Members of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) viewed the efforts underway to address legacy transuranic waste during a recent visit to Los Alamos National Laboratory, in New Mexico.
When small modular reactors and other advanced nuclear plants someday provide electricity, hydrogen, desalination, and district heating, the North Carolina Collaboratory will deserve some credit. Headquartered at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, the collaboratory is a research funding agency established by the North Carolina General Assembly in 2016 to partner with academic institutions and government agencies. Its goal is to help transform research into practical applications for the benefit of North Carolina’s state and local economies. To that end, it engages in research projects related to advanced nuclear energy, among other initiatives.
The United Nuclear Corporation and General Electric will undertake a nearly $63 million, decade-long cleanup project at the former Northeast Church Rock Mine in northwestern New Mexico under a consent decree with the United States, the Navajo Nation, and the state of New Mexico.
The race to bring test reactors on line by July 4, 2026, got a boost today when the Department of Energy unveiled the names of 10 companies selected for the Nuclear Reactor Pilot Program—a new pathway that allows reactor authorization outside national labs.
As first outlined in one of the four executive orders on nuclear energy released by President Trump on May 23 and in the request for applications for the Reactor Pilot Program released June 18, the companies must use their own money and sites—and DOE authorization—to get reactors operating. What they won’t need is a Nuclear Regulatory Commission license.
The Department of Energy’s Office of Science has committed $20 million to the University of Missouri that—with a matching $20 million from the state government—will support construction of a Radioisotope Science Center (RSC) at the university’s Discovery Ridge research park in Columbia, Mo., projected for completion in early 2029. The new facility will pair the DOE’s Office of Isotope R&D and Production (IRP)—formerly known as the DOE Isotope Program—with the decades of expertise developed at the University of Missouri Research Reactor (MURR).
...and today.
Levin in the late 1980s...
Growing up in Baltimore in the 1950s and ’60s, I had interests in two areas that ultimately had major impacts on my education and career. The first was science—especially nuclear physics—and the second was science fiction.
One early influence was undoubtedly Disney’s short film “Our Friend the Atom.” I don’t recall exactly when or where I saw it, but I clearly remember the demonstration of a chain reaction with mousetraps and ping pong balls. It looked like an exciting area about which to learn.
I also had a shelf full of Tom Swift Jr. sci-fi/adventure books, and around the fourth grade I discovered Robert Heinlein—specifically, his book Have Space Suit, Will Travel. Kip Russell, the teenage hero of the book, is abducted by hostile space aliens but manages to escape and, with the help of a friendly alien, saves Earth from destruction. At the end, having returned to Earth, Kip prepares to go off to college at MIT. With the assistance of my trusty World Book Encyclopedia, I researched MIT and decided—rather audaciously at the age of 10—that I would go there, too.
Here is a recap of industry happenings from the recent past:
SMR service center targeted for Ontario
GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy has announced plans to invest as much as $50 million to establish a Canadian BWRX-300 Engineering and Service Center near Ontario Power Generation’s Darlington New Nuclear Project site. The Ontario government had previously approved the construction of the first of four BWRX-300 small modular reactors at the site. The center will provide engineering and technical services for the long-term operation and maintenance of the future fleet of SMRs in Ontario. It will also serve as a hub for innovation and training, knowledge sharing, supply chain engagement, and workforce development.
After two years of testing, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, have begun officially implementing the Rhisotope Project, an innovative effort to combat rhino poaching and trafficking by leveraging nuclear technology.
For the uninitiated, Dubai chocolate is a candy bar filled with pistachio and tahini cream and crispy pastry recently popularized by social media influencers. While it’s easy to dismiss as a viral craze now past its peak, the nutty green confection has spiked global pistachio demand, and growers and processors are ramping up production. That means more pistachios need to be tested for aflatoxins—a byproduct of a common crop mold.
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.
Nicole Hughes
For 25 years, I’ve worked across technical industries on three continents, from defense and aviation to energy and nuclear. The core of my work has always been the same: building teams to meet complex missions. But I’ve never seen anything like the challenge and opportunity we now face in nuclear.
Quadrupling U.S. nuclear capacity by 2050 is the mission. But we can’t get there by technology alone—the future will be built by people. And if we don’t think carefully about who we’re bringing in, and how, the mission will fail.
