Yesterday, Oak Ridge National Laboratory announced that the Department of Energy has committed funding to develop a fusion breeding blanket test facility at the lab in partnership with Kyoto Fusioneering, and the company announced it will be relocating its U.S. headquarters to Oak Ridge, Tenn., with support from the state of Tennessee’s Nuclear Energy Supply Chain Investment Fund.

On August 11, Elemental Nuclear announced that the Department of Energy, through Sandia National Laboratories, approved its entrance into a Strategic Partnership Project. The SPP will support the development of Elemental’s supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO₂)–based Brayton cycle generator systems.

Oklo’s Groves Isotope Test Reactor became the fifth Department of Energy–authorized reactor to achieve criticality under the agency’s authorization process, it was announced earlier today.

Criticality was reached at 9:19 p.m. (EDT) on Wednesday at the company’s Groves facility in Lockhart, Texas, according to the DOE.

In January, the Department of Energy announced a new Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus (NLIC) program, inviting states via a request for information to express their interest in hosting a facility supporting work from the front to the back end of the fuel life cycle.

By April, 26 states had expressed their interest in hosting such a facility. At the end of July, the DOE signed memorandums of understanding with five states (Idaho, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Utah) to more closely explore the possibilities of state-federal partnerships. These MOUs are not firm commitments from either the federal or state governments. Time will tell which—if any—of the five states develop projects through the program. In the meantime, today, we are taking a close look at what Oklahoma and Louisiana can offer in terms of a preexisting nuclear sector that could support new fuel cycle developments.

Idaho, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Utah are the finalists to potentially host Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses, the Department of Energy announced today.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright has signed memorandums of understanding with the five states to continue exploring opportunities to host these campuses, envisioned as federal–state partnerships to support work across the nuclear fuel life cycle, with a primary focus on fuel fabrication, enrichment, spent fuel reprocessing or recycling, separations, and radioactive waste management.

Last week, the Department of Energy announced a conditional commitment to provide high-assay low-enriched uranium to NASA for its Space Reactor-1 Freedom rocket and to Radiant Industries for its microreactor expected to be sited at Buckley Space Force Base.

The announcement comes a few weeks after Centrus Energy signed a contract to finalize the terms of a $900 million DOE task order to expand production capacity for HALEU at its American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio.

The Department of Energy announced yesterday that it has selected 278 projects under the Genesis Mission request for applications, which opened in March.

According to a White House press release on the same day, $5 billion in federal commitments will be put toward the Genesis Mission.

Last week, Austin, Texas–based nuclear fuel start-up SuperCritical Materials announced that it has secured a license from the Department of Energy for a patented uranium and critical materials adsorbent manufacturing process originally developed by a team led by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

SuperCritical aims to use this license to extract uranium from seawater at an industrial scale in the United States and abroad.

The public had a rare opportunity Tuesday morning when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission gathered leaders from the Department of Energy, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, TerraPower, Radiant, Westinghouse, and X-energy to share updates on their respective high-profile new nuclear projects and initiatives.

During the meeting, titled “Advanced Reactor Landscape: Current Status and Moving Forward,” federal and industry officials presented on their respective endeavors, providing new updates, refreshers on previously announced information, and takeaways from their experiences.

In the span of just over a week in late June and early July, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission published three proposed rules on modernizing security requirements, low-level radioactive waste disposal requirements, and fuel cycle and materials licensing.

This week, NRC staff led separate virtual public information meetings on each of the proposed rules, providing details to the public on what each one would change.

The U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy introduced six nuclear permitting reform bills back in June. The mostly bipartisan bills returned to the subcommittee on Tuesday for markups—and with strong backing from both sides of the aisle.

Despite some lingering concerns in areas like federal transparency, the role of the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS), and staff attrition in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the subcommittee advanced all six pieces of legislation to the full committee with bipartisan support.

Westinghouse has cleared a hurdle in its quest to renew and update the standard design certification (DC) for its AP1000 reactor with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s approval of an exemption from scheduling requirements that limit when an applicant can apply for a DC renewal.

Executive Order 14301 set an ambitious goal for at least three test reactors to achieve criticality by July 4. Two private companies participating in the Department of Energy’s Reactor Pilot Program—Antares and Valar Atomics—reached this stage earlier in June, and Deployable Energy—participating in the DOE's Nuclear Energy Launch Pad—became the third last week.

In the last few weeks, reports indicated that Aalo would be next, reaching criticality at Idaho National Laboratory with a low-enriched uranium–fueled, sodium-cooled reactor on or near the target date set forth by President Trump’s EO 14301. In the early hours of July 4, Aalo’s critical test reactor—a full-scale zero-power version of its planned 10-MWe Aalo-X—did just that, becoming the fourth DOE-authorized reactor to hit the milestone.

On May 23, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14301, “Reforming Nuclear Reactor Testing at the DOE,” which instructed the Department of Energy to create a Reactor Pilot Program (RPP)—a new system in which companies could pursue DOE authorization to build and test their first-of-a-kind nuclear technologies. EO 14301 set an ambitious goal for that program: three reactors achieving criticality by July 4, 2026.

Ahead of the July 4 deadline set by President Trump in Executive Order 14301, the nuclear community has been following the developments of the Department of Energy’s Reactor Pilot Program, in which companies have been pursuing DOE authorization to build and test their first-of-a-kind nuclear technologies. The EO set an ambitious goal of three reactors achieving criticality by July 4, 2026.

Updates from utility companies in Colorado and Arizona, nuclear legislation and discussions, and the potential Duane Arnold restart were among the news items in the month of June at the local and state levels.

For just over a year, President Trump’s Executive Order 14301, “Reforming Nuclear Reactor Testing at the Department of Energy,” has loomed large because it pegged a stretch goal to a significant date: July 4, 2026. Will there be at least three participants in the Department of Energy’s Reactor Pilot Program whose reactors achieve criticality by Saturday’s deadline?

In June 2025, the Department of Energy announced the Reactor Pilot Program, an authorization pathway that allowed reactor developers to partner with the DOE to get first-of-a-kind (FOAK) reactors built and tested. Soon after, the DOE rolled out a complementary Fuel Line Pilot Program, which aimed to fast-track fuel projects. In all, 20 projects were accepted into the new programs.

The Department of Energy’s Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear has recently awarded four third-round fiscal year 2026 vouchers to support the development of innovative nuclear technologies. Each company will get access to specific capabilities and expertise in the DOE’s national laboratory complex—in this round of awards Idaho National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories are named—and will be responsible for a minimum 20 percent cost share, which can be an in-kind contribution.

Earlier today, the Department of Energy announced that it has issued a conditional loan commitment to finance the purchase of “long-lead time items needed to rebuild America’s commercial nuclear supply chain.”

The American Nuclear Supply Chain Loans on offer are worth $17.5 billion and intended to help finance up to five projects to build a total of 10 new AP1000 reactors, with construction aimed to begin by 2030.