In this contract, KAERI will process molten fluoride salt into a state suitable for nuclear fuel manufacturing and use it to manufacture and evaluate nuclear fuel. Subsequently, to simulate the flow environment of the molten salt, KAERI will construct and operate a natural circulation test device in which the molten salt circulates with a temperature difference, and evaluate the degree of corrosion of structural materials exposed to high-temperature molten salt.

KAERI said the technology export contract with Saltfoss is worth about KRW3 billion (USD2.3 million). It said: "This technology export does not involve the transfer of ownership of existing molten salt reactor (MSR) source technologies or intellectual property held by the research institute, but rather is a method of providing research and development services by utilising the technology and research infrastructure held by the research institute."

"Korea continues to be a cornerstone of our strategy, and this agreement with KAERI is a natural next step in that relationship," said Klaus Nyengaard, CEO of Saltfoss, formerly known as Seaborg. "KAERI's depth of experience with molten-salt fuel and materials is exactly the kind of proven, real-world expertise we want alongside our own team as we move the seaMSR-100 toward certification. It's a strong signal of confidence in our technology from one of the world's leading nuclear research institutes."

_{A rendering of a Saltfoss Power Platform (Image: Saltfoss)}

In May 2024, KAERI and Seaborg signed a memorandum of understanding to advance nuclear technology. Both organisations said they recognise the critical role of nuclear power in a carbon-neutral future and have been working independently on advanced nuclear systems, especially MSRs. The MoU set the stage for both parties to combine their research and development strengths, enhancing their capabilities and driving innovation in nuclear technology.

Saltfoss said the agreement is the latest step in its continued progress and close collaboration with South Korea, home to Saltfoss Korea and a long-standing partnership with Samsung Heavy Industries on the seaMSR-100's floating MSR platform. "Together with KAERI's fuel and materials expertise, and decades of experience handling high-temperature molten salts, this work strengthens Saltfoss's supply chain and technical foundation as the company moves toward regulatory certification and deployment of its floating power plants," it said.

"This contract is a significant achievement in which Korea's original MSR technology, secured through national R&D, has been recognised for its technical value by a foreign private company," said KAERI Acting Director Im In-cheol. "We will further expand the development of core technologies and international cooperation so that our technology can secure competitiveness in the next-generation MSR market, which will be utilised at sea and on land, and enter the global market."

MSRs use molten fluoride salts as primary coolant, at low pressure. They may operate with epithermal or fast neutron spectrums, and with a variety of fuels. Much of the interest today in reviving the MSR concept relates to using thorium (to breed fissile uranium-233), where an initial source of fissile material such as plutonium-239 needs to be provided. There are a number of different MSR design concepts, and a number of interesting challenges in the commercialisation of many, especially with thorium.

Saltfoss's seaMSR-100 is an MSR delivering 100 MW electric or 250 MW of high-temperature thermal power. Several reactors can be integrated on a single Saltfoss Power Platform, providing 100-600 MWe or 250-1,500 MWt, or a combination of the two through cogeneration. Each reactor operates for 24 years without refuelling, ensuring simple operation and predictable performance throughout its life cycle. Operating at about 650°C and near-atmospheric pressure, the seaMSR-100 leverages the unique properties of molten salt for both heat transfer and fuel containment.

The RA-10 is a 30-megawatt open-pool multipurpose nuclear research reactor and will make products and services for the health, science, technology and industry sectors. For instance, it is expected to produce about 20% of the total global demand for molybdenum-99, a key radioisotope used in nuclear medicine.

The presentation was led by Secretary of Nuclear Affairs, Federico Ramos Napoli, and the President of the National Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA) Martín Porro. They said the aim was to begin commissioning before the end of this year, once a licence is obtained from the Nuclear Regulatory Authority (ARN).

According to the CNEA report of the event, the secretary of nuclear affairs has "defined a model that will allow the incorporation of private capital to finance the development and construction” of the associated production plant, "as well as the production and commercial activities associated with the reactor. The national government will maintain strategic leadership … while the regulation and oversight of the activity will remain under the purview of the ARN".

It adds that the "planned capacity for the RA-10 exceeds projected domestic demand. This will strengthen the supply of the Argentine healthcare system with domestically produced equipment and allow for the export of surpluses, with the potential to generate foreign exchange and highly skilled jobs in an international market with few suppliers and high technological barriers".

The RA-10 project was approved by the then government and officially started by CNEA in June 2010. Argentina's Nuclear Regulatory Authority granted a construction licence for RA-10 in November 2014. The civil works for the reactor began in 2016. Nuclear technology firm Invap is involved in the design and construction of the reactor facility and related installations, playing the role of main contractor. It is currently said to be 96% completed.

It will replace the RA-3 reactor on the same site, a 10 MWt pool-type reactor that began operations in 1967. The RA-10 will also have associated facilities such as the Argentine Neutron Beam Laboratory and the Laboratory for the Study of Irradiated Materials. In addition to producing radioisotopes, it will also enable the production of doped silicon for industrial applications as well as facilitating new research in a range of areas and training.

Each panel in the demonstration includes steel-framed openings to test different concrete shielding plug designs that allow process lines from the reactor to pass through the shielding structure to other areas of the plant. The lines will be connected and disconnected using a remote handling system, to minimise disruption during operations. 

Kairos Power broke ground for Hermes 2 on the footprint of the former Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant in April. The Hermes Low-Power Demonstration Reactor - Hermes 1 - a scaled demonstration reactor - is also under construction at Oak Ridge. The first non-light-water reactor to be approved for construction by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Hermes 1 will not produce electricity, but will feed lessons learned into Hermes 2.

Kairos Power co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Ed Blandford said the completion of the initial demonstration at ETU 3 is an important step toward establishing a sustainable maintenance concept for the future fleet. "By demonstrating the interfaces between modular shielding structures and reactor equipment, and testing the remote handling tools needed to maintain and replace components, we gain a better understanding of design features that will be standardised in commercial KP-FHR deployments," he said.

ETU 3 - as its name suggests - is the third engineering test unit in the programme, and will help inform the next iterations of the Hermes 2 reactor cavity design as well as providing a training platform for future operators. ETU 1.0 - a full-scale, electrically heated prototype of the Hermes reactor - carried out more than 2000 hours of pumped salt operations demonstrating the design and integration of key systems, as well as exercising the supply chain and establishing new capabilities, including the production of the high-purity fluoride-lithium-beryllium (FLiBe) salt coolant. It was followed by ETU 2.0, a non-power unit to demonstrate modular construction methods.

In November 2022, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment announced the formal acceptance of the environmental impact assessment documents covering the site selection stage for the Zhaoyuan plant. Construction of Phase I (units 1 and 2) of the Zhaoyuan plant was approved by China's State Council in August 2024. First concrete was poured for unit 1 in November 2025.

_{(Image: CNNC)}

The project is being constructed and operated by Shandong Zhaoyuan Nuclear Power Company, a subsidiary of China General Nuclear (CGN). Zhaoyuan Phase I is CGN's first nuclear power project in Shandong.

The plant, representing a total investment of about CNY120 billion (USD16.9 billion), will eventually house six Hualong One units. Each unit is expected to start generating power 50-60 months after the start of its construction. With a total installed capacity of 7.2 GWe, the plant is expected to generate 50 TWh of electricity annually - enough to meet the yearly needs of about five million people. It will be equivalent to cutting standard coal consumption by roughly 15.27 million tonnes and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by about 46.2 million tonnes each year, according to CGN.

CNECC noted the Zhaoyuan plant project marks the first application of secondary circulation large-scale seawater cooling systems at a nuclear power plant in China. Each unit will be equipped with a 203-metre-high high-level water-collecting natural draft cooling tower with a water-spraying area of ​​16,800 square metres, changing the direct cooling source of the conventional island of the nuclear power plant from the ocean to the atmosphere.

The cold test involves progressively increasing the pressure of the primary loop system, successively completing systematic assessments at pressure levels of 2.7 MPa, 7.0 MPa, 10.0 MPa, 15.4 MPa, 17.13 MPa, and 22.3 MPa.

"As a milestone in the construction of the Hualong One units, the successful completion of this cold test marks the official entry of Unit 4 into the commissioning phase, laying a solid foundation and clearing key obstacles for subsequent hot testing, fuel loading, and grid connection," CNNC said.

Hot functional tests involve increasing the temperature of the reactor coolant system and carrying out comprehensive tests to ensure that coolant circuits and safety systems are operating as they should. Carried out before the loading of nuclear fuel, such testing simulates the thermal working conditions of the power plant and verifies that nuclear island and conventional equipment and systems meet design requirements.

_{Changjiang units 3 and 4 (Image: CNNC)}

Two Hualong One reactors are being constructed in the second phase of the Changjiang plant. First concrete was poured for the base slab of unit 3's nuclear island in March 2021, with that of unit 4 being poured in the December of that year. Changjiang Phase II - units 3 and 4 - represents a total estimated investment of CNY40 billion (USD5.9 billion), according to China Huaneng, which holds a 51% share in the project. Changjiang unit 3 achieved first criticality - a sustained chain reaction - on 10 July and was connected to the grid on 1 August. Both units are scheduled to be fully operational in early 2027.

The Changjiang nuclear site is already home to two operating CNP-600 pressurised water reactors (PWRs) - Changjiang 1 and 2 - which entered commercial operation in 2015 and 2016, respectively. In 2021, CNNC also began construction of a demonstration ACP100 small modular reactor at the site. The multi-purpose 125 MWe PWR - also referred to as the Linglong One - is designed for electricity production, heating, steam production or seawater desalination. It is currently undergoing pre-commissioning tests.

The island province of Hainan is China's southernmost point. Energy policies published in 2019 by Hainan Province Development and Reform Commission specify that nuclear power will become the primary source of electricity for the island, which has a population of close to 10 million.

The construction of two Guohe One reactors as the initial phase of SPIC's Laiyang plant was among eight units approved during a State Council executive meeting chaired by Chinese Premier Li Qiang on 31 July this year. The Laiyang plant will eventually house six such units. SPIC is fully responsible for the investment, construction and operation of the Shandong Laiyang Nuclear Power Project.

"As the first project to be implemented in the standardised and mass production of the Guohe One nuclear power plant, Laiyang nuclear power plant carries the important mission of promoting the high-quality development of the nuclear energy industry within the group company," SPIC said. "Currently, the project construction has entered a new phase. Relying on the 100% domestic production capability of the Guohe One unit and using mass production as a key approach, the project fully unleashes the technological efficiency of Guohe One, providing a safe and reliable nuclear energy supply. 

"It aims to create a nuclear energy industry practice model for the implementation of the group's 'balanced growth strategy', fully demonstrating the unique value of the mass production practice of Guohe One in serving regional energy supply security and contributing to the implementation of the national 'dual-carbon' goals. This will accumulate replicable construction and management experience for the large-scale promotion of third-generation nuclear power in China."

_{An illustration of the CAP1400 demonstration project (Image: CNEA)}

Once all six units are completed, the installed capacity of the Laiyang plant will reach about 9.26 GW, making it the largest nuclear power base in China in terms of installed capacity, with an annual output of 74 TWh of clean electricity and a heating capacity exceeding 170 million square metres, SPIC noted.

SPIC officially launched the CAP1400 reactor design in September 2020 following 12 years of research and development work. The 1,400 MWe design is intended to be deployed in large numbers across the country, as well as for export. The CAP1400 is an enlarged version of the AP1000 pressurised water reactor developed from the Westinghouse original, with consulting input from the USA-based company.

The first of two demonstration Guohe One reactors at the Shidaowan site in Shandong Province was connected to the grid in November 2024, with the second following in September 2025.

State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation is a subsidiary of the State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC), and is involved in design, standardisation and fleet-based construction.

With China having the largest construction programme in the world - with 58 units currently under construction and a target of 150 GW capacity by 2035 - he said their experience had found four major challenges which needed to be met - "to deliver many projects in parallel, safely, on schedule and on budget" which was "a question for everyone" involved in the sector.

The first was design, where, he said, there was a need to "strike the right balance between fixing a standardised design and continuing to improve the technology. A design that changes too frequently disrupts construction, while a design that never changes will become outdated. Finding that balance is the first test of high-quality fleet-based construction".

The second challenge was to ensure the supply chain can match demand - the risk was that "long-lead critical equipment supply cannot match the scale of project demand ...These constraints can make it difficult to build multiple units in parallel and deploy our reactor series at scale."

The third area was management. "Managing one project is hard, managing many at once is harder. We need standardised management models that are replicable, and that reach deep into construction and installation," he said, as well as needing coordination of people and equipment across parallel commissioning programmes.

The fourth area of challenge he highlighted was the need to ensure "specialised talent development" was able to keep up with project growth. "Certified nuclear-grade welders and non-destructive testing technicians are in short supply, which constrains equipment manufacturing and construction progress alike."

He said that none of these challenges can be solved by a single project or a single company and "they are the common test of our industry" at scale.

On engineering and procurement, he said their practice was to have a standardised design with integrated feedback from construction, commissioning and operation. There is a Design Change board which "reviews every change through tiered approval" and their target was to have a "standard design reuse ratio" of above 80%.

On procurement, they consolidate orders from multiple projects to allow centralised procurement as well as having reactor-specific industrial chains and an "early warning mechanism for supply chain risk", with a backup plan for high-risk items. Their key target was to have a more than 93% first-time pass rate of equipment acceptance.

On construction, there is standardised management organisation, "with fixed-price contracts and strict control of project boundaries and design changes, and AI and digital tools that make construction less labour intensive ... and modular construction will optimise the work sequence, connecting design, procurement, construction and commissioning end-to-end".

He said that: "Through these measures we are working towards a 56-month construction schedule with a first-time pass rate of 95% for key processes."

On commissioning, he said "we have adopted a commissioning model led by the EPC contract with deep owner involvement ... which reaches 40% to 50% on new projects and 50% to 60% on expansion projects,". There was also a "cross-project commissioning manpower matrix" and "two-tier tools and equipment pooling and deployment across sites".

He said these all helped a fleet-based construction system which was "reliable, transferable and sustainable".

In conclusion, he said: "For our industry, fleet-based construction is no longer a choice - it's a question we must all answer and it's the surest bridge from ambition to action. SNPTC looks forward to working with partners around the world on technical standards, supply chain resilience, talent development and smart construction to turn the grand vision for our industry into reality."

The company has announced that it has now successfully lowered the 20 foot (6 metre) canister to a depth of 100 feet inside a 34 inch (86 centimetre) wide borehole, aligned it, and brought it back to the surface, an emplacement and retrieval sequence that Deep Fission's deployment model depends on. The prototype canister is a full-size, non-nuclear replica of the canister designed to house the Gravity reactor core. 

_{(Image from Deep Vision's video)}

The process was carried out using standard commercial drilling equipment operated by a commercial drilling and rigging crew: nothing about the demonstration required equipment that had to be invented, custom-built, or adapted for nuclear service, the company said.

"The most important thing about this demonstration is what we did not have to do," Deep Fission CEO Liz Muller said. "We did not have to develop new technology. We used a rig and rigging that is commercially available in the field today, and our reactor uses pressurised water technology that has been operating in the nuclear industry for decades. Our innovation is in how we put proven pieces together, not in inventing something that has never been built. That is the difference between a science project and something you can deploy."

The demonstration took place on 3 September and is part of a commercial validation programme that also includes drilling, system integration, regulatory approvals and ultimately, commercial operation, the company said.

Hualong One 2.0 is described as "an advanced pressurised water reactor (PWR) nuclear power technology combining third-generation and advanced technologies, developed through independent innovation and overall collaboration, based on feedback from the construction and operation experience of Hualong One". CNNC noted that, so far, 10 Hualong One units are commercially operational both domestically and internationally, with another 37 units approved for construction.

China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) announced that a mobilisation meeting for the construction of the units was held on 9 September, during which "the first blast of the Phase II excavation was successfully detonated, marking the full-scale advancement of Phase II construction".

