Orano Med expands its Texas Pb-212 R&D center

June 27, 2025, 12:47PMNuclear News

Orano Group subsidiary Orano Med, a developer of targeted alpha therapies for oncology, inaugurated the expansion of its main research and development center located in Plano, Texas. The facility is used in the development of radiopharmaceuticals and for conducting preclinical research focused on targeted alpha therapies using lead-212, an alpha-emitting radioisotope that has shown promise in treating various types of cancer.

NRC’s David Wright visits the Hill and more NRC news

June 26, 2025, 9:29AMNuclear News

Wright

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is in the spotlight today for three very different reasons. First, NRC Chair David Wright was on Capitol Hill yesterday for his renomination hearing in front of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee. Second, the NRC released its updated milestone schedules according to the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act (NEIMA) and the executive orders signed by President Trump last month; and third, as reported by Reuters on Tuesday, 28 former NRC officials have condemned the dismissal of Commissioner Hanson earlier this month.

Renomination: EPW Committee chair Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R., W.Va.) opened the hearing with a statement praising Wright’s experience and emphasized the urgency of stable leadership at the NRC.

“China is executing a rapid build-out of its nuclear industry,” Capito said. “The demand for clean, baseload power is skyrocketing as we position America to win the AI race.”

A look inside NIST’s work to optimize cancer treatment and radiation dosimetry

June 26, 2025, 7:10AMNuclear News
A NIST head-shaped phantom is helping researchers improve radiation dose estimates for cancer treatment. (Photo: NIST)

In an article just published by the Taking Measure blog of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Stephen Russek—who leads the Imaging Physics Project in the Magnetic Imaging Group at NIST and codirects the MRI Biomarker Measurement Service—describes his team’s work using phantom stand-ins for human tissue.

DOE extends Centrus’s HALEU production contract by one year

June 25, 2025, 7:00AMNuclear News
A view of the HALEU cascade at the American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio. (Photo: Centrus Energy)

Centrus Energy has secured a contract extension from the Department of Energy to continue—for one year—its ongoing high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) production at the American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio, at an annual rate of 900 kilograms of HALEU UF6. That's the same amount of HALEU—900 kg—that the company today announced it has delivered to the DOE, completing Phase II of its contract. According to Centrus, the contract extension, which allows the company to begin Phase III, is valued at about $110 million through June 30, 2026.

Hinkley Point C gets over $6 billion in financing from Apollo

June 24, 2025, 3:00PMNuclear News
A model of the Hinkley Point C station. (Image: UK government)

U.S.-based private capital group Apollo Global has committed £4.5 billion ($6.13 billion) in financing to EDF Energy, primarily to support the U.K.’s Hinkley Point C station. The move addresses funding needs left unmet since China General Nuclear Power Corporation—which originally planned to pay for one-third of the project—exited in 2023 amid U.K. government efforts to reduce Chinese involvement.

Nuclear techniques highlighted at UN Ocean Conference

June 24, 2025, 7:00AMNuclear News
IAEA director general Rafael Grossi speaks during a session on combating marine pollution. (Photo: E. McDonald/IAEA)

Plastic waste is polluting the oceans and entering the human body in the form of microplastics. According to the United Nations, without immediate action the amount of plastic finding a way into the oceans each year could reach 37 million metric tons by 2040, becoming a threat to marine and human life.

High-power electricity direct from radiation is the vision of Rads to Watts

June 23, 2025, 12:00PMNuclear News
In this artist’s concept, a notional spacecraft with a high-power plasma thruster is powered by kilowatt-level radiovoltaics. (Image: DARPA/Alan Clarke)

You could call it a power contest. Teams picked for a new research program from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will compete to design radiovoltaic cells that can outperform others in measured power density and endure high-flux radiation from a U.S. Army Research Lab linear accelerator. The top teams will strive to make it through a second downselect based on the performance of cells sequestered in time capsules and subjected to even more punishing high-flux radiation. Concepts that make it to the bonus period have a chance to be built into radioisotope-fueled power systems uniquely suited to high-radiation regions of space or dark, remote places on Earth.

MOU signed for Solo microreactor

June 23, 2025, 7:01AMNuclear News
Paragon vice president John Portillo (left) and Terra Innovatum partner and chief business development officer Giordano Morichi at the signing ceremony. (Photo: Paragon)

Paragon Energy Solutions has signed a memorandum of understanding with Terra Innovatum, a developer of micro-modular nuclear reactors, to support the design and integration of instrumentation and control systems for Terra’s Solo micro-modular reactor. Paragon is a provider of safety-related I&C systems for the nuclear energy community.

DOE opens pilot program to authorize test reactors outside national labs

June 20, 2025, 9:35AMNuclear News

Details of the plan to test new reactor concepts under the Department of Energy’s authority but outside national laboratory boundaries—first outlined in one of the four executive orders on nuclear energy released on May 23—were just released in a request for applications issued by the DOE.

West Virginia couple use ANS Geiger counters for nuclear education

June 20, 2025, 7:10AMNuclear News
Ann Gibeaut (center row, second from left), Tim Adkins (center row, far right), and other volunteer educators with Civil Air Patrol cadets. (Photo: Boone Composite Squadron, Civil Air Patrol)

Husband-and-wife team Timothy Adkins and Ann Gibeaut are using Geiger counters supplied by the American Nuclear Society to educate young people in West Virginia about nuclear science and ionizing radiation. In 2022, ANS donated some old nonfunctioning Geiger counters to Tim and Ann, who recalibrated them and got them working again.

IAEA reports on safety status of Iran’s nuclear facilities

June 18, 2025, 9:31AMNuclear News
The IAEA director general prepares to deliver his update. (Photo: Dean Calma/IAEA)

Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has shared his concerns about the Iran-Israel conflict with the agency’s board of directors.

“Military escalation threatens lives, increases the chance of a radiological release with serious consequences for people and the environment and delays indispensable work towards a diplomatic solution for the long-term assurance that Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon,” Grossi said on June 16. “Consistent with the objectives of the IAEA and its statute, I call on all parties to exercise maximum restraint to avoid further escalation.”

K-State to offer NE bachelor's degree starting this fall

June 17, 2025, 12:00PMNuclear News
Looking down into K-State’s research reactor. (Photo: Kansas State University)

The Carl R. Ice College of Engineering at Kansas State University is adding nuclear engineering as its 15th bachelor of science degree program. Offered through the Alan Levin Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, the curriculum of 123 credit hours will be officially available starting in the fall this year.

Trump administration begins overhaul of the NRC

June 17, 2025, 7:42AMNuclear News

Hanson

Since the president's inauguration in January, the Trump administration has been on course to make big changes at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to realize its goals of deregulation, energy dominance, and deployment of advanced reactors. Given the executive orders (EOs) and the work that the Department of Government Efficiency has done in cutting the federal workforce, it was a surprise that NRC commissioner Christopher Hanson was dismissed on Friday, according to a statement Hanson posted on his LinkedIn profile early Monday.

Hanson said in the post that President Trump terminated his position “without cause, contrary to existing law and long-standing precedent regarding removal of independent agency appointments.”