Nuclear News on the Newswire

ANS announces 2025 Presidential Citations

One of the privileges of being president of the American Nuclear Society is awarding Presidential Citations to individuals who have demonstrated outstanding effort in some manner for the benefit of ANS or the nuclear community at large. Citations are conferred twice each year, at the Annual and Winter Meetings.

ANS President Lisa Marshall has named this season’s recipients, who will receive recognition at the upcoming Annual Conference in Chicago during the Special Session on Tuesday, June 17.

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Oklo signs MOU to partner with Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power

Oklo cofounder and CEO Jacob DeWitte and KHNP CEO Joo-ho Whang following the virtual signing of an MOU. (Source: Oklo)

Oklo announced last week that it hopes to expand development and global deployment of its advanced nuclear technology through a new partnership with Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power.

The memorandum of understanding includes plans for the companies to advance standard design development and global deployment of Oklo’s planned Aurora Powerhouse, a microreactor that would generate 15 MW and be scalable to 50 MWe. Oklo said each unit can operate for 10 years or longer before refueling.

Oklo and KHNP plan to cooperate on early-stage project development, including manufacturability assessments and planning of major equipment, supply chain development for balance-of-plant systems, and constructability assessments and planning.

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NRC approves NuScale uprated SMR design

NuScale earned approval for its “larger” US460 77-MWe small modular reactor plant design, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced last week.

The standard design approval (SDA) is a determination by NRC staff that a reactor design meets the agency’s applicable design requirements, and companies can reference it when applying for a license to build and operate the reactor—but it does not ensure license approval from the commission.

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High-temperature plumbing and advanced reactors

The use of nuclear fission power and its role in impacting climate change is hotly debated. Fission advocates argue that short-term solutions would involve the rapid deployment of Gen III+ nuclear reactors, like Vogtle-3 and -4, while long-term climate change impact would rely on the creation and implementation of Gen IV reactors, “inherently safe” reactors that use passive laws of physics and chemistry rather than active controls such as valves and pumps to operate safely. While Gen IV reactors vary in many ways, one thing unites nearly all of them: the use of exotic, high-temperature coolants. These fluids, like molten salts and liquid metals, can enable reactor engineers to design much safer nuclear reactors—ultimately because the boiling point of each fluid is extremely high. Fluids that remain liquid over large temperature ranges can provide good heat transfer through many demanding conditions, all with minimal pressurization. Although the most apparent use for these fluids is advanced fission power, they have the potential to be applied to other power generation sources such as fusion, thermal storage, solar, or high-temperature process heat.1–3

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Industry Update—June 2025

Here is a recap of industry happenings from the recent past:

ADVANCED REACTOR MARKETPLACE

DOD selects companies for its installations microreactor program

The Department of Defense has selected eight technology companies as being eligible to seek funding for developing microreactor technologies as part of the DOD’s Advanced Nuclear Power for Installations program. That program seeks to “design, license, build, and operate one or more microreactor nuclear power plants on military installations . . . to support global operations across land, air, sea, space, and cyberspace.” The selected companies are Antares Nuclear, BWXT Advanced Technologies, General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems, Kairos Power, Oklo, Radiant Industries, Westinghouse Government Services, and X-energy. Specific objectives of the DOD program are to “field a decentralized scalable microreactor system capable of producing enough electrical power to meet 100 percent of all critical loads” and to “utilize the civil regulatory pathways of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to stimulate commercial nuclear microreactor technology development and the associated supply chains in the U.S.”

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