GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH), Ontario Power Generation (OPG), SNC-Lavalin and Aecon have signed a contract for the deployment of a BWRX-300 small modular reactor (SMR) at OPG’s Darlington New Nuclear Project site. This is the first commercial contract for a grid-scale SMR in North America. The BWRX-300 is a... Read more →

EPRI, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Southern Company Research and Development, and Deep Isolation recently were recently awarded $2.8 million from by the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E) for a joint nuclear research and development project focused on nuclear fuel management options to... Read more →

NuScale Power, along with Shell Global Solutions (Shell) and industry participants will develop and assess a concept for an economically optimized Integrated Energy System (IES) for hydrogen production using electricity and process heat from a NuScale VOYGR small modular reactor (SMR) power plant. The project entitled, “Development and Demonstration of... Read more →

A UK consortium has been awarded £7.7 million (US$9.3 million) from the Net Zero Innovation Portfolio (NZIP) of the UK Government’s Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to develop a hydrogen storage demonstrator, in which hydrogen is absorbed on a depleted uranium bed, which can then release the... Read more →

The US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (EERE) and the Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) are teaming up with utilities to support four hydrogen demonstration projects at nuclear power plants. High-temperature electrolyzers for hydrogen production use both heat and electricity to split water and... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced an approximately $150-million cost-shared award with American Centrifuge Operating (ACO), a subsidiary of Centrus Energy Corp, to demonstrate the ability to produce high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU)—a crucial material needed to develop and deploy advanced reactors in the United States. HALEU is uranium that... Read more →

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL), Canada’s premier nuclear science and technology organization, and General Fusion have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to pursue a series of joint projects to accelerate the deployment of commercial fusion power in Canada. Fusion energy holds great potential as a clean and reliable form of... Read more →

The US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E) will award $38 million to 12 projects that will work to reduce the impacts of light-water reactor used nuclear fuel (UNF) disposal. (Earlier post.) The projects, led by universities, private companies, and national laboratories, were selected to... Read more →

Construction of General Fusion’s demonstration machine, which is being built at the UK Atomic Energy Agency’s Culham Campus, advanced significantly with the fabrication of an at-scale fusion vessel trial ring by Sheffield Forgemasters. This critical component will confirm the specifications of the thick-walled fusion vessel, designed to withstand the high... Read more →

General Fusion and the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) kicked off projects to advance the commercialization of magnetized target fusion energy as part of a collaborative agreement. The results will hone the design of General Fusion’s demonstration machine being built at the Culham Campus, part of the UK fusion cluster.... Read more →

Westinghouse Electric Company has signed a service agreement with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to bring its eVinci microreactor closer to commercialization. The agreement initiates a Vendor Design Review (VDR) which is a pre-licensing technical assessment of the eVinci small modular reactor design. Westinghouse will execute both Phases 1 and... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced up to $10 million in funding (DE-FOA-0002784) to establish clear practices to determine whether low-energy nuclear reactions (LENR) could be the basis for a potentially transformative carbon-free energy source. The funding is part of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) LENR Exploratory Topic,... Read more →

The UK’s Advanced Modular Reactor Research, Development and Demonstration (AMR RD&D) program has awarded £3.3 million (US$3.8 million) to support six projects focused on the development of high temperature gas reactors (HTGRs). The AMR funding represents another step in the government’s plans to accelerate homegrown nuclear power to strengthen the... Read more →

The US Department of Energy’s Nuclear Energy University Program (NEUP) has awarded research funds to the MIT Energy Initiative, CORE POWER, and the Idaho National Laboratory for a three-year study into the development of offshore floating nuclear power generation in the US. The NEUP funding will allow detailed collaborative research... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) is seeking applications for projects in “Nuclear Coupled Hydrogen Production and Use.” This just-announced amendment to an existing funding opportunity aims to support the development of nuclear plant thermal integration that would be required for high-temperature hydrogen production or hydrogen-coupled end uses for nuclear... Read more →

California lawmakers passed Senate Bill 846, which authorizes the extension of operating the Diablo Canyon Nuclear power plant (DCPP) beyond the current expiration dates (of 2024 for Unit 1 and 2025 for Unit 2), to up to five additional years (no later than 2029 and 2030, respectively), under specified conditions.... Read more →

Abilene Christian University’s (ACU) Nuclear Energy eXperimental Testing (NEXT) Lab submitted an application for a construction permit for a molten-salt research reactor (MSRR) with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The application is the first for a new research reactor in more than 30 years and the first for an... Read more →

