Nuclear News

An initiative to educate government, regulatory, and industry representatives around the world about small modular reactors has been launched by the International Atomic Energy Agency, with the first such “SMR School” workshop, which was hosted by the government of Kenya in the capital city of Nairobi from on May 5–9.

As state legislatures nationwide near the end of their spring sessions, nuclear advocates hope to spur momentum on Texas legislation that would provide taxpayer-funded grants to developers of new nuclear technology in the state.

Craig Piercy
cpiercy@ans.org

This month’s issue of Nuclear News focuses on supply and demand. The “supply” part of the story highlights nuclear’s continued success in providing electricity to the grid more than 90 percent of the time, while the “demand” part explores the seemingly insatiable appetite of hyperscale data centers for steady, carbon-free energy.

Technically, we are in the second year of our AI epiphany, the collective realization that Big Tech’s energy demands are so large that they cannot be met without a historic build-out of new generation capacity. Yet the enormity of it all still seems hard to grasp.

or the better part of two decades, U.S. electricity demand has been flat. Sure, we’ve seen annual fluctuations that correlate with weather patterns and the overall domestic economic performance, but the gigawatt-hours of electricity America consumed in 2021 are almost identical to our 2007 numbers.

Santee Cooper is satisfied with the response generated by its initial request for proposals to buy what remains of the Summer-2 and -3 nuclear power plant project in South Carolina. The RFP was issued in January and the application window closed May 5.

The State of Texas has not one but two ongoing federal court challenges to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that could, if successful, turn decades of NRC regulations, precedent, and case law on its head.

Here’s a look at some recent announcements from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Summer SLR: The NRC this month published its final environmental impact statement for Summer Unit 1’s subsequent license renewal application. Dubbed a supplemental EIS, the report is an important step in determining if Dominion Energy can continue operating its 966-MWe Westinghouse pressurized water reactor unit for an additional 20 years beyond August 6, 2042, the current end of its license.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has accepted Dow’s construction permit application to build an X-energy small modular reactor in Seadrift, Texas.

Utah-based EnergySolutions announced that it is working with Milwaukee-based utilities company WEC Energy Group to explore new nuclear generation in Wisconsin and will begin efforts to pursue an early site permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the closed Kewaunee nuclear power plant in Wisconsin.

Recent testing of a monitoring well in Minnesota near the Mississippi River detected tritium levels just below the safety standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency, Xcel Energy reported this week.

North Carolina State University has completed a feasibility study for its planned advanced research and test reactor. The $3 million study, which was undertaken by the university at the direction of the North Carolina General Assembly, is described in the full report and includes recommendations and projected costs and timelines.

Reactor type: NC State prefers the new reactor to be of “a multipurpose advanced sodium-cooled mixed/coupled spectrum design,” according to the report. Such a design would make the reactor “the only sodium-cooled fast research and test reactor in the country.”

Spirits were high last month when a ribbon cutting was held at the University of Missouri for a $20 million, three-story, 47,000-square-foot addition, dubbed MURR West, to the MURR research reactor facilities.

The National Nuclear Security Administration announced that it will prepare a programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) to ensure National Environmental Policy Act compliance for the administration’s production of plutonium pits. The NNSA is inviting the public to participate in the PEIS process and to comment on the scope, environmental issues, and alternatives for consideration in drafting the document.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is holding an in-person open house on Thursday, May 15, to discuss the 2024 safety performance of the Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia.

Some people are born leaders, and some people make themselves leaders. Take Natalie Cannon, a fourth-year doctoral candidate in the Department of Nuclear and Radiological Engineering and Medical Physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She has been driven to succeed since she was a teenager in Southern California, when she was inspired by NASA’s Mars Exploration Program.

Wright

Secretary of Energy Chris Wright testified before a hearing of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies, on May 7, to answer questions about the DOE budget and priorities for fiscal year 2026.

Wright’s testimony: Wright said that the DOE was taking steps to accelerate innovation in commercial nuclear development. “In the past 100 days, DOE has issued two disbursements to support the reopening of Michigan’s Palisades nuclear energy plant. We allocated high-assay low-enriched uranium material to five U.S. advanced nuclear reactor developers to boost domestic reactor deployment.”

He added that it was imperative for the nation to strengthen its nuclear future and that he would take immediate action to accelerate the deployment of small modular reactors.

Ur-Energy Inc. has secured approval from the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality’s Land Quality Division to construct and operate up to six additional mine units at its Lost Creek in situ uranium mine in south-central Wyoming. With that late April approval in hand, “we await only final concurrence and approval of the related aquifer exemption from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,” the company said. That approval was granted just three days later, on May 1, but Ur-Energy doesn’t plan to expand Lost Creek for “several years.”

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has concluded—with an assist from a Department of Energy environmental assessment released in February—that no environmental impact statement is needed for an exemption request from TerraPower that would allow the company to begin construction of the energy island of its planned Natrium sodium fast reactor in Kemmerer, Wyo. The NRC’s EA and finding of no significant impact (EA/FONSI), published on May 7, could clear the way for significant construction to begin while the NRC continues to review TerraPower’s construction permit application.

Ontario Power Generation GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy announced May 8 that Ontario authorities have approved construction plans for the first of four BWRX-300 small modular reactors at the Darlington New Nuclear Project site on Lake Ontario, less than 50 miles east of Toronto, Canada. The first new nuclear construction project in Ontario in more than three decades is also the first SMR construction project in North America.

In a bid to tackle the primary obstacle in nuclear deployment—construction costs—those in industry and government are moving away from traditional methods and embracing innovative construction technologies.

Global Laser Enrichment has commenced uranium enrichment demonstration testing at its test loop pilot facility at the company’s headquarters in Wilmington, N.C. The technology readiness level-6 testing program is expected to be a pivotal validation of large-scale enrichment performance under operationally relevant conditions, according to the company.