This Saturday, May 23, will mark one year since President Trump issued four executive orders (EOs) that sought to implement sweeping changes across the U.S. nuclear industry. From regulatory reform at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to new authorization projects at the Departments of Energy and Defense, the orders sent ripples throughout the industry.

A report by the Government Accountability Office has shown that the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management continues to face significant staffing shortages since the GAO first reported on the problem in 2024. This includes a shortage in workers considered critical to carrying out the office’s mission of cleaning up radioactive waste from decades of nuclear weapons production and research.

PNNL’s Jamin Trevino works with a capsule containing Ra-226. (Photo: Jamin Trevino/PNNL)

A collaboration between the Department of Energy’s Office of Isotope R&D and Production and the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology has recovered large quantities of radium-226—valued for its use in medical radioisotope production—from radiological waste stored at NIST facilities. Ra-226 is an important element in developing therapies for patients fighting cancer.

Earlier this week, Idaho National Laboratory announced that its Structural Properties Laboratory (SPL) has been fully operational since January. Located at INL’s Materials and Fuels Complex, the SPL houses the lab’s first new hot cell in 50 years.

Of the many and varied uses of nuclear science and technology, few may be aware of its applications in the detection of food adulteration. Also known as food fraud, food adulteration is the intentional altering of food products through dilution, substitution, mislabeling, or other fraudulent actions for financial gain.

Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) hosted the Pathways to Trade Summit on Thursday, May 14, at the organization’s Pollard Center in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The focus of the gathering was the building of a skilled nuclear workforce capable of meeting the current and future challenges of unprecedented industry growth. Along with ORAU, the event was cosponsored by North America’s Building Trades Unions and the Tennessee Nuclear Network.

Proposed nuclear energy legislation with bipartisan support earned the attention of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Wednesday morning.

Subject-matter experts and the chief sponsors of the legislation shared details on three items at a hearing Wednesday before the EPW Subcommittee on Clean Air, Climate, and Nuclear Innovation and Safety: the Build Nuclear with Local Materials Act—introduced just last week—and discussion drafts of the Revitalizing Energy Communities by Hosting Advanced Reactors and Generating Energy (RECHARGE) Act and Enrichment Licensing Modernization Act.

The Supreme Court of the United States on Monday declined to hear an appeal from General Atomics subsidiary Cotter Corporation and Commonwealth Edison, an Exelon company, in a case over alleged radioactive contamination in the St. Louis, Mo., area, leaving in place an 8th Circuit Court ruling that allows the plaintiffs’ state-law tort claims to proceed under the federal Price-Anderson Act.

The Canadian Medical Isotope Ecosystem, which is backed by the Canadian federal government’s Strategic Innovation Fund, has announced funding for a collaboration between Promation, Astral Systems, and McMaster University to establish a proof-of-concept approach for a fusion reaction–based copper-67 production process with automated postirradiation isotope separation and purification.

Sweden-based advanced reactor developer Blykalla has applied to build a site in its home country that would feature six lead-cooled small modular reactors. The 330-MWe facility would house a half-dozen 55-MWe Sealer reactors, which the company said are designed for hyperscalers and energy-intensive industries.

At the end of April, TerraPower announced that it had officially begun construction on its Natrium power plant in Kemmerer, Wyo.—one of the two full-scale demonstration projects in the Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program.

Now, the second ARDP-backed demonstration project, which aims to see the deployment of X-energy’s Xe-100 at a Dow chemical facility, has reached a new milestone of its own. On May 18, X-energy announced that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has completed its environmental assessment of the proposed Long Mott Generating Facility and issued a finding of no significant impact (FONSI).

In response to Executive Order 14300, “Ordering the Reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,” the NRC is proposing sweeping changes to its rules governing the use of nuclear materials that are widely used in industry, medicine, and research. The changes would amend NRC regulations for the licensing of nuclear byproduct material, some source material, and some special nuclear material.

As published in the May 18 Federal Register, the NRC is seeking public comment on this proposed rule and draft interim guidance until July 2.

The Maine Maritime Academy (MMA) is set to become the first maritime academy in the United States to offer a major in nuclear engineering technology. The college characterized it as “an important step in addressing workforce needs and advancing clean energy solutions” in a LinkedIn post announcing the major.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory announced the completion of a set of experiments measuring the viscosity and thermal conductivity of several uranium-bearing molten salts, filling in gaps that could help with the development of molten salt reactors.

The noticeable exuberance within the nuclear community as a whole appears to have spilled over into the waste management sphere as well, judging from the 2026 Waste Management Conference, held March 8–12 in Phoenix, Ariz., and sponsored by Waste Management Symposia.

The theme of this year’s conference was “Efficient and Innovative Nuclear Materials and Technology Solutions,” and many of the scheduled panels and technical sessions revolved around how nuclear growth and technological advancements are affecting the back end of the fuel cycle, as well as how the cleanup of legacy sites is enabling new nuclear development.

NextEra Energy is set to acquire Dominion Energy, the two utilities announced earlier today in an approximately $67 billion merger that will alter the energy landscape—including for nuclear power—in the United States.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has received concurrence from regulators that Tank 14 at the Savannah River Site has reached preliminary cease waste removal (PCWR) status after radioactive liquid waste was successfully removed from the tank. PCWR is a regulatory milestone in the closure of SRS’s old-style waste tanks, which were built in the 1950s to store waste generated by the chemical separations of plutonium and uranium.

The University of Missouri’s President’s Distinguished Lecture Series featured a talk by William D. Magwood IV, director general of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency and a former NRC commissioner, on May 13 at the Columbia campus’s Bond Life Sciences Center. Magwood speech was titled “The Next Nuclear Energy Era: Opportunities and Challenges.”

Lawmakers in Congress have introduced a pair of bills this month targeting different aspects of nuclear construction, with one proposal focusing on construction material and the other on tax credits.

Washington, D.C. — The American Nuclear Society (ANS) issued the following statement:

"The American Nuclear Society condemns today's drone attack on the outer perimeter of the Barakah Nuclear Power Plant in the United Arab Emirates. The IAEA has confirmed that radiation levels are normal and no injuries have been reported. The safety systems performed as designed, a demonstration of the layered protections built into robust modern nuclear facilities. Incidents like this reinforce the importance of the IAEA's calls for maximum military restraint around nuclear power reactors, and of full adherence by all combatants to the IAEA's seven pillars for nuclear safety and security during armed conflict."