American start-up Last Energy has received a letter of interest from the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM), confirming the bank’s willingness to move forward with due diligence for $103.7 million in financing for the company’s project in southern Wales.

Just one day after Urenco USA (UUSA) was picked by the Department of Energy as one of six contractors eligible to compete for future low-enriched uranium task orders, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on December 11 formally approved the company’s license amendment request to boost uranium enrichment levels at its Eunice, N.M., enrichment facility to 10 percent fissile uranium-235—up from its current limit of 5.5 percent.

In a one-on-one interview with the American Nuclear Society’s chief executive officer/executive director Craig Piercy, Nuclear Regulatory Commission commissioner Annie Caputo shared her journey in the nuclear community and her vision for the future of nuclear energy.

Pointing to the consequences of ignoring the perils of nuclear weapons, Rafael Mariano Grossi at last week’s Nobel Peace Prize forum called for diplomacy and dialogue to reduce nuclear tensions.

Read Grossi’s full speech and watch his keynote address here.

Jay F. Kunze

We welcome ANS members with long careers in the community to submit their own stories so that the personal history of nuclear power can be captured. For information on submitting your stories, contact nucnews@ans.org.

I was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pa. In 1959, I received my Ph.D. in experimental nuclear physics utilizing the 400-MeV synchrocyclotron at Carnegie Mellon University, involving measuring the scattering of pi-­mesons from protons (as a liquid hydrogen target). I joined ANS in January 1960.

I later joined General Electric’s Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion project to build a nuclear jet engine at the National Reactor Testing Station at Idaho Falls (now Idaho National Laboratory). In January 1961, the U.S. Army’s experimental nuclear reactor SL-1 blew up, killing three army personnel. At first, the Air Force would not permit General Electric to take part in the cleanup, but after the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion project was canceled by President Kennedy in March, GE took on the SL-1 disassembly and analysis project. I oversaw the analysis, which took nearly two years.

Welcome to the inaugural Nuclear News 40 Under 40! A year in the making, this list was a difficult undertaking for the NN staff, there being so many qualified and enthusiastic candidates to review. The task was further complicated by the great diversity of roles that exist within the nuclear community—from academia to labs and from utilities to government positions. Whatever their specific niche, those selected represent the exceptional talent, vision, and drive that is transforming the nuclear sector across the community. These 40 young professionals have shown remarkable commitment, innovation, and leadership in advancing nuclear science and technology, paving the way for a future in which nuclear power and applications will continue to play a vital role in addressing global challenges.

Houghtalen

The promise of nuclear power—clean, dispatchable, and reliable—positions it to match the ambitions of tech, industrial, and utility giants. But how do we turn ambition into action?

Uncertainty around nuclear energy’s capital cost is daunting, and the financial risk of pioneering new builds must be addressed.

Reliable nuclear power has incredible lifetime value. The ultimate project cost will pencil out over 40 or more years. We must focus on reducing the key risk: construction cost uncertainty for new nuclear.

A nuclear engineer, former reactor operator, and nuclear navy educator earned U.S. Senate approval today to take a seat on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Matthew Marzano was confirmed in a 50–45 vote in the Senate and steps into an existing five-year term that will expire June 30, 2028. He joins the five-member commission, which has been without a tiebreaker vote since June 2023, when Jeff Baran’s term expired.

Marzano brings more than a decade of industry experience both working in nuclear plants and advising energy policy on Capitol Hill.

Aalo Atomics and the Department of Energy announced yesterday that the company has worked with Battelle Energy Alliance and the DOE’s Idaho Operations Office to develop a plan—described as “provisional,” “potential,” and “tentative”—to grant Aalo a one-acre plot of land at Idaho National Laboratory site to build a new facility that would house an experimental reactor. Aalo hopes the reactor, dubbed Aalo-X, will help the company license and commercialize Aalo-1, a 10-MWe sodium-cooled reactor.

Peters

Latta

To streamline the licensing requirements for nuclear fuel recycling facilities and help increase investment in nuclear energy in the United States, U.S. Reps. Bob Latta (R., Ohio) and Scott Peters (D., Calif.) have introduced the bipartisan Nuclear REFUEL Act in the House of Representatives.

The bill, introduced on December 6, would amend the definition of “production facility” in the Atomic Energy Act, clarifying that a reprocessing facility producing uranium-transuranic mixed fuel would be licensed only under 10 CFR Part 70. According to the lawmakers, this single-step licensing process would significantly streamline the licensing requirements for fuel recycling facilities.

Cambridge, Mass.–based fusion startup Acceleron Fusion announced that it has closed a $24 million Series A funding round co-led by Lowercarbon Capital and Collaborative Fund. According to Acceleron, the funding will fuel the company’s efforts to advance its low-temperature muon-catalyzed fusion technology.

A drone targeted and damaged an official vehicle of the International Atomic Energy Agency on December 10 as it traveled toward the front line in eastern Ukraine during a rotation of IAEA teams at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP). In a video message, IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi condemned the strike as an “unacceptable” attack on IAEA staff working to prevent a nuclear accident during a military conflict.

The Department of Energy announced yesterday the six companies that it has selected to supply low-enriched uranium (LEU) from new domestic enrichment sources under future contracts for up to 10 years. The contract recipients are: Centrus Energy’s American Centrifuge Operating, General Matter, Global Laser Enrichment (GLE), Laser Isotope Separation Technologies (LIS Technologies), Orano Federal Services, and Urenco USA’s Louisiana Energy Services.

The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina recently joined in the nationwide celebration of the Department of Labor’s 10th annual National Apprenticeship Week, spotlighting the progress and diversity of its apprenticeship program that spans 27 occupations.

Click here to watch a video highlighting the SRS Apprenticeship Program.

General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) announced last week that unfueled test rods featuring the company’s SiGA fuel cladding—made of a silicon carbide composite material—successfully survived 120 days of irradiation in the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) at Idaho National Laboratory.

Tokamak Energy’s ST40 experimental fusion facility will receive a $52 million upgrade under a joint public-private effort with the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.K. Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) aimed at advancing the fusion science and technology needed to deliver a future pilot plant.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is asking for public feedback on the environmental report for a subsequent license renewal (SLR) request from Dominion Energy, the owners of V.C. Summer nuclear power plant in South Carolina.

Serbia’s National Assembly has approved legislation that overturns the nation’s decades-old moratorium on nuclear power plants as the nation looks to reduce pollution.

Minister of mining and energy Dubravka Đedović Handanović posted on social media after the November 27 vote, “History has been written today. Many will inherit what has been done today!”

TitletownTech, a venture capital firm formed out of a partnership between Microsoft and the Green Bay Packers, has invested in Realta Fusion, a private fusion startup company that was spun out of an ARPA-E-funded fusion project at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2022. Realta is developing modular, compact, magnetic mirror fusion energy generators as an economic, zero-carbon solution to power AI-driven infrastructure and other industrial applications. TitletownTech did not disclose the details of its investment.

Jeffrey King

In August, the College of Engineering at Tennessee Technological University welcomed ANS member Jeffrey C. King as the founding director of its new nuclear engineering program. King, a leading force within the American Nuclear Society and a space enthusiast, is tasked with developing a new Department of Nuclear Engineering at Tennessee Tech after a more than 20-year absence of such a program at the university.

King comes to Tennessee Tech from the Colorado School of Mines, where he had been a professor of metallurgical and materials engineering for 15 years, leading the development of the nuclear science and engineering program and serving as director of the Nuclear Science and Engineering Research Center.