World Bank, IAEA partner to fund nuclear energy

June 30, 2025, 3:06PMNuclear News

The World Bank and the International Atomic Energy Agency signed an agreement last week to cooperate on the construction and financing of advanced nuclear projects in developing countries, marking the first partnership since the bank ended its ban on funding for nuclear energy projects.

My story: Dennis Mosebey—ANS member since 1981

June 30, 2025, 12:02PMNuclear NewsDennis Mosebey

. . . and today.

Mosebey in 1984 . . .

I graduated from high school in 1969. My yearbook says my career ambition was to be a nuclear physicist. This was inspired by a paperback book I read: Men Who Made a New Physics by Barbara Lovett Cline. I enrolled as a physics student at Susquehanna University that fall and graduated four years later. Many job applications were sent out, but I quickly learned in any branch of physics you needed at least a master’s degree and preferably a Ph.D. So, I applied to the Penn State nuclear engineering program as a master’s degree candidate. This would not be nuclear physics, but it would be close enough. To help with expenses, Penn State had quite a few internships with branches of Westinghouse, and mine was a three-month-long stint that summer at the Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor project at Waltz Mill, Pa. My job was to work on expanding the uranium-238 fast fission cross sections into the 20-MeV range. Of course, I had no idea what a cross section was, but my supervisor, Gene Paik, and my office partners, especially Colin Durston, were immensely helpful.

Radfest at Argonne kicks off ANS Annual Conference

June 30, 2025, 9:30AMANS News
ANS immediate past president Lisa Marshall (blue sweater) tests the radioactivity of various materials at this year’s Radfest with Rex Reidel and Lillian Merrill, two chairs of the ANS Accelerators. (Photo: ANS)

The day before the 2025 ANS Annual Conference officially began in Chicago, the air was abuzz with the crackle of Geiger counters at Argonne National Laboratory in neighboring Lemont, Ill., where about 100 visitors from across the country attended an outreach and education event hosted by the American Nuclear Society.

Fermi America, Texas Tech share vision for massive power and data complex

June 30, 2025, 7:00AMNuclear News
Artist’s concept of Fermi America’s planned power and data center campus. (Image: Fermi America)

Texas Tech University and Fermi America shared plans on June 26 to build “the world’s largest advanced energy and artificial intelligence campus” in Amarillo, Texas, near the Pantex nuclear weapons plant. Fermi America is a company cofounded by former Texas governor and energy secretary Rick Perry and his son, Griffin Perry, a cofounder and past senior advisor at Grey Rock Investment Partners. The announcement—a first press release from relative newcomer Fermi America—says the company “proudly answers President Donald J. Trump’s call to deliver global energy and AI dominance.”

The U.S. Million Person Study of Low-Dose-Rate Health Effects

June 27, 2025, 3:02PMNuclear NewsLawrence Daur
Clockwise from top left: Calutron operators at their panels in the Y-12 plant at Oak Ridge, Tenn., the USS Nautilus SSN571, women working in a factory of the United States Radium Corporation, and the front face of the B Reactor at the Hanford site.

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 Med expands its Texas Pb-212 R&D center

June 27, 2025, 12:47PMNuclear News

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.

Savannah River Site empties more waste tanks

June 27, 2025, 9:31AMRadwaste Solutions
The DOE and liquid waste contractor Savannah River Mission Completion completed waste removal at the H Tank Farm at the Savannah River Site. (Photo: DOE)

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 publishes license applications for Swiss geologic repository

June 27, 2025, 7:06AMRadwaste Solutions
A rendering of Switzerland’s proposed deep geologic repository. (Image: Nagra)

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.

NRC’s David Wright visits the Hill and more NRC news

June 26, 2025, 9:29AMNuclear News

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.”

A look inside NIST’s work to optimize cancer treatment and radiation dosimetry

June 26, 2025, 7:10AMNuclear News
A NIST head-shaped phantom is helping researchers improve radiation dose estimates for cancer treatment. (Photo: NIST)

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.

WIPP’s SSCVS: A breath of fresh air

June 25, 2025, 12:00PMNuclear NewsTim Gregoire
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.

Sweden’s SKB awards early contract for repository construction

June 25, 2025, 9:30AMRadwaste Solutions
Early construction work on the Forsmark repository includes an access tunnel, three vertical shafts for ventilation and a lift, a central area and main tunnels, and transport tunnels to the first repository areas. (Image: SKB)

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.

DOE extends Centrus’s HALEU production contract by one year

June 25, 2025, 7:00AMNuclear News
A view of the HALEU cascade at the American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio. (Photo: Centrus Energy)

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.

Hinkley Point C gets over $6 billion in financing from Apollo

June 24, 2025, 3:00PMNuclear News
A model of the Hinkley Point C station. (Image: UK government)

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.

A Technology Leader in Neutron Measurement

June 24, 2025, 11:08AMSponsored ContentExosens

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.