A continuous miner machine cuts into salt rock at WIPP. (Photo: DOE)
The Environmental Protection Agency has approved the addition of two new waste emplacement panels at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the Department of Energy’s geologic repository for defense-related transuranic waste in New Mexico.
Fuel rods were delivered to PNNL in late June 2025 in a 30-ton canister. (Photo: Andrea Starr/PNNL)
Eleven high-burnup fuel rods manufactured by Global Nuclear Fuel have been delivered to Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for a battery of destructive tests. PNNL’s evaluation will provide GNF and the Department of Energy with information about the performance of the fuel, which—like other fuels developed through the DOE’s Accident Tolerant Fuel program— was engineered to handle longer operating cycles, improve fuel cycle economics, and support power uprates for existing light water reactors.
Artist’s depiction of the planned Radioisotope Science Center at Discovery Ridge in Columbia, Mo. (Image: BSA LifeStructures)
The Department of Energy’s Office of Science has committed $20 million to the University of Missouri that—with a matching $20 million from the state government—will support construction of a Radioisotope Science Center (RSC) at the university’s Discovery Ridge research park in Columbia, Mo., projected for completion in early 2029. The new facility will pair the DOE’s Office of Isotope R&D and Production (IRP)—formerly known as the DOE Isotope Program—with the decades of expertise developed at the University of Missouri Research Reactor (MURR).
ORNL leadership gathered at the Nuclear Opportunities Workshop in Knoxville, with Trey Lauderdale, CEO of Atomic Canyon. From left: Joe Hoagland, Director of Special Initiatives; Susan Hubbard, Deputy for Science and Technology; Stephen Streiffer, ORNL Director; Lauderdale; Gina Tourassi, Associate Laboratory Director for Computing and Computational Sciences; and Mickey Wade, Associate Laboratory Director for Fusion and Fission Energy and Science. (Photo: Carlos Jones/ORNL)
The United States has tight new deadlines—18 months, max—for licensing commercial reactor designs. The Department of Energy is marshaling the nuclear expertise and high-performance computing assets of its national laboratories, in partnership with private tech companies, to develop generative AI tools and large-scale simulations that could help get nuclear reactor designs through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s licensing process—or the DOE’s own reactor pilot program. “Accelerate” and “streamline” are the verbs of choice in recent announcements from Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Idaho National Laboratory, as they describe plans with Atomic Canyon, Microsoft, and Amazon.
H Canyon under construction in the early 1950s (left) and in 2010. (Photos: Savannah River Site)
From 2003 to 2011, staff at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site downblended high-enriched uranium in the site’s H Canyon, producing over 300 metric tons (MT) of low-enriched uranium that was fabricated into fuel. The facility has since been idled, but downblending could soon begin again—this time to high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU).
Energy Secretary Chris Wright (center) and leaders from Argonne, Intel, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise cut the ribbon to celebrate the Aurora exascale supercomputer. (Photo: Argonne)
Leaders from private companies, government, and national laboratories gathered at Argonne National Laboratory on July 17 and 18 for an exclusive AI x Nuclear Energy Executive Summit that the Department of Energy called a first-of-its-kind forum to “align next-generation nuclear systems with the needs of digital infrastructure.”
The high-burnup research cask (center) stands with other spent nuclear fuel dry storage casks at the North Anna ISFSI in Virginia. (Photo: Dominion Energy)
The Department of Energy said it anticipated delivering a research cask of high-burnup spent nuclear fuel from Dominion Energy’s North Anna nuclear power plant in Virginia to Idaho National Laboratory by fall 2027. The planned shipment is part of the High Burnup Dry Storage Research Project being conducted by the DOE with the Electric Power Research Institute.
As preparations continue, the DOE said it is working closely with federal agencies as well as tribal and state governments along potential transportation routes to ensure safety, transparency, and readiness every step of the way.
Watch the DOE’s latest video outlining the project here.
A representation of the NRIC DOME microreactor test bed. (Image: NRIC)