Annotated concept art of the Cascade Advanced Energy Facility, depicting three reactor buildings that each house four units. (Source: Amazon)
A year ago this month, Amazon led a $500 million investment in X-energy, alongside Citadel founder Ken Griffin, the University of Michigan, and other investors. In addition to that financing, Amazon pledged to support the development of an initial four-unit, 320-MW project with Energy Northwest in Washington state.
October 10, 2025, 4:42PMNuclear NewsIlyas Yilgor, Mauricio Tano, Katrina Sweetland, Joshua Hansel, and Piyush Sabharwall A high-temperature heat pipe glows during operation at ~800°C at INL’s SPHERE test facility. (Photo: INL)
Idaho National Laboratory under the Department of Energy–sponsored Microreactor Program recently conducted a comprehensive phenomena identification and ranking table (PIRT) exercise aimed at advancing heat pipe technology for microreactor applications.
A rendering of the proposed Kronos MRR at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Image: NANO Nuclear Energy Inc.
New York City–based advanced nuclear technology developer Nano Nuclear and the Office of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced on Tuesday that Nano will receive $6.8 million in state funding to establish its new manufacturing and research and development facility in Illinois.
Oklo employees alongside leaders from federal, state, and local government at the ground-breaking ceremony. (Photo: Oklo)
Following the same milestones from Aalo Atomics and Valar Atomics, Santa Clara, Calif.–based reactor start-up Oklo has become the third company participating in the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Reactor Pilot Program to break ground on its fast-tracked project at Idaho National Laboratory.
The golden ground-breaking shovels for Valar’s USREL site are posed dramatically in front of an American flag hung on a Kiewit excavator. (Source: Valar Atomics)
El Segundo, Calif.–based reactor start-up Valar Atomics recently announced that it has broken ground on its test reactor, the Ward 250, at Utah San Rafael Energy Lab (USREL), becoming the second company participating in the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Reactor Pilot Program to do so.
IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi (center right) attends the signing of an agreement by representatives of the EAGLES Consortium and the nuclear regulators of Belgium, Italy, and Romania. (Photo: IAEA)
The nuclear regulators of Belgium, Italy, and Romania signed on this week to the first “prelicensing” project under the IAEA’s Nuclear Harmonization and Standardization Initiative (NHSI) during the opening day of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 69th General Conference, pledging to work with the EAGLES Consortium to clarify regulatory requirements for a lead-cooled reactor ahead of formal licensing.
Preliminary site map for Project Matador from Fermi America’s SEC filing (Source: Fermi America)
Texas Tech University and Fermi America are now one step closer to realizing their massive vision for the Advanced Energy and Intelligence Campus in Amarillo, Texas, as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has accepted the first two parts of its combined license application (COLA) for four Westinghouse AP1000s.
Members of the Aalo team at the ground-breaking ceremony. (Photo: Aalo)
Eight days after Aalo Atomics released the details of its securing of $100 million in Series B funding, the company announced that it has broken ground on the 10-MWe Aalo-X. Sited in the desert beside Idaho National Laboratory, it will be the company’s first nuclear power plant, and it remains on track to go on line by July 4, 2026.
Scale model of the Pele transportable microreactor. (Image: BWXT)
Fabrication of the reactor core for the 1.5-MW Project Pele demonstration microreactor has begun, according to BWX Technologies. Pele is being developed at the BWXT Innovation Campus in Lynchburg, Va., for the U.S. Department of Defense’s Strategic Capabilities Office.
The ETU 3.0 reactor vessel was lowered into position using construction cranes and mounted on a support structure attached to the building’s foundation. (Photo: Kairos Power)
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.
A schematic diagram of the Shaft Seal Test Facility. (Image: NERS)
For 2,300 hours, the molten salt pump Shaft Seal Test Facility (SSTF) operated at the University of Michigan’s Thermal Hydraulics Laboratory, according to an article from UM. The large-scale experiment was designed to evaluate shaft seal performance in high-temperature pump systems. Fewer than 10 facilities worldwide have successfully operated fluoride or chloride salts for more than 100 hours using over 10 kilograms of material.