Business

Micro-modular nuclear plant developer Last Energy has unveiled plans to deploy four 20-MWe pressurized water reactor (PWR) power plants at the site of a former coal-fired power plant in South Wales. Last Energy’s project will transform the Llynfi Power Station, a now vacant site that housed four 30-MW coal units from 1951 to 1977,  the […]

In a deal that marks the first corporate agreement to deploy multiple small modular reactors (SMRs) in the U.S., Kairos Power and Google have signed a Master Plant Development Agreement to facilitate the development of a 500-MW fleet of molten salt nuclear reactors by 2035 to power Google’s data centers. The first reactor is expected […]

The European Industrial Alliance on Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) has identified nine SMR projects it will support as its first batch of project working groups (PWGs). The effort marks a significant first step toward the alliance’s goal of deploying SMR technologies across Europe by the early 2030s. The alliance, a collaborative public-private platform launched by the […]

President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) into law in 2022. The IRA is the largest public investments in renewable energy in American history and created more than 20 different tax incentives for renewable energy and related manufacturing. Certain Republic politicians have directed vitriol at the IRA. However, even if Republicans win the White […]

The U.S. electric grid is under more strain than ever to support exponential electricity demand due to artificial intelligence (AI), data centers, electric vehicles, and hotter temperatures. Its infrastructure is made up of 180 million power poles spread out over 5.5 million miles that are frequently bombarded with increasingly severe storms and weather. Worsening SAIDI […]

UPDATED (Oct. 11): The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has upgraded its G4-level “severe” geomagnetic storm watch to a G3-level “strong” geomagnetic storm warning after an anticipated coronal mass ejection (CME) arrived at Earth at 11:15 a.m. EST on Thursday, traveling at nearly 1.5 million miles per hour. The G3-level warning is now in […]

In a significant breakthrough for the development of supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) power cycles, the 10-MWe Supercritical Transformational Electric Power (STEP) Demo pilot plant in San Antonio, Texas, has wrapped up Phase 1 testing, demonstrating the commercial readiness of its next-generation indirect sCO2 Brayton cycle. The $169 million project—the largest of its kind in the […]

The U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) announced six companies have successfully bid to provide deconversion services for high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) fuel to support advanced nuclear reactors. The DOE on October 8 announced the complete list of successful bidders. They include Nuclear Fuel Services, part of BWX Technologies (BWXT); American Centrifuge Operating, part of Centrus […]

The Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded capacity contracts of up to $1.5 billion to four major transmission lines under its Transmission Facilitation Program (TFP) to aid the transfer of 7.1 GW of new capacity throughout Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. The DOE’s Grid Deployment Office (GDO) on Oct. 3 also released its […]

The Department of Energy (DOE) unveiled plans on Sept. 27 to inject $1.3 billion into its portfolio of federally funded carbon capture demonstration and large-scale pilot programs by the end of the year—including up to $400 million to support one commercial-scale coal power plant carbon capture and storage (CCS) demonstration. The Office of Clean Energy […]