Power & Operations

The Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration has signed a first-of-a-kind memorandum of cooperation (MOC) with the Port of Long Beach, in southern California, to advance the development of small modular reactors for powering commercial vessels, ports, and other maritime assets. With the signing, Long Beach became the first U.S. seaport to form a partnership with MARAD on commercial nuclear-powered maritime vessels. The federal maritime agency had issued a request for information in May seeking industry input on the development of domestic, scalable, commercially viable reactors for U.S. marine transportation.

Illinois has received nine responses to a notice of intent (NOI) expressing interest in hosting a new nuclear facility, according to submissions filed with the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC).

In February, Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued an executive order directing the commission to release two NOIs, one aimed at nuclear power plant developers and another for potential host communities. The second NOI requested information from Illinois communities interested in having a nuclear facility and gave them a deadline of May 25 to respond. Pritzker’s executive order arrived about a month after he lifted the state’s moratorium on new nuclear reactors being built in the state.

On July 21, TerraPower announced that it had been accepted into the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations. INPO and TerraPower alike celebrated the development as the first time an advanced nuclear company has joined the institute’s ranks, representing an important step forward in safety and industry coordination among newcomers to the nuclear industry.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) is currently seeking qualified candidates to fill an open committee member position. Applications for the position will be accepted until July 30. The ACRS is the world’s oldest organization devoted to reactor safety, and the group reports directly to the NRC’s commissioners in order to provide independent technical reviews of and advice on a wide variety of nuclear topics.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has accepted Constellation’s subsequent license renewal application to extend operations at the Ginna nuclear power plant by another 20 years.

If approved, the Ontario, N.Y., facility’s operating license would be extended through September 18, 2049. The plant was first issued a 40-year license in 1969, followed by a 20-year renewal in 2004 that extended the license into 2029.

In the span of just over a week in late June and early July, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission published three proposed rules on modernizing security requirements, low-level radioactive waste disposal requirements, and fuel cycle and materials licensing.

This week, NRC staff led separate virtual public information meetings on each of the proposed rules, providing details to the public on what each one would change.

Westinghouse has cleared a hurdle in its quest to renew and update the standard design certification (DC) for its AP1000 reactor with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s approval of an exemption from scheduling requirements that limit when an applicant can apply for a DC renewal.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has upheld and finalized a “white” safety finding at V.C. Summer power plant in Jenkinsville, S.C., over the plant’s failure to properly preplan and perform maintenance on its turbine-driven emergency feedwater pump (TDEFW) governor valve linkage. The 966-MWe three-loop Westinghouse pressurized water reactor at Summer started commercial operation in 1982.

Make no mistake about it: the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s proposed rulemaking on reactor licensing, safety oversight, and siting practices is expansive. When it was unveiled on July 1, NRC officials called it the “most comprehensive modernization of reactor licensing in decades,” one that could save the NRC and the industry as much as $1.86 billion.

“NRC’s regulations have not kept pace with new technologies and our energy needs,” NRC Chairman Ho Nieh said in an announcement. “This proposed rule strips out rigid frameworks and unnecessary conservatism to accelerate the safe deployment of new reactors and expand existing capacity across America.”

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is proposing changes to its environmental review regulations under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) that agency officials call the most significant in decades.

The proposed rule—published in the Federal Register on Tuesday—streamlines 10 CFR Part 51 and calls for no longer requiring draft environmental impact statements (EIS), adding new categorical exclusions that exempt licensing actions from NEPA review, and reducing the regulatory burden in its environmental reviews, among other things. The NRC will accept public comments on the proposed rulemaking until August 21, with plans to hold a public hearing during the comment period.

The ongoing work to restart Holtec’s Palisades nuclear power plant, which last operated in 2022, has transitioned out of large-scale projects and into smaller activities, plant owner and operator Holtec International announced last week. However, no firm start date for the Covert, Mich., facility has been announced.

In 2023, more than 20 countries at the World Climate Action Summit of the 28th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28) set the goal of tripling global nuclear energy capacity by 2050. Now, a new report from the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency describes the daunting challenges involved in trying to meet that goal.

According to Nuclear Energy Outlook: Global Installed Capacity to 2050 and Beyond, expanding nuclear energy capacity to meet the COP28 target will require substantial acceleration in the growth of the nuclear workforce, supply chains, and financing availability. The report outlines four possible scenarios for how nuclear capacity could evolve by and past 2050: a “low” scenario, a “current trends” scenario, an “ambitious” scenario, and a “transformative” scenario.

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.

Last week, Canadian nuclear and engineering company AtkinsRéalis announced that it has formally submitted a notice of intent to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission “to begin the licensing process” for its CANDU reactor technology in the United States.

For just over a year, President Trump’s Executive Order 14301, “Reforming Nuclear Reactor Testing at the Department of Energy,” has loomed large because it pegged a stretch goal to a significant date: July 4, 2026. Will there be at least three participants in the Department of Energy’s Reactor Pilot Program whose reactors achieve criticality by Saturday’s deadline?

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's launching of its environmental review of Holtec International's two SMR-300 reactors at the Palisades site in Michigan and its proposed changes to fuel cycle and materials licensing regulations may have grabbed the most attention recently, but the agency has also announced multiple other updates in recent weeks.

Yesterday, Constellation announced that it has entered into a long-term nuclear power purchase agreement (PPA) for 176 MW of electricity from its Dresden nuclear power plant. That PPA, which will also help facilitate a 30-MWe uprate, is providing power to an unusual partner: Walmart.

Earlier today, the Department of Energy announced that it has issued a conditional loan commitment to finance the purchase of “long-lead time items needed to rebuild America’s commercial nuclear supply chain.”

The American Nuclear Supply Chain Loans on offer are worth $17.5 billion and intended to help finance up to five projects to build a total of 10 new AP1000 reactors, with construction aimed to begin by 2030.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is set to prepare an environmental impact statement for its review of Holtec International’s application to site two Holtec SMR-300 reactors at the Palisades site in Covert, Mich. The two planned reactors would be known as Pioneer-1 and -2.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has renewed the operating licenses of Hatch-1 and -2 in under 12 months, the agency announced Friday.

Southern Nuclear’s application was accepted by the NRC in June 2025. The Baxley, Ga., facility’s two boiling water reactors are the second and third units to receive subsequent license renewals under the NRC’s new, streamlined process for renewing operating licenses in 12 months or less. Previously completed SLR proceedings took, on average, about two-and-a-half years.