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.
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.”
Looking down into K-State’s research reactor. (Photo: Kansas State University)
Susquehanna nuclear power plant in Salem Township, Pa.
Talen Energy Corporation and Amazon have signed an expanded power purchase agreement (PPA) whereby Talen agrees to supply electricity from its Susquehanna nuclear power plant for AI operations and other cloud technologies at Amazon Web Services’ data center campus next to the power plant.
June 13, 2025, 3:00PMNuclear NewsAlex Gilbert, Harsh Desai, Patrick Snouffer The Z1 heat source was the first Sr-90 heat source built in the United States in nearly four decades and the first of its kind for a commercial company. (Photo: Zeno Power)
In the fall of 2023, a small Zeno Power team accomplished a major feat: they demonstrated the first strontium-90 heat source in decades—and the first-ever by a commercial company.
Zeno Power worked with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to fabricate and validate this Z1 heat source design at the lab’s Radiochemical Processing Laboratory. The Z1 demonstration heralded renewed interest in developing radioisotope power system (RPS) technology. In early 2025, the heat source was disassembled, and the Sr-90 was returned to the U.S. Department of Energy for continued use.
Housed at MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, the Schmidt Laboratory for Materials in Nuclear Technologies will use a compact cyclotron to accelerate the testing of materials for use in commercial fusion power plants. (Image: Rick Leccacorvi and Rui Vieira/PSFC)
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) has launched the Schmidt Laboratory for Materials in Nuclear Technologies (LMNT). Backed by a philanthropic consortium led by Eric and Wendy Schmidt, LMNT is designed to speed up the discovery and evaluation of cost-effective materials that can withstand extreme fusion conditions for extended periods.
Professor Joseph Newkirk operates a testing device in Missouri S&T’s Toomey Hall. (Photo: Blaine Falkena/Missouri S&T)
Concept art of the Dow plant in Seadrift, Texas. (Source: X-energy)
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is providing the opportunity to request a hearing on Dow Chemical Company’s application to construct a 320-MWe nuclear power plant at the company’s Seadrift site in Calhoun, Texas. Long Mott Energy, a wholly owned subsidiary of Dow Chemical, submitted its construction permit application to the NRC in March. It was accepted for review by the agency on May 12.
Concept art of the planned Sizewell C plant on the Suffolk coast, featuring two French-designed EPRs. (Image: Sizewell C)
It’s a move that “brings to an end decades of dithering and delay, with the government backing the builders.” That’s how the U.K. government announced, with alliterative fanfare, its £14.2 billion (about $19.2 billion) investment in Sizewell C, where EDF Energy plans to build two 1,600-MWe EPRs.
Concept art of Rolls-Royce SMR’s reactor design. (Image: Rolls Royce)
Rolls-Royce SMR has emerged as the United Kingdom’s preferred bidder to build the country’s first small modular reactors following a two-year competition, the U.K. government announced June 10. Rolls-Royce SMR expects to build three SMRs with Great British Energy–Nuclear, subject to contracting later this year and regulatory approvals. Great British Energy–Nuclear will “aim to allocate a site later this year and connect projects to the grid in the mid-2030s.”
WIPP completed the commissioning of a large-scale ventilation system, known as the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System, this spring. The system will restore full ventilation to the underground repository. (Photo: DOE)
This spring, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management announced that it had achieved a major milestone by completing commissioning of the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System (SSCVS) facility—a new, state-of-the-art, large-scale ventilation system at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the DOE’s geologic repository for defense-related transuranic (TRU) waste in New Mexico.
