Sonal Patel is a national award-winning multimedia journalist and senior editor at POWER magazine with nearly two decades of experience delivering technically rigorous reporting across power generation, transmission, distribution, policy, and infrastructure worldwide.
POWER Magazine Jobs White Papers Webinars Events Store July 9, 2026 Aalo Atomics’ Test Reactor Reaches Criticality at INL, Fourth DOE-Authorized Advanced Reactor by July 4 Aalo Atomics’ Aalo-X Critical Test Reactor (CTR)—dubbed “Project First Light”—has reached criticality at Idaho National Laboratory (INL), marking the fourth Department of Energy (DOE)–authorized […]
The U.S. Department of Energy has closed a loan of up to $3.26 billion to AEP Texas to finance a portfolio of nearly 100 transmission projects, the agency’s Office of Energy Dominance Financing (EDF) said on July 8. The financing will fund the rebuilding, reconductoring, and new construction of roughly 2,800 miles of transmission lines across […]
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has proposed a major rewrite of its National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) rules, opening yet another front in the agency’s fast-moving campaign to modernize as directed by a series of recent executive orders, statutory NEPA amendments, and a Supreme Court precedent. The rule proposed on July 7, “Implementation of the […]
Aalo Atomics’ Aalo-X Critical Test Reactor (CTR)—dubbed “Project First Light”—has reached criticality at Idaho National Laboratory (INL), marking the fourth Department of Energy (DOE)–authorized advanced reactor startup under the federal push to accelerate reactor testing and demonstration. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) said July 6 that Aalo’s test reactor, which DOE referred to as […]
Warsaw-based small modular reactor (SMR) developer SGE has unveiled plans to deploy 14 GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GVH) BWRX-300 units across three U.K. sites. The company says the 4.2-GW privately financed fleet could ultimately meet roughly 11% of UK power demand. The plan, announced by SGE on July 2, was submitted as an application under […]
Centrus Energy has finalized a $900 million task order with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) that clears the way for the company to transition its pioneering high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) cascade in Piketon, Ohio, from a government-funded demonstration to private commercial operation. The Bethesda, Maryland-headquartered firm on July 1 announced that its wholly owned subsidiary American […]
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has proposed what may be its most consequential reactor-licensing overhaul in a generation, a 553-page rulemaking that seeks to rewrite core pieces of the regulatory framework governing how commercial nuclear plants are sited, licensed, built, modified, operated, renewed, fueled, and ultimately decommissioned. Issued July 1, the proposed rule, “Modernizing Reactor […]
Deployable Energy’s Unity demonstration reactor has achieved criticality at Idaho National Laboratory (INL), making it the third Department of Energy (DOE)–authorized advanced reactor to reach the milestone ahead of the July 4 deadline set under President Trump’s May 2025 nuclear executive order. The U.S. DOE on July 1 said Deployable Energy’s Unity reactor completed a […]
After decades of ambition and 14 years of construction, Ethiopia’s 5.15-GW Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam has become Africa’s largest hydropower project. The 13-unit plant gives Ethiopia a single
A decade after Dominion Energy secured a federal lease off Virginia Beach, the 2.6-GW Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project has cleared the full U.S. permitting stack, survived a federal stop-work
At a recent energy conference, power sector stakeholders agreed the looming fleet of hyperscale data centers will require vast amounts of clean, firm capacity. But while nuclear looks like the most plausible
X-energy Advances 6-GW Nuclear Partnership With UK’s Centrica. Advanced nuclear reactor developer X-energy on June 2 said it submitted an application for the UK’s Generic Design Assessment (GDA)—the
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has proposed a materials-licensing rule that would revise several regulatory handoffs outside the reactor license, including pilot fuel lines, spent fuel reprocessing, dry storage cask approvals, advanced-fuel storage definitions, construction timing, and reporting requirements for fuel-cycle and materials facilities. The proposed rule, Modernizing Materials Licensing, released June 18, seeks to […]
Valar Atomics has achieved self-sustaining criticality and completed zero-power testing at Ward 250, its Gen IV tri-structural isotropic (TRISO)-fueled modular high-temperature gas reactor (HTGR), at the Utah San Rafael Energy Lab in Emery County. The project is the second advanced reactor to go critical under the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Reactor Pilot Program and the first DOE-authorized […]
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has voted unanimously to issue tailored show-cause orders under Section 206 of the Federal Power Act to each of the six regional transmission organizations (RTOs) and independent system operators (ISOs) under its jurisdiction, directing them to either defend or reform tariff rules governing how data centers, manufacturing facilities, and […]
