As Kairos Power’s high-temperature, fluoride salt–cooled reactor facilities in Oak Ridge, Tenn., take shape, the company is partnering with multiple regional groups to prepare the local workforce for new nuclear career opportunities.

Kairos has signed a memorandum of understanding with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the University of Tennessee–Knoxville, the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (IACMI), Barnard Construction, Roane State Community College, Chattanooga State Community College, and Oak Ridge Schools to form the Nuclear Center for Advanced Manufacturing and Precast, or NuCAMP.

Results of a two-year study of groundwater levels at the site of the planned Environmental Management Disposal Facility (EMDF) in Oak Ridge, Tenn., have been released, revealing that the levels fell at a slower-than-expected rate. The collection of data on groundwater levels during two wet seasons, conducted by the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management and the contractor United Cleanup Oak Ridge, formed the core of a groundwater field demonstration study which will help inform the final design of the EMDF landfill.

Centrus Energy Corp. will be providing X-energy with enrichment services for low-enriched uranium and high-assay, low-enriched uranium to support X-energy’s planned deployments of Xe-100 small modular reactors and TRISO-X fuel, according to the terms of a new contract signed by the companies. The fuel will be produced at Centrus’s American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio. In turn, X-energy will provide Centrus with prepayments to help support expanding the capacity of Centrus’s domestic commercial enrichment program.

The East Tennessee Economic Council’s Nuclear Opportunities Workshop opened yesterday morning at the Knoxville Convention Center, drawing registrants from around the country, and will close later today following a packed lineup of policy and industry leaders.

X-energy subsidiary TRISO-X has received an economic development grant valued at $11 million from Tennessee’s Nuclear Energy Supply Chain Investment Fund, which was established in 2023 to “support nuclear energy business investment, workforce development programs, and site development across Tennessee.” The grant will be used for the ongoing construction of TRISO-X’s fuel fabrication campus at the Horizon Center Industrial Park in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

Staff at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have recommended the agency issue a construction permit to the Tennessee Valley Authority for its plans to construct a GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GVH) BWRX-300 reactor at the Clinch River site in Tennessee, according to the safety evaluation report published as part of the construction permit application process.

The recommendation to the commissioners is a boon for the project, which proposes constructing a 300-MWe boiling water reactor in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The June report—available in the NRC ADAMS library—presents the NRC staff’s review of TVA’s 2025 application and any additional information staff received through April of this year.

The American Museum of Science and Energy recently hosted national technical director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory and American Nuclear Society member Paul Cantonwine on its podcast, AMSEcast. There, Cantonwine discussed the creation of the nuclear navy and the life of Admiral Hyman George Rickover.

Having completed deactivation work, the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) is set to begin demolition in July of a cluster of highly contaminated buildings at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management announced this week.

The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management and cleanup contractor United Cleanup Oak Ridge have surpassed their first-year target for processing legacy oxide waste at the site’s Transuranic Waste Processing Center (TWPC), reaching the milestone four months ahead of schedule.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is to prepare an environmental impact statement in its review of Orano Enrichment’s license application to build and operate a new uranium enrichment facility near Oak Ridge, Tenn., and is asking the public for comments on the scope of its environmental review.

On Tuesday, during Mark Peters’s last days as the American Nuclear Society’s vice president/president-elect before assuming the presidency on June 4, he sat down with ANS CEO Craig Piercy for a Fireside Chat at the Annual Conference.

The MITRE CEO weighed in on his career path, what excites and worries him about the resurgence of nuclear energy, and juggling work-life balance with his new duties as ANS’s 72nd president.

“It’s going to be a lot of fun. It’s an important year,” he told Piercy.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it intends to complete its review of Orano Enrichment’s license application to build and operate a new uranium enrichment facility near Oak Ridge, Tenn., in 12 months. Orano submitted its application for the multibillion-dollar facility, named Project Ike, in March.

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.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management announced that its Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) is setting a new benchmark in cleanup progress at the Tennessee nuclear site—conducting demolition of two former Manhattan Project–era uranium enrichment facilities in a single year.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has accepted Radiant Industries’ 10 CFR Part 70 license application for its R-50 microreactor production facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and will launch an expedited review that it is aiming to complete within eight months.

According to NRC documents, the agency expects to complete its review of the license application by December 18, 2026. The timeline is described as “accelerated” in the NRC announcement—about 55 percent faster than the typical 18 months for Part 70 application reviews.

Orano USA announced on April 22 that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU) outlining their cooperative relationship to support the construction of Project Ike, Orano’s planned $5 billion centrifuge uranium enrichment facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

On April 17, Kairos Power broke ground on its Hermes 2 demonstration plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn., for which it received test reactor construction permits from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in November 2024. Kairos expects Hermes 2 to begin operations by 2030, when the fluoride salt–cooled high temperature reactor could become the first NRC-licensed non–light water reactor to produce power.

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.