part 810.

About RankShield Energy

RankShield Energy, Inc. is a Delaware corporation based in Naples, Florida, developing the HELIX factory-fabricated microreactor and a verification-first approach to advanced reactor operations. The company is a pre-applicant engaged in early regulatory interaction with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It holds no NRC license, permit, or design approval.

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