Nuclear

Westinghouse has asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to renew and update the design certification for its AP1000 reactor, formally proposing Vogtle Unit 4’s as‑built configuration as the new standard reference plant for future AP1000 projects in the U.S. If accepted and docketed, the submittal—Revision 20 of the AP1000 Design Control Document (DCD)—would establish “a […]

California-headquartered Antares, an advanced nuclear energy company, said it has received U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) approval of the Documented Safety Analysis for the company’s Mark-0 reactor.

A new think tank assessment argues that economics, proliferation concerns, and waste management barriers have shifted enough to make commercial nuclear fuel recycling viable in the U.S.—but only if Washington acts before the window closes. A think tank has warned the Trump administration that it has a narrow window to make the U.S. the first […]

Across the U.S., more than 60 advanced reactor developers are innovating with billions of dollars in public and private capital to meet rapidly growing electricity demand. But innovation alone does not deliver power. If nuclear power is to be an essential source for exploding power demands across the nation, we must make a strategic choice: […]

Officials in Italy have said they are prepared to restart that country’s four remaining coal-fired power plants if supply issues for oil and natural gas persist due to the Iran war. The comments from Energy Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin earlier this month came just days after government officials in an energy bill said they would […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has approved another 20-year operating license for California’s lone nuclear power plant.

The State of Texas has opened applications for $350 million in advanced nuclear grants through the Texas Advanced Nuclear Development Fund (TANDF), making the nation’s largest state‑level nuclear package competitive for the first time across two programs aimed at reactor construction and supply chain development. In an exclusive interview with POWER, Texas Advanced Nuclear Energy […]

On the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, POWER sent a freelance photographer and correspondent to the site in Ukraine to document the massive decommissioning effort still underway—and the new

Electricity demand for data centers worldwide is projected to double by 2030. As a result, developers are looking at small modular reactors (SMRs) to add low‑carbon power generation capacity.

Overcoming architectural fragmentation in your control environment Many power plants were constructed incrementally over time – control system, adding OEM-supplied turbines and balance-of-plant controllers, proprietary firmware, relays – layer by layer. What was never fully designed was how these systems would function as a single organism over a 30- to 40- year asset life. The […]

A new Texas-based startup has launched an effort to build what would be the first U.S. uranium conversion facility in more than seven decades to restore a domestic capability it says has become “an unacceptable chokepoint” in America’s nuclear fuel supply chain. FluxPoint Energy made its public debut this week at CERAWeek by S&P Global, […]

Artificial intelligence (AI) group OpenAI is reportedly discussing buying electricity from Helion Energy, the fusion startup company based in Everett, Washington. Sources told POWER that a deal would enable OpenAI to be guaranteed part of Helion’s power generation, with as much as 5 GW available by 2030 and up to 50 GW by 2035.

The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources convened March 19 for a full committee hearing to examine the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) implementation of President Trump’s May 2025 nuclear energy executive orders. Three witnesses—DOE Assistant Secretary Theodore Garrish, Kairos Power CEO Dr. Michael Laufer, and Idaho National Laboratory (INL) Director Dr. John C. Wagner—testified, […]

For much of the 21st century, the North American power sector drifted along on near-zero demand growth. Utilities retired aging coal plants, developers filled interconnection queues with wind and solar, and investors looked elsewhere for excitement. Then came the data center boom—and seemingly overnight, the industry found itself in a full-blown supply crisis. In a […]

Energy giants GE Vernova and Hitachi said the companies have entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) as part of a plan to deploy the groups’ water-cooled BWRX-300 small modular reactor (SMR) in Southeast Asia.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has launched a new initiative to increase U.S. nuclear generating capacity—targeting 2.5 GW of additional nuclear capacity by 2027 and 5 GW by 2029—by expanding output from operating reactors, restarting dormant facilities, and extending the lifespans of plants already on the grid. The Utility Power Reactor Incremental Scaling Effort—UPRISE—unveiled […]

The first data center to run entirely on self-generated nuclear power will shatter a long-held assumption that computing infrastructure must wait for the grid. A large-scale facility will operate around the clock while controlled fission reactions take place 1,000 feet from its server racks. When that happens, every data center operator still waiting for grid […]

The energy industry, specifically the nuclear sector, is staring down a challenging 2026 with a combination of mounting pressure: tech giants shaking hands on purchasing agreements before facilities are fully built, innovative solutions reinventing the methods of long-established leaders, and mounting demands to deliver efficiency faster. Does that sound familiar? COMMENTARY If you’ve had an […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on March 4 authorized staff to issue a construction permit for TerraPower’s Kemmerer Power Station Unit 1 in Kemmerer, Wyoming—the first commercial reactor the agency has approved for construction in nearly a decade, and the first approval for a commercial non–light water reactor design in more than 40 years. The […]

Ten years ago, utilities could plan for new 100-megawatt (MW) load requests. That size of energy load fit inside existing forecasts: it could be absorbed, modeled and planned around. Today, load requests have increased to one, two even three gigawatts (GW) at a time. This results in utilities fielding individual load requests that rival full […]

While the bulk of focus on advanced nuclear technology has honed in tightly on the U.S., from enrichment and conversion to advanced fuels, reprocessing strategies, and fast-spectrum systems, several other

U.S.-based Energea in mid-January announced its acquisition of the YO Residence Solar Project, marking a significant milestone as the company’s first microgrid investment and entry into South Africa’s renewable energy market.

A resurgent nuclear industry cannot succeed unless the U.S. invests in the entire nuclear fuel cycle—from uranium mining to long‑term waste storage. Without strengthening this industrial backbone, nuclear power’s potential may remain more aspiration than reality.

America has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rebuild its energy backbone. For the first time in decades, capital investment, technological innovation, and bipartisan political will are aligning to

Russia’s state-owned nuclear power group said it will move forward with its power plant projects in foreign countries despite new sanctions from the UK government against Russian companies.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has proposed the first dedicated federal licensing framework for commercial fusion machines, setting out a technology‑inclusive, risk‑informed approach under its 10 CFR Part 30 byproduct material rules rather than the power‑reactor framework used for fission plants. The proposed rule seeks to place regulatory oversight of fusion‑generated radioactive material within […]

The Department of Energy (DOE) has closed a $26.54 billion loan package—the largest single loan commitment in the agency’s history—with Southern Co. subsidiaries Georgia Power and Alabama Power to finance more than 16 GW of “firm” generation and more than 1,300 miles of transmission infrastructure and grid enhancement across the Southeast. The transaction, announced Feb. […]

Nuclear fusion group SHINE Technologies said it has raised $240 million in equity funding to advance the company’s commercial fusion technology.

Romania’s state nuclear utility Nuclearelectrica has approved a final investment decision (FID) for a 462‑MWe six-module NuScale module small modular reactor (SMR) project at the former Doicești coal plant. The decision by Nuclearelectrica’s shareholders on Feb. 12 to approve the FID effectively opens a pathway for the Doicești project—Europe’s most advanced SMR deployment—from an “analysis […]

For the first time in decades, a wave of nuclear projects across the U.S. is advancing in parallel—from test reactors to early construction. POWER examines how first movers are navigating execution risk, supply chain constraints, and the race to achieve criticality by 2026. For the first time since the 1970s, multiple nuclear projects are under […]