TerraPower, a nuclear innovation company, has closed an equity raise that yields a minimum of $750 million. This is one of the largest advanced nuclear fundraises to-date. The fundraise was co-led by SK Inc. and SK Innovation (collectively, SK) and TerraPower’s founder Bill Gates. SK invested $250 million. SK Group... Read more →

The Department of Energy (DOE) selected Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to lead a $9.25-million collaborative project in nuclear energy research through the Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) program. SciDAC brings together experts in science and energy research with those in software development, applied mathematics, and computer science to... Read more →

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) Professor Jie Lian has been awarded $500,000 from the US Department of Energy as part of the Nuclear Energy University Research Program (NEUP) to conduct research and develop new materials that will make advanced nuclear reactors more resilient and economically efficient. Dr. Lian, the principle investigator... Read more →

Dow, a leading global materials science company, and X-energy, a nuclear energy innovation company, signed a letter of intent which will help Dow advance its carbon emissions reduction goals through the development and deployment of X-energy's advanced small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) technology in the US. Dow and X-energy will... Read more →

Bloom Energy announced the initial results of its ongoing demonstration with Idaho National Laboratory (INL). With nearly 500 hours of full-load operation completed at the laboratory, Bloom’s high-temperature electrolyzer is producing hydrogen more efficiently than other commercially available electrolyzers, including PEM and alkaline. Researchers at INL have been conducting a... Read more →

By most measures, production of uranium concentrate (U3O8) remained at or near all-time lows in the United States during 2021, at 21,000 pounds—less than 1% of the post-2000 production high of 4.9 million pounds U3O8 in 2014, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). As domestic production has declined,... Read more →

Researchers at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have found a way to build high-temperature superconducting magnets made of material that conducts electricity with little or no resistance at temperatures warmer than before. Such powerful magnets would more easily fit within the tight space inside... Read more →

As the world contends with a global energy crisis, nuclear power has the potential to play a significant role in helping countries to securely transition to energy systems dominated by renewables, according to a new special report by the IEA. In countries that choose to continue or increase their use... Read more →

BWX Technologies, Inc. (BWXT) will build the first advanced nuclear microreactor in the United States under a contract awarded by the US Department of Defense (DoD) Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO). The Project Pele full-scale transportable microreactor prototype will be completed and delivered in 2024 for testing at the Idaho National... Read more →

Westinghouse Electric Company and Bloom Energy Corporation have entered into a Letter of Intent to pursue clean hydrogen production in the commercial nuclear power market. The companies are teaming to identify and implement clean hydrogen projects across the nuclear industry. Westinghouse and Bloom Energy will jointly develop an optimized and... Read more →

Futaba Town, Namie Town, AEON TOHOKU Co., Ltd. and Toyota Motor Corporation (Toyota) are partnering to establish a mobile retail business that uses a fuel cell vehicle in specified reconstruction and revitalization bases. Futaba and Namie are both in Fukushima Prefecture, and were evacuated following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power... Read more →

Researchers at the Institute of Modern Physics (IMP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have developed an innovative method of pre-enriching uranium in seawater by membrane filtration. Uranium is the vital source for nuclear power generation. There are about 4.5 billion tons of uranium existing in seawater—1000 times more... Read more →

Newly released polling shows strong local support for extending the operations of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, California’s largest source of carbon free energy generation. Statewide support for extending operations of the plant was also strong, according to the poll conducted by FM3 Research. Gov. Gavin Newsom recently announced... Read more →

Currently, hydrogen is used in industrial processes ranging from producing synthetic fuels and petrochemicals to manufacturing semiconductors and powering fuel cell electric vehicles. In order to decrease the environmental impact of the annual production of over 70 million tonnes of hydrogen, some countries are looking to renewables such as solar... Read more →

The Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA), a national research and development agency, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI), have been contracted by Japan’s Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, part of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), to conduct a Hydrogen Production Demonstration Project Utilizing Very High Temperature,... Read more →

Purdue University and Duke Energy plan to explore the feasibility of using advanced nuclear energy to meet the campus community’s long-term energy needs. With interest rising worldwide in new technologies that are reliable and carbon-free, Purdue and Duke Energy intend to study power produced through Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), a... Read more →

The Nikkei reports that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI)is moving ahead with its plans to develop and commercialize nuclear microreactors—reactors small enough to be delivered on trucks—by the end of the next decade. At 3 meters tall and 4 meters wide, the microreactors will weigh less than 40 tons. The reactor... Read more →

