The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration has awarded BWX Technologies a contract valued at $1.5 billion to build a Domestic Uranium Enrichment Centrifuge Experiment (DUECE) pilot plant in Tennessee in support of the administration’s efforts to build out a domestic supply of unobligated enriched uranium for defense-related nuclear fuel.

Noting recent momentum behind nuclear power, the International Atomic Energy Agency has revised up its projections for the expansion of nuclear power, estimating that global nuclear operational capacity will more than double by 2050—reaching 2.6 times the 2024 level—with small modular reactors expected to play a pivotal role in this high-case scenario.

IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi announced the new projections, contained in the annual report Energy, Electricity, and Nuclear Power Estimates for the Period up to 2050 at the 69th IAEA General Conference in Vienna.

In the report’s high-case scenario, nuclear electrical generating capacity is projected to increase to from 377 GW at the end of 2024 to 992 GW by 2050. In a low-case scenario, capacity rises 50 percent, compared with 2024, to 561 GW. SMRs are projected to account for 24 percent of the new capacity added in the high case and for 5 percent in the low case.

President Trump will arrive in the United Kingdom this week for a state visit that promises to include the usual pomp and ceremony alongside the signing of a landmark new agreement on U.S.-U.K. nuclear collaboration.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has found that the environmental impacts of renewing the operating license of the Dresden nuclear power plant outside Chicago, Ill., for an additional 20 years are not great enough to prohibit doing so.

The startup of a new cascade of gas centrifuge at Urenco USA’s (UUSA) uranium enrichment facility in Eunice, N.M., came ahead of schedule and on budget, according to the company.

A new career guide for the nuclear energy industry is now available: The Nuclear Empowered Workforce by Earnestine Johnson. Drawing on more than 30 years of experience across 16 nuclear facilities, Johnson offers a practical, insightful look into some of the many career paths available in commercial nuclear power. To mark the release, Johnson sat down with Nuclear News for a wide-ranging conversation about her career, her motivation for writing the book, and her advice for the next generation of nuclear professionals.

When Johnson began her career at engineering services company Stone & Webster, she entered a field still reeling from the effects of the Three Mile Island incident in 1979, nearly 15 years earlier. Her hiring cohort was the first group of new engineering graduates the company had brought on since TMI, a reflection of the industry-wide pause in nuclear construction. Her first long-term assignment—at the Millstone site in Waterford, Conn., helping resolve design issues stemming from TMI—marked the beginning of a long and varied career that spanned positions across the country.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold a two-day public workshop September 30–October 1 to discuss efforts to improve realism in probabilistic risk assessment. The hybrid workshop, which will be held in person and online, will focus on enhancing risk-informed decision-making for nuclear power plants by making PRA models more realistic and reflective of reactor design, operations, and real-world behavior.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management said the Idaho Cleanup Project (ICP) has recycled more than 2,100 tons of noncontaminated metal debris since 2022 as it works to demolish three legacy Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program prototypes at the Idaho National Laboratory Site, saving taxpayers nearly $2 million in disposal costs while advancing the project’s environmental goals.

Kansas in now one of 11 U.S. states and territories that is free of cesium-137 irradiators—the others being Alaska, Arizona, Delaware, Idaho, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, South Dakota, and Wyoming. The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration announced on September 10 that it had completed the removal of all of these medical devices from Kansas as part of its ongoing effort to reduce radiological threats in the United States.

The Department of Energy announced on Wednesday that it has awarded $134 million in funding for two programs designed to secure U.S. leadership in emerging fusion technologies and innovation. The funding was awarded through the DOE’s Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) program in the Office of Science and will support the next round of Fusion Innovation Research Engine (FIRE) collaboratives and the Innovation Network for Fusion Energy (INFUSE) awards.

As interest and investment grows around AI applications in nuclear power plants, there remains a gap in standardized benchmarks that can quantitatively compare and measure the quality and reliability of new products.

Nuclear-tailored AI developer Atomic Canyon is moving to fill that gap by entering into a new strategic partnership with Idaho National Laboratory to develop and release the “first comprehensive benchmark suite for evaluating retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and large language models (LLMs) in nuclear applications.”

Energy Secretary Chris Wright issued a statement on September 9 denying reports that the Department of Energy plans to terminate the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WTP) at the Hanford Site in Washington state.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently announced that David Wright, after being nominated by President Trump and confirmed by the Senate, was ceremonially sworn in as NRC chair on September 8.

This swearing in comes more than a month after Wright began his third term on the commission; he began leading as chair July 31. His term will conclude on June 30, 2030.

New York City–based advanced nuclear technology developer Nano Nuclear Energy has been awarded a Direct-to-Phase II Small Business Innovation Research contract for its Kronos micro modular reactor (MMR) by AFWERX, the innovation and venture arm of the U.S. Air Force. The contract calls for AFWERX, with the 11th Civil Engineering Squadron, to explore the feasibility of deploying the Kronos MMR Energy System at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling (JBAB) in Washington, D.C.

Texas Tech University and Fermi America are now one step closer to realizing their massive vision for the Advanced Energy and Intelligence Campus in Amarillo, Texas, as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has accepted the first two parts of its combined license application (COLA) for four Westinghouse AP1000s.

Nuclearn, the nuclear AI start-up cofounded by Bradely Fox, one of Nuclear News’s 40 Under 40 honorees for 2024, announced it has raised $10.5 million in Series A funding to accelerate product development and market expansion of its AI platform for nuclear plant operations.

The application period for the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship Program (MSCFP) has opened. Women interested in studying nuclear-related subjects at the master’s degree level should apply by October 31, 2025.

More information on how to apply can be found here.

As part of its environmental review of Global Laser Enrichment’s planned Paducah Laser Enrichment Facility (PLEF) in Kentucky, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced it will conduct a scoping process ahead of preparing an environmental impact statement for GLE’s license application. Announced in the September 5 Federal Register, the NRC is seeking written comments on the scope of the EIS until October 6.

Since the Department of Energy kicked off a 10-company race with its Nuclear Reactor Pilot Program to bring test reactors on line by July 4, 2026, the industry has been waiting for new headlines proclaiming progress. Aalo Atomics broke ahead of the pack first by announcing last week that it had broken ground on its 10-MWe Aalo-X at Idaho National Laboratory.

The Department of Energy announced recently it will provide more than $35 million for 42 projects to help move emerging energy technologies from DOE national laboratories, plants, and sites related to grid security, artificial intelligence, nuclear energy, and advanced manufacturing to the marketplace. The selected projects will leverage over $21 million in cost-share from private and public partners, bringing total funding to more than $57.5 million.

A full list of the FY2025 selections is available here.