On the margins of the COP28 climate conference in Dubai, UAE, this week, Barakah nuclear plant owner Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) signed its first commercial uranium fuel supply contract with Kazatomprom, in addition to memorandums of understanding with two U.S.-based advanced reactor developers—TerraPower and GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH).

As expected, a large number of nations at the COP28 climate conference in Dubai have issued a declaration to triple the world’s nuclear power capacity by 2050. John Kerry, U.S. special presidential envoy for climate, joined leaders and ministers from four continents on Saturday to announce the Declaration to Triple Nuclear Energy.

The United Kingdom has announced a new partnership with South Korea to accelerate the clean energy transition by strengthening cooperation on low-carbon technologies, domestic climate policies, and civil nuclear energy.

Signed November 22 in London by British energy security and net zero secretary Claire Coutinho and South Korean minister for trade, industry, and energy Moon Kyu Bang, the partnership promotes U.K.-South Korean business collaboration, addressing barriers to trade and encouraging mutual development of the two nations’ energy sectors.

In response to Ontario’s ambitious nuclear development plans—including the plan by Ontario Power Generation to construct four small modular reactors at its Darlington nuclear site—Celeros Flow Technology has committed to expanding its Burlington, Ontario, facility to make it the first Ontario-based manufacturer of nuclear-qualified pumps, OPG announced last week.

AtkinsRéalis subsidiary Candu Energy and the Canadian Commercial Corporation, a federal crown entity, have announced the receipt of an award letter from Romania’s Nuclearelectrica for the provision of engineering, technology, and procurement of tooling and reactor components in support of the Cernavoda Unit 1 life-extension project.

While an initial bill aimed at lifting the decades-old ban on new nuclear construction in Illinois was vetoed in August by Gov. J. B. Pritzker, the state’s nuclear-friendly legislature is giving the effort another shot, opting to pursue new legislation rather than a veto override.

X-energy, the Rockville, Md.–based small modular reactor/nuclear fuel developer, and Ares Acquisition Corporation (AAC), a publicly traded special-purpose acquisition company, have agreed to terminate their business combination agreement, effective immediately, the companies announced this week.

Purdue University’s School of Nuclear Engineering is hosting a two-day Atoms for Humanity symposium on campus at the Stewart Center’s Eliza Fowler Hall on October 25–26. The symposium—which will take place from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. (EDT) on the first day and from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (EDT) on the second day—will highlight the role of nuclear energy as a clean energy source. It is open to everyone, and no registration is required.

Southern Company, TerraPower, and Core Power (a U.K.-based firm focused on developing nuclear technologies for the maritime sector) have commenced pumped-salt operations in the Integrated Effects Test (IET) facility, the Atlanta, Ga.-based utility announced Tuesday, marking another milestone in the development of TerraPower’s first-of-a-kind, Generation IV Molten Chloride Fast Reactor (MCFR).

Early last month, Newswire reported that a pronuclear bill under consideration in North Carolina looked likely to make its way to Gov. Roy Cooper’s desk, but less likely to be signed into law. We were right on both counts.

Southern Nuclear last Friday announced that its Vogtle Unit 2 reactor has become the first U.S. commercial reactor to be authorized by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to use accident tolerant fuel exceeding 5 percent uranium-235 enrichment.

Westinghouse Electric Company and engineering, construction, and project management firm Bechtel on September 20 announced the signing of a consortium agreement to partner on the design and construction of Poland’s first nuclear power plant.

Constellation Energy has announced an agreement with Commonwealth Edison (ComEd), Illinois’s largest electric utility, to power the latter’s 54 offices and metered facilities with locally produced nuclear energy, 24/7.

The ongoing major component replacement (MCR) project at Ontario’s Bruce nuclear power plant reached another milestone last Friday with the reconnection to the grid of the facility’s Unit 6 reactor. According to a release from plant operator Bruce Power, the work was completed ahead of schedule and on budget despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Holtec International’s ongoing effort to repower Michigan’s closed Palisades nuclear plant made progress this week with the signing of a power purchase agreement (PPA) between the firm’s Holtec Palisades Energy LLC subsidiary and Wolverine Power Cooperative, a not-for-profit energy provider to the rural communities across Michigan.

Kerry

During a side event held at last week’s Three Seas Initiative Summit in Bucharest, Romania, special presidential envoy for climate John Kerry announced U.S. actions to further the role of new nuclear technologies in accelerating the clean energy transition in Europe.

These actions, according to a September 7 media note from the U.S. State Department, expand on Romania’s leadership role in deploying the first small modular reactor in Europe and in converting a former Romanian coal plant to an SMR facility.

Building on his rollout of the Project Phoenix initiative at last year’s COP27 climate change conference in Egypt, Kerry said that proposals from the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia have been selected to participate in the project and will receive support for coal-to-SMR feasibility studies.

Cooper

While a pronuclear energy bill currently under consideration in the North Carolina General Assembly appears to stand a good chance of advancing to Gov. Roy Cooper’s desk, its chances of receiving his signature are less clear.

The legislation, S.B. 678, would replace the term “renewable energy” in state statutes with “clean energy” and specify that the new term includes both nuclear fission and fusion. In addition, the bill would eliminate language impeding the North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC) from issuing Certificates of Public Convenience and Necessity for nuclear facilities.

According to S.B. 678, “clean energy resource” includes solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal, biomass, “waste heat derived from a clean energy source and used to produce electricity or useful, measurable thermal energy at a retail electric customer’s facility,” and “nuclear energy resources, including an uprate to a nuclear energy facility, fusion energy, or hydrogen derived from a clean energy resource.”

Georgia Power has signed a proposed agreement with the Georgia Public Service Commission’s (PSC’s) Public Interest Advocacy (PIA) staff and several intervening parties on the total amount the utility should be allowed to recover from ratepayers for the remaining costs associated with the Vogtle-3 and -4 nuclear expansion project. If adopted by the commissioners, the agreement will resolve all issues of the project’s prudency review, according to an August 30 PSC news release.

Georgia Power has begun the process of loading fuel into the Vogtle plant’s Unit 4 reactor, the company announced yesterday, marking another pivotal milestone toward commercial operation of the second of the facility’s two new units.

The European Union agreed in July 2022 to include nuclear power in its taxonomy of environmentally sustainable economic activities. Yet as Columbia University senior research scholar Matt Bowen and research assistant Kat Guanio note in commentary published July 6 by Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, that policy decision remains “a bit of an outlier.” Despite nuclear energy’s anticipated role in achieving decarbonization, many climate finance taxonomies either explicitly exclude nuclear power or are discouragingly ambiguous.