The American Nuclear Society’s Risk-informed, Performance-based Principles and Policy Committee (RP3C) held another presentation in its monthly Community of Practice (CoP) series.

Watch the full webinar here.

Wright

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is in the spotlight today for three very different reasons. First, NRC Chair David Wright was on Capitol Hill yesterday for his renomination hearing in front of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee. Second, the NRC released its updated milestone schedules according to the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act (NEIMA) and the executive orders signed by President Trump last month; and third, as reported by Reuters on Tuesday, 28 former NRC officials have condemned the dismissal of Commissioner Hanson earlier this month.

Renomination: EPW Committee chair Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R., W.Va.) opened the hearing with a statement praising Wright’s experience and emphasized the urgency of stable leadership at the NRC.

“China is executing a rapid build-out of its nuclear industry,” Capito said. “The demand for clean, baseload power is skyrocketing as we position America to win the AI race.”

In an article just published by the Taking Measure blog of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Stephen Russek—who leads the Imaging Physics Project in the Magnetic Imaging Group at NIST and codirects the MRI Biomarker Measurement Service—describes his team’s work using phantom stand-ins for human tissue.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has announced it has amended regulations for the licensing, inspection, special projects, and annual fees it will charge applicants and licensees for fiscal year 2025.

This spring, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management announced that it had achieved a major milestone by completing commissioning of the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System (SSCVS) facility—a new, state-of-the-art, large-scale ventilation system at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the DOE’s geologic repository for defense-related transuranic (TRU) waste in New Mexico.

Centrus Energy has secured a contract extension from the Department of Energy to continue—for one year—its ongoing high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) production at the American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio, at an annual rate of 900 kilograms of HALEU UF₆. That's the same amount of HALEU—900 kg—that the company today announced it has delivered to the DOE, completing Phase II of its contract. According to Centrus, the contract extension, which allows the company to begin Phase III, is valued at about $110 million through June 30, 2026.

U.S.-based private capital group Apollo Global has committed £4.5 billion ($6.13 billion) in financing to EDF Energy, primarily to support the U.K.’s Hinkley Point C station. The move addresses funding needs left unmet since China General Nuclear Power Corporation—which originally planned to pay for one-third of the project—exited in 2023 amid U.K. government efforts to reduce Chinese involvement.

SMR developer Arc Clean Technology has signed a memorandum of understanding with Deep Atomic to jointly explore deployment opportunities across North America.

The Utilities Service Alliance and Curio have signed a memorandum of understanding that may lead to future supplier-partner agreements between USA’s utility members and Curio.

Plastic waste is polluting the oceans and entering the human body in the form of microplastics. According to the United Nations, without immediate action the amount of plastic finding a way into the oceans each year could reach 37 million metric tons by 2040, becoming a threat to marine and human life.