It has been 10 months since President Trump signed several executive orders that have reshaped the nuclear energy industry and set lofty goals for initiatives like the development and deployment of new nuclear technology.

One such initiative, the DOE’s Nuclear Reactor Pilot Program, calls for at least 3 of the 11 reactors in the program to achieve criticality by July 4, 2026. Some have questioned whether this target is feasible.

X-energy announced Thursday that it has signed a letter of intent with Talen Energy to assess the deployment of X-energy’s Xe-100 reactor in Pennsylvania and throughout the market area of the PJM Interconnection regional transmission organization. That area, where the companies intend to explore the deployment of at least three four-unit Xe-100 power plants, includes several states in the eastern United States, from New Jersey to Illinois.

Arizona Public Service has informed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of its intention to renew the operating licenses of the Palo Verde nuclear power plant’s three reactors for a second 20-year term, which could extend operations at the facility into the 2060s.

According to the announcement, APS won’t submit the subsequent license renewal application to the NRC until late 2027. The renewal would allow Unit 1 to operate through 2065, Unit 2 through 2066, and Unit 3 through 2067.

The University of Missouri has entered a consulting agreement with construction firm Burns & McDonnell to develop NextGen MURR, a new 20-MW light water research reactor that will produce medical isotopes for cancer treatments and theranostics and will be used to conduct neutron science research.

On March 17, Oklo released a series of four press releases in the span of a few hours containing some of the first substantial updates the company has given on its various approval processes with the Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission since January.

Specifically, Oklo announced that it has received two nuclear safety design agreement (NSDA) approvals from the DOE and a materials license from the NRC.

Laurent Jerrige, JRC director for nuclear decommissioning (left), and Pavol Stuller, Amentum’s European development director, sign the JRC site cleanup contract. (Photo: Amentum)

The European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC) awarded a framework contract worth $112 million (about €97.6 million) to an Amentum-led joint venture to lead the cleanup of nuclear research sites in four European countries.

TerraPower Isotopes, a TerraPower subsidiary, plans to increase its actinium-225 production 20-fold by opening a new manufacturing facility in Philadelphia, Pa., and by expanding the capacity of its Everett, Wash., facility. On March 17, TerraPower Isotopes said it expects the new facility to begin producing the medical radioisotope for targeted alpha therapy in 2029.

American enrichment start-up General Matter is to export nuclear fuel to Japan and South Korea, backed by up to $4.2 billion in potential debt financing from the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM).

In an effort to revamp its nuclear sector and enable the build-out of new projects, the U.K. has unveiled a sweeping set of changes to project deployment. These changes, which are set to come into effect by the end of next year, will restructure the country’s regulatory and environmental approval framework and directly support new growth through various workforce efforts.

At last week’s Regulatory Information Conference, Jamie Pelton cochaired a panel on Palisades nuclear power plant’s restart—a “historic restart,” as she put it.

Her choice of words was perhaps an understatement. After all, no U.S. nuclear plant has yet restarted after being slated for decommissioning.

The nuclear space is full of companies eager to power new AI development. At the same time, many AI companies want to provide services to the nuclear industry. It should come as no surprise, then, that two new partnerships have recently been announced that further bridge the AI and nuclear sectors.

AtkinsRéalis has announced a partnership with Nvidia that aims to leverage Nvidia’s technologies to deploy “nuclear-powered, large-scale AI factories.” Centrus Energy has announced a partnership with Palantir Technologies to use Palantir’s software in support of Centrus’s plans to expand enrichment capacity.

Hanford Site services contractor Hanford Mission Integration Solutions (HMIS) has agreed to pay the Department of Justice $3.45 million as part of a settlement agreement resolving allegations that HMIS overcharged the Department of Energy for millions of dollars in labor hours at the nuclear site in Washington state.

March has put Westinghouse front and center in multiple news stories, from its role in Japan’s investment in U.S. nuclear energy to the economic impact that 10 potential AP1000 reactors could bring to the United States.

Fusion leaders at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s annual Regulatory Information Conference discussed the path forward for regulating the burgeoning fusion industry. The speakers discussed government and private industry initiatives in the United States and United Kingdom, with a focus on efforts shaping the near-term deployment of commercial fusion machines.

A recurring theme was the need to explain the difference between fission and fusion. Representatives from the Department of Energy and Type One Energy highlighted this as an important distinction for regulators, as it will allow fusion to undergo its own independent maturation process for developing standards and regulations in the same way that fission has. Lea Perlas, Fusion Program director at the Virginia Department of Health, said that confusion between fission and fusion has been a common cause for misplaced concerns among community members surrounding Commonwealth Fusion Systems’ proposed fusion plant site near Richmond, Va.

Attendees at last week’s 2026 Regulatory Information Conference, hosted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, saw extensive discussion of new reactor technologies, uprates, fusion, multiunit deployments, supply chain, and much more.

With the industry in a state of rapid evolution, there was much to discuss. Connected to all these topics was one central theme: the ongoing changes at the NRC. With massively shortened timelines, the ADVANCE Act and Executive Order 14300, and new interagency collaboration and authorization pathways in mind, speakers spent much of the RIC exploring what the road ahead looks like for the NRC.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has released its 2025 annual performance assessments of the country’s 95 operating commercial nuclear reactors. And of the 95 reactors, all but five earned the highest marks.

Nuclear power plant assessments can fall under one of five categories: Licensee Response, Regulatory Response, Degraded Cornerstone, Degraded Performance, and Unacceptable Performance. Ninety reactors fell under Licensee Response, the highest performance category in safety and security. Plants that achieve this level of performance are subject to a Reactor Oversight Process (ROP) baseline inspection.

Last May, President Trump issued Executive Order (EO) 14300, “Ordering the Reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,” which mandated that the NRC review and overhaul its rules within 18 months of the EO being issued.

At a public meeting on Thursday, NRC officials shared details and an overview of the rulemaking process, saying that they were on target to have these rules ready by the November 23 deadline.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy has launched a new initiative to meet the government’s goal of increasing U.S. nuclear energy capacity by boosting the power output of existing nuclear reactors through uprates and restarts and by completing stalled reactor projects.

UPRISE, the Utility Power Reactor Incremental Scaling Effort, managed by Idaho National Laboratory, is to “deliver immediate results that will accelerate nuclear power growth and foster innovation to address the nation’s urgent energy needs,” DOE-NE said in its announcement.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is looking for feedback on its proposed rule for fees for fiscal year 2026, which begins October 1. The proposal was published in the March 12 Federal Register.

Based on the FY 2026 budget request because a full-year appropriation has not yet been enacted for the fiscal year, the proposed request is $971.5 million, an increase of $27.4 million from FY 2025.

MARVEL, the Microreactor Applications Research Validation and Evaluation project at Idaho National Laboratory, has had its preliminary documented safety analysis approved by the Department of Energy, marking a milestone in its development and serving as a potential outline for other microreactors in development.