Westinghouse updates: AP1000 potential, IPO, Amentum partnership

August 5, 2026, 12:33PMNuclear News
Concept art showing the AP1000 (left) and AP300 (right). (Image: Westinghouse)

Westinghouse's long-term vision for its AP1000 includes seeing up to 91 of its flagship reactors being deployed worldwide, in one of several items of interest announced in recent days by Westinghouse and Cameco, which along with Brookfield Asset Management is part owner of Westinghouse.

Knoxville’s nuclear workshop opens with a full house and a long to-do list

August 5, 2026, 10:10AMNuclear News

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.

Uranium prices steady as EIA releases annual market report

August 5, 2026, 7:12AMNuclear News

The end-of-July spot price for uranium was $86.36 per pound, as reported by Cameco—roughly the same as it has been since February. Analytics firm Trading Economics reported a uranium futures price of $86.60 per pound, a figure that also has been holding steady since early April.

These updates come as the U.S. Energy Information Administration has released its 2025 Uranium Marketing Annual Report, which examines in detail multiple aspects of the U.S. uranium market. Data are derived from answers given in the Uranium Marketing Annual Survey, which collects information on contracts, deliveries (during the past year and projected for the next 10 years), purchased enrichment services, inventories, fuel assembly usage, and market requirements.

NRC issues draft EA/FONSI for Duane Arnold restart

August 4, 2026, 3:54PMNuclear News
Duane Arnold nuclear power plant. (Photo: NextEra Energy Duane Arnold)

Efforts by NextEra Energy to restart the Duane Arnold nuclear power plant as early as 2029 continue to move forward with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's preliminary environmental assessment and determination that the restart would have no significant environmental impacts.

On Thursday, the NRC posted a draft environmental assessment and a finding of no significant impact for the Palo, Iowa, facility; the Federal Register notice was published on Monday. The Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Dominance Financing is a cooperating agency on the draft EA, as the DOE is considering providing financial assistance to the restart project.

A closer look at the initial NLIC selections—Part 1

August 4, 2026, 12:26PMNuclear News
The River Bend nuclear power plant in St. Francisville, La. (Photo: NRC)

In January, the Department of Energy announced a new Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus (NLIC) program, inviting states via a request for information to express their interest in hosting a facility supporting work from the front to the back end of the fuel life cycle.

By April, 26 states had expressed their interest in hosting such a facility. At the end of July, the DOE signed memorandums of understanding with five states (Idaho, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Utah) to more closely explore the possibilities of state-federal partnerships. These MOUs are not firm commitments from either the federal or state governments. Time will tell which—if any—of the five states develop projects through the program. In the meantime, today, we are taking a close look at what Oklahoma and Louisiana can offer in terms of a preexisting nuclear sector that could support new fuel cycle developments.

DOE issues RFI for reuse of SRS heavy water

August 4, 2026, 9:24AMNuclear News

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has issued a request for information for industry input about the best ways to reuse and repurpose as much as 530,000 gallons of heavy water that is currently being stored at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The deadline to submit responses to the RFI is September 21.

Detailed information about the RFI, including contact information and instructions for submissions, was published in the Federal Register. Responses can be emailed to heavywaterrfi@doe.gov with the subject line “EM Heavy Water RFI Collaboration Response.”

GUTOR 80: UPS, Battery Charger, & Inverter Solutions for Nuclear Applications, Built to ASME NQA-1

August 4, 2026, 7:11AMSponsored ContentGutor

The United States and Canada are preparing to build and renew nuclear capacity at a scale not seen in decades. New construction, refurbishments, reactor restarts, license renewals, and a pipeline of small modular reactors and microreactors are advancing at once, driven by increasing power demands.

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Droughts, wildfires continue to impact power plants in Europe

August 3, 2026, 3:45PMNuclear News
Romania’s navy conducts controlled blasts in the Danube River. (Image: Fortele Navale Romane)

The effects of this summer’s historic heatwave continue to be felt across Europe. Soaring temperatures and drought in the region have led to elevated river temperatures, low river levels, and wildfires, which have significantly impacted nuclear power plants across the continent.

France’s Electricité de France has reported elevated river temperatures which have forced production cuts, including recent cuts at Golfech, and nuclear power plants in Hungary, Romania, and the United Kingdom, have faced exceptional challenges in recent days.

LANL’s ZiaCore microreactor reaches criticality

August 3, 2026, 12:43PMNuclear News
The top flange of the ZiaCore microreactor experiment. (Photo: LANL)

Last week, Los Alamos National Laboratory announced that its ZiaCore microreactor was brought to zero-power criticality at high temperatures in April through May of this year during four weeks of experiments on the Deimos test bed at the National Criticality Experiments Research Center (NCERC).