The construction of two Hualong One reactors as Phase I of the Jinqimen plant was approved by China's State Council in December 2023. A ground-breaking ceremony was held in February 2024 to mark the start of work on the units. First concrete for the foundation of the reactor building of unit 1 was poured on 10 August last year, marking the official start of construction of the unit. First concrete for unit 2 was poured on 4 April this year.

_{The Jinqimen site (Image: CNNC)}

CNNC subsidiary CNNC Zhejiang Energy Co Ltd is responsible for project investment, construction and operations management of the new plant, which will eventually house six Hualong One units. Another CNNC subsidiary, China Nuclear Engineering & Construction Corporation, is responsible for the construction of the nuclear island, conventional island, and key facilities of the Jinqimen nuclear power project.

Once all six units have been completed, the total installed capacity of the Jinqimen plant will be about 7.2 GWe, and the annual grid-connected electricity will be some 55 TWh, which according to CNNC is equivalent to half of Ningbo's total electricity consumption in 2024. The plant, it said, will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 45 million tonnes. "This will provide strong support for energy and power supply and green and low-carbon transformation in Zhejiang Province and the Yangtze River Delta region," the company said.

The MMR installation is being executed through the Army's Janus Program, and implements two Executive Orders issued by President Donald Trump last year: Executive Order 14299 - Deploying Advanced Nuclear Reactor Technologies for National Security, which aims for operation of an Army-regulated nuclear reactor at a domestic military installation no later than 30 September 2028, and Executive Order 14302 - Reinvigorating the Nuclear Industrial Base. The Department said the MMR will be installed at Crane by the September 2028 deadline.

Launched last October, Janus is a next-generation nuclear power programme aimed at delivering "resilient, secure, and assured energy to support national defence installations and critical missions". The US Department of War's 9 September announcement comes several weeks after the US Department of the Army selected five microreactor developers for deployment at five Department of War installations as part of the programme.

The MMR installation at Crane is being executed through the Janus Program in coordination with the Department of the Navy, the Department of War Innovation Unit, and the Office of the Assistant Secretary of War for Critical Technologies, which is leading the coordination of key stakeholders across the Department to integrate and execute the Crane project.

"At Critical Technologies, we start from a simple first principle: a technology matters only when it reaches the mission," Mike Dodd, Assistant Secretary of War for Critical Technologies, said. "Our standard is to field and deploy capability within 24 months or less."

This initiative builds on more than a year of close coordination between the Department of War and Indiana state leadership, the Department said, adding that it "will continue to work with Federal, state, and local partners throughout the required safety, environmental, regulatory, and installation processes. Nuclear safety, physical security, cybersecurity, and responsible stewardship of taxpayer resources will remain central at every stage."

Indiana Senator Todd Young described the announcement is "exciting news" for Indiana, saying: "This first-of-its-kind mission will bring the highest levels of nuclear expertise to our state and is another example of the important role Hoosiers are playing in our national security."

As well as reaching zero-power high-temperature criticality at 663 degrees Celsius, Westinghouse researchers also made a subcritical reactivity measurement at a peak core temperature of 1,011 degrees C, a record high temperature for a reactivity measurement at NCERC. These achievements generated high-quality, temperature-dependent data to further strengthen analytical models and accelerate prototype design, the company said, continuing experimental work which started with eVinci zero-power criticality testing earlier this year and advancing understanding of how the reactor design behaves as representative materials are heated toward operating conditions.

“For nearly a century, Westinghouse pioneers have not waited for the future of nuclear energy - they have engineered it. This milestone brings that same spirit to the eVinci programme,” said Dan Sumner, Westinghouse President and Chief Executive Officer. “Our teams are rapidly building, testing, learning and improving advanced nuclear technologies, turning uncertainty into validated evidence and strengthening the design for a highly-deployable advanced microreactor solution for our customers. We appreciate the strong support of the US Department of Energy, NNSA, Los Alamos National Laboratory and NNSS in helping us advance this important work.”

The eVinci is a heat pipe-cooled microreactor which can produce up to 5 MWe with a 15 MWt core design. The TRISO-fuelled reactor core is designed to run for eight or more full-power years before refuelling, and the factory-built and assembled reactor can be shipped in a container to provide versatile, scalable energy for a variety of applications, including defence and in space.

The meeting was told that the technology, regulatory, economic and supply chain challenges require multinational cooperation and collective efforts.

The organisers of the Global Network for SMR Innovation (GNSI) stressed that the "non-profit, unincorporated and open cooperation mechanism" would complement the International Atomic Energy Agency, with all membership voluntary and open to government departments, regulatory bodies, companies, research institutes and universities.

Structurally, it will have a governing board, a secretariat, specialised committees and working groups. The first general assembly and inaugural conference is scheduled for the end of this year, attendees were told. All members will be bound by confidentiality, with intellectual property ownership "determined through consultation".

The event featured speakers from a range of Chinese enterprises involved in SMR development, including the ACP100 - also known as the Linglong One - the first of which is currently being commissioned on the island of Hainan. This has a rated power of 125 MWe, a 24-month refuelling schedule, a 58-month construction timeline and requires a land area of 20.6 hectares. There was discussion also of the Guohe series, including the Gen 3+ GH300 and the GH200T, which would be 200 MWt or 50-60 MWe. 

In addition, there was an overview of the HTR-PM, a pebble bed modular high temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR), and a proposal that the new initiative could facilitate the sharing of practical HTGR experience in design, construction and operation as well as "enhance communication on safety regulation and technical standards and deepen industrial collaboration with joint R&D, supply chain cooperation and talent development".

CGN said its "key driver" was the 200 MWt HuaPeng-1 integral natural circulation pressurised SMR, which would have an estimated construction timeline of 36 months and need a site area of 10 hectares. It would provide global partners with "deployment-ready SMR products and offer end-to-end project services and open R&D for scenario-specific SMR development.

The event heard from representatives of Pakistan, Thailand and Nigeria about their support for the project and the opportunities for cooperation in the potential development of SMRs and SMR projects.

Deputy Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency Huang Wei noted the agency's latest projection for future nuclear energy capacity - which could lead to as many as 1,000 SMRs globally by 2060 - and said the agency was "pleased to see China taking proactive steps to build a favourable level playing field for nuclear energy to release its full potential. The launch of this Global Network for SMR Innovation by China will further reinforce the IAEA's activities and efforts in strengthening international cooperation on SMRs".

This is now its first investment in a small modular reactor technology (SMR).

The money is to support Steady Energy's research and development, testing and licensing activities as it seeks to move towards commercial development, and will be provided for activities between this year and 2028.

EIB Group Vice-President Karl Nehammer said: "The support to Steady Energy is a flagship example of how the EIB Group is backing innovation to strengthen Europe's competitiveness, enhancing energy autonomy and expanding access to affordable clean energy. We are actively looking to support Europe's most promising SMR pioneers. By providing stable, low-carbon energy alongside renewables, SMRs can help build a more secure and resilient European energy mix, reducing reliance on fossil fuels and exposure to volatile energy prices."

Steady Energy CEO Tommi Nyman said: "More than 40 percent of final energy demand is heat. Most of the heat we consume comes from fossil fuels. With Steady Energy's solution, we can wean ourselves further away from imported fuels. We are extremely pleased that the EIB has decided to support Steady Energy as we proceed towards our first concrete projects in the next few years."

The EIB investment is in the form of a senior unsecured convertible loan, which gives the EIB the option to convert its investment into listed shares in the future.

The EIB said the investment was in line with the European Commission's strategy to bring Europe's first SMRs online by the early 2030s. It says it "adopts a technology-neutral approach in line with the European Union's decarbonisation goal and the objectives of ensuring security of energy supply and competitiveness in an environmentally sustainable, cost-efficient, effective, safe and socially acceptable way".

In total in 2025, the European Investment Bank agreed EUR100 billion in new financing and advisory services for 870 projects "under eight core priorities that support EU policy objectives: climate action and the environment, digitalisation and technological innovation, security and defence, territorial cohesion, agriculture and the bioeconomy, social infrastructure, strong global partnerships and the savings and investments union".

Steady Energy's reactor

Steady Energy was spun out of Finland's VTT Technical Research Centre in 2023. The LDR-50 SMR, with a thermal output of 50 MW, is designed to operate at around 150°C. Unlike most SMRs being developed around the world, it is not designed to generate electricity - or electricity and heat. Instead, it is designed to only produce heat and is focused on district heating, as well as industrial steam production and desalination projects.

The company has already signed agreements for 15 reactors in Finland, with its reactor design currently being assessed by the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, STUK. In June 2025, STUK said the draft concept assessment for Steady Energy's LDR-50 found that "nuclear and radiation safety, security arrangements, emergency arrangements and nuclear material safeguards solutions are such that they can be designed to meet safety requirements".

The aim is for construction of the first plant - to be the clean energy source for a district heating scheme - to begin in 2029.

Listen: Steady Energy on the September 2024 WNN podcast:

The USTDA-funded study will help EGAT assess potential locations, costs and the regulatory steps needed to move forward Thailand's plans for deploying small modular reactor (SMR) technologies that would generate about 600 MWe. The vendor-neutral study will consider reactor designs made by US companies GE-Hitachi, Holtec, Kairos Power, NuScale, TerraPower, Westinghouse and X-Energy.

USTDA-funded programming is carried out by US companies. The agency said it will issue a request for proposals for this study from interested US firms.

"The study's recommendations will create a new pathway for Thailand to develop a secure and diverse energy supply, positioning US companies to play a leading role in building Thailand's civil nuclear energy infrastructure," USTDA said.

"This grant represents an important foundation for Thailand to evaluate the potential role of SMR technology in strengthening energy security and supporting a cleaner energy future," Phoawanich said. "We highly value the opportunity to learn from American innovation, expertise and experience while advancing cooperation between our two countries."

Hardy added: "For the United States, this partnership advances our commitment to American innovation and leadership in advanced civil nuclear energy. It is part of America's nuclear renaissance – an era of renewed innovation and investment that is creating new opportunities to deploy advanced technologies at home and around the world. It reflects a broader foreign policy priority: working with trusted partners to expand access to reliable energy technologies while strengthening energy security across the Indo-Pacific."

In February this year, USTDA announced USD2.7 million in funding for technical assistance to Meralco PowerGen Corp, to evaluate US small modular reactor designs and develop an implementation roadmap for the Philippines' first SMR nuclear power plant.

USTDA is an independent federal government agency focused on connecting US companies with export opportunities in emerging markets. The agency achieves its mission by funding feasibility studies, technical assistance and pilot projects that integrate US private sector innovation into infrastructure projects at the critical early stages when design choices and technology options are determined. It also connects overseas project sponsors with US partners through its reverse trade missions, industry conferences and expert workshops.

In June 2025, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power signed a memorandum of understanding with EGAT for cooperation on SMRs and exploring their feasibility for future projects. That agreement will see the two companies exchange SMR-related technical information, hold a joint review of options for introducing an SMR in Thailand and cooperate on training personnel through on-site tours and staff and technology exchanges in the nuclear energy field.

Thailand does not currently have nuclear energy among its energy mix, although there have been various initiatives over the years to explore options, and it has had an operating research reactor since 1977. The Thai government has identified potential deployment of SMRs as a part of the country's long-term power development strategy.

Blue Energy said it also included a request to approve its "unique approach to build nuclear faster by first constructing the natural gas portion and balance-of-plant of the gas-to-nuclear plant - that balance-of-plant will subsequently also be utilised by the nuclear reactors".

It also submitted an environmental report, running to 300 pages, "which concluded that there are no significant impacts of the natural gas portion to endangered species, tribal lands, or other environmental or historical concerns".

Jake Jurewicz, CEO and co-founder of Blue Energy, said: "This is another huge step towards building the world's first gas-to-nuclear power plant and proving the Blue Energy approach to build nuclear in the safest, quickest, and most scalable way possible.

"We look forward to completing the licensing process so we can build this groundbreaking gas-to-nuclear plant and demonstrate the world's first project-financed nuclear power product."

Background

Stemming from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Nuclear Science and Engineering Department, Blue Energy was founded by Jurewicz and Matt Slotkin in 2023.

Blue Energy says that reactors make up less than 10% of the cost of a nuclear power plant, with most of the cost coming from "construction and regulatory challenges in the rest of the plant". Its model is for a modular, reactor-agnostic power plant architecture to house the next generation of nuclear reactors using centralised manufacturing at existing shipyards. It says this will cut construction time, with the temporary use of gas generation meaning power can be delivered within 36 months, saying that cuts time-to-power for projects by about a decade.

In November last year, Blue Energy announced an agreement with AI infrastructure firm Crusoe through which it secured a site for an up-to-1.5 GW nuclear plant in the Port of Victoria, Texas, to power Crusoe AI factories on a nearby site. Blue Energy says its gas-to-nuclear conversion will see it power the proposed 1,600-acre Crusoe AI factory campus from 2028, with a transition to nuclear generation by 2031.

In May, Blue Energy announced it was joining up with GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GVH) to collaborate on the Texas project, which will see Blue Energy power the data centre using an initial 1 GW of power supplied by using two GE Vernova gas turbines. A further 1.5 GW of power from up to five GVH BWRX-300 small modular reactors will then be added.

In July it announced a strategic equity investment from Constellation Technology Ventures, the venture arm of Constellation, operator of the largest fleet of nuclear power plants in the USA.

In August Blue Energy and GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy signed the next stage of their agreement, advancing engineering design, licensing, and safety analysis of the project.

Pre-construction infrastructure works are already taking place at the site, including the completion of a concrete mixing plant as well as roads, fencing, lighting and installing a fire-fighting water supply system. A first power line was connected to the site in August. The target is for the main construction phase to begin in March next year.

Rosatom says that the design of the plant includes "the construction of modern wastewater treatment facilities and the use of efficient gas recovery systems. A full waste management cycle is envisaged, as well as a closed-loop reactor cooling system using cooling towers, which is particularly important for preserving the ecosystem of the Desnogorsk Reservoir".

It said that experts from the Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resources  (Rosprirodnadzor) "concluded that the impact of future power units on the atmosphere, water resources, and soil will be minimal and will not exceed established standards".

Ivan Sidorov, Director of the Smolensk Nuclear Power Plant, said: "We understand our responsibility to the region's residents and future generations. The power units will meet strict environmental requirements. Nuclear power is, by definition, one of the cleanest energy sources, but public trust in it is built not on declarations, but on expert data and proven safety evidence."

The Smolensk Nuclear Power Plant, located 150 kilometres from Smolensk and 350 kilometres from Moscow, currently has three RBMK-1000 power units, which were connected to the grid, respectively, in 1982, 1985 and 1990. Each has an electrical capacity of 1,000 MW. They have each had their operating licences extended to 45 years.

Under Russia's proposed new nuclear programme, two VVER-1200 units are planned for the new phase of the Smolensk plant, to be commissioned in 2033 and 2035. They are scheduled to operate for 60 years, with potential life extensions up to 120 years.

Leonid Lebedev, Director of Design for Smolensk NPP-2 at Atomenergoproekt JSC, said: "The Smolensk NPP-2 design takes into account all the accumulated experience in the design and operation of nuclear power plants with VVER reactors … particular attention was paid to environmental impact assessment: detailed engineering surveys, public hearings, and mathematical modeling of possible impact scenarios were conducted."

Changjiang 3 achieved first criticality - a sustained chain reaction - on 10 July this year and was connected to the grid on 1 August.

The Changjiang nuclear site is already home to two operating CNP-600 PWRs - Changjiang 1 and 2 - which entered commercial operation in 2015 and 2016, respectively. In 2021, China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) also began construction of a demonstration ACP100 small modular reactor at the site. The multi-purpose 125 MWe PWR - also referred to as the Linglong One - is designed for electricity production, heating, steam production or seawater desalination. It is currently undergoing pre-commissioning tests.

The island province of Hainan is China's southernmost point. Energy policies published in 2019 by Hainan Province Development and Reform Commission specify that nuclear power will become the primary source of electricity for the island, which has a population of close to 10 million.

