There is a critical knowledge gap regarding the health consequences of exposure to radiation received gradually over time. While there is a plethora of studies on the risks of adverse outcomes from both acute and high-dose exposures, including the landmark study of atomic bomb survivors, these are not characteristic of the chronic exposure to low-dose radiation encountered in occupational and public settings. In addition, smaller cohorts have limited numbers leading to reduced statistical power.

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.

The Department of Energy announced that waste from two more tanks at its Savannah River Site has been removed ahead of schedule. The tanks—numbers 11 and 15—are the fourth and fifth waste containers in 12 months to meet the milestone of preliminary cease waste removal (PCWR) regulatory approval, 7 and 19 months ahead of schedule, respectively, according to the DOE.

Nagra, Switzerland’s national cooperative for the disposal of radioactive waste, has published its general license applications for a deep geologic repository and separate spent fuel encapsulation plant, making the documents publicly available on a digital platform.

The University of Missouri’s Board of Curators has created the NextGen MURR Working Group to serve as a strategic advisory body for the development of the NextGen MURR (University of Missouri Research Reactor).

The American Nuclear Society’s Risk-informed, Performance-based Principles and Policy Committee (RP3C) held another presentation in its monthly Community of Practice (CoP) series.

Watch the full webinar here.

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.”

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.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has announced it has amended regulations for the licensing, inspection, special projects, and annual fees it will charge applicants and licensees for fiscal year 2025.

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.

The Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company (Svensk Kärnbränslehantering AB, or SKB) has signed a collaboration agreement with the multinational construction company Implenia to build the first underground section of a deep repository for radioactive waste near Sweden’s Forsmark nuclear power plant.

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.

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.

SMR developer Arc Clean Technology has signed a memorandum of understanding with Deep Atomic to jointly explore deployment opportunities across North America.

As the global energy landscape shifts toward safer, smaller, and more flexible nuclear power, Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and Generation IV technologies are at the forefront of innovation. These advanced designs pose new challenges in size, efficiency, and operating environment that traditional instrumentation and control solutions aren’t always designed to handle.

The Utilities Service Alliance and Curio have signed a memorandum of understanding that may lead to future supplier-partner agreements between USA’s utility members and Curio.

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.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has instructed the state’s public electric utility to add at least 1 gigawatt of new nuclear by building a large-scale nuclear plant or a collection of smaller modular reactors, according to the Wall Street Journal.

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.

The next opportunity to earn professional engineer (PE) licensure in nuclear engineering is this fall, and now is the time to sign up and begin studying with the help of materials like the online module program offered by the American Nuclear Society.