Artist’s concept of Phase 3 of NASA’s Moon Base. (Image: NASA)
A White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) memorandum released on Tuesday guides NASA, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Defense on their roles in deploying near-term space nuclear power.
This follows a series of NASA announcements last month—driven by the executive order “Ensuring American Space Superiority,” issued by Trump in December—including an ambitious timeline for establishing a moon base, which would rely on fission surface power (FSP) to survive the long lunar night at the moon’s south pole, and plans for a nuclear electric propulsion (NEP) rocket to be launched in 2028.
Duane Arnold nuclear power plant. (Photo: NextEra Energy)
The communities in and around Duane Arnold had a chance on Tuesday evening to hear from Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials on the progress to restart Iowa’s only nuclear power plant in early 2029.
Licensing, inspections and assessments, the noticing process, and the role of the restart panel were among the topics discussed at the public meeting, which was held in Cedar Rapids, Ia., with an option for virtual attendance.
This photo of Typhoon Sinlaku over the Mariana Islands is an example of a tropical cyclone—a warm-core, low-pressure system with no attached front and an organized circulation that develops over tropical or subtropical waters. (Photo: NASA)
Scientists at Argonne National Laboratory have published a study evaluating the risk of flooding caused by tropical cyclones on coastal infrastructure, including nuclear power plants. The study, published in npj Natural Hazards, used advanced computer simulations of thousands of cyclone scenarios to make projections of potential damage of extreme storm tides in coastal areas—a threat that is expected to increase as a result of climate change. The researchers stated that their projections could be used to make siting decisions and design more resilient systems for nuclear power plants, hospitals, and other crucial infrastructure.
A 1987 photo of Minamitorishima Island, site of a U.S. Coast Guard station from 1964 to 1993. (Photo: Don Sutherland, U.S. Air Force/Wikimedia Commons)
Japan will study the possibility of siting a deep geologic repository for high-level radioactive waste on the remote island of Minamitorishima, about 1,200 miles southeast of Tokyo.
Masaaki Shibuya, mayor of the village of Ogasawara, reportedly expressed his willingness to allow Japan’s government to proceed with a preliminary survey, called a literature survey, of the island, which is one of several within the Ogasawara Islands.
A prototype nuclear waste canister (not the UPWARDS UCS) sits in a drillhole receptacle during equipment field tests in 2023. (Photos courtesy of Deep Isolation)
When the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy launched the Optimizing Nuclear Waste and Advanced Reactor Disposal Systems (ONWARDS) program in 2022, it posed a challenge that the nuclear industry had never seriously confronted before: how to design waste management solutions that anticipate the coming shift to advanced reactors and not merely retrofit existing systems built for an older generation of technology. The program’s objectives were ambitious—reduce disposal footprint, enable scalable pathways for unfamiliar waste streams, and build the technical foundations for future disposal—yet also tightly grounded in the realities of emerging nuclear fuel cycles. For the nuclear community, this was a timely call. Advanced reactors were accelerating toward deployment, but the waste management systems needed to support them had not kept pace.
Aerial shot of Wylfa nuclear power plant in Anglesey, North Wales. (Photo: Richard Williams)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi (right) at the core loading of the PFBR in March 2024. (Photo: X, @NarendraModi)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi proclaimed it “a proud moment for India” when on April 6 the 500-MWe, sodium-cooled Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) achieved initial criticality. This milestone, which comes some 22 years after the continually delayed PFBR project began, marks India’s entrance into the second stage of its three-stage nuclear program, which has the ultimate goal of supporting the country’s nuclear power program with its significant thorium reserves.
Concept art of the six-module CFPP at INL, terminated before construction could begin. (Image: NuScale)
The Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP) called for the deployment of six 77-MWe pressurized water reactors at Idaho National Laboratory that would provide power to INL and to Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) customers in Utah and surrounding states. But UAMPS and NuScale Power mutually agreed to end the project in late 2023, ending a first-of-a-kind SMR project that was years in the making.
Total project costs, had it been completed, were estimated at $8.03 billion, with $1.36 billion coming from the Department of Energy as part of a 10-year, noncompetitive, cost-share award.
The NNSA’s Office of Radiological Security team loads a Cs-137 irradiator into a secure transportation container. (Photo: NNSA)
The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration announced that it has successfully removed all cesium-137 irradiators from South Carolina, as the agency seeks to eliminate radiological threats and protect communities.
Cs-137 sources are commonly used to irradiate cellular blood cells prior to transfusion to prevent graft-versus-host disease, where the donated cells view the recipient’s cells as an unfamiliar threat. If stolen from a less-secure facility, however, the cesium inside the irradiators could be used to create a radiological dispersal device, commonly referred to as a dirty bomb.
Solid-state composite neutron detector demonstrating the stacked-disk fabrication approach, with neutron-sensitive glass elements embedded in a transparent matrix to enable efficient light transport to the photodetector. (Photo: LANL)
Los Alamos National Laboratory has announced the development of a new type of neutron sensor that works across a wide range of conditions, including in the presence of strong gamma radiation.
The technology is called the Integrated Composite Optical Neutron Sensor (ICONS).
A container of vitrified waste is placed in Hanford’s on-site LLW landfill. (Image: DOE)
The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management announced that it has begun the permanent disposal of the first containers of vitrified low-level radioactive tank waste at the Hanford Site near Richland, Wash., marking a pivotal step in the nation’s radioactive tank waste cleanup mission.
April 10, 2026, 3:53PMNuclear NewsJonathan E. Stephens and Temi J. Adeyeye NS Savannah, a reminder of what is possible. (Photo: U.S. National Archives)
Readers of Nuclear News will have heard of historical applications of civilian maritime nuclear power, like the merchant ship NS Savannah and the USS Sturgis floating power plant. With a few exceptions there has been little action in this area for over 50 years, and there are plenty of reasons and opinions as to why, but over the last few years the dramatic increase in interest from the maritime industry and its stakeholders has been undeniable.
The DOME test bed is now open at Idaho National Laboratory. (Photo: INL)
On Wednesday, Idaho National Laboratory announced that the National Reactor Innovation Center’s Demonstration of Microreactor Experiments (DOME) test bed is now “open for business.”
With DOME’s opening, microreactor developers will soon be able to test, demonstrate, and validate their reactor designs. Rian Bahran, the Department of Energy’s deputy assistant secretary for nuclear reactors, called this “essential infrastructure” a “testament to our commitment to a robust nuclear future” and a key tool for “accelerating the development and deployment” of new energy technologies.
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