"Upon full completion, the Phase II project is expected to generate 18 billion kilowatt-hours of clean electricity annually, replacing more than 6.32 million metric tons of standard coal and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by about 11.6 million tons every year," Liu Bin, general manager of Huaneng Hainan Changjiang Nuclear Power Company Ltd was quoted as saying by China Daily. "This will provide a clean, safe, and efficient power supply to anchor the construction of the Hainan Free Trade Port while accelerating the nation's progress toward its dual-carbon targets."

Changjiang 3 becomes the first large-scale power reactor that China Huaneng Group has constructed and operated as the controlling stakeholder. The company holds a controlling stake in the demonstration High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor-Pebble-bed Module (HTR-PM) at the Shidaowan site in Shandong Province, which entered commercial operation in December 2023. China Huaneng also holds minority stakes in a number of other units.

Areas identified for further improvement include to: "strengthen national coordination at the preparedness stage by establishing a National Coordinating Mechanism and during the response to a nuclear or radiological emergency especially in the early and transition phases by developing a National Radiation Emergency Plan in accordance with IAEA Safety Standards; establish legislation for the management of radioactive waste generated from decontamination activities in case of a nuclear or radiological emergency; further improve arrangements for the protection of the public, emergency workers and helpers, for public communication and for integrating international assistance with the national response; and enhance laboratory capacity for the analysis of environmental, food and water samples".

Olivier Isnard, Deputy Director for Emergency Preparedness and Response at the French Authority for Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection, who led the mission team, said: "Finland has invested considerable effort and resources in preparing for nuclear and radiological emergencies, and we saw this reflected in the expertise and commitment of the organisations we met ... more systematic coordination at the national level, and across sectors and phases of an emergency, would help Finland draw even more effectively on these capabilities."

Karim Peltonen, Director at Finland's Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK), said the mission provided "important input to the development of Finnish arrangements in preparedness for nuclear and radiological emergencies, especially enhancing the coordination of all parties that participate in preparedness and response" and demonstrated Finland's commitment "to the rule-based world order and to the international framework for preparedness and response for nuclear and radiological emergencies".

The Emergency Preparedness Review (EPREV) was carried out at the invitation of Finland's government and hosted by STUK. The team included experts from Argentina, Austria, Canada, France, the Netherlands, Slovenia and South Africa. They visited the country's two nuclear power plants, the Satasairaala hospital chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear training centre, as well as food safety laboratories and the Helsinki City Rescue Department and civil defence shelter. They also interviewed the main governmental and emergency authorities.

Finland operates five nuclear power reactors at the Loviisa and Olkiluoto nuclear power plants. Radiation sources are also used in medical, industrial and research applications, and the Olkiluoto site also hosts the world's first geological disposal facility, Onkalo.

The last remaining external power line was disconnected on 20 August "after military activity on the northern side of the Dnipro River", which has left the plant relying on its fleet of emergency diesel generators to provide the power required for the six-unit plant.

Grossi said: "As the ZNPP's emergency generators drained the available diesel to little more than a week of supplies, forcing its cooling pumps to be run only intermittently, I continued my persistent efforts to broker a ceasefire so that the Ferosplavna-1 power line could be repaired."

That ceasefire began at the weekend with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) staff on site monitoring the demining and repair work, which he said should be completed "shortly".

Repairs were carried out on a second line in June during another ceasefire, but it remains unavailable because of damage at a substation, he said.

"It goes without saying that nuclear power plant staff must be able to carry out their essential work without being attacked or placed at risk. I solemnly call on all military commanders in the region to stop attacks on nuclear power plants and their staff, and to exercise maximum military restraint. I say this because last month a drone explosion at a bus stop used by plant staff and subcontractors travelling to Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant caused multiple casualties. The ZNPP informed the IAEA team at the plant that the explosion caused 20 casualties, including one death and three serious injuries.

"The loss of life is a tragedy. Endangering personnel is a clear violation of the IAEA's Seven Indispensable Pillars for ensuring nuclear safety and security during armed conflict."

He said IAEA teams "continue to report frequent military activity in the vicinity of the site and of Energodar, including incidents affecting critical infrastructure and plant personnel" and IAEA teams stationed at nuclear power plants across Ukraine reporting military activity in their areas.

Grossi added: "Military activity near nuclear power plants and on the electricity grid continues to pose risks that must be avoided. I renew my call for maximum military restraint from all sides."

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been under Russian military control since early March 2022. It is located on the frontline of Russian and Ukrainian forces and has lost offsite power on 26 occasions since the war began, including 10 times since June.

"It is a much-needed development also as the ZNPP was facing a possible station blackout, with diminishing diesel fuel reserves available to operate emergency generators which have been providing backup power since its sole remaining power line - Ferosplavna-1 - was lost due to military activity north of the Dnipro River on 20 August."

In a statement on the X social media platform, the IAEA said that the seventh localised ceasefire the agency had arranged since the start of the conflict had allowed Ukrainian technicians to complete three days of repairs on Monday.

It added: "Grossi thanks both the Russian Federation and Ukraine for engaging with the agency in agreeing on the ceasefire and enabling off-site power to be restored."

_{(Image: IAEA/X)}

Ukraine's nuclear power company Energoatom said that "external power supply was restored thanks to the professional work of Ukrainian power engineers and an agreed local ceasefire, which created the necessary conditions for carrying out repair work on the damaged line". It added that, as of Monday evening, the station's consumption was 11 MW.

Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant has been under Russian military control since early March 2022. Its operators said that "following the restoration of power, the plant's systems have returned to their normal operating mode. The backup diesel generators … have been shut down and switched to standby mode. All Zaporizhzhia NPP safety systems operated normally. There were no violations of safe operating limits and conditions. The radiation situation at the plant and in the surrounding area remains stable and corresponds to natural levels."

However, on 5 January this year, Chubu announced "inappropriate matters relating to the formulation of the design basis ground motion in the review of conformity with new regulatory standards". The company established an independent committee composed of external experts "to ensure transparency and fairness in investigating the facts and causes of the matter and considering measures to prevent recurrence".

On Friday, the committee submitted its investigation report to Chubu, saying that some departments within the company are suspected of underestimating possible earthquake vibrations in data submitted to the NRA because they felt under pressure from senior management over delays in the schedule toward restarting. The data falsification began around 2012 at the latest, the committee concluded. Although whistleblowers raised concerns about data falsification in 2019 and 2021, their concerns were dismissed by senior management.

The company said on Monday: "Given the serious doubts that have arisen regarding the reliability of the application documents and the company's subsequent handling of matters in the review process, it would not be appropriate to maintain the existing applications. Accordingly ... the company resolved to withdraw the applications."

Chubu said it plans to submit the withdrawal documents to the NRA "as soon as preparations are complete".

"The company takes the findings of the investigation report with the utmost seriousness and sincerity," Chubu said. "With a firm determination to ensure that a similar incident never occurs again, the company will undertake management reforms focusing on 'transformation of mindsets and behaviours', 'transformation of organisational culture', and 'transformation and strengthening of governance and oversight functions' in order to fundamentally rebuild both its governance framework and organisational culture. Through these efforts, the company will make every effort to thoroughly implement measures to prevent recurrence and restore the trust that has been lost."

It announced the resignations, as of 30 September, of President and CEO Kingo Hayashi and Chairman Satoru Katsuno, who have taken responsibility for the manipulation of seismic data. Minoru Yasui, a director of the company, will succeed Hayashi as president from 1 October.

Prior to the March 2011 accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, Japan's 54 reactors had provided around 30% of the country's electricity. However, within 14 months of the accident, the country's nuclear generation had been brought to a standstill pending regulatory change. Since then, 15 reactors have gradually resumed operation. According to Japan's 7th Basic Energy Plan, adopted in February 2025, the country will "make maximum use of nuclear power". Hamaoka units 3 and 4 are among 17 reactors at various stages of the restart review process.

Generic Design Assessment (GDA) is a voluntary process through which the UK's nuclear regulators - the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales - assess the safety, security and environmental implications of new reactor designs intended for deployment in Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales), separately from applications to build them at specific sites. Successful completion of the three-step GDA culminates in the issue of a Design Acceptance Confirmation from the ONR and a Statement of Design Acceptability from the Environment Agency.

The ONR said the GDA will begin "once the necessary arrangements around timescales and resources have been put in place". X-energy UK Holding Ltd is also currently engaging with UK regulators as part of a Tier 3 Preliminary Design Review on selected topic areas of the Xe-100 design, the regulator noted.

X-energy submitted its application to enter the GDA process for the Xe-100 in June. GDA acceptance formally triggers the process of assessing the design’s acceptability for deployment and operation ahead of the technical and environmental evaluations required for site-specific licensing and permitting, which is expected to take about three years. 

The submission builds on the Xe-100's US licensing progress and is expected to benefit from expanded collaboration between the UK regulators and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), X-energy said, enabling NRC-reviewed design documentation and safety analyses into UK design reviews. The NRC has been actively engaged in pre-application activities with X Energy since September 2018.

Over the past year, the partners have carried out early project activities including formal Early Engagement with UK nuclear regulators as well as the submission and subsequent acceptance of the Xe-100 into GDA process. They have also submitted a proposal for entry into the UK Government's Advanced Nuclear Pipeline, a register of privately led advanced nuclear projects seeking deployment in England or Wales that the government has assessed and believes are, in principle, sufficiently mature and could credibly be delivered in the UK, subject to regulatory and government approvals. The results of that submission are imminent, the companies said. 

"Across both sides of the Atlantic, X-energy is advancing fleet-scale deployment of our technology, and it begins with a strong regulatory foundation that enables us to drive efficiency from the first project to a full commercial fleet. Together with Centrica, we are advancing the development work required to move from a first project at Hartlepool to a fleet of Xe-100 plants across the country," X-energy CEO Clay Sell said. "The UK has the industrial capability, nuclear expertise and policy ambition to lead the deployment of advanced nuclear technology, and we are committed to building the partnerships and supply chain needed to deliver that opportunity."

Centrica CEO Chris O’Shea said the milestone shows the "tremendous progress" made by the partnership in just 12 months.  "Without energy security, we don’t have true national security. Nuclear has a critical role to play in this," he said. 

"Deploying advanced nuclear technology at scale, with up to 6GW of new capacity across the UK, will not only strengthen our energy security, but it will create tens of billions of economic value and thousands of highly skilled jobs. 

"Starting at Hartlepool, we want to help build a resilient, low-carbon energy system that can power homes and industry for decades to come."

The partnership has already engaged a range of specialist firms to commence site studies and planning and consenting activities, and collaborated with local bodies in Hartlepool to support workforce development and training, including the launch of a new Nuclear and Electrical Trades Academy. 

The Xe-100 is a Generation IV advanced reactor design producing an output of 80 MW of electricity, or 200 MW thermal. A standard 'four-pack' configuration would allow for total power output of 320 MWe, scalable to up to 12 units per site. The Xe-100 uses tri-structural isotropic (TRISO) particle fuel, which has additional safety benefits because it can withstand very high temperatures without melting, and can provide both electricity and process heat. X-energy is advancing its initial Xe-100 plant in the USA with Dow Inc on the Texas Gulf Coast, and is also developing a further plant with Energy Northwest in collaboration with Amazon, to build up to 12 units near Energy Northwest's Columbia Generating Station in Washington State.

The exemption granted by the NRC on 28 August authorises installation of permanent support-of-excavation (SOE) and cutoff-wall systems for Pioneer units 1 and 2. These systems include diaphragm walls, soldier-pile soil-mix walls, and perimeter cutoff walls, with tiebacks or struts as needed, Holtec said. These early works will establish the stable excavation and foundation conditions needed to support and accelerate subsequent plant construction following LWA approval. The SOE walls will eventually be "retired in place", with the space between the walls and permanent structures backfilled to grade, it added.

Ahead of issuing the exemption, the NRC issued an Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant Impact for the authorised activities concluding that the granting of the exemption would not have any detrimental effects on the quality of the environment. The regulator determined that installation and retirement of the SOE walls would not adversely affect the safe design or siting of Pioneer units 1 and 2.

Holtec will perform geologic mapping and data collection during excavation, notify the NRC when the excavation is open for inspection, and account for the retired SOE walls in soil-structure interaction analyses. 

The SMR-300 is a pressurised water reactor producing about 300 MW of electrical power or 1050 MW of thermal power for process applications.

"The approval reflects Holtec’s disciplined, risk-informed approach to advancing the Palisades project and marks another step toward deploying 680 megawatts of clean, reliable energy through Pioneer Units 1 and 2," the company said.

The Palisades site is also home to a single-unit 805 MWe pressurised water reactor, which closed in 2022 and Holtec is now in the process of bringing back into service.

_{An illustrative view of the permanent SOE system (Image: Holtec)}

In March this year, the government outlined its plans to speed up nuclear delivery. All reforms are expected to be completed by the end of next year, subject to legislative timelines. Then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, wrote an open letter to industry and regulatory leaders, setting out the need for substantial change at all levels within the sector. The Chancellor asked industry and regulators to assess the way their organisation approaches risk management and to challenge themselves on whether those responsible for risk management were properly equipped and empowered to make proportionate judgements on acceptable risk. Recipients were asked to respond to the letter within six months, setting out their plans to implement the required changes.

The nuclear industry in the UK is primarily regulated by the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), an independent statutory body. However, environmental impacts and radioactive waste disposal are managed separately by environmental agencies: the Environment Agency (EA) in England, Natural Resources Wales, and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency.

The ONR and EA have now published their responses to current Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey, setting out how they plan to speed up nuclear project delivery across the UK.

, ONR CEO and Chief Nuclear Inspector Mike Finnerty describes how the regulator is transforming its approach to keep pace with a rapidly growing nuclear sector, while continuing to maintain strong safety, security and safeguards standards, protecting people and the public. Central to this transformation is ONR Together, the regulator's new rolling strategy for becoming "a more modern, agile and productive organisation".

"ONR has taken concrete steps to turn this ambition into practice, including the creation of a Lead Nuclear Regulator Group to improve coordination between regulators and resolve issues earlier in major programmes, and an Industry CEO Forum bringing together senior leaders from across government, industry and regulation to tackle the behaviours that contribute to unnecessary delay," the ONR said. "Revised safety case guidance has been published to help industry produce clearer and more proportionate safety arguments without compromising standards, and a review of regulatory processes is identifying where decision-making can be made more focused and streamlined. The regulator is also modernising how it assesses new reactor designs, adopting a more flexible approach within Generic Design Assessment programmes and working towards fleet-based regulatory models for a range of reactor technologies.

"Looking ahead, ONR is supporting government proposals for a Commission for Nuclear Regulation and reforms to its charging model, while expanding international collaboration to enable mutual learning and the efficient deployment of proven nuclear technologies."

Finnerty said: "Nuclear has a critical role to play in the UK's energy future, and industry, government and regulators can work together with collaboration and confidence. The government has set its strategic direction for a growing nuclear sector, and so it's our job to regulate this industry so that it remains safe and new projects can be deployed without unnecessary delay. Our continuing commitment to risk-informed, outcome-focused regulation means we can be both more agile in enabling nuclear delivery and unwavering on safety, focusing our effort where it delivers the greatest benefit."

The Environment Agency said: "We fully support the Review's ambition to improve the pace, predictability and proportionality of nuclear regulation while maintaining high standards of environmental protection and public confidence. We have therefore established a Nuclear Transformation Programme to coordinate delivery of the Review's recommendations, particularly those relating to organisational effectiveness, culture, proportionality and regulatory coordination.

"We have already taken significant steps to strengthen our delivery by bringing our nuclear strategy and regulatory functions together under a single leadership structure reporting to the Chief Regulator. This provides clearer accountability, faster decision-making and stronger strategic oversight, ensuring the Environment Agency is better positioned to support the safe growth of the UK nuclear sector while maintaining high environmental standards."

The agency added that "securing sufficient nuclear expertise to deliver these reforms alongside our existing regulatory responsibilities will be critical".

On 24 August, it was announced that 12 recipients had been selected to participate in the initiative, for projects including reactor development and nuclear fuel cycle advancements, including fabrication, enrichment and conversion technologies. Eight of the companies selected - Atlas Atomics, Forge Atomics, Hexium, Lightbridge, Nusano, Raven-Flint Nuclear, Scaled Atomics, and Sublime Atomics - are new to the Launch Pad programme, while four - Antares Nuclear, Deployable Energy, Oklo, and Valar Atomics - are reactor developers that have already received support under the initiative and the Reactor Pilot Program and whose projects have achieved zero-power fuelled criticality earlier this summer.

