Nuclear News

“The nuclear renaissance is real here,” said Ontario Power Generation’s Subo Sinnathamby on May 8, one year to the day after OPG secured a final investment decision to build the first of four planned BWRX-300 reactors at its Darlington nuclear power plant, and shortly after the new reactor’s foundation was lifted into place. “We got our license to construct in April and our [final investment decision] in May, and we’ve been off to the races since.”

Leveraging more than $140 million in private capital fundraising, over 322,000 square feet of operational manufacturing space, and multifaceted partnerships with the Departments of Energy and Defense, reactor start-up Antares has become the first company involved in the Reactor Pilot Program to achieve zero-power fueled criticality—a full month ahead of the July 4 deadline set by President Trump’s Executive Order 14301.

This milestone, announced yesterday, was achieved with the company’s Mark-0: a sodium heat-pipe-cooled, TRISO-fueled microreactor. The Mark-0 is a forerunner to the company’s flagship design, which it calls the R1. For Antares, this development represents a key validation of its reactor physics, control systems, and supply chain.

Two companies specializing in ultrasonic nondestructive testing and structural health monitoring are to advance to the final phase of a selection process to demonstrate acoustic emission technologies for the automated monitoring of spent nuclear fuel dry storage canisters.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has approved Constellation’s waiver request to transfer PJM capacity interconnection rights from one of its gas- and oil-powered plants to its Crane nuclear power plant (formerly Three Mile Island-1).

While Constellation executives previously said that an unsuccessful waiver request wouldn’t have prevented the Middletown, Pa., plant from restarting as soon as 2027, it could have impacted whether Crane could fully deliver power to the grid once it is on line. The decision, issued by FERC on June 1, likely helps facilitate Constellation’s path forward for the plant’s restart.

The New York Power Authority is seeking nuclear reactor developers that can commence construction on large-scale reactors and/or small modular reactors before 2033 that can ultimately add at least 1 GW of new capacity to New York’s electrical grid.

Here is a recap of recent industry happenings:

ADVANCED REACTOR MARKETPLACE

Fluor gets X-energy contract for Dow’s Seadrift project

Fluor Corporation has signed a contract to support X-energy’s planned small modular reactor project at Dow’s UCC Seadrift Operations facility in southern Texas. Fluor’s role will initially involve delivery of front-end loading stage 2 services, including project definition, strategic planning, feasibility assessment, cost control, and risk mitigation. X-energy plans to deploy four 80-MW SMRs to replace old infrastructure and supply electricity and industrial steam for the Seadrift facility, which produces materials for such applications as food packaging, footwear, wire and cable insulation, solar cell components, and medical and pharmaceutical packaging. X-energy submitted a construction permit application for the project, which is supported by the Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program, to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in March 2025.

The American Nuclear Society Student Section at the University of Puerto Rico–Mayagüez (ANS-UPRM) recently testified in the Puerto Rican House of Representatives on the opportunities nuclear power could provide for the island. Specifically, section president Francisco Paravisini Domenech advocated for the passage of Proyecto de la Cámara 1092, which would direct the Puerto Rican government to evaluate the deployment of small modular reactors, among other low-carbon technologies. (A Proyecto de la Cámara, or Chamber Project, is akin to a House bill.)

The International Atomic Energy Agency intends to launch a new initiative at the IAEA ministerial in Washington, D.C. on August 26–27. The objective of the initiative, called Atomic Technologies Licensed for Applications at Sea (ATLAS), is to provide support for “the maritime industry’s exploration of small modular reactors (SMRs) to power civilian ships and to provide offshore energy.” The IAEA hopes that this initiative will help advance the maritime deployment of such reactors.

New developments in Sweden’s nuclear energy industry continue to make headlines. Last week, Swedish engineering services firm Studsvik submitted an application to build between 600 MWe and 1,400 MWe of new nuclear power capacity “at and around” its Nyköping Municipality headquarters. Separately, the Swedish government is looking to acquire a majority ownership stake in Videberg Kraft AB.

Ten of the 27 member countries of the European Union recently sent a letter to the European Commission calling for nuclear power to be labeled as sustainable in a new rulemaking that pertains to powering data centers and artificial intelligence.

While the EC’s decision could have significant impact on the future deployment of nuclear across the continent, this call to action also represents a broader positive reconsideration of nuclear power in Europe in recent years.

Yesterday, the American Nuclear Society’s Annual Conference got off to an exciting start with an opening plenary that in its first half featured extensive commentary from ANS CEO Craig Piercy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Ho Nieh, the Department of Energy’s Michael Goff, and several others key leaders in the U.S. nuclear industry.

Urenco USA announced today that it will expand its uranium enrichment capacity by nearly 50 percent with the construction of a new enrichment plant at the company’s National Enrichment Facility in Eunice, N.M.

Workers move a container of treated tank waste as part of Hanford’s Test Bed Initiative to grout around 2,000 gallons of LAW for off-site disposal. (Photo: DOE)

Grouting Hanford’s low-level radioactive liquid tank waste could cost between $480 million and $1.1 billion, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office, which has repeatedly found that grouting (immobilizing waste in a concrete-like mixture) can accelerate cleanup at the Hanford Site and save billions of dollars when compared to mixing the waste with molten glass through the vitrification process.

The dormant Blue Castle nuclear power plant project in Utah has resurfaced, only this time as a proposed small modular reactor facility.

Blue Castle Holdings and Fulcrum Point Holdings—founded by the owner of Hi Tech Solutions, a company behind a separate Utah nuclear project—announced last week a joint venture to advance the Blue Castle project in Green River, Utah, the origins of which trace back almost 20 years.

The ITER Organization has announced that its magnet cold test facility is now in operational mode, allowing the preinstallation testing of superconducting magnets at the fusion reactor’s low operating temperature of 4 Kelvin (−269°C; −452°F) and full current of 68 kiloampere (kA).

Today, there are 34 countries with operational nuclear power plants—but there are dozens more working on building a nuclear plant of their own. While progress on these projects inevitably ebbs and flows, broadly, momentum seems to be building on the international stage.

That growing momentum manifested last week in Kazakhstan’s announcement that it has officially partnered with Russia on a new nuclear power plant project. Prior to these new agreements, Russia, which borders Kazakhstan to the north, was already engaged in extensive preliminary work on the project.

Nielson

The renewed global interest in nuclear power is often framed as a policy story driven by decarbonization goals, energy security concerns, and surging electricity demand from digital infrastructure and electrification. While these forces are real and durable, they materially understate the challenge at hand. The practical constraint on nuclear deployment today is not strategic will, but execution. Specifically, the challenge lies in how nuclear projects are financed, how risk is allocated, and how investors assess credibility in a sector defined by long timelines and asymmetric downside risk.

A team of scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has observed, imaged, and characterized the early stages of hydrogen-uranium corrosion for the first time, the lab announced recently.

Washington, D.C.-based Curio announced yesterday that it has submitted a letter of intent to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to establish a docket for preapplication engagement activities and ultimately the submittal and review of a license application to operate a spent nuclear fuel recycling production facility.

Once a docket is established, Curio will develop a license application to meet all applicable regulations for a nuclear fuel recycling facility under 10 CFR Part 70.

Nuclear officials in Kenya want to engage with residents in Siaya County and keep them informed as the country moves toward building its first nuclear power plant.

The state-run Nuclear Power and Energy Agency said on May 23 it will conduct a “robust, transparent, and multilayered educational campaign to address all anxieties regarding safety, livelihoods, and land,” and that no infrastructure would be built without “broad, informed consent of the community.”