A group of universities led by the American Association of Universities (AAU) acted swiftly to oppose a policy action by the Department of Energy that would cut the funds it pays to universities for the indirect costs of research under DOE grants. The group filed suit Monday, April 14, challenging a what it termed a “flagrantly unlawful action” that could “devastate scientific research at America’s universities.”

By Wednesday, the U.S. District Court judge hearing the case issued a temporary restraining order effective nationwide, preventing the DOE from implementing the policy or terminating any existing grants.

Leaders in Ghana announced recently that the country has a “framework agreement” with U.S.-based companies NuScale and Regnum Technology Group.

The announcement made by Stephen Yamoah, executive director of Nuclear Power Ghana, was reported by the Ghana News Agency on March 31. He also said Japanese firms will be working in partnership with NuScale and Regnum on the small modular reactors while the China National Nuclear Corporation will construct a large reactor.

The University of Missouri announced today that it has signed a $10 million contract for the initial design phase of the $1 billion-plus state-of-the-art NextGen MURR research reactor project.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has doubled down on its rejection of an interconnection service agreement (ISA) between Amazon Web Services and Talen Energy in Pennsylvania.

Inertial fusion energy (IFE) developer Pacific Fusion, based in Fremont, Calif., announced this morning that it is on target to achieve net facility gain—more fusion energy out than all energy stored in the system—with a demonstration system by 2030, and backs the claim with a technical paper published yesterday on arXiv: “Affordable, manageable, practical, and scalable (AMPS) high-yield and high-gain inertial fusion.”

Plans to bring a university research reactor like no other to the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) were punctuated last fall by the news that Ultra Safe Nuclear, the developer of the gas-cooled reactor technology selected for the Illinois Microreactor Project, had declared bankruptcy.

Researchers at GE Hitachi Nuclear recently completed a successful test on potential new building blocks made of steel-concrete composite.

The Defense Innovation Unit announced April 10 next steps in the Advanced Nuclear Power for Installations (ANPI) program, launched in 2024 to deploy microreactor nuclear systems for increased power reliability at select military locations.

Jarrell

Roger Jarrell will lead the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management as the new principal deputy assistant secretary. Jarrell, who served in the office during the first Trump administration, was named DOE-EM senior advisor in January. Prior to that, he served as the general counsel and previously was the government and stakeholder interface at DOE cleanup contractor UCOR, of Oak Ridge, Tenn.

Jarrell takes over the assistant secretary position, listed on DOE-EM’s organizational chart as EM-2, from Dae Chung, a long-serving DOE-EM executive who was tapped by the Trump administration in March to lead the office as acting principal deputy assistant secretary following the departure of Candice Robertson, who had led the office since June 2024.

Mike Mlynarek believes in this expression: “In the end it will be OK; and if it’s not OK, it’s not the end.”

As the site vice president at Palisades nuclear power plant in Covert Township, Mich., Mlynarek is overseeing one of the most exciting projects in the United States nuclear power industry. If all goes according to plan, Holtec’s Palisades plant will be splitting atoms once again by the end of 2025 and become the first U.S. nuclear facility to restart after being slated for decommissioning.