Last Thursday, Realta Fusion and Commonwealth Fusion Systems formalized a multiyear relationship with the announcement of a strategic partnership centered on CFS’s high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets.

Millstone’s two pressurized water reactors in Waterford, Conn., and Seabrook’s single PWR in Seabrook, N.H., are the only power reactors in operation in the New England region, with total capacities at Millstone and Seabrook of 2,122 and 1,248 Net MWe, respectively.

The region’s governors, though, may seek to expand these numbers. The governors of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont issued a joint statement in support of exploring next-generation nuclear energy technologies. The bipartisan announcement also urges continued support for local nuclear facilities like Millstone and Seabrook.

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

“The American Nuclear Society supports the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) calls for maximum military restraint around nuclear power plants and civilian research reactors, and for full adherence by all combatants to the IAEA's seven pillars for nuclear safety and security during armed conflict.”

A new, more complex nuclear age has begun. Echoing the tensions of the Cold War amid rapidly evolving nuclear and radiological threats, preparedness in the modern age is a contest of scientific innovation. The Research and Development Directorate (RD) at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) is charged with winning this contest.

The end-of-March spot price for uranium was $84.25 per pound, according to uranium fuel provider Cameco. This price is down slightly from the $86.95 of a month before, but about $10 lower than the $94.28 spot price at the end of January.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved Pacific Gas & Electric’s application to extend the operating licenses for Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant’s two pressurized water reactors by another 20 years.

Thursday’s approval means Diablo Canyon-1 and -2 can now operate until November 2, 2044, and August 26, 2045, respectively, if California lawmakers agree. A 2022 state law requires the California Legislature to approve any extension of operations at Diablo Canyon that goes beyond 2030.

When the former Three Mile Island-1 restarts in 2027 as the Crane Clean Energy Center, it will not face a delay of several years before it can be reconnected to the grid, Constellation CEO Joseph Dominguez said this week.

Among the items that emerged on Constellation and the Crane restart in Middletown, Pa., during last week’s CERAWeek energy conference was a Reuters report on an analysis from electric grid provider PJM suggesting the plant may not be connected to the grid until 2031.

The University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign, in partnership with Nano Nuclear Energy, has submitted a construction permit application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for construction of a Kronos micro modular reactor (MMR). This is the first major step in the two-part 10 CFR Part 50 licensing process for the research and test reactor and is the culmination of years of technical refinement and regulatory alignment.

The team chose to engage with the NRC in a preapplication readiness assessment, providing the agency with draft versions of the majority of the CPA’s technical content for feedback, which is expected to ensure a high-quality application.

Polskie Elektrownie Jądrowe, Poland’s state-owned utility, has formally submitted an application for a construction license to build a nuclear power plant at the Lubiatowo-Kopalino site in Pomerania. The country’s first nuclear power plant will consist of three Westinghouse AP1000 units with a total installed capacity of 3,750 MWe. The construction and engineering contractor for the project is a U.S.-based consortium of Westinghouse and Bechtel.

The Department of Energy announced the completion of a proof-of-concept demonstration of the use of Everstar’s AI tool to generate chapter 5 of an NRC license application from preliminary safety documents.

The 208-page document was created by the AI tool in approximately one day. According to the DOE, it would typically take a team of people between four and six weeks to complete this work.

Steam rises from the Palisades nuclear power plant. (Photo: Holtec International)

The restart of Palisades nuclear power plant in Covert, Mich., has hit a milestone with the passivation of its primary system, plant owner Holtec International announced Monday, even as a firm restart date has yet to be announced.

Passivation is a chemical process that improves corrosion resistance by making plant materials less reactive. During the process, the reactor’s primary system was brought to normal operating temperature and pressure. Holtec called this passivation phase an “essential step” in maintaining the long-term reliability of equipment.

The American Nuclear Society recently hosted a panel discussion featuring prominent figures from the nuclear sector who discussed the industry’s ongoing push for criticality.

Yasir Arafat, chief technical officer of Aalo Atomics; Jordan Bramble, CEO of Antares Nuclear; and Rita Baranwal, chief nuclear officer of Radiant Industries, participated in the discussion and covered their recent progress in the Department of Energy’s Reactor Pilot Program. Nader Satvat, director of nuclear systems design at Kairos Power, gave an update on the company’s ongoing demonstration projects taking place outside of the landscape of DOE authorization.

Officially launched at CERAWeek 2026, held last week in Houston, Texas, FluxPoint Energy has unveiled plans to develop what it expects to be the first new U.S. uranium conversion facility in more than 70 years, a move aimed at strengthening America’s nuclear fuel supply chain.

The Houston- and McLean, Va.–based company plans to convert uranium oxide into uranium hexafluoride (UF₆), a critical intermediate step in producing fuel for the nation’s existing nuclear reactors as well as next-generation technologies under development.

Today is the Department of Energy’s deadline for states to respond to a request for information on proposed Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses. Issued on January 28, the RFI marks the first step toward potentially establishing voluntary federal-state partnerships designed to build a coherent, end-to-end nuclear fuel cycle strategy for the country, including waste management, according to the DOE.

The National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES), a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing professional licensure for engineers and surveyors, is seeking nuclear engineers to participate in a professional activities and knowledge study (PAKS) that will be used to inform and update the content of the Nuclear Principles and Practice of Engineering (PE) exam.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has identified five categories of action to add to its list of categorical exclusions to reduce its documentation work under National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) procedures.

These revisions are included in the final rule, “Categorical exclusions from environmental review,” which was published in the Federal Register on March 30. The final rule will become effective on April 29.

Alaina Cummings has been selected by the American Nuclear Society and American Society of Mechanical Engineers to receive the 2026 ANS/ASME Barry Sloane Memorial Undergraduate Scholarship.

A clearer definition of what constitutes high-level radioactive waste could save the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management “tens of billions of dollars” in waste management costs and accelerate its cleanup schedule by decades, according to a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

DOE-EM’s efforts to manage waste resulting from legacy spent nuclear fuel reprocessing have been hindered for decades by the ambiguity of the statutory definition of HLW as laid out in the Atomic Energy Act and Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the report states. While admitting that the DOE has taken steps to overcome this ambiguity, the GAO says that the department has not fully evaluated all available opportunities to treat and dispose of waste more economically as either transuranic or low-level radioactive waste.

A diagram depicting the NRC’s regulatory structure for nuclear criticality safety. (Image: Oak Ridge National Laboratory)

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 last month. RP3C chair Steven Krahn opened the meeting with brief introductory remarks about the importance of risk-informed, performance based (RIPB) decision-making and the need for new approaches to nuclear design that go beyond conventional and deterministic methods.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved a significant overhaul of its Reactor Oversight Process (ROP) baseline inspection program that stresses a leaner, more risk-focused inspection process.

This adoption comes just over a month after NRC officials published their findings on the proposed ROP changes. The changes would reduce the number of hours spent annually on direct inspections at U.S. nuclear power plants by 38 percent.