Reactor projects

Antares Nuclear's Mark-0 reactor was the first reactor to go critical by the 4 July deadline set by US President Donald Trump when its Mark-0 sodium heat pipe-cooled, TRISO-fuelled microreactor completed a zero-power fuelled criticality demonstration at INL in June. The company - which is now working on an electricity-producing prototype, and has been selected by the US Air Force to deliver microreactors to Joint Base San Antonio - said its selection "strengthens Antares' growing footprint in Texas".

Deployable Energy's Unity reactor, which was the first selection under the Launch Pad initiative in April this year, reached criticality in early July. The company has been selected for two strategic upcoming demonstrations under the latest round: a full-power demonstration at INL and a Nuclear Energy Launch Pad USA maritime demonstration with Hornbeck Offshore.

"Nuclear-powered maritime operations are exactly the kind of environment where Deployable Energy and Hornbeck Offshore have the potential to create significant value for coastal communities," Hornbeck Offshore President and CEO Todd Hornbeck said. "This maritime demonstration will allow us to test not only power generation, but also the deployment model, from transportation and integration to operations."

Valar Atomics' 100-kWt Ward 250 helium-cooled, TRISO-fuelled, high-temperature gas reactor reached zero-power criticality in June, and the company is now proceeding with a planned power ascension. Oklo's Groves Isotope Test Reactor reached zero-power fuelled criticality in August.

Other reactor developers on the list that are now receiving Launch Pad support include Atlas Atomics, which is developing "advanced heavy-water reactor technology designed to deliver reliable baseload power, enable domestic production of critical medical and industrial isotopes, and support the recycling and utilisation of spent nuclear fuel", according to forming part of the state of Utah's response to a DOE Request for Information earlier this year. Also on the list is Forge Atomics, which is developing a factory-built, 25-MWe pressurised water reactor that will use low-enriched uranium dioxide fuel, and Oak Ridge-based microreactor developer Scaled Atomics, formerly Avant Tech.

Fuel plant plans

Virginia-based advanced nuclear fuel technology company Lightbridge said its selection provides an accelerated pathway towards DOE authorisation for it to design, build, and operate a dedicated facility at INL to manufacture Lead Test Assemblies of its proprietary metallic nuclear fuel for testing in US commercial power reactors, significantly shortening the timeline.

"This is the most important step we have taken toward putting Lightbridge Fuel into commercial reactors, and it changes how investors should understand our timeline," Lightbridge Chairman and CEO Seth Grae said. "A DOE-authorised facility will let us manufacture full-scale Lightbridge Fuel assemblies that nuclear utilities will run in their plants, and can produce them years sooner than a conventional facility licensing path would allow. We have been working with a major engineering, procurement, and construction firm in preparation for the start of construction of the Special High-assay low-enriched uranium Extrusion Demonstration facility as soon as next year. Our goal is for Lightbridge Fuel to become the standard fuel that produces most of the world's nuclear energy, and this is where that path begins."

Privately held nuclear technology company Raven-Flint Nuclear Corporation announced its selection under the Launch Pad alongside the first successful production of uranium hexafluoride using a proprietary conversion process it says is designed to eliminate the need for elemental fluorine gas, as well as docketing by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission of its licence application to conduct engineering-scale uranium operations at its radiochemistry laboratory.

The company plans to build Torch, a first-of-a-kind, pilot conversion facility on the INL site, which it says will convert 500 tonnes of uranium per year into uranium hexafluoride. It will serve DOE and DOE-affiliated entities, and would be able to produce unobligated, domestic material needed for US defence purposes.

NRIC was established in 2019 to work with industry and the National Laboratories to bridge the gap between concept, demonstration and commercialisation of advanced nuclear technology.

"These selections show a strong and growing interest from developers ready to move their technologies forward," NRIC Director Brad Tomer said. "Nuclear Energy Launch Pad gives these developers a prioritised pathway to the DOE authorisation process, and access to subject matter experts, facilities, and regulatory support tailored to their needs. We're helping bridge the gap between concept and commercialisation - and these selections show that pipeline is only getting stronger."

NRIC will continue accepting Launch Pad applications, with additional selections made on a rolling basis as resources allow.

Listen to

Focusing on the existing fleet, the report notes that there has been a recent increase in construction starts, as shown by the chart below, which shows how it has fluctuated over the past 75 years.

_{(Image: WNA)}

It also finds that the reliability of nuclear energy plants remains high across the global fleet and across the life of reactors, even as individual units age. The average capacity factor was 83.7% in 2025 (a capacity factor of 100% would be if a unit generated electricity 24 hours a day 365 days a year).

_{The capacity factor rises as the age of reactors passes 50 years (Image: WNA)}

Looking ahead at the prospects for new nuclear capacity, the report projects that it could reach 1,457 GWe by 2050 if all national targets and goals are achieved and the existing fleet continues to operate. With current operating capacity being 423 GWe, that projected figure would be 200 GWe more than a tripling of the current levels.

New capacity under construction increased to 82 GWe, with eleven reactors starting construction in 2025. The combined total of planned, proposed and potential capacity increased to 416 GWe, reducing the gap between actual projects and government targets, although around 550 GW of proposed capacity by 2050 has yet to be translated into specific projects.

_{(Image: WNA)}

As to where the new capacity would be located, the report found that the largest share of the new capacity would come from the established users of nuclear energy - the USA, China, France, Russia and India.

_{(Image: WNA)}

ÌÇÐÄÊÓƵ Director General Sama Bilbao y León, said: "This is an extraordinary moment for nuclear energy. Reflecting on another year of record performance, and looking ahead to a future of record ambition, governments are clear: they need much more nuclear energy to address the interconnected challenges of energy security, affordability, competitiveness and climate goals. 

"But ambition alone will not deliver 24/7 clean energy. That's why the Association has published recommendations that set the path towards tripling global nuclear energy capacity by 2050. We need to make full use of the existing fleet, complete reactors already under construction, capitalising on the acquired capabilities, commit to the next projects and move from individual projects to sustained programmes of deployment."

As well as reviewing the progress towards individual countries' targets, the report includes a series of policy recommendations for governments, industry, financiers and regulators.

These range from "establishing durable policy and investment frameworks, streamlining regulation and strengthening supply chains, to building the workforce, supporting proven reactor deployment and creating the programme-based delivery models needed". It also highlights that maintaining and extending the existing fleet is the fastest and most cost-effective ways to secure low-carbon electricity.

According to ÌÇÐÄÊÓƵ, "For the rest of this decade, the focus must be on turning national ambitions into credible project pipelines, supported by the institutions, investment, people and industrial capacity needed to deliver them."

The three new sections include Nuclear Must Knows, which aims to highlight "the full value nuclear provides to energy systems, including energy security, reliability and decarbonisation, and puts risks in context to show how the industry is evolving".

The Investment Readiness section "provides practical guidance and checklists for governments and project developers, emphasising that technical, financial and project readiness must progress in parallel if projects are to attract investment".

And the Developer and Investment Models module says "the fundamental barrier to achieving final investment decision is a knowledge, coordination and structuring problem" and it "proposes a more structured and collaborative approach to nuclear project development, that starts with the business case first". It also notes that "bringing governments, developers and financiers together earlier is essential to identify risks, align incentives and improve investment outcomes".

According to the report, citing International Energy Agency and OECD Nuclear Energy Agency figures, financing structures are the prime driver of nuclear costs, and a 1% reduction in the cost of capital lowers the levelised cost of electricity of nuclear by roughly USD10 to USD20 per MWh.

Sama Bilbao y León, Director General of ÌÇÐÄÊÓƵ, said: "Nuclear's challenge is not a shortage of capital. The challenge is ensuring that projects are structured, valued and financed in ways that allow capital to flow at scale. The Investment Guide helps bridge the gap between the nuclear and financial communities by translating decades of nuclear experience into the frameworks investors already use. Nuclear projects become more financeable when risks and rewards are allocated appropriately, and the full value nuclear brings to energy systems and society are recognised."

The guide, published in full the day before the World Nuclear Symposium Finance Summit, was produced following the Financing Nuclear Briefing Series, which brought nuclear and finance leaders together, many of whom also served on an advisory board for the guide, which "is intended to close knowledge gaps, build a common language and bring governments, industry and investors together around the steps needed to scale nuclear finance".

Listen: Report author Lola Infante on the World Nuclear News podcast  

"Just in the nuclear space, in the last year we've had discussions, or inbounds, from over a hundred different potential providers," she said at the London event, before going on to say that for Google "it's important it's a credible project with real credible partners that we believe can deliver - we do our own deep diligence on that. Then we have to understand and believe in and find the economics attractive, and then last, but certainly not least, wherever that project is, there has to be community buy-in".

_{Google's Lucia Tian, centre (Image: ÌÇÐÄÊÓƵ)}

Tian was speaking at a panel focused on how end energy users are shaping nuclear development, which also featured Chad Eaton, Director of Government Affairs & Energy Policy at Nucor Corporation, who said they were in the process of "exploring a lot of those possibilities right now".

The Finance Summit, organised by ÌÇÐÄÊÓƵ, is part of World Nuclear Symposium, which takes place in London on Thursday and Friday, with association Director General Sama Bilbao y León, saying the summit was "designed to convene the decision-makers and leaders from international finance, government, multilateral institutions and the nuclear sector, together to move the conversation from diagnosing the financing challenge to delivering solutions".

She said that over recent years "the conversation for expanding nuclear moved from 'if' or 'why', to 'how' and 'when'". But, she said, "many external observers then pointed to the fact that financing the capital needed to build a new nuclear reactor can cost more than the capital itself to build that reactor ... since that diagnosis, we have had many financial institutions knocking at the nuclear industry's door, asking for meetings to help understand our sector. This development is what led to the start of our invitational Financing Nuclear Briefing Series, the first Finance Summit ahead of last years 50th World Nuclear Symposium and then the publication yesterday of our World Nuclear Investment Guide". 

"Now is the time to press on, to continue sharing knowledge, to devise and implement solutions. Achieving industrial scale worldwide, rather than in just a few existing markets, will require significant investment from private, as well as public sources of finance, with capital flowing not only to new generating capacity, to long-term operation but also to the nuclear fuel cycle needed to deliver it at scale. What I hear time and time again is 'there is no shortage of capital'. It’s about finding the right frameworks, structuring, valuation, and risk allocations to allow capital to flow at scale", she said, saying that goal was to help unlock the capital.

A variety of panels with high-level speakers covered a range of issues relating to financing nuclear, during the day, discussing both the appetite for private sector investment in nuclear, the way such projects can be structured, and risks allocated - especially for first of a kind projects as well as broader risk-reward factors - and the steps that governments can take to make projects more attractive. In the wake of the publication of the full World Nuclear Finance Guide on Tuesday, there was also agreement on the need for the nuclear and finance worlds to deepen their understanding of each other. 

Mark Muldowney, Managing Director, Energy, Resources and Infrastructure, BNP Paribas, said: "Every year, over the past 15 years or so that I've been heavily involved in the nuclear sector, things have got steadily better in terms of the number of institutions who understand the sector, who have stopped saying 'we don't do nuclear' ... there are people now who are nervous that they haven't done nuclear deals - there's a feeling that they're missing out on great opportunities out there that they should be taking advantage of ... and that creates a sense of momentum."

_{There was a wide selection of panellists at the event (Image: ÌÇÐÄÊÓƵ)}

Grant Isaac, President and Chief Operating Officer, Cameco, said of the finance guide: "Rather than it being the responsibility of the global investment community to come across and learn everything that's unique and special about our industry, the guide turned it round and said it's the responsibility of our industry to figure out what good investible projects are, because, when we do, there's a lot of capital out there that's interested in our industry."

Alejandro López Delgado, Managing Director, Infrastructure, La Caisse, who invested in nuclear for the first time, last year in the UK's Sizewell C project, said: "Through that process we realised how limited information there is about nuclear for investors ... and then once we did the investment we were approached by many governments, corporate developers with potential projects, and we also realised that sometimes the industry and the government don't know us investors as well as you might expect ... they don't know our needs and what makes a project investible - there is clearly a gap to be bridged and the guide is is the perfect instrument to bridge that gap."

The 19th Century was the age of the Industrial Revolution, he said, but the world was now moving into a new age, of "electrical revolution". He gave examples of what he called "the rampant destruction" of the countryside by renewable energy projects, and said: "Overdependence at the moment on solar and wind to counter climate change ... the very aim of saving the planet and its fragile ecosystems is in many ways threatened by the very device that we have to save them.

"As a civilisation we hinge on the balance between the built-world and nature, so there is an imperative to get that balance right and not to threaten the very ecosystems that we survive on."

He gave the example of schemes covering areas larger than London and said that small modular reactors could be deployed instead, which he said would be carbon-free and take up only a small fraction of the land area. He added that, compared with fossil fuels and other forms of generation, nuclear was the safest form of power generation.

"I could go on about the virtues of nuclear. You know them, I know them, but most people outside this hall are not aware of them. So there is a communications threat - otherwise why would some countries such as Germany have closed down (their nuclear plants)?" said Foster.

He described himself as a fairly recent convert to nuclear energy - "my entry point was the nuclear battery, the micro-modular reactor - I was amazed to discover that something container-sized, with a co-generator, another similar-sized container of six metres/20 feet, could power 25 East Side blocks, a small town or community".

Referring to a project in Downtown Manhattan, catering for 14,000 people, he said "a small reactor in the basement could make it totally autonomous, and that got me into thinking 'well why aren't we industrialising these units, why are they not coming off a production line like a jet engine?' And, of course, everyone said, 'well it's expensive'. But automobiles were expensive when they first came on the market ... but then you got a production line and bingo, everyone could afford them."

He referred to the old telephone exchange system with millions of kilometres of cables and large numbers of people working at telephone exchanges in the USA in the 1950s, and how that had all changed to an autonomous system with mobiles and satellite networks. Foster suggested that national grids could face a similar evolution.

"What was fascinating for me was to discover that those people who are in the business of SMRs, MMRs, they see it as something for niche communities in the wilderness. It never occurs to anybody to question the very nature of a grid ... the grid can't cope with the new data centres and the data centres are only the tip of an iceberg of electrification," he said, adding that there was an opportunity for emerging economies to "leapfrog and leave behind this obsolescent idea of the grid".

Foster said that with the need for the world to ensure there is power to provide access to clean water for everyone, to tackle climate change and to meet the rising demands from areas such as electrified transport "there is an extraordinary demand for abundant clean energy, not business as before - this is truly a revolution and it will need all the elements - it will need solar, integrated into buildings seamlessly, the facades, the roofs can at the same time absorb and harvest energy. Wind power, but in the right places. And here I would suggest industrialised nuclear to augment the existing systems ... industrialised nuclear has a critical role to play."

In his speech, delivered without notes, the 91-year-old said that he had championed the cause of nuclear in the "corridors of power, discreetly" and said that, via courses at the Norman Foster Institute, had helped "change the policy of at least one nation".

The World Nuclear Symposium, organised by ÌÇÐÄÊÓƵ, is taking place in London from 9-11 September. Foster is Senior Executive Partner and Executive Chairman of Foster + Partners, which he founded in 1967. He is also president of the Norman Foster Foundation, based in Madrid, which includes the Norman Foster Institute, an applied Research Centre for Sustainable Cities which aims to bridge academia and practice.

"For Africa, this solution is very significant. The continent has enormous development ambitions, of industrialisation, improved healthcare systems, organised agriculture, digital infrastructure development and urbanisation. All of this requires reliable, affordable and increasingly clean energy. Evolving nuclear technologies - particularly small modular reactors and microreactors - increasingly prove to deliver tenable solutions in Africa's context. However, Africa is not asking for a handout of nuclear technology. Africa is offering a partnership. Africa is offering a market. Africa is offering a mature vision for its own energy."

