The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management announced that Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management contractor United Cleanup Oak Ridge recently expanded its partnership with the University of Tennessee to provide learning opportunities for nuclear safety specialists supporting DOE-EM’s cleanup mission.

Kairos Power has completed shielded radiation performance testing on a full-scale precast concrete structure at the company’s Reactor Demonstration Campus in Oak Ridge, Tenn., involving the use of an iridium-192 source to measure the movement of radiation through the concrete’s walls, joints, and seams. Kairos expects the results to contribute to schedule and cost estimates for its planned commercial power plants.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has granted X-energy subsidiary TRISO-X a special nuclear material license for high-assay low-enriched uranium fuel fabrication. The license applies to TRISO-X’s first two planned commercial facilities, known as TX-1 and TX-2, for an initial 40-year period. The facilities are set to be the first new nuclear fuel fabrication plants licensed by the NRC in more than 50 years.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management announced it had completed the largest demolition project yet at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., when it took down the final wall of a 325,000-square-foot former uranium enrichment facility last week.

Centrus Energy Corp. is planning a major expansion of its Oak Ridge, Tenn., Technology and Manufacturing Center. The build-out would allow it to expedite large-scale deployment of centrifuges.

Amir Vexler, Centrus president and CEO, announced the expansion on January 23, along with Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee and Deputy Gov. Stuart McWhorter.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management said it has transferred four robotic demolition machines from the department’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio to Oak Ridge, Tenn., saving the office more than $1.7 million by avoiding the purchase of new equipment.

On January 16, Tenn. Gov. Bill Lee, Deputy Gov. Stuart McWhorter, and officials from Laser Isotope Separation Technologies announced the company’s plans to expand in Oak Ridge, Tenn. That expansion will come with a $1.38 billion investment from LIS Technologies for what the company says will be the first commercial laser uranium enrichment plant in the United States.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management said it was insight and a questioning attitude from a project manager that led the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) to accelerate the demolition of the Alpha-4 building at Oak Ridge’s Y-12 National Security Complex, helping avoid millions of dollars in costs to taxpayers.

Due to the days lost to the government shutdown, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has extended the public comment period for a draft environmental impact statement for the TX-1 advanced nuclear fuel fabrication facility being built in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

Small modular reactor developer X-energy and its subsidiary TRISO-X announced yesterday the start of aboveground construction for its TX-1 advanced nuclear fuel fabrication facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn.  The first-in-the-nation facility will be the first of two Oak Ridge facilities built to manufacture the company’s TRISO fuel for use in its Xe-100 SMR.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has issued a request for offer (RFO) seeking proposals from U.S. companies to build and power AI data centers on the DOE’s Paducah Site in Kentucky. Companies are being sought to potentially enter into one or more long-term leasing agreements at the site that would be solely funded by the applicants.

The Smithsonian-affiliated American Museum of Science & Energy in Oak Ridge, Tenn., is partnering with the East Tennessee Economic Council (ETEC) to celebrate Nuclear Science Week from Monday, October 20, to Friday, October 24.

Hash Hashemian
president@ans.org

Last month, I talked about my goal of strengthening ANS’s voice, in part by attending three conferences. I have now checked the first event off that list: the Nuclear Opportunities Workshop.

This year, NOW took another step in outgrowing its “workshop” moniker and transitioning to a full-fledged regional conference and expo. What started only a few years ago as a small gathering in Oak Ridge, Tenn., with roughly 50 attendees has skyrocketed to an event with 1,100 people in attendance in Knoxville.

NOW’s popularity reflected how busy the roughly 350 nuclear companies in Tennessee have been in recent years. There is significant work going on surrounding Gen IV reactor development and deployment, advancements in new nuclear fuels, and defense-related builds like the Uranium Processing Facility.

ANS Executive Director/CEO Craig Piercy’s reflection on the 80th anniversary of the Trinity Test (Nuclear Newswire, July 16) was a thoughtful and fitting remembrance of the achievements and legacy of the World War II generation of nuclear pioneers. We also see legacy environmental cleanup as a vital next step as our industry launches what Secretary of Energy Chris Wright has defined as “Manhattan Project 2.0.”

Small modular reactor developer X-energy, together with its fuel-developing subsidiary TRISO-X, has selected Clark Construction Group to finish the building construction phase of its advanced nuclear fuel fabrication facility, known as TX-1, in Oak Ridge, Tenn. It will be the first of two Oak Ridge facilities built to manufacture the company’s TRISO fuel for use in its Xe-100 SMR. The initial deployment of the Xe-100 will be at Dow Chemical Company’s UCC Seadrift Operations manufacturing site on Texas’s Gulf Coast.

A reactor vessel has been installed by Kairos Power for its third Engineering Test Unit (ETU 3.0) at the company’s campus in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has accepted for review the Tennessee Valley Authority’s construction permit application for a BWRX-300 small modular reactor at its Clinch River site in Tennessee. The NRC expects to complete its review by December 2026.

The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management recently completed the transfer of a 32-acre parcel at the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP) for private sector use. The transfer brings the total amount of property transferred from federal ownership for economic reuse to 1,832 acres at the ETTP, which was once home to the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant.

The Tennessee Valley Authority announced yesterday that it has submitted a construction permit application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the construction of a GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy BWRX-300 small modular reactor at the Clinch River nuclear site in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission this week shared a portion of the construction permit application from the Tennessee Valley Authority to build a small modular reactor at the Clinch River nuclear site in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

In anticipation of TVA’s filing, NRC staff scheduled two public meetings in Oak Ridge for today, to discuss the agency’s process for licensing nuclear power plants.