Author Tim Gregory speaking in October 2025 at New Scientist Live in London (Photo: Alistair Veryard).
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
Participants join a conference at Argonne National Laboratory. (Photos: DOE/ANL)
Argonne National Laboratory, located in Lemont, Ill., outside of Chicago, continues to develop a U.S. Department of Energy Packaging University Summer Institute by leveraging the laboratory’s educational resources and workforce development opportunities that support STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). The institute will be open to both professionals in the nuclear packaging field and highly qualified graduate university students who are recommended by their advisors.
Tokamak Hall, where SPARC is being built, at CFS’s Devens, Mass., headquarters. (Photo: Commonwealth Fusion Systems)
Commonwealth Fusion Systems makes no small plans. The company wants to build a 400-MWe magnetic confinement fusion power plant called ARC near Richmond, Va., and begin operating it in the early 2030s. And the plans don’t end there. CFS wants to deploy “thousands” of fusion power plants capable of accelerating a global energy transition.
Representatives from GVH meet students at one of the annual Fall Career and Internship Fairs at the UNCW’s Burney Center. (Photo: Jeff Janowski/UNCW)
For the past several years, the University of North Carolina–Wilmington has hosted volunteer instructors from Wilmington-based GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy who teach engineering courses and engage with students. This guest instructor program has grown under the guidance of Amy Craig Reamer, associate professor of practice and director of engineering in the UNCW College of Science and Engineering’s Department of Computer Science. Under her oversight, an informal but strong public-private partnership has been established to the benefit of UNCW students and the wider Wilmington community.
A ray-traced synthetic image from SOLPS plasma-emission simulations, with vessel materials rendered as glass for visualization. This modeling helps researchers understand how light interacts with in-vessel components and how real-world diagnostics would view the plasma during experiments. (Image: Curt Johnson/ORNL)
Over the past decade, fusion energy has moved decisively from scientific aspiration toward a credible pathway to a new energy technology. Thanks to long-term federal support, we have significantly advanced our fundamental understanding of plasma physics—the behavior of the superheated gases at the heart of fusion devices. This knowledge will enable the creation and control of fusion fuel under conditions required for future power plants. Our progress is exemplified by breakthroughs at the National Ignition Facility and the Joint European Torus.
The Integrated Effects Test in Everett, Wash. (Photo: Southern Company)
As the energy sector faces mounting pressure to grow at an unprecedented pace while maintaining reliability and affordability, nuclear technology remains an essential component of the long-term solution. Southern Company stands out among U.S. utilities for its proactive role in shaping these next-generation systems—not just as a future customer, but as a hands-on innovator.
From left: Byron (Photo: Constellation), Clinton (Photo: Constellation), and a rendering of the Kronos reactor planned for the University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign. (Image: Nano Nuclear)
Nuclear is enjoying a bit of a resurgence. The momentum for reliable energy to support economic development around the country—specifically data centers and AI—remains strong, and strongly in favor of nuclear. And as feature coverage on the states in the January 2026 issue of Nuclear News made abundantly clear, many states now see nuclear as necessary to support rising electricity demand while maintaining a reliable grid and reaching decarbonization goals.
Teller’s (left) and Ulam’s Los Alamos Manhattan Project badge photographs, 1943–1944.
In early 1951, Los Alamos scientists Edward Teller and Stanislaw Ulam devised a breakthrough that would lead to the hydrogen bomb [1]. Their design gave the United States an initial advantage in the Cold War, though comparable progress was soon achieved independently in the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom.
January 8, 2026, 5:12PMNuclear NewsGeorge Joslin, Arden Rowell, Ha Bui, Justin Valentino, Ziwei Che, Seyed Reihani, and Zahra Mohaghegh Fig. 1. Example of a cost-benefit analysis for efficient and safe nuclear licensing. This framework illustrates how safety risk, traditionally quantified through PRA, must be combined with other relevant cost and benefit dimensions to meet statutory expectations of efficiency.
The U.S. nuclear industry is standing at its most volatile regulatory moment yet—one that will shape the trajectory and safety of the industry for decades to come. Recent judicial, legislative, and executive actions have converged to rewrite the rules governing the licensing and regulation of nuclear power reactors. Although these changes are intended to promote and accelerate the deployment of new nuclear energy technologies, the collision of multiple legal shifts—occurring simultaneously and intersecting with profound technological uncertainties—is overwhelming the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and threatening to destabilize investor and industry expectations.
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