Gnassingbe - who has led Togo since 2005, first as the fourth president until 2025 and then as president of the Council of Ministers - said that Togo has begun preparations for the introduction of nuclear technologies. "Togo sees nuclear science and technology as part of its broader development and energy security agenda. We do understand that responsible nuclear development begins long before the first reactor is built. Togo has been a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) since 2012 and we have progressively strengthened our national framework for the peaceful and safe use of nuclear technology. In January 2025, we established our Atomic Energy Commission. Just recently in Vienna, we signed a new cooperation framework with the IAEA.

At the same time, Togo is looking carefully at the technologies that may best suit its future needs. "With regard to global partnerships and financing mechanisms, the success of nuclear energy deployments will depend on capable institutions, a skilled workforce, predictable regulatory systems, public trust, strong industrial participation and financing. Financing remains one of the most important obstacles to nuclear deployment in Africa," he said. "Nuclear projects require substantial long-term investment and financial structure capable of managing risks over decades. The international financial environment is changing and this creates an important opportunity. But we must now move from recognition to implementation."

Gnassingbe announced that Togo will host the next Nuclear Energy Innovation Summit for Africa (NEISA) in Lomé, from 1-3 June 2027. NEISA is a high-level continental forum focused on accelerating the adoption of nuclear power, small modular reactors, and micro modular reactors to address energy security and industrialisation across Africa.

Commenting on the previous NEISA, which was held in Rwanda in July this year, he said: "That summit demonstrated that Africa's nuclear organisation has reached a new level as discussions turned around a particular question. 'How do we translate Africa's nuclear ambition into investable and deliverable reality?'"

"We have an opportunity to ensure the next chapter of the global nuclear renaissance is also a chapter of African industrialisation, innovation and development," Gnassingbe said.

He also announced that Togo has signed the declaration to at least triple global nuclear generating capacity by 2050, bringing the total number of countries to do so to 39.

South Africa is the only African country currently utilising nuclear energy, which accounts for about 5% of its electricity generation, with a total installed capacity of 1,854 GW. Egypt is currently in the process of building a 4.8 GW power plant to be completed in 2031. Algeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, and Nigeria also plan to launch nuclear energy programmes.

At the end of 2025, there were 413 operable nuclear power reactors operating worldwide, generating 377.1 GWe, the IAEA said. In its high-case scenario, the agency projects that this figure could reach 1,045 GWe by 2050 GWe - up from the 992 GWe forecast last year. This year's projections continue to 2060 for the first time, with the nuclear generating capacity now reaching 1,284 GWe by that time, which would be 3.4 times the figure at the end of 2025.

The low-case projection for 2060 is for nuclear capacity to reach 696 GWe by 2060, and 641 GWe by 2050, up from the 561 GWe by 2050 forecast last year.

The publication, which is put together by an international group of experts, develops its estimates by considering all operating reactors, possible licence renewals, planned shutdowns and plausible and planned construction projects foreseen for the next few decades. The low-case assumptions are that current trends continue and there are few changes in laws, policies and regulations. The high-case assumptions include national intentions for expanding the use of nuclear power and the "high-case projection remains both plausible and technically feasible and notes the possibility for capacity to exceed this estimate".

Enabling factors, such as national policies, supporting investment and workforce development - plus regulatory collaboration and global harmonisation - would be necessary to help facilitate at least reaching the high case.

IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi, speaking at the 70th IAEA General Conference in Vienna, said: "The IAEA projections show the increasing role of nuclear power in meeting the world's growing electricity needs. To realise this potential, investment in new nuclear capacity and reactor lifetime extensions will be essential."

The role of small modular reactors - the first few of which are now online or under construction - is projected to grow rapidly, to encompass 28% of the 1,017 GWe of new capacity added under the high-case projection, or 23% of the 521 GWe that would be added under the low-case.

The IAEA's definition of a small modular reactor is for a capacity of up to 300 MWe, and the 100+ designs in development have a wide range of capacities, from a starting point of 20 MWe. Assuming an average capacity of 300 MWe, the low-case projects SMRs accounting for 120 GWe by 2060, which would be the equivalent of 400 new units. If those units averaged 250 MWe capacity it would mean 480 SMRs. Last year's forecast to 2050 had a 24% share for SMRs in the high case and 5% in the low case.

The IAEA projections - which are to 2060, rather than 2050 for the first time - include a breakdown of SMR deployments across regions, projecting that about 60% of new nuclear capacity in North America could come from SMRs. In South-Eastern Asia and in Latin America and the Caribbean, the figure is 40% in both the high and low cases.

Also key to achieving the projected growth of future nuclear capacity is extending the life of currently operating reactors, with the IAEA Energy Planner/Economist Jessica Callen-Kovtunova telling a media briefing that under the high-case scenario 70% of currently operating capacity remains in operation in 2060, while under the low-case scenario that proportion is reversed, with almost two-thirds of currently operating units retired.

The IAEA says that "a lifetime extension for an existing reactor, if it is viable, is one of the most cost-effective baseload low emission electricity sources and is of particular importance for regions with ageing nuclear fleets".

The role of finance is also seen as playing a big role. The document says: "The upward revision of the projections reflects growing recognition of the role that nuclear power can play in supporting energy security and long-term economic growth. There has been renewed engagement with nuclear power by international financial institutions, such as the World Bank Group and the Asian Development Bank, signalling a broader shift that other international financial institutions have begun to follow.

"Energy security and affordability concerns intensified following successive energy crises since 2022. Disruptions to oil and gas flows have major implications for both energy security and global energy markets. In response, interest in diversified electricity generation has grown, including interest in nuclear power."

The IAEA also reported that compared with 2024, nuclear electricity generation increased by 1%, although global electricity generation grew faster, by 2.7%, with nuclear's share of electricity generation falling from 8.7% in 2024 to 8.4% in 2025.

ÌÇÐÄÊÓƵ's World Nuclear Outlook Report, published last week, found that if all national targets and goals were achieved and the existing fleet continues to operate.

Rolls-Royce SMR selected Siemens Energy in February 2025 as its global turbine systems partner for its small modular reactor (SMR). Under the agreement, Siemens Energy is to be the sole supplier of steam turbines, generators, and other auxiliary systems for Rolls-Royce SMR's planned nuclear power plants. Siemens Energy's solutions for nuclear power plants include steam turbines and generators with outputs ranging from 20 MW to 1,900 MW, as well as operational control technology and control systems.

Under the latest announcement, Siemens Energy will produce vital components for the Gwyndod project in the UK and for the growing SMR export market.

"This marks the first time these components will be produced for a small modular reactor anywhere in Europe, representing another important milestone in building a UK-led nuclear supply chain," Rolls-Royce SMR said, adding that the announcement will support more than 550 jobs and create new opportunities in Newcastle.

"I'm proud of today's announcement which clearly demonstrates how Rolls-Royce SMR is delivering its commitment to localisation, driving investment and reshoring work that would have taken place overseas," said Rolls-Royce SMR CEO Chris Cholerton. "By working with Siemens Energy in Newcastle, we are building on a remarkable industrial legacy while creating and sustaining the skills and supply chain needed to deliver clean, secure and affordable energy for decades to come."

Darren Davidson, UK Vice President for Siemens Energy, added: "This is a significant moment for Siemens Energy and our Newcastle facility, for UK manufacturing and for Britain's nuclear future. Building on a site with a world-class engineering legacy, we're preparing to manufacture the next generation of steam turbines for small modular reactors, supporting energy security, creating skilled jobs and helping power the UK's future energy mix."

"I'm delighted to welcome Siemens to the team delivering the UK's first SMRs," said Simon Roddy, CEO of Great British Energy – Nuclear (GBE-N). "Manufacturing these major components in Newcastle for our flagship project in North Wales demonstrates that every corner of the UK has a role to play in this programme. I'm particularly proud that we're sustaining such a vital strategic capability, strengthening both our industrial base and the UK supply chain."

Tom Greatrex, Chief Executive of the Nuclear Industry Association, said: "This is what reindustrialisation looks like - a vital clean energy project reviving our old manufacturing capabilities to provide good, skilled jobs where we need them. The announcement is a real vote of confidence in industrial Britain and shows what SMRs and nuclear projects can deliver for this country."

The Gwyndod project

The Rolls-Royce SMR is a 470 MWe design based on a small pressurised water reactor. It will provide consistent baseload generation for at least 60 years. Ninety percent of the SMR - measuring about 16 metres by 4 metres - will be built in factory conditions, limiting activity on-site primarily to assembly of pre-fabricated, pre-tested, modules which significantly reduces project risk and has the potential to shorten build schedules.

In October 2024, Rolls-Royce SMR was selected by ÄŒ·¡´Ü to deploy up to 3 GW of electricity in the Czech Republic, and ÄŒ·¡´Ü took a 20% stake in Rolls-Royce SMR. The plan is for the first SMR to be deployed in the area of the Temelín site (which already has two gigawatt-scale VVER-100 units), with further projects being developed for coal-fired power plant sites, including Tušimice. Rolls-Royce SMR has signed an early works agreement with ÄŒ·¡´Ü to progress licensing, permitting and site-specific design for deployment.

In June 2025, Rolls-Royce SMR was selected as the UK government's preferred technology for the country's first SMR project. A final investment decision is expected to be taken in 2029. In November, the UK government announced that Wylfa on the island of Anglesey, North Wales, would be the site to host the three Rolls-Royce SMR units. It said the site - where a Magnox plant is being decommissioned - could potentially host up to eight SMRs. In April, Rolls-Royce SMR signed a contract with GBE-N to begin site-specific design and delivery activities for the UK's first SMRs at Wylfa.

In May this year, GBE-N launched a contest to find a name for the SMR plant to be built at the Wylfa site. The company subsequently announced that, after hundreds of suggestions were submitted by locals, a panel of young people from Anglesey has decided the plant will be called Gwyndod Power Station.

Bluecore Energy said the financing represents a significant expansion of its initial USD10 million pre-seed round announced when the company emerged from stealth on 21 July.

Since emerging from stealth, Bluecore Energy has continued to build on its established headquarters and development operation inside the Port of Long Beach, California, secured its first barge, continued development of its first maritime nuclear energy system, and advanced its work with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the US Coast Guard.

Bluecore Energy's initial 10 MWe system is being developed to power the equivalent of about 15,000 homes or scale to meet the power needs of a major port. Designed to be fuelled once for years of operation, the reactors can be paired together for scale to provide a new power source for ports, utilities, data centres, offshore infrastructure, and communities facing energy constraints.

The company has already secured and delivered its first barge and electric test reactor to its headquarters at the Port of Long Beach and is developing and testing components of its system as it advances its engineering, regulatory, classification, and commercialisation pathways.

"The new financing will support continued engineering and hardware development, testing and validation, regulatory and classification work, manufacturing, hiring and advancement of Bluecore Energy's first system toward deployment," the company said.

"Six months ago, we were building the foundation," said Bluecore Energy founder and CEO Kofi Asante. "Today, we have the capital, the team, the hardware, and some of the most important institutions in nuclear and maritime working alongside us. Our focus now is simple: create and deliver zero-emission energy as safely and quickly as possible."

In July, the Port of Long Beach and the US Department of Transportation's Maritime Administration entered into a first-of-its-kind memorandum of cooperation to explore maritime energy systems, including potential integration of SMRs, resilient port microgrids, shoreside power infrastructure and advanced vessel propulsion technologies.

The MoU collaboration will be developed through ABB's UK operations, which are headquartered in Warrington.

"Rolls-Royce SMR is transforming the way nuclear projects are delivered, to give greater cost and schedule certainty with a standardised, factory-built approach," said Stacy O'Brien, Head of Procurement Enterprise at Rolls-Royce SMR. "ABB has a long and impressive record of delivering automation and electrification solutions to energy infrastructure projects and this agreement brings an opportunity to consider how we can further strengthen our delivery team."

"We are delighted to explore how we can work with Rolls-Royce SMR on its efforts to develop a global fleet of SMRs that can help expand reliable and affordable baseload power capacity to meet an increasing demand for low-carbon energy," said Per Erik Holsten, President of ABB's Energy Industries division. "Collaboration is also key - no single company or country alone can deliver the scale of energy expansion and energy transformation required to meet future demand. Partnerships along the energy value chain are instrumental for accelerating the commercialisation of modern, advanced nuclear technologies."

The Rolls-Royce SMR is a 470 MWe design based on a pressurised water reactor. It will be capable of powering one million UK homes for 60 years. Ninety percent of the SMR - measuring about 16 metres by 4 metres - will be built in factory conditions, limiting activity on-site primarily to assembly of pre-fabricated, pre-tested, modules which significantly reduces project risk and has the potential to shorten build schedules.

In October 2024, Rolls-Royce SMR was selected by ÄŒ·¡´Ü to deploy up to 3 GW of electricity in the Czech Republic, and ÄŒ·¡´Ü took a 20% stake in Rolls-Royce SMR. The plan is for the first SMR to be deployed in the area of the Temelín site (which already has two gigawatt-scale VVER-100 units), with further projects being developed for coal-fired power plant sites, including Tušimice. Rolls-Royce SMR has signed an early works agreement with ÄŒ·¡´Ü to progress licensing, permitting and site-specific design for deployment.

In June 2025, Rolls-Royce SMR was selected as the UK government's preferred technology for the country's first SMR project. A final investment decision is expected to be taken in 2029. In November, the UK government announced that Wylfa on the island of Anglesey, North Wales, would be the site to host the three Rolls-Royce SMR units. It said the site - where a Magnox plant is being decommissioned - could potentially host up to eight SMRs. In April, Rolls-Royce SMR signed a contract with GBE-N to begin site-specific design and delivery activities for the UK's first SMRs at Wylfa.

In October 2024, Swedish lead-cooled small modular reactor technology developer Blykalla and ABB signed an MoU under which ABB would explore how its automation, electrification and digitalisation solutions could support Blykalla's SMR prototype SEALER-E, which features an electric lead-cooled reactor. This includes cybersecurity frameworks to ensure compliance with nuclear safety regulations. In September last year, the two companies signed an MoU to accelerate the deployment of such lead-cooled SMRs for the maritime market. In May this year, Blykalla and ABB signed a Joint Development Agreement, marking a significant step forward in their collaboration and formally advancing their partnership.

"Restarting Duane Arnold is about delivering new power to meet new demand while generating billions of dollars in economic value for Iowans," said NextEra Energy Chairman, President and CEO John Ketchum. "Just as importantly, it shows how America can support rapid economic growth and rising electricity demand while helping keep power affordable for existing customers. By bringing new generation online to serve new demand, we can strengthen the grid, create hundreds of good-paying jobs and help ensure Iowa families and businesses are not asked to bear the costs of growth."

Restarting the unit will return 615 MWe of baseload power - enough to power nearly 500,000 homes - to the grid, as well as creating nearly 1,500 jobs during construction and supporting more than 450 jobs during operations, according to the Department of Energy.

The restart of the Iowa plant marks another step in advancing the USA's nuclear renaissance, Deputy Secretary of Energy James Danly said. "Returning 615 megawatts of reliable baseload generation will drive down electricity costs, while supporting thousands of American jobs. This Administration is pursuing a comprehensive nuclear strategy, restarting existing reactors, increasing the output of our nuclear fleet, and accelerating new construction, to build the abundant, affordable, and reliable power system required for American prosperity and reindustrialisation."

At the time the plant was taken out of service, it had been licensed to operate until 2034. NextEra is pursuing the restart under a comprehensive regulatory, operational readiness and licensing process, carrying out extensive inspections, engineering evaluations and readiness activities under the oversight of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other federal, state and local agencies. In June, the Iowa Utilities Commission issued a certificate authorising the construction and operation of the plant.

Loviisa - comprising two VVER-440 type pressurised water reactors - was the first nuclear power plant in Finland and currently provides more than 10% of the country's electricity. Loviisa unit 1 began commercial operation in 1977, with unit 2 following in 1981. In February 2023, the Finnish government granted Fortum an extension to the operating licence for the two units, allowing the plant to continue generating power until the end of 2050.

