With more than six decades as a top-ranked program in its rearview, the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics (NEEP) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison is hardly slowing down. In fact, NEEP is continuing to grow and develop its faculty, curriculum, and research.

The Gamma-Ray Energy Tracking Array (GRETA), which is installed at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at Michigan State University, has successfully completed a commissioning and characterization run, establishing that it is ready for scientific operations.

According to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which made the announcement, the measurements that scientists make with GRETA will improve the theoretical models of the atomic nucleus that underpin research in nuclear physics, astrophysics, energy, medicine, and national security.

The Department of Energy has announced two partnership agreements to construct AI data centers combined with energy infrastructure at DOE sites. This week, agency announced a partnership with Big Rivers Electric Power Corporation, Brookfield Corporation, Jackson Purchase Energy Cooperative, NextEra Energy, and Paducah Power System aimed at redeveloping parts of the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant into a data center campus with energy infrastructure.

Earlier this week, ARC Clean Technology announced that it has entered into a Strategic Partnership Project agreement with Battelle Energy Alliance—the management and operating contractor of Idaho National Laboratory.

That agreement establishes a multiyear framework for ARC and INL to collaborate on the design, demonstration, and first deployment of the company’s ARC-100, a 100-MWe sodium-cooled fast reactor.

According to a Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) report, a fire occurred in a glovebox in the plutonium facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory on June 15. A test involving nonnuclear material was underway in the furnace inside the glovebox at the time of the incident.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission held its latest public meeting in central Pennsylvania on Tuesday to provide an update the progress being made to restart the Crane nuclear power plant (formerly Three Mile Island-1) as early as 2027.

The meeting focused on emergency preparedness, with officials from both the NRC and the Federal Emergency Management Agency sharing how the agencies plan their on-site and off-site responses to potential emergencies.

Global is a series of international conferences covering aspects of nuclear technology including the full nuclear fuel cycle and reactor systems. This year, Global 2026—which is sponsored by the American Nuclear Society’s Fuel Cycle & Waste Management Division—is taking place August 16–20 in Chicago, Ill.

The American Nuclear Society’s Risk-informed, Performance-based Principles and Policy Committee (RP3C) recently held another presentation in its monthly Community of Practice (CoP) series. Former RP3C chair N. Prasad Kadambi opened the meeting with brief introductory remarks about the RP3C and the need for new approaches to nuclear design that go beyond conventional and deterministic methods. He then welcomed this month’s speaker: Jon Facemire, senior project manager of new nuclear at the Nuclear Energy Institute, who presented “New Regulatory Frameworks: Part 53, Proposed Part 57, and Considerations for Licensing.”

In March, seven tech companies and hyperscalers signed on to President Trump's Ratepayer Protection Pledge, a voluntary agreement stating that, in the pursuit of data center growth, signatories would not shift costs to electricity customers in the form of higher electricity bills.

The American Nuclear Society submitted comments earlier this month to the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Federal Financial Management, urging the OMB to reconsider a proposed rewrite of federal grant regulations that ANS said could restrict scientific publishing, conference participation, and long-term nuclear research.

Thomas Burnelis

Transitioning in nuclear from the U.S. Navy to the commercial industry was always a goal for me, but stepping directly into a fully digital control room was a paradigm shift. Moving from the tactile, analog world of my military background to the data-rich environment of modern advanced reactors was jarring. Digital systems offer an unprecedented wealth of information, but unlocking that potential requires a fundamental shift in how we approach testing, commissioning, and startup.

Commissioning analog plants meant physical verification, such as lifting leads, injecting signals, and manually tweaking potentiometers to calibrate gains and offsets. Digital instrumentation and control (I&C) completely redefines this landscape. Today, nearly all plant data are available at our fingertips, but this brings the challenge of filtering an immense amount of data and system alarms. Troubleshooting has largely migrated from the field and into software, following digital signals from operator inputs to field devices.

Changes that Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials have labeled as significant could be coming to the agency’s environmental review regulations if its proposed rule on National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) procedures moves forward.

With notable changes potentially incoming—such as no longer requiring draft environmental impact statements and the addition of new categorical exclusions—NRC staff shared additional details on these and other proposals during a July 23 meeting on the NEPA proposed rule.

The Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) announced yesterday that it is developing 2-MW gyrotrons to be used as the main plasma heating system of the Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X).

W7-X, located at IPP, is currently the largest superconducting stellarator facility in the world. The project conducts research aimed at filling key knowledge and technology gaps for developing a stellarator-based power plant.

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.

Craig Piercy
cpiercy@ans.org

There may have been no more fitting place to gather for a conversation about the future of nuclear energy than Colorado.

For the nuclear community, Colorado carries a special resonance. About an hour north of Denver stands Fort St. Vrain. Today, it is a garden-variety natural gas power plant. But there was a time it was an ambitious nuclear reactor—a high-temperature gas reactor with helium coolant and a uranium-thorium fuel cycle. It was ahead of its time in many ways and imperfect in execution, but unmistakably part of the long story of nuclear innovation in America.

Colorado is a state shaped by frontiers. We, too, are standing at a frontier, which brings me to this year’s conference theme: “Net Out, Power Up.” We chose this theme to reflect the complementary challenges facing two parts of our community. “Net Out” reflects fusion’s challenge: proving you can get more energy out than you put in. “Power Up” reflects fission’s challenge: scaling advanced nuclear technologies quickly enough to meet rising demand.

The Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration has signed a first-of-a-kind memorandum of cooperation (MOC) with the Port of Long Beach, in southern California, to advance the development of small modular reactors for powering commercial vessels, ports, and other maritime assets. With the signing, Long Beach became the first U.S. seaport to form a partnership with MARAD on commercial nuclear-powered maritime vessels. The federal maritime agency had issued a request for information in May seeking industry input on the development of domestic, scalable, commercially viable reactors for U.S. marine transportation.

The second annual Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX 2026)—which promises to bring together the full nuclear energy ecosystem to focus on real-world progress in the sector—will be held August 24–27 in Dallas, Texas.

Within the past month, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has signed memorandums of understanding to increase its cooperation with two U.S. maritime organizations. In late June, the NRC signed an MOU with the U.S. Coast Guard to strengthen coordination on civilian maritime nuclear projects, including floating nuclear power plants and civilian nuclear propulsion. On July 21, the NRC signed an MOU with the newly formed Marine Minerals Administration (MMA) to improve cooperation regarding potential future nuclear projects on the Outer Continental Shelf.

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.

Recent happenings in Europe highlight that nuclear power activities are expanding globally. Here is a roundup of headlines with an international flavor.