In 2021, for the second consecutive year, US nuclear electricity generation declined, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). Output from US nuclear power plants totaled 778 million megawatthours in 2021—1.5% less than the previous year. Nuclear’s share of US electricity generation across all sectors in 2021 was similar... Read more →

Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) and Seaborg signed a partnership agreement to develop floating nuclear power plants based on Seaborg’s inherently safe Compact Molten Salt Reactor (CMSR). The floating nuclear power plant comes as a turn-key product, ready to be moored at an industrial harbor. In the harbor, a transmission cable... Read more →

In the new environment of energy insecurity intensified by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting response from the West, the UK government has released a new British Energy Security Strategy that sets out how Great Britain will accelerate the deployment of wind, new nuclear, solar and hydrogen, while supporting... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced up to $48 million in funding for a new Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program—Converting UNF Radioisotopes Into Energy (CURIE)—that will support the deployment of Advanced Nuclear Reactor (AR) technology by providing safe and sustainable domestic fuel stocks. (DE-FOA-0002691) The US has accumulated... Read more →

Uranium Energy Corp. (UEC) recently acquired all of the issued and outstanding shares of Uranium One Americas (U1A), Inc. for a total purchase price of $112 million in cash together with an additional $2.9 million in estimated working capital (primarily pre-paid insurance and land payments) and the assumption of $19... Read more →

Rolls-Royce Group has reached agreement with Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), the sovereign wealth fund of the State of Qatar, to invest £85 million (US$112 million) in Rolls-Royce SMR Limited (Rolls-Royce SMR). Rolls-Royce SMR is building a new technology solution for small modular reactors to deliver affordable, low-carbon, nuclear power. A... Read more →

Ontario Power Generation (OPG) will work together with GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) to deploy a Small Modular Reactor (SMR)—the BWRX-300—at the Darlington new nuclear site, the only site in Canada currently licensed for a new nuclear build. OPG and GE Hitachi will collaborate on the SMR engineering, design, planning,... Read more →

The UK’s National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) and DNV are partnering to explore the potential of nuclear-derived hydrogen to support the conversion of UK gas networks to hydrogen. The ‘Nuclear Derived Hydrogen to Gas Networks’ collaboration is set to provide deeper evidence to support key up-coming government policy decisions on the... Read more →

Rolls-Royce announced that following a successful equity raise, it has established the Rolls-Royce Small Modular Reactor (SMR) business to bring forward and deliver at scale the next generation of low-cost, low-carbon nuclear power technology. (Earlier post.) Rolls-Royce Group, BNF Resources UK Limited and Exelon Generation Limited will invest £195 million... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) is awarding $20 million in funding to a project to demonstrate technology that will produce clean hydrogen energy from nuclear power. This approach will allow clean hydrogen to serve as a source for zero-carbon electricity and represent an important economic product for nuclear plants... Read more →

Nel Hydrogen US, a subsidiary of Nel ASA, has received a contract for a 1.25 megawatt (MW) containerized PEM electrolyzer from a leading utility in the US. The client will be installing an MC250 electrolyzer at a nuclear power plant for self-supply of hydrogen to meet turbine cooling and chemistry... Read more →

Four first-of-a-kind 3D-printed fuel assembly brackets, produced at the Department of Energy’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, have been installed and are now under routine operating conditions at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant Unit 2 in Athens, Alabama. The components were developed in collaboration... Read more →

Rolls-Royce and Cavendish Nuclear have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to explore opportunities to deepen the relationship between the parties through cooperation on the Rolls-Royce SMR program. Under this agreement Rolls-Royce and Cavendish Nuclear commit to working together to develop the roles that Cavendish Nuclear can perform in the... Read more →

Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) is making a full-scale effort to develop offshore nuclear power plant technology. SHI has signed a Molten-Salt Reactor (MSR) development and joint research agreement with the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI), Korea’s only comprehensive nuclear research and development institute. Through this agreement, SHI plans to... Read more →

TerraPower and PacifiCorp announced efforts to advance a Natrium reactor demonstration project at a retiring coal plant in Wyoming. The companies are evaluating several potential locations in the state. The Natrium technology has a 345MW sodium fast reactor coupled with a molten salt-based integrated energy storage system that will provide... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced up to $40 million in funding for a new Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program that will limit the amount of waste produced from advanced nuclear reactors, protecting the land and air and increasing the deployment and use of nuclear power as a... Read more →