I’ve worked with global leadership and first-time apprentices. I’ve led recruitment where talent was scarce and urgency high. The biggest barrier I’ve seen is a lack of imagination in how we design the path.
Here’s an easy way to make aging U.S. power reactors look relatively youthful: Compare them (average age: 43) with the nation’s university research reactors. The 25 operating today have been licensed for an average of about 58 years.
Nearly 300 public school teachers, career counselors, and school administrators from 11 middle and high schools in the Oak Ridge region of Tennessee recently attended a nuclear opportunities workshop. The event was held to provide information about careers available for students in the years ahead related to the cleanup mission of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management.
Hash Hashemian
president@ans.org
The 2025 ANS Annual Conference in Chicago was a powerful springboard to begin my term as president. With over 1,400 attendees, it was one of our most dynamic gatherings in recent memory—full of energy, ideas, and a shared commitment to advancing nuclear science and technology.
As we move forward, my focus is clear: to elevate the role of nuclear in environmental protection, national security, energy diversity, and grid stability. These priorities are not just strategic—they are essential to a cleaner, more resilient future.
The goals I laid out at the conclusion of the Board of Directors meeting in June are simple, but I am sure they will be effective in engaging our community.
One simple change to start is the move away from the term meetings—the American Nuclear Society now uses the term conferences to describe its two yearly flagship gatherings, to more appropriately reflect the more than 1,000 attendees that these events bring together.
With this year’s awards already presented at the American Nuclear Society Annual Conference in June, the ANS Honors and Awards (H&A) Committee has set its sights on planning for next year’s distinctions. To that end, the H&A Committee is now soliciting suggested topics for the 2026 Special Award.
Colorado’s first nuclear power plant of the 21st century could be built at an unconventional site: the Denver International Airport (DEN).
In its mission to gain energy independence and become the greenest airport in the world, DEN has announced that it will conduct a feasibility study to determine the viability of building a small modular reactor on its 33,500-acre campus.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has completed an advisory service mission to Zambia focused on assessing the country's nuclear security regime for nuclear and other radioactive material out of regulatory control (MORC). The IAEA team recognized Zambia’s commitment to nuclear security because of its efforts to prevent, detect, and respond to unauthorized acts involving MORC, and pointed out capacity building and coordination among stakeholders as areas for further enhancement.
Craig Piercy
cpiercy@ans.org
For the past few years, I have been conducting a thoroughly unscientific, one-question poll of nuclear utility and supplier CEOs and senior executives: “What keeps you up at night?” The number one answer is—and has been from the beginning—“Workforce.”
The ongoing shortage of skilled labor—welders, pipefitters, electricians, and the like—almost always gets top billing in nuclear workforce discussions. In April 2025, the U.S. had an eye-popping 600,000 unfilled positions in the construction and manufacturing sectors. This consistent supply gap feeds a continuing talent war that has pushed craft wages up 20 percent since the end of the COVID pandemic, straining project budgets and profit margins alike.
Perhaps the most underappreciated gap in the nuclear workforce is professional and business services. It is the second-largest employment category in the nuclear industry, according to the Department of Energy’s 2024 U.S. Energy & Employment Report.
Uranium provider Cameco has calculated an end-of-July spot price for uranium of $71.10—a decline from the $78.50 of the previous month. Cameco lists a long-term price of $81.00 for July, which is the same price that was listed in January. From February to June, the long-term price was $80.00.
Uranium futures were about $71.45 per pound on August 4, according to online analysis firm Trading Economics, which noted that continued prices near $71.50 are maintaining the price drop from the seven-month high of $79.00 in mid-June. The relatively low prices are related to a lack of buying from holding funds, which have received lowered bids from utilities. Nevertheless, uranium prices are higher at this point, compared with the $63.70 price in mid-March this year.
Nieh
President Trump recently nominated Ho Nieh for the role of commissioner at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission through the remainder of a term that will expire June 30, 2029.
Nieh has been the vice president of regulatory affairs at Southern Nuclear since 2021, though he is currently working as a loaned executive at the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, where he has been for more than a year.
Nieh’s experience: Nieh started his career at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, where he worked primarily as a nuclear plant engineer and contributed as a civilian instructor in the U.S. Navy’s Nuclear Power Program.
From there, he joined the NRC in 1997 as a project engineer. In more than 19 years of service at the organization, he served in a variety of key leadership roles, including division director of Reactor Projects, division director of Inspection and Regional Support, and director of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.