GAO report urges DOE-EM to learn from other countries

August 3, 2026, 10:51AMNuclear News
Photos from the GAO report that show boilers (classified as low-level radioactive waste) from the decommissioned Magnox reactors at the Berkeley nuclear power plant being transported through a U.K. town for shipment to Sweden for recycling in 2012. This action is part of the U.K. government’s new emphasis on waste minimization and recycling, changing previous policy that would have kept the boilers on-site until 2074. (Source: GAO-26-108082; photos: U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority)

Several countries, including Canada, France, and the United Kingdom, recently have taken steps to accelerate the cleanup of nuclear waste. In a new report, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said that these actions should serve as lessons for the United States.

According to the GAO, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management should “strategically engage with other countries to identify and evaluate alternatives that could help reduce risks and costs or accelerate its cleanup activities.” The report noted that DOE-EM agreed with the recommendation.

ANS webinar looks at radiation studies and living near nuclear plants

August 3, 2026, 7:26AMANS News

In February, a study published in Nature Communications found a correlation between proximity to nuclear power plants and rates of cancer mortality. While the authors acknowledged that causation could not be established, they nonetheless said that calculations supported evidence of 115,586 “cancer deaths attributable to nuclear power plants proximity.”

On its release, this study garnered significant media attention—sparking worry among the public and immediate pushback from radiation experts. ANS recently hosted a webinar taking a deeper look at what that study (and other similar proximity studies) got wrong, the science behind what we do and do not know, and why these conversations matter.

UW-Madison: A Midwestern nucleus of fission and fusion

July 31, 2026, 2:56PMNuclear News
Grainger Professor of Nuclear Engineering Paul Wilson (third from left) shares details about UW-Madison’s TRIGA reactor with Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (second from left) in February 2026. (Photo: Taylor Wolfram/UW-Madison)

With more than six decades as a top-ranked program in its rearview, the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics (NEEP) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison is hardly slowing down. In fact, NEEP is continuing to grow and develop its faculty, curriculum, and research.

GRETA ready for full scientific operations

July 31, 2026, 12:46PMNuclear News
GRETA installed at Michigan State University’s Facility for Rare Isotope Beams. (Photo: Shumpei Noji/FRIB)

The Gamma-Ray Energy Tracking Array (GRETA), which is installed at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at Michigan State University, has successfully completed a commissioning and characterization run, establishing that it is ready for scientific operations.

According to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which made the announcement, the measurements that scientists make with GRETA will improve the theoretical models of the atomic nucleus that underpin research in nuclear physics, astrophysics, energy, medicine, and national security.

Private-sector data center plans advance for Paducah and Savannah River sites

July 31, 2026, 9:44AMNuclear News
An aerial view of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant site in Kentucky. (Photo: DOE)

The Department of Energy has announced two partnership agreements to construct AI data centers combined with energy infrastructure at DOE sites. This week, agency announced a partnership with Big Rivers Electric Power Corporation, Brookfield Corporation, Jackson Purchase Energy Cooperative, NextEra Energy, and Paducah Power System aimed at redeveloping parts of the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant into a data center campus with energy infrastructure.

ARC partners with INL for first reactor deployment

July 31, 2026, 7:41AMNuclear News
Concept art of an ARC-100 facility, which is planned to house a 100-MWe sodium fast reactor. (Image: ARC)

Earlier this week, ARC Clean Technology announced that it has entered into a Strategic Partnership Project agreement with Battelle Energy Alliance—the management and operating contractor of Idaho National Laboratory.

That agreement establishes a multiyear framework for ARC and INL to collaborate on the design, demonstration, and first deployment of the company’s ARC-100, a 100-MWe sodium-cooled fast reactor.

Fire in glovebox at LANL plutonium facility sparks safety discussion

July 30, 2026, 4:03PMNuclear News
Jill Gibson and Daniel Garcia at the LANL New Employee Training Academy. (Photo: Los Alamos National Laboratory)

According to a Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) report, a fire occurred in a glovebox in the plutonium facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory on June 15. A test involving nonnuclear material was underway in the furnace inside the glovebox at the time of the incident.

NRC, FEMA talk emergency preparedness for Crane restart

July 30, 2026, 1:54PMNuclear News

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission held its latest public meeting in central Pennsylvania on Tuesday to provide an update the progress being made to restart the Crane nuclear power plant (formerly Three Mile Island-1) as early as 2027.

The meeting focused on emergency preparedness, with officials from both the NRC and the Federal Emergency Management Agency sharing how the agencies plan their on-site and off-site responses to potential emergencies.

CoP presentation breaks down reactor licensing frameworks

July 30, 2026, 7:26AMANS News

The American Nuclear Society’s Risk-informed, Performance-based Principles and Policy Committee (RP3C) recently held another presentation in its monthly Community of Practice (CoP) series. Former RP3C chair N. Prasad Kadambi opened the meeting with brief introductory remarks about the RP3C and the need for new approaches to nuclear design that go beyond conventional and deterministic methods. He then welcomed this month’s speaker: Jon Facemire, senior project manager of new nuclear at the Nuclear Energy Institute, who presented “New Regulatory Frameworks: Part 53, Proposed Part 57, and Considerations for Licensing.”