"The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and collaborators earned the 2026 CAMX Combined Strength Award for developing advanced 3D-printed composite forms that can accelerate nuclear construction."

I saw an NPR article from a few weeks ago, and wanted to post here.

Valar Atomics wants to build a large fleet of small modular reactors (SMRs) on public land near Price, Utah (south of Salt Lake City), called Project Beehive. This is a private company that's only been around since 2023, which is kind of interesting as they plan to get their first reactor live in 2028, apparently. Notably, these are Generation IV high-temperature gas reactors (HTGRs). There's one of these operational in china, but only for a few years, so this is possible but it is more of uncharted territory than for instance pressurized water reactors (PWRs) such as the Westinghouse AP1000 and AP1400 designs, and their 300MW SMR design (AP300) which is more or less a modular and scaled down, single loop version of the AP1000. X-energy is also developing an HTGR (Xe-100).

Valar looks to build 456 reactors on over 9000 acres of BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land. Utah already leased them \~650 acres of state trust land in September. Valar also wants fuel production and waste storage on the same campus/site.

The headline full-built capacity number is \~9.6 GW, and the whole site is supposed to be built by 2032, which seems kind of aggressive to me, but I work mainly with large-scale PWRs, not HTGRs.

Nobody in the Western world commercially runs an SMR yet. Valar got their SMR, the Ward 250, to criticality in June of this year during a zero-power demo (experimental milestone where the nuclear reactor first achieves a self-sustaining, controlled chain reaction of nuclear fission at negligible ("zero") thermal power). AFter that, in July, they ran one Nvidia GPU off it with a thermoelectric rig. Still a long way from hundreds of 25 MWe units rolling off a line, but this appears to be rapid development so far, so very bullish for uranium (this SMR uses TRISO fuel).

I asked AI about what percent of the western world uranium supply this would represent:

"An estimated annual consumption of **1,500 to 2,000 metric tons of natural uranium ore** for Project Beehive represents roughly **7.5% to 10% of the entire Western world's current uranium mine supply**."

One caveat: i dont see a data center tenant anywhere in the news or filings. There appears to be no offtake deal yet, and no $ figure for the build. That doesn't mean there won't be one, but there is still a lot of regulatory paperwork to do. Still years away and a chance this never gets built, but bullish.

Do you guys think this actually gets built? and sort of on time? We live in a very different world than when the Vogtle Unit 1 experienced severe time and cost overruns.

MOSCOW. Oct 14 (Interfax) - The Rosatom state corporation is discussing with Bangladesh the construction of another phase of high-capacity units at the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), company CEO Alexei Likhachev told reporters on the sidelines of the Russian Energy Week forum.

"Truly, we are primarily talking about a possible additional phase of large units," he said in response to a question of exactly what is being discussed with the country regarding the expansion of cooperation.

"Although our Bangladeshi friends are also discussing small-capacity units and a research reactor with us, the main trend for future development, in my view, is increasing the capacity of the Rooppur NPP," he said.

Likhachev earlier said that the Rosatom state corporation is discussing the expansion of its nuclear project with Bangladesh and expects the first power unit of the country's NPP to reach initial power generation in late November.

In late April, Rosatom carried out the physical start-up of the first power unit at the NPP in Bangladesh.

"On April 28, 2026, the loading of fresh nuclear fuel began at Unit 1 of the Rooppur NPP [the general contractor and general designer of which is Rosatom's Engineering Division]. This was the first stage of the unit's key start-up phase," the company said in a statement.

Rosatom has been constructing the plant based on an intergovernmental agreement signed in 2011. The NPP will comprise two power units with a combined capacity of 2400 MW. Energy-deficient Bangladesh currently has no nuclear power generation.

Rosatom state nuclear energy corporation expects to begin commissioning the second power unit of the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant in Bangladesh next year, Likhachev told reporters.

He also said that Bangladesh is interested in other proposals from Rosatom as well. "Both the prime minister and the minister asked us about other possible proposals, particularly small nuclear power plants and floating nuclear power plants, which are included in our combined proposal from Rosatom [to other countries]," Likhachev said.

Source: Interfax ( Because Russian websites banned here)

Some examples: Vogtle's four co-owners and their shares, Microsoft's 20-year deal with Constellation to restart Crane, Talen's 1,920 MW deal with Amazon at Susquehanna, and where TRISO-X will get its HALEU (Centrus, Piketon).

Each fact links to the filing, announcement or article it came from, with the quoted line and the date it was checked. There are no login nor ads.

Visit the link here.

It covers all 95 operating US reactors, plus about 82 companies and 79 plants and sites so far. If something is wrong or missing, please drop a comment or use the "Report a correction" link on any fact.

I maintain it, so feedback goes straight to me.

The Molten Chloride Reactor Experiment aims to achieve first criticality in 2027, with the US Department of Energy approving cost-shared funding under its Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program.

The funding for an accelerated final stage is intended to support work by utility Southern Company, Idaho National Laboratory and maritime nuclear specialist Core Power to "advance scientific understanding of molten salt reactor technology and inform future reactor development".

https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/us-doe-funding-to-accelerate-molten-chloride-reactor-development

It got temporarily delayed on Tuesday thanks to a technical test, but this Bloomberg article doesn't appear to be a false alarm this time. With this grid connection, Slovakia will now likely surpass France in share of electricity generated by nuclear power, and will become a net power exporter

i just accepted an offer for next summer with westinghouse as an APx project engineer and im really excited! im looking to see if anyone else has interned with them before because i have a few questions:

1. i got an offer of a $4k stipend for housing. will this be enough for cranberry township if i have roommates?

2. did your internship turn into a full time offer? if so, what was the total compensation? do you like what you currently do?

3. do you get free merch (this is a dumb question but i love free company merch lol)

thank you!

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission today updated and renewed the certification of Westinghouse’s AP1000 reactor design, incorporating lessons from the construction and operation of Vogtle Units 3 and 4 (the nation’s newest nuclear reactors) into the certified design.

The action gives future applicants a standardized, field-proven AP1000 design that reflects how the reactors were actually constructed and operated. It is intended to reduce duplicative regulatory reviews, lower licensing costs and help future AP1000 projects move through the NRC’s licensing process more efficiently.

During the construction and startup of Vogtle Units 3 and 4, the NRC reviewed and approved nearly 200 license amendments. By incorporating applicable design changes and lessons learned from that experience into the renewed certification, future AP1000 applicants can reference an updated design rather than seeking separate approval for changes the NRC has already evaluated.

“The NRC’s approval of the updated AP1000 design provides the regulatory foundation for America to move from building individual reactors to deploying them at scale,” Chairman Ho K. Nieh said. “This is how safety-focused, enabling regulation reduces regulatory uncertainty and investment risk.”

The renewed certification extends the AP1000 design’s validity through 2066. Future applicants will still be required to obtain NRC approval for site-specific environmental, safety and