Nuclear

The U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) said the agency has closed a loan of as much as $1.9 billion to NextEra Energy to support the restart of the Duane Arnold Energy Center in Iowa.

Nuclear energy is entering a new era. Across the United States and around the world, countries are looking to nuclear power to provide reliable electricity, strengthen energy security, and support economic growth. Advanced reactors and other innovative technologies are creating opportunities that would have been difficult to imagine when many of our current regulations were […]

The U.S. power grid is entering a period unlike any it has experienced in decades. Rapid electrification, domestic manufacturing, and the exponential growth of artificial intelligence are reshaping electricity demand. A recent report from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, projects that data centers alone could account for between 9.5% […]

Japan is rebuilding its nuclear power fleet after the Fukushima disaster, with upgrades targeted toward ensuring safe operations. Japan continues work to restart its nuclear power fleet, which supplied about a

Australia Moves to Make Data Centers Bring Power. The Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) has urged energy ministers to require large data centers connecting to the National Electricity Market to bring

The most consequential number in current American energy planning is one that nobody in the room where it gets made believes.

When I walk into the main office of a power plant, it’s always on the main TV screen, along with heat rate, load, and other critical numbers. I’m talking about condenser backpressure. Every power plant manager watches this number (Figure 1), and they should. A PEPSE (Performance Evaluation of Power System Efficiencies) analysis of a […]

Five advanced nuclear companies will build, own, and operate more than 20 commercial nuclear microreactors across five U.S. Army installations under the Janus Program, a milestone-based effort designed to place the first project into useful service by September 2028 and establish repeatable commercial products. In exclusive interviews, the selected companies told POWER they intend to use the […]

The U.S. Army has mobilized up to $2.2 billion for a five-year effort to build and operate more than 20 commercial nuclear microreactors across military installations, selecting five reactor developers and five initial sites for a program designed to push advanced nuclear systems beyond federal test programs and into sustained operation by a Sept. 30, […]

Westinghouse’s eVinci microreactor has completed zero-power criticality testing at the National Criticality Experiments Research Center (NCERC), a National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) facility at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS). The company said the milestone, achieved at 10:39 a.m. PT on Aug. 24 in partnership with Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and Idaho National Laboratory […]

The Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC) has selected 13 new projects across 12 companies for its Nuclear Energy Launch Pad initiative in a significant expansion of the DOE-authorization pathway that channels advanced reactor and fuel-cycle developers toward demonstration on federal and non-federal sites. The selections—spanning microreactor developers, enrichment startups, fuel fabrication […]

A new federal effort to develop nuclear “lifecycle” campuses has produced something Washington, D.C., has rarely seen: states competing for a role in managing America’s used nuclear fuel.

Blue Energy and GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GVH) have signed an agreement to launch the next phase of their collaboration on a planned 2.5-GW gas-plus-nuclear power project in Victoria, Texas, moving the closely watched data-center power concept from an announced collaboration to engineering, licensing, and safety analysis. The Aug. 13-announced agreement will advance project definition for […]

A California-based fusion energy company announced it has reached an industry milestone. Fuse Energy Technologies Corp. on August 10 published a report noting the company set a record for the highest fusion neutron yield—1.27×10¹² in a single shot—by any commercial fusion company.

Three companies at the forefront of nuclear energy technology have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to evaluate fuel technologies to support advancement of next-generation nuclear power.

California-based Deep Fission said the DOE signed off on the Nuclear Safety Design Agreement (NSDA) for its Gravity Nuclear Reactor. The group called it a major regulatory milestone that confirms Deep Fission’s reactor design warrants advancement under the DOE Reactor Pilot Program.

Oklo’s Groves Isotope Test Reactor in Lockhart, Texas, has become the fifth reactor to achieve criticality under the U.S. Department of Energy’s Reactor Pilot Program (RPP), and the first under the program to do so on private land. The low-power test reactor reached criticality at 9:19 p.m. ET Aug. 5, achieving a controlled, self-sustaining nuclear […]

Growth in artificial intelligence (AI) is outpacing the world’s ability to generate enough power to sustain it. As AI adoption accelerates worldwide, it’s colliding with a power system that wasn’t built for its level of demand. Vittorio Pierangeli, senior vice president PowerGen at Rolls-Royce Power Systems (Figure 1), explains why electricity, not chips or algorithms, […]

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Energy Dominance Financing (EDF) closed a loan of up to $3.26 billion to American Electric Power (AEP) Texas on July 8, the office’s third utility

VSB Group, part of TotalEnergies, in June said it had awarded the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract for a 20-MW solar project in Loberitz, Germany, to UK-headquartered INTEC Energy Solutions.

Nuclear power is experiencing yet another boom. This time it may genuinely lead to a sharp expansion of the global reactor fleet. Several drivers are at work: decarbonization requirements, growing energy

Demand for electricity—particularly for large-load users like data centers—is increasing, raising the question of how best to meet the new demand.

Government officials in China have given the green light for construction of eight new nuclear reactors, as the country looks to add more electricity to meet growing demand for power.

Advanced nuclear firm Aalo Atomics has formed a strategic partnership with energy-first AI infrastructure company Crusoe to develop a nuclear-powered “AI Factory” data center in a project that will combine Aalo’s advanced reactor development program at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) with Crusoe’s modular AI data center platform. The companies said on July 30 that under […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has approved the License Termination Plan (LTP) for the Oyster Creek Generating Station in New Jersey, a regulatory milestone that clears the final phase of decommissioning and sets the stage for Holtec International to pursue construction of four SMR-300 small modular reactor units at the Lacey Township, New Jersey, […]

A varied group of investors has provided Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) with another $1 billion in equity financing, with the company on July 30 saying the funding supports the group’s continuing work toward operating a commercial fusion energy power plant.

The Department of Energy (DOE) has selected Utah, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Idaho as initial contenders to host Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses—voluntary federal–state partnerships designed to co-locate fuel fabrication, enrichment, spent fuel reprocessing, and waste disposition within integrated, full‑cycle nuclear ecosystems. U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright signed non-binding memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with the […]

Last week, Microsoft announced a $60 million, multiyear commitment to the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Genesis Mission, the national initiative to embed artificial intelligence (AI) across the country’s 17 national laboratories. The company’s stated goal, echoing DOE’s own framing, is to help “double the productivity and impact of American research and innovation within a decade.” […]

A federal appeals court has upheld the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC’s) use of a generic environmental analysis for nuclear plant license renewals, rejecting claims that the agency failed to adequately consider how aging components and climate change could affect the risk of severe reactor accidents. The July 21 decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals […]

President Trump’s four nuclear executive orders issued on May 23, 2025, represented a historic liftoff for American nuclear energy. COMMENTARY As electricity demand surges, geopolitical energy competition intensifies, and America’s power infrastructure faces mounting strain, the administration acted decisively. It recognized that American energy dominance—and leadership in the digital age—requires a resurgence of nuclear reactor […]