The steam turbine and generator package for Oklo’s first Aurora powerhouse at Idaho National Laboratory (INL)—a pioneering application of a commercially established industrial turbine platform at the heart of a first-of-a-kind advanced reactor’s conventional island—is in active production at Siemens Energy’s facilities in Görlitz and Erfurt, Germany. In details provided to POWER, both companies confirmed the […]
POWER Magazine Jobs White Papers Webinars Events Store June 18, 2026 A New Coal Plant in the U.S.? Once Unthinkable, Now a Strong Maybe A $350 million Department of Energy (DOE) coal-revival program has put $18.5 million toward the TerraSpark Energy Campus, a 1.6-GW greenfield project in West Virginia pairing […]
POWER Magazine Jobs White Papers Webinars Events Store June 11, 2026 DOE Approves Xcimer Energy Fusion Power Plant Design A Colorado-based fusion energy company said the U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) has approved the company's preconceptual technical design for its commercial fusion power plant. Sponsored Content Weather uncertainty with Bolder […]
System planners and grid operators are treating extreme heat as an assumed operating condition given new pressures, including drought, demand growth, and fuel concerns. Will it be enough? For decades, the U.S. power system treated extreme heat as a tail risk, managed through seasonal readiness—something for which to prepare. But hotter conditions are now arriving […]
From EOP-012-3 to Order 587-AB, from Cold Weather Critical Component inventories to dual-fuel conversions, the bulk power system has spent five years rewiring how it prepares for extreme cold. Winter Storm Fern, the latest test, showed the system ran “very close to the edge.” The last five winters have given the North American power sector […]
Antares Nuclear Inc.’s Mark-0—a sodium heat-pipe-cooled microreactor fueled by high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) tri-structural isotropic (TRISO) fuel compacts—has achieved zero-power criticality at Idaho National Laboratory’s (INL’s) Reactor and Critical Experiment (RACE) facility, becoming the first advanced reactor to reach that milestone under the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Reactor Pilot Program. The development, announced on June […]
Google and Intersect, a clean energy developer Google acquired in March 2026, have launched construction on the Meitner Energy Center, a co-located data center and generation complex in the Texas Panhandle that will integrate more than 1 GW of wind, solar, and battery storage with on-site gas-fired generation for reliability firming. The project is located […]
POWER Magazine Jobs White Papers Webinars Events Store June 4, 2026 America’s Only Commercial Uranium Enricher Is Privately Building a New Plant Amid a Widening Nuclear Fuel Supply Gap Urenco USA, operator of the only U.S. commercial-scale uranium enrichment facility, will expand low-enriched uranium (LEU) capacity at its National Enrichment […]
Urenco USA, operator of the only U.S. commercial-scale uranium enrichment facility, will expand low-enriched uranium (LEU) capacity at its National Enrichment Facility (NEF) in Eunice, New Mexico, by nearly 50% through a privately funded, multibillion-dollar investment that includes construction of a new enrichment plant. The project will add 2.1 million separative work units (SWU) of […]
POWER Magazine Jobs White Papers Webinars Events Store May 28, 2026 DigitalBridge Acquiring ArcLight in $1-Billion Power Infrastructure Deal DigitalBridge Group said it has a definitive agreement to acquire ArcLight Capital Partners as part of a $1.05-billion deal. Sponsored Content Turn pressure into progress with Bolder Vision Power needs are […]
Sweden’s nuclear reversal marked three major developments this past week, as advanced modular reactor developer Blykalla and long-established nuclear services firm Studsvik filed separate applications for up to 1.7 GW of new reactors at two sites, while the government formalized an unprecedented financial commitment to another flagship project. The filings, among the first in Sweden’s […]
Google will invest $15 billion in Missouri infrastructure, including a new data center in New Florence, Montgomery County, in a project that pairs its expanding data center footprint with new generation commitments, a large-load cost-allocation framework, and Ameren Missouri rate structures designed to protect existing customers from infrastructure costs tied to large energy users. “When […]
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has completed its environmental assessment (EA) of the proposed 320-MW Long Mott Generating Station at Dow’s Seadrift site in Texas, issuing a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) for the four-reactor X-energy project. According to X-energy, the NRC completed the environmental review in under a year, marking the first time […]
POWER Magazine Jobs White Papers Webinars Events Store May 14, 2026 State of the Nuclear Industry 2026: Korsnick Says the Real Test Is Now Scale Within a single week last month, Kairos Power broke ground on its Hermes 2 reactor in Tennessee, and days later TerraPower and Bechtel began construction […]
U.S. natural gas supply is expected to reach a record 117 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) this summer, including 111.7 Bcf/d of dry gas production, but growing demand from liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, data center load, industrial activity, and power generation is absorbing much of that growth, leaving less gas available for storage […]