Fortum has an investment programme of about EUR1 billion under way in Loviisa, the aim of which is to extend the operation of the power plant until 2050. Currently, about 80% of the projects required to extend the service life and investments of EUR700 million still lack an investment decision. Fortum said the PPA with Google will generate a predictable revenue stream, enabling it to complete the life extension investments at Loviisa. The agreement is also expected to enable a new 10 MWe capacity increase. The plant already has a 38 MWe capacity increase under way, which is expected to be completed in 2028.

"Without significant investments in its lifetime extension, the plant would not be able to continue producing fossil-free electricity after 2030," Fortum said. "Keeping it in operation for the coming decades will help stabilise electricity prices and support the long-term resilience of the Finnish electricity grid."

"Finland has a unique opportunity to build the next wave of sustainable growth and industrialisation from its low-carbon and reliable electricity system," said Fortum CEO Markus Rauramo. "A key enabler for this growth are long-term partnerships, such as the one we have sealed today between Fortum and Google. The importance of partnerships is highlighted in the current uncertain market environment, characterised by low visibility and highly volatile electricity prices. They bring the predictability required for investments in new, low-carbon electricity generation capacity, strengthening energy security, and digital and industrial infrastructure, and create jobs, innovation and prosperity for Finland. In addition, our collaboration with Google creates a strong foundation for the continued development and reliable operation of our Loviisa power plant in the coming decades."

Google said: "Keeping this clean energy asset online will help to safeguard access to reliable, affordable electricity for Finland's households, businesses, and industrial users alike. We'll also work with Fortum to identify potential opportunities to develop new nuclear reactors at Loviisa."

"We are proud to have called Finland home for the past 15 years," said Aris Karcanias, Head of Energy, EMEA, Google. "As we expand our operations in Finland, it is critical that we work with local energy partners like Fortum to increase our understanding of what the grid needs and invest in energy solutions that deliver long-term resilience and affordability for all electricity users. By supporting the extension of the Loviisa power plant's lifespan, we are doing our part to preserve a critical energy source in the electricity grid. The plant is located close to our Hamina data centre, where we established roots when we came to Finland. As we grow, we are working with Fortum and other partners to bring new renewable energy generation capacity and flexible solutions to the Finnish electricity system. Our goal is to be a pioneer in how AI is responsibly integrated into European energy systems."

In addition, Google and Fortum have signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate to support the growth of both companies in Finland and to bring more electricity generation to Finland to meet the needs of the electricity grid, households and businesses. The companies intend to deepen their collaboration in the development of new nuclear power, renewable energy and flexibility solutions. The MoU aims to ensure that as demand for AI services increases, new low-carbon generation is deployed to support the long-term electricity supply of Finnish consumers and businesses.

Also, Fortum and Google have signed a letter of intent to promote new power generation and flexible capacity. As a first step, Fortum has signed an agreement with Google to optimise the battery storage system to be located at the Kajaani data centre. The new battery system has a capacity of 94 MW, and Google has agreed to deliver it with a subcontractor.

Fortum noted that it has stated in its study on new nuclear power that potential investments in new nuclear power and its long-term financial viability require strong customer demand secured by power purchase agreements, strategic investors and partners, an efficient financing and risk-sharing model, and strong project implementation. "Google and Fortum are investigating business models that could improve the competitiveness of the new nuclear power project in Loviisa. In addition, the companies are investigating the suitability of Fortum's land areas with network connections for Google's future data centre needs," Fortum said.

Orano marked the start of the construction phase for implementation of the Zuuvch Ovoo project in Mongolia earlier this year. Maes said the company - which is celebrating its 50th anniversary - had worked for decades with the Mongolian government to reach this point, including a negotiation of an investment agreement which received 79% approval in a parliamentary vote. This "unprecedented" support gives a "very strong" legitimacy to the project, he added. 

"By the end of October, we'll already have committed 25% of the spend for this mine. By the end of the decade, it produces," he said.

_{Nicholas Maes (Image: ÌÇÐÄÊÓƵ)}

The project will use in-situ leach (also known as in-situ recovery) methods, and according to previously released information, will have a nominal production capacity of about 2,500 tU per year for a 30-year estimated lifespan, creating 1,600 direct and indirect jobs.

The majority of additional gigawatts that will make up a doubling or tripling of nuclear energy will come from large-scale reactors that are similar to those in operation today - and that is good news from a fuel cycle perspective, Maes said. Although capacity growth may include numerous small modular reactors (SMRs), "when you pull it back into tonnage of fuel, the vast majority" will be similar to the fuel that is already in use. 

This is good news for the nuclear fuel supply chain, economically, he said. "Because what that means is that a very significant part of doubling or tripling nuclear will come from existing materials and existing technologies and existing sites. And so they are here and ready to support that effort. It then becomes just a matter of investing in them on time and having a shared vision of when the capacity will be needed. But the technology exists."

SMRs will complement large-scale reactors, but from a fuel cycle perspective, "our message is there is an absolute need to standardise the fuel, because developing a new type of fuel is as expensive as developing a reactor", Maes added. "And so, if each and every SMR developer develops its own fuel, then the maths won't work and the economics won't be there. And at the end, what matters is that the energy produced by those reactors is efficient. So what we are doing at Orano in that field is to propose and act as a catalyst for all the SMRs which occur so that we can trigger standardisation of the fuel supply chain and then be able to invest in that in an economic fashion."

Series effect

Maes was a participant in a panel discussion which brought together senior leaders from across the nuclear value chain to highlight significant advances, achievements and new ways of working that will drive progress in the years to come.

EDF Chairman and CEO Bernard Fontana highlighted the return of the "series effect" - building series of reactors with standardised technology. "Until the recent past, we were building here and there, one reactor - this is difficult, expensive", he said. But, he said - citing the the series of EPR reactors being built at Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C in the UK - "when we build, we can improve, reduce the cost, reduce the time, reduce the risk … And also with those series, it gives visibility to all the supply chains. When they see they can work for 15 years, 20 years, they are prepared to invest".

Westinghouse Chief Technology Officer Lou Martinez Sancho agreed that standardisation was critical to successful scale-up. She described Vogtle 4 in the USA as Westinghouse's "copy-and-paste" for the fully-modular AP1000 reactor worldwide. "And that creates that availability on the supply chain as well, and visibility in how it's going to work. The best way to get certainty on the delivery … is getting certainty on the design that is fully frozen."

Any series starts with a first-of-a-kind project, and it is important to get that right, GE Vernova Hitachi Chief Commercial Officer Nicole Holmes said. The first-of-a-kind BWRX-300 is under construction at Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) Darlington site in Ontario. "You see the pieces of the project coming together," Holmes said, going on to highlight the importance of a "bold customer" in OPG, a good site, and alignment between the government and regulator for project success. "Of course, first-of-a-kind is not the goal, but building one, doing it well, learning, repeating, this is how we build the fleet."

World Nuclear Symposium 2026 is taking place in London from 10-11 September.

However, in an interview published by the Financial Times, CEO Kris Singh said a recent market turn against the AI data centre economy was responsible. "It's like a perfect storm," Singh told the publication. "Our business, rightly or wrongly, is viewed as connected to it [data centres]. We provide nuclear power. So that was, of course, a big factor in market sentiment against nuclear."

The US-headquartered, multinational technology company, which is the owner and developer of the SMR-300 advanced small modular reactor, is also the authorised operator of the Palisades nuclear power plant in Michigan, which it is in the process of recommissioning. With technical capabilities including reactor design, reactor operations, engineering, licensing, manufacturing, construction, commissioning, and decommissioning services, and three large US-based manufacturing facilities for nuclear fabrication, and operating on five continents, the company says it has provided products and services to a client base of more than 150 nuclear reactors worldwide.

Holtec announced the filing of its Form S-1 with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) relating to the proposed initial public offering (IPO) of its Class A common stock in mid-July, and its intention to list its Class A common stock on The Nasdaq Stock Market and Nasdaq Texas. According to that filing, the company - which conducts its business through Holtec International - intended to reorganise under the Holtec Nuclear Corporation holding company name as part of the offering process.

On 8 September, the company announced the launch of the "roadshow" for the proposed IPO of 50,000,000, with the price expected to be between USD15.00 and USD18.00 per share, which would have raised up to USD900 million. 

Recent weeks have seen Holtec projects progressing around the world. Fuel loading began at Palisades - set to be the first commercial nuclear reactor in the USA to resume operations following permanent shutdown - on 30 August, and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has given the company the go-ahead to begin certain early site work for the first deployment of the SMR-300, Pioneer units 1 and 2, which will also be built at the Michigan site. In June, Holtec and EDF submitted a joint proposal for up to four SMR-300 small modular reactors at the Cottam power plant site in Nottinghamshire in the UK.

"In particular, the signing of the letter of intent in the presence of both leaders is significant as it reflects the strong interest shared by South Korea and France in nuclear energy and the nuclear fuel supply chain, and further strengthens strategic cooperation beyond the corporate level," Orano said.

Under the letter of intent, Orano and KHNP - which has held 2.5% of Orano's Georges Besse 2 enrichment plant in France since mid-2009 - are preparing to deepen their ties, further strengthening cooperation between the two companies in the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle. KHNP said it expects to expand its access to new Western enrichment sources and further diversify its nuclear fuel supply chain, while Orano said it expects to strengthen the foundation of its new enrichment projects.

"Amid growing uncertainty in the global nuclear fuel market, it is critical to proactively secure reliable sources of supply," said KHNP CEO Kim Hoe-chun. "This LOI (letter of intent) will serve as an important opportunity to expand cooperation between the two companies and further strengthen the stability of our nuclear fuel supply."

Claude Imauven, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Orano, said: "This cooperation with KHNP represents an important opportunity to further strengthen the relationship between the two companies. We look forward to continuing our cooperation in the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle."

KHNP operates 26 reactors, generating about one-third of South Korea's electricity.

According to ÌÇÐÄÊÓƵ information, South Korea has always had an open fuel cycle, without enrichment or reprocessing, due to the terms of its 1973 nuclear cooperation agreement with the USA. This agreement was renewed in June 2015. The country sources uranium for fuel from Kazakhstan, Canada, Australia, Niger and elsewhere - about 4700 tU per year. Tenex, Urenco, Centrus and Orano have supplied enrichment services. In mid-2007, KHNP signed a long-term EUR1 billion contract with Areva NC (now Orano) for enrichment services at the Georges Besse II plant.

HALEU fuel enriched to between 5% and 20% of the fissile uranium-235 isotope will be needed to fuel many of the advanced reactor designs that are under development. With no commercial source of the material in the USA, the US Department of Energy has been actively supporting the development of a domestic US supply chain. In 2019, it awarded Centrus a contract to license and construct a cascade of advanced centrifuges to demonstrate HALEU production at the American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio, and in 2022 selected the company through a competitive process for the three-phase follow-on contract to bring the cascade into production and to deliver HALEU for the DOE's use. 

Last year, Centrus announced plans for a major expansion of the plant to boost production of both low-enriched uranium and HALEU. The expansion is expected to create 1,000 construction jobs and 300 new operating jobs in Ohio alone, while retaining the 150 jobs that existed at the Piketon plant when the expansion began, the company said.

Centrus said the contract with Radiant further strengthens its position as "a leading fuel supplier for next generation nuclear technologies while expanding its role in the emerging microreactor market".

The agreement includes Radiant prepayments to Centrus to support its domestic commercial enrichment capacity programme. For Radiant, the contract adds another domestic source of HALEU as the company moves from its first Kaleidos test toward commercial and national security deployments, reinforcing the fuel supply it continues to build in parallel with the reactor itself.

"The contract with Radiant marks another important step in building the domestic fuel supply chain needed to support the next generation of nuclear energy," said Amir Vexler, President and Chief Executive Officer of Centrus. "By expanding our work to include innovative microreactor developers like Radiant, we are strengthening the US-based fuel supply network. This will help ensure that emerging nuclear technologies have access to the reliable fuel they need to reach commercialisation and meet growing demand for clean, secure, and dependable energy."

Rita Baranwal, Chief Nuclear Officer of Radiant, added: "You can't deploy nuclear reactors without fuel, so we have approached our fuel supply the same way we have approached the reactor: build it in parallel, and don't depend on any single path. This agreement gives Kaleidos a continued source of HALEU for commercial and national security applications and removes one of the biggest constraints facing advanced nuclear deployment. We're securing the fuel supply chain alongside the reactor so that when Kaleidos is ready to deploy at scale, the infrastructure behind it is ready too."

Kaleidos is a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor using TRISO fuel, helium gas coolant, and prismatic graphite blocks. The transportable microreactor will be fully contained in a single shipping container, and is designed to generate 3MW thermal or around 1MW electrical.

The country's nuclear power plant operator ÄŒ·¡´Ü began work to diversify its nuclear fuel suppliers in 2018, signing a contract for the supply of fuel assemblies for the Temelín plant with Westinghouse, and France's Framatome, in 2022. The fuel for Temelín was delivered last year.

The process of getting the fuel approved is a long one - there has been a five-year series of analyses and tests as part of ensuring the new fuel meets the strictest safety requirements. That included experts spending two years evaluating the fuel's behaviour during normal operation from a safety perspective, its compatibility with the reactor and the method of handling and storage, ÄŒ·¡´Ü said.

Daniel Beneš, Chairman and CEO of ÄŒ·¡´Ü Group, said: "This is another important step in strengthening the energy security of the Czech Republic and diversifying nuclear fuel suppliers. In addition, we also hold strategic reserves of nuclear fuel in both of our nuclear power plants."

_{The fuel assemblies were delivered during 2025 (Image: ÄŒ·¡´Ü)}

ÄŒ·¡´Ü signed a contract in 2022 for the supply of fuel assemblies for the Temelín nuclear power plant with Westinghouse - for the Robust Westinghouse Fuel Assembly design (RWFA-T) from Westinghouse Electric Sweden AB​ - and with Framatome, and the following year signed a contract with Westinghouse for Dukovany. In June 2025 its first VVER-440 fuel reload of its NOVA E-6 design was delivered to Dukovany. ÄŒ·¡´Ü said it was preparing licensing for the Dukovany fuel assemblies.

The Czech Republic currently gets about one-third of its electricity from the two VVER-1000 units in operation at Temelín, which came into operation in 2000 and 2002, and four VVER-440 units at Dukovany, which began operating between 1985 and 1987.

The diversification of nuclear fuel suppliers - and increases in fuel reserves - is seen as increasing energy security among European Union countries previously using Russia's TVEL for fuel for their VVER reactors which were designed in the Soviet Union era.

"This capital raising resolves the last funding hurdle for Bannerman as we move towards a Final Investment Decision on the Etango uranium mine and progress to becoming a major new greenfield uranium producer," Bannerman Executive Chairman Brando Munro said. "With Etango construction now fully funded, with no debt, a world-class partner and with all of our working capital obligations backed by a strong balance sheet, Bannerman is exceptionally well positioned for the next phase of development. We look forward to progressing Etango towards a Final Investment Decision - expected in Q4 2026 - alongside our partner, CNOL, and to delivering value for both existing and new shareholders who have supported the Company through this important milestone.”

CNOL is part of integrated global nuclear utility group, China National Nuclear Corporation.

Proceeds from the placement, alongside Bannerman’s existing cash, near-term CNOL subscription and reimbursement payments, and CNOL’s pro-rata working capital contributions, is expected to fully fund Etango through construction and ramp-up, Bannerman said. In addition to the placement, Bannerman will also conduct a non-underwritten share purchase plan for investors in Australia and New Zealand, to raise up to AUD10 million.

Completion of the share subscription agreement and execution of the agreement for the incorporated joint venture - currently known as JVCo - in which Bannerman will hold 55% and CNOL 45% is expected to take place this month.

Early works construction activities at the project are said to be tracking in line with budget and schedule. As of late June, bulk earthworks contract were around 92% complete. Detailed design and procurement activities were also on schedule, with civil and mechanical design for the "dry" 94% complete.

The Etango project is in the Erongo Region of Namibia, 30 kilometres south-east of Swakopmund with an estimated mineral resource base of 207 million pounds U3O8 (79,622 tU) at a 100 ppm cut-off. A definitive feasibility study completed in 2022 confirmed the technical and economic viability of conventional open pit mining and heap leach producing 3.5 million pounds U3O8 per year, with a 2024 scoping study outlining potential expansion to 6.7 million pounds per year.

The new feasibility study reflects an updated mineral resource estimate, as well as incorporating additional drilling, detailed permeability and geometallurgical analysis, actual wellfield performance and advanced reactive transport modelling. Taken together, the company says, this has "materially improved Boss's understanding of the distribution of uranium mineralisation, permeability, hydraulic connectivity and the geochemical processes controlling uranium recovery".

Estimated resources now stand at 20.8 million pounds U3O8 at a 100 ppm cut-off (lower than the 250 ppm cut-off in the previous estimate), with 13.7 million pounds in the Indicated category and 7.1 million pounds U3O8 of Inferred resources. As well as the reduction in cut-off grade, the new figure reflects a change in estimation approach and the application of ISR-specific criteria for assessing the reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction. The updated figure represents a decrease in metal of 15.1 million pounds U3O8 compared to the previous (2019) estimate.
 
The study also confirms a wide-spaced five-spot, 8 pattern, wellfield design as optimal for the development of the Honeymoon, where in-situ recovery (ISR) - also known as in-situ leach - is used to recover uranium. ISR is a method of mining uranium by dissolving and recovering it via wells. A wider spaced drilling pattern reduces the number of wells and associated surface infrastructure required and lowering the relative cost of development. The wider spacing and refined operational design enabled by deposit characteristics at Honeymoon result in significantly lower acid consumption, while increased effective recoveries enable more of Honeymoon’s extensive lower-grade mineralisation to be incorporated into the production plan, the company said.

Boss CEO and Managing Director Matthew Dusci said the new study "establishes a technically robust pathway for Honeymoon and delivers a fundamental step change in the operation’s cost structure", and has enabled the wellfields to be redesigned around the characteristics of the orebody. There remains "significant scope" for further optimisations as operating data continues to build, he added, with 45.1 million pounds U3O8 of resources at Gould's Dam and Jasons Deposit - which are not included in the NFS - providing "substantial potential to increase annual production and extend mine life".

In its guidance for FY2027 - which Boss Energy says is a transition year as Honeymoon moves from legacy wellfield spacing to the wide-spaced design - the company expects production of 1.25-1.30 million pounds U3O8.

ISR operations began at Honeymoon in 2011, but the mine was put on care-and-maintenance in 2013 by its then-owner Uranium One. Boss acquired the project in 2015.

Kazatomprom has a diversified sales portfolio, with about half of the company's annual sales going to what it calls the East and the rest almost evenly split between Europe and the USA. Year-to-year, the appetite from the East continues to grow, and this is backed up by a concrete set of actions, Kosherbayev said during a panel session at the London conference, which had "From Ambition to Action" as its overarching theme. But this is not being matched in the West, he said, adding that Kazakhstan is "eagerly waiting for when one of the countries in the West will actually start delivering on nuclear capacity".

"We will do business with everyone who's willing to do business, and as long as it's fruitful for all the parties involved, we will be committed," he said. 

While there were "excellent" fundamentals in place, Kosherbayev told journalists the national atomic company of Kazakhstan has to extract as much value as possible for its shareholders. "A lot of Eastern buyers see uranium as more of a strategic commodity and are less price-sensitive than Western buyers, with volumes of more concern to them than pricing.

"At Kazatomprom, we find ourselves in a situation where it's fair to say that we could have sold the entire volume of our production into the East and still there would be more appetite coming from the East," Kosherbayev said on the sidelines of the two-day symposium. 

Cameco is a joint venture partner with Kazatomprom in the Inkai joint venture, in addition to production from its Tier 1 assets in Canada. Cory Kos, the company's Vice President, Investor Relations and Communications, said buyers were willing to accept premium pricing for reliable production from safe sovereign jurisdictions, but this is not yet at a level to incentivise Cameco to consider moving its Tier 2 assets - including mothballed assets in the USA - back into operation.

At this stage, Kos said, Cameco sees its Tier 2 assets as competitive with "greenfield" projects - although greenfield projects have a higher risk profile. "When there's a customer in discussions with a greenfield producer to say we will pay X to start that new mine in 2035, or 2036 … we'll be at the other end of the table to say, well, you could take a risk with that brand new producer who's never produced a pound … or you can come to us and we could restart these Tier 2 operations, bring those to the table, and we have alternative sources and such."

Kos also said new types of buyers - such as hyperscalers - were showing an interest in uranium. "We've got a few term sheets out to something, nobody's bought anything yet, but a few of the big names that you would know are poking around." Energy security, rather than cost, is the driver here, he said, even when companies are not clear on their own energy strategy just yet. Some such companies may target a strategy of actually building and operating a nuclear reactor to meet their electricity needs, others may consider securing electricity power purchase agreements or similar, while some will simply buy from the grid.

"But in each one of those strategies, they're all looking at it and saying, well, if I do, or a company that's running a reactor for me, needs uranium in a tight supply situation, maybe I should just buy some today … And looking at the supply demand scenario today, it doesn't look like that's too bad of an investment."

As of 1 January 2025, currently identified uranium resources recoverable at costs below USD260/kgU were more than 8.1 million tonnes of uranium (tU) globally - up 2.1% from the figure reported in the previous edition, published in 2025. Expenditure in uranium exploration and mine development - essential to sustain future demand - has increased significantly in recent years, reaching USD1.8 billion globally in 2023-2024 - a 46% increase in exploration from the 2021-2022 period. According to Adrienne Hanly, Lead, Uranium Resources and Production at the IAEA, this is a response to the signal that more uranium will be needed to supply future nuclear growth.

Global nuclear generating capacity is projected to increase substantially by 2050: the Red Book cites growth scenarios under which uranium demand could more than double by 2050 in a high-demand scenario and increase by 42% in a low-demand case. The level of identified uranium resources is sufficient to meet even the highest projected uranium demand through 2050, the report concludes - but notes that resource availability alone does not guarantee supply security. Converting resources into production will require "timely, substantial and sustained investment" - and given the long lead times associated with uranium mining project development, identifying and advancing new projects in the near to medium term is crucial to avoid potential supply disruptions. And this will need the right signals - "adequate and sustained uranium prices supported by long-term contracts" are critical to maintain exploration momentum, support final investment decisions for new mines, and accelerate innovation in extraction techniques for improved processing and recovery of resources, it concludes.

The report finds that global uranium production increased by around 20% in 2023 and 2024 compared with the previous two years, reaching more than 116,000 tU: 2024's production alone (61,924 tU) was the highest since 2006. This upward trend - driven primarily by the restart of previously idled capacity and the expansion of output at existing mines, particularly in Canada - is expected to continue in the near and medium term. 

Speaking at the launch event in Vienna, ÌÇÐÄÊÓƵ Director General Sama Bilbao y León said: "The renewed momentum in uranium mining reflects the growing recognition that nuclear energy will need to play a larger role in the future clean energy systems of the world. It is a story of confidence - confidence that nuclear energy will continue to expand, confidence that the fuel cycle can evolve to meet that growth, and confidence that industry, governments and international organisations can continue to work together to ensure the secure supply of the fuel that underpins abundant, affordable, clean, reliable nuclear energy."

The 2026 Red Book is available .

GLE was formed in 2007 to develop and commercialise laser-based uranium enrichment technology capability in the USA. It is 51%-owned by Silex Systems, the Australian inventor of the SILEX laser enrichment process, and 49% owned by Cameco.

Silex CEO/Managing Director Michael Goldsworthy said the offtake agreement provides a "home" for all of GLE’s future nuclear fuel products, including natural uranium hexafluoride (UF6) and enriched uranium products. It will guarantee GLE receives pricing for its products equivalent to Cameco’s average realised price, net of appropriate selling costs, achieved on an annual basis across its long-term contracting portfolio, without GLE needing to incur the cost of establishing its own sales and marketing resources.

"Cameco is one of the largest global providers of nuclear fuel with significant investments across the nuclear industry, including 49% ownership interests in both GLE and Westinghouse Electric Company," he said. "The Agreement with Cameco also provides a key commercial pillar to support a future final investment decision (FID) for the PLEF. The Offtake Agreement contains customary contractual terms to protect the interests of GLE and Silex."

North Carolina-based GLE last year achieved Technology Readiness Level 6, following the completion of a large-scale uranium enrichment demonstration programme using SILEX laser enrichment technology at its Test Loop facility in Wilmington, North Carolina. It completed a full licence application to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission for PLEF - the Paducah Laser Enrichment Facility - in July last year.

_{Stephen Long (centre) at World Nuclear Symposium 2026 (Image: ÌÇÐÄÊÓƵ)}

Speaking at World Nuclear Symposium 2026 in London last week, GLE CEO Stephen Long said the company expects to have a licence in hand for PLEF in early 2027, and plans to serve all enrichment markets whether for low-enriched uranium, LEU+ (uranium enriched to between 5% and 10% uranium-235) or high-assay low enriched uranium. 

Paducah is the site of a former gaseous diffusion uranium enrichment plant, and GLE intends to re-enrich high-assay depleted uranium tails from previous operations there under an agreement with the US Department of Energy. GLE expects to produce about 70,000 tonnes of "new, fresh feed" from the 200,000-plus tonnes of tails at Paducah over the plant's lifetime, Long said.

The commercialisation pathway, as well as technology maturation and preparing for the final investment decision, are key to de-risking the project for GLE, Long said.

"We've tried very carefully to choose a low-risk commercialisation pathway that exercises supply discipline and relies on durable demand in the enrichment market, regardless of happens in the broader landscape," he said.

The Industrial Complex for Solid Radioactive Waste Management (ICSRM) began operations in May after receiving its licence from the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine.

The new complex is processing solid radioactive waste which was accumulated during the period when the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant was in operation, and which has been stored at the Solid Radioative Waste Storage Facility, which dates back to 1978.

The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant had four operating units - unit 4, which was destroyed in the 1986 accident () - and three other units, all RBMK-1000 reactors, which closed down in 1991, 1996 and 2000, respectively. There are also two almost-completed ones which never entered service which are being decommissioned.

Chornobyl NPP (Chornobyl is the preferred Ukrainian spelling) says the accumulated waste "includes used personal protective equipment, thermal insulation materials, cable insulations and the cables themselves, individual metal structures, soil, concrete, reinforcing steel, ion-exchange resins from water treatment system filters, etc".

The specialised solid radioactive waste retrieval process has a capacity of three cubic metres per day, with the retrieved waste loaded into a special transport container and "then transported via a process gallery to the hot cell of the facility intended for all categories solid radioactive waste sorting and low- and intermediate-level waste processing".

"At this stage, each batch of waste undergoes radiological characterisation and control. Specifically, checks are conducted for the presence of potential ionising radiation sources and other high-level waste that should not enter the processing stream. Following characterisation, the waste is loaded into 165-litre drums and compacted. The immobilised and packaged radioactive waste is then transported to ENSDF for disposal."

The State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine gave approval for the commissioning of the Solid Waste Retrieval Facility and Solid Waste Processing Plant at the Chernobyl site in January last year.

The ICSRM was majority funded by the European Union and encompasses four facilities for solid radioactive waste management integrated in a single technology cycle. It includes a facility for temporary storage for low- and intermediate-level long-lived waste as well as high-level waste. This is within the Liquid and Solid Waste Storage Facility and was commissioned in 2010.

There is also the near-surface storage facility for low- and intermediate-level short-lived waste with a capacity of 55,000 cubic metres. It will accept waste for 30 years and store it for 300 years.

The overall complex is part of SSE CERWM, the State Specialised Enterprise for Radioactive Waste Management. The plant lies about 130 kilometres north of Kiev and about 20 kilometres south of the border with Belarus.

The pace of progress across the past five years was not foreseen at the turn of the decade, and with technologies rapidly advancing, focus is now turning to establishment of the policy, planning, market, and regulatory frameworks within which projects can proceed. Swift action is needed to ensure the wider ecosystem does not impede the delivery of this, most transformational, technology.

Effective and investible commercial fusion projects will depend on the existence of attractive commercial frameworks, risk-proportionate regulation, viable planning systems, rapid workforce development and scalability in the supply chain - all at a pace which matches development of plant designs.

These are challenges common to the industrial deployment of energy at scale - and areas in which the wider sector has lessons for fusion, from both its successes and challenges. Fission is a natural place to look: the fusion community has long sought appropriate understanding of how the two differ, but this desire for differentiation exists alongside the recognition of significant overlaps in supply chain, workforce, and infrastructure.

While the global fusion market is moving at pace, with the US leading the way in private startups and the German government demonstrating remarkable industrial integration, the wider ecosystem is something in which the UK remains a world leader, so it is in the UK that we can start, when looking for lessons from fission.

Regulation

Outside of the technical, regulation is perhaps the area of greatest progress to date - and an area where fission lessons apply most directly to fusion. Led by the UK, there is an emerging global consensus that a blanket application of fission regimes to fusion would be disproportionate, moreover, that the bodies and structures which apply fission regulation should not necessarily do so for fusion.

In fission, the necessity for strong regulation, and the professionalism of those who ensure (in industry) and assure (in regulators) these stringent rules, is beyond question. The UK's Fingleton report, however, recently identified many areas where regulatory reform could streamline and enable the sector without compromising effectiveness. With no chain reaction scenario, no long-lived radioactive waste, and fundamentally lower risks and challenges, fusion must ensure from the outset that the arrangements established assure safety, while still maximising deployability.

Planning

Planning is another area where fusion can immediately import lessons - fast-tracking towards a success that was delayed for too long for other technologies. The Planning Act 2008 was perhaps the most significant legislative step in efforts to enable a new generation of energy infrastructure to be delivered in the UK, notably reducing risk and uncertainty around build projects.  For fusion, publication in June 2026 of EN8 - a draft national policy statement for fusion power plants - is an example of how early establishment of the right ecosystem is enabling the development of fusion projects - and making the UK an attractive place for fusion business.

While there remain critics of the Development Consent Order process, we need only look to consenting challenges of decades past - the Sizewell B planning enquiry chief amongst them. The enquiry sat for 340 days over two years, of which very few addressed truly local matters. Establishing a strategic needs case in national statute provides certainty and investability for developers - as the growth of offshore wind under NPS has shown, while allowing local planning processes to focus on important and impactful local considerations.

Market Environment

If regulation and consenting are seen as enablers for build, the market environment and associated financial return are the very case for any project. An investible, viable, and (in a  competitive global market) attractive market framework is essential to ignite early fusion projects - which will create supply chain hubs, workforce development, and embed the most enduring economic value.

The 2008 white paper which invited private development of fission plants did not address the need for a bankable investment environment. As projects progressed, we saw the 2010 launch of electricity market reform to enable all clean energy investment. Feed-in tariffs drove early solar deployment and cost reduction until projects could stand on their own, while Contracts for Difference found their first great success in offshore wind, where successive auction rounds cut costs and built a substantial UK supply chain - proof of what the right market framework, established early, can deliver for an emerging energy technology. For fission, the search continued - through the Regulated Asset Base and ultimately to the measures proposed under the 2026 Advanced Nuclear Framework. While the landscape now appears viable, 15 years of market creativity has been a challenging road.

In March 2026, the UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero explicitly stated it would establish the market framework for fusion power sales in the UK - recognising that taking this challenge head on would yield greatest market stability. The Fusion Industry Association (FIA) will soon launch a private-public dialogue, a process which will bring together key stakeholders to define the parameters of private investability and public viability, and propose within the venn area a market which can deliver at pace and scale. The recommendations of this process will aim to aid and inform Government proposals.

Fusion Communities

Finally, at the heart of these proposals are communities. The world now has several ‘fusion communities’. Aside from the long-standing research communities around places like Culham, and the hosts of leading private fusion companies with their extensive labs and demonstrators, we now have world-leading projects sited in: Virginia (ARC, Commonwealth Fusion Systems); Tennessee (Type One); Washington (Helion), Bavaria (Proxima), Hessen (Focused) and Nottinghamshire (STEP, UK Government).

One area where the fission record is unquestionable, is its ability and commitment to maintaining outstanding relationships with host communities. The relationship between fission plants and their hosts is second to none: in this area, fusion must look to fission for lessons in success.

The UK Fusion Forum in September - and a UK-led Global Policy Summit on 14 September - will consider these themes, alongside wider discussions of the sector, and take heed of fission experience.

- The  is taking place in London on 14/15 September

Nuclear reactors worldwide generated 2,702 TWh of electricity in 2025, beating the previous year's record of 2,667 TWh. And the positive trend is also seen in a recent increase in construction starts, as shown by the chart below, which shows how it has fluctuated over the past 75 years, says Cobb, who is senior programme lead, climate, at ÌÇÐÄÊÓƵ.

_{(Image: ÌÇÐÄÊÓƵ)}

Cobb says: "That represents around 9% of world electricity. So we are seeing this increase in nuclear generation worldwide, principally at the moment in Asia, with other regions maintaining their levels of generation. But as we look to countries wanting to increase their nuclear capacity, and new build programmes coming into place, we would expect to see the nuclear generation rising in the future in all regions."

He also talks about the stats showing that the reliability of nuclear energy plants remains high across the global fleet and across the life of reactors, even as individual units age. The average capacity factor was 83.7% in 2025 (a capacity factor of 100% would be if a unit generated electricity 24 hours a day 365 days a year).

Looking ahead at the prospects for new nuclear capacity, the report projects that it could reach 1,457 GWe by 2050 if all national targets and goals are achieved and the existing fleet continues to operate. With current operating capacity being 423 GWe, that projected figure would be 200 GWe more than a tripling of the current levels.

New capacity under construction increased to 82 GWe, with eleven reactors starting construction in 2025. The combined total of planned, proposed and potential capacity has increased to 416 GWe, reducing the gap between actual projects and government targets. That means there is still about 550 GWe of capacity countries are targeting which has yet to become specific announced projects. 

"So there is a need for governments, if they are going to reach the goals that they wish to reach, to take the measures and work with industry, work with finance community to bring on the plans for that additional capacity," he says.

Out of the ambitions for 1,457 GWe capacity by 2050, 1,303 GWe would be in countries which already have nuclear power reactors. There would be another 154 GWe of capacity that would be in countries that are either constructing their first reactors or are already planning to build reactors in the future, he says.

To help the process of achieving that goal, the report sets out 12 policy recommendations.

Cobb explains: "We have 12 connected policy priorities. They're not separate initiatives. The first is defining energy and sustainable economic policy. Governments need to give a clear, durable place for nuclear in national energy, climate, industry and development strategies and ensure that international frameworks recognise its contribution to security, resilience and decarbonisation. There's a need for work on financing and market design. Political risk needs to be reduced through long-term commitments. And you need to make sure that risks are allocated appropriately between public and private sectors.

"There are recommendations on regulation and permitting, on optimising the performance of existing reactors. Looking also at nuclear technology development and deployment. We also look very clearly at uranium and fuel supply, because it's obviously important if you're going to build a lot more reactors, to ensure that you have the mining, the conversion, the enrichment and fabrication all in place, expanding so it can meet the demand that those new reactors are going to generate. We also look at reprocessing and recycling for those countries that choose that route. For them, stable policy and predictable regulation is going to help improve resource use, strengthen fuel security.

"We also look at waste management, disposal and decommissioning. Every programme really needs an integrated, funded, long-term strategy, and we look at supply chain capability. Long-term order books can give suppliers the confidence to invest. Aligning standards and qualifying suitable industry-grade components could help broaden participation and lower costs. We need to look at industry policy and programme delivery. Nuclear projects should support regional development and high-value employment. But delivery also requires clear ownership, realistic schedules, collaborative contracts, and early supply chain involvement.

"And very much related to that is workforce and skills. Workforce planning needs to be put in place alongside programme design. That means expanding education and training, enabling international skills mobility, transferring expertise and creating retraining routes from adjacent industries needs to be put in place. And finally, of course, we need to bring the public along with us and other stakeholders. There needs to be public confidence and engagement. Trust is going to depend on accessible evidence about both the benefits and risks involved in projects, early stakeholder mapping and meaningful community participation."

So does Cobb think the tripling capacity target will be achieved? "I think there are some very good signs. What we have seen, even over less than a year since the last report, is that the number of planned projects has increased, the amount of under construction projects has increased. We are seeing that transfer from government goals into actual identifiable projects, and then into getting spades in the ground and starting construction. So we are starting to see that movement from ambition into action."

"The 2050 goal that was set may have seemed somewhat in the future, but it is less than 25 years away now. So we really, as an industry and as a society as a whole, need to be accelerating the steps that have been taken so far in order to deliver on those ambitions."

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The planned production site, which will be the first-of-its-kind in Germany and Europe, will create an essential industrial foundation in Lower Saxony for Proxima's Alpha fusion demonstrator, its planned Stellaris power plant at the site of a former Gundremmingen nuclear power plant, and, ultimately, the production of stellarators at scale. Beyond supporting the stellarator supply chain, the High-temperature superconducting (HTS) manufacturing capacity would also serve other applications including high-performance electricity grids, medical imaging and treatment, advanced propulsion systems and other high-field magnet technologies. Under current plans, Proxima will require approximately 20,000 kilometres of HTS tape for Alpha and a further 40,000 kilometres for Stellaris.

"This plant enables Germany to retain manufacturing expertise and economic value, make its European supply chains more resilient and translate its world-leading stellarator research into an internationally significant industry," Proxima said. "By bringing together materials expertise, production processes, quality assurance, skilled workers and suppliers, it would create a critical upstream manufacturing capability with applications across a wide range of sectors while reducing dependence on overseas suppliers."

Proxima - which was spun out from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics - said it is in discussions with several international technology partners about bringing established HTS manufacturing expertise and production capabilities to Lower Saxony.

"We are making Lower Saxony a pioneer in European HTS manufacturing," said Olaf Lies, Minister-President of Lower Saxony. "This will not only support Germany's ambitious fusion-energy goals, but also bring advanced manufacturing, new economic value, highly skilled jobs and technological expertise to our state, with the potential to generate positive innovation effects across many other industries. Lower Saxony will become, quite literally, a magnet for a new critical technology."

Francesco Sciortino, co-founder and CEO of Proxima Fusion, added: "HTS tape is one of the critical technologies needed to scale fusion rapidly at an industrial level. Alpha and Stellaris will create the demand required to build this manufacturing expertise locally. Lower Saxony has the industrial base, energy expertise and political determination to turn a supply-chain dependency into an enduring strategic strength for Germany and Europe."

HTS tape is a specialised metallic tape that becomes superconducting at relatively high temperatures. In its superconducting state, it can carry electrical currents with virtually no resistive losses, making it possible to build electromagnets that are both exceptionally powerful and compact. The magnets built from the tape are essential to stellarators: they generate the magnetic fields that confine and control the extremely hot plasma inside a fusion machine. This makes HTS tape a key enabling technology for fusion. By enabling more compact and powerful fusion machines, it supports not only the technical realisation of fusion energy, but also the development of cost-effective power plants. Currently, HTS tape is manufactured at industrial scale primarily in Asia.

A stellarator fusion reactor is different to a tokamak fusion reactor such as the Joint European Torus in the UK or the ITER device under construction in France. A tokamak is based on a uniform toroid shape, whereas a stellarator twists that shape in a figure-8. This gets round the problems tokamaks face when magnetic coils confining the plasma are necessarily less dense on the outside of the toroidal ring.

Under the joint declaration - signed at the Global Fusion Policy Summit in London on Monday - UKAEA's SUNRISE mission-focused AI supercomputer would be linked with PPPL's Simulation, Technology and Experiment Leveraging Learning-Accelerated Research (STELLAR-AI) platform through a partnership known as the SUNRISE–STELLAR-AI Federation. SUNRISE is the UK's first AI supercomputer dedicated to fusion energy, backed by GBP45 million (USD60.6 million) from the UK government. STELLAR-AI is PPPL's USD13 million AI and high-performance computing platform to be operated with support from Princeton University. STELLAR-AI is designed to host AI tools and workflows as they mature.

The collaboration - which builds on a memorandum of understanding signed between UKAEA and PPPL in June - would draw on experiments completed using UKAEA's MAST Upgrade facility in Oxfordshire and PPPL's NSTX-U facility in New Jersey. The federation will mean both advanced computers will be used to train the same AI models, which need large volumes of high-quality data to make accurate predictions.

Linking the two computer systems will let researchers on both sides of the Atlantic share experimental data, train AI on the results of two different experimental fusion facilities and run their models on the machine best suited to the task, PPPL noted. Both MAST Upgrade and NSTX-U are compact spherical tokamaks with similar designs, making them well suited for joint AI training.

"When different facilities are combined, researchers can develop more powerful machine-learning models that better capture the underlying physics and help accelerate future fusion projects, including the UK's Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP Fusion) and US concepts such as PPPL's Spherical Tokamak Advanced Reactor (STAR)," UKAEA said.

"Fusion is one of the great scientific and engineering challenges of our time," said Joe Milnes, Executive Director for Engineering and Computing at UKAEA. "To solve these challenges, fusion needs partnerships. The US and UK are two global leaders in fusion research, and the federation of SUNRISE and STELLAR-AI would build on a long history of transatlantic cooperation to further advance fusion development."

"UKAEA and PPPL would draw on experimental data from two world-leading fusion machines, using simulation to fill the gaps and extend those datasets into regimes we have yet to explore," added Rob Akers, Director of Computing Programmes and Senior Fellow at UKAEA. "Together, we can develop digital twins of both machines to support the design of future fusion power plants, creating models of spherical tokamaks that are more predictive, more actionable and ultimately more useful to fusion engineers. The real power will come from working as one team. Together, we can learn faster and learn more, extracting maximum insight. The computing and international collaboration will help us accelerate the journey from today's experiments to tomorrow's fusion power plants."

Jonathan Menard, Chief Scientist at PPPL, said: "A fusion power plant is one of the most complex machines humanity has ever tried to build and no single laboratory or nation will design it alone. By federating the SUNRISE and STELLAR-AI computer platforms, we can train AI on data from two leading fusion facilities, test ideas across two of the most capable computing systems in the world that are designed for fusion research, and accelerate the path to a compact fusion power plant."

"Our goal is to let models and experiments move freely between the two systems," said Shantenu Jha, Head of Computational Sciences at PPPL. "We will turn a collection of supercomputers into a single engine for fusion discovery."

The partners plan to expand the federation over time, with the long-term goal of a shared foundation model for spherical tokamaks and, eventually, a wider range of tokamak configurations.

Shielding materials

The UK's University of Birmingham and US independent, nonprofit energy research and development organisation EPRI have announced a major collaboration to advance the development of fusion energy technologies through the FURESHMA (Fusion Reactor Shielding Materials) programme.

FURESHMA aims to test advanced boride and carbide shielding materials capable of protecting critical components from the extreme conditions inside future fusion power plants. The project addresses a key barrier to commercial fusion energy by improving the durability, reliability and long-term performance of shielding materials exposed to intense neutron irradiation.

The GBP2.63 million collaboration has been funded by the UKRI Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council and EPRI, with additional participation of Element Six, building on the partnership initially set up with Tokamak Energy.

The collaboration brings together the university's internationally recognised expertise in fusion materials with EPRI's extensive experience in energy research, nuclear materials and technology deployment.

Building on existing EPRI-Birmingham research and development, this collaboration connects innovative research with the practical requirements of future commercial fusion facilities. It will also support technology transfer and accelerate the path from laboratory discoveries to real-world energy applications. The University of Birmingham and EPRI have agreed that data generated through the project will be made openly available, helping the UK industry and the wider global fusion community benefit from the findings.

"Fusion energy has the potential to provide a secure, low-carbon source of power for future generations, but commercial deployment depends on developing materials capable of withstanding fusion's extreme conditions in terms of temperatures, irradiation doses and thermo-mechanical stresses," said Professor Arunodaya Bhattacharya, Chair in Fusion Energy at the University of Birmingham and Deputy Head of Research in the School of Metallurgy and Materials. "By combining the University of Birmingham's world-leading expertise in fusion materials with EPRI's deep understanding of the energy sector, we can accelerate the solutions that will bring fusion power to grid."

Steve Chengelis, EPRI Vice President, Nuclear Development and Fusion, added: "Developing fusion power plants that are buildable, reliable and maintainable will require a deeper understanding of how key materials perform under fusion conditions. Through FURESHMA, EPRI and the University of Birmingham can connect advanced materials research with the needs of future plant developers and operators, strengthen international knowledge exchange, and help establish a sound technical foundation for fusion deployment."

Tennessee, UKAEA enhance cooperation

Meanwhile, the State of Tennessee, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), and the UK have announced a strengthened partnership to accelerate the commercial deployment of fusion energy, focusing on supply chains, workforce development, and enabling regulatory pathways that support safe and rapid commercial scale-up.

The collaboration builds on momentum from fusion projects underway in both Tennessee and the UK, including Project Infinity in Tennessee and the UK Infinity Fusion Consortium, which link expertise from Type One Energy, TVA, Tokamak Energy, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), the UKAEA, and partners across the fusion supply chain. Tennessee's fusion-specific licensing framework - enacted in June 2026 - similarly mirrors the UK's proportionate approach under the UK Energy Act 2023, ensuring regulatory pathways that support safe and rapid commercial scale-up.

The partners will explore cooperation in areas including: strengthening fusion supply chains and advanced manufacturing in both jurisdictions; development of the fusion fuel cycle, including tritium handling, lithium enrichment, and breeding blanket materials; scientific and technical exchange between ORNL, the UKAEA, universities, national laboratories, and research institutions; engagement among utilities, developers, investors, and industrial partners on siting, interconnection, and offtake planning; workforce development, apprenticeships, and talent exchange; coordination on fusion regulation, licensing, and safety frameworks; and joint conferences, forums, and activities that support global fusion sector growth.

The Helong-2 project - to be constructed by China Construction First Group Construction and Development Company - covers an area of ​​about 120 acres and focuses on the construction of more than ten core systems to create a world-leading hydrogen-boron fusion experimental platform. It is expected that the facility will be ready for equipment installation by the end of June 2027, and the construction and commissioning of the device will be completed and the experimental phase will begin by the end of 2027. The goal is to generate the first electricity through hydrogen-boron fusion in 2030.

_{(Image: ENN)}

"Helong-2, as the third-generation fusion device built by ENN, is a key engineering platform for moving towards a fusion smart power plant," said Yu Jianchao, Chairman of ENN Group. "It carries the important mission of breaking through key technologies of hydrogen-boron fusion and exploring new paths for future energy. It is an important milestone in the commercialisation of hydrogen-boron fusion by ENN and an important step on the road to commercialisation of fusion energy in China."

ENN has successively built two generations of hydrogen-boron fusion devices - Xuanlong-50 and Xuanlong-50U - achieving significant breakthroughs in areas such as theoretical research on hydrogen-boron fuels and high-parameter operation of spherical rings.

_{A rendering of the Helong-2 facility (Image: ENN)}

After five years of research and exploration, ENN has established a three-step commercialisation strategy for spherical cyclic hydrogen-boron fusion. The first step is to achieve hydrogen-boron fusion reaction on the Xuanlong-50U device in 2026; the second step is to build the Helong-2 device in 2027 and achieve hydrogen-boron fusion power generation in 2030; the third step is to achieve low-cost power generation and enter the demonstration reactor stage before 2035.

ENN says this technology route is highly compatible with future commercialisation needs due to its "abundant and readily available fuels, low cost, safe and environmentally friendly reaction, and higher energy conversion efficiency".

Hydrogen-boron fusion is an advanced nuclear fusion reaction that combines a hydrogen proton with a boron-11 nucleus to produce harmless helium nuclei (alpha particles) and energy without releasing high-energy neutrons. Several prominent private fusion energy companies - including TAE Technologies of the USA and Marvel Fusion of Germany - are developing hydrogen-boron fusion, also known as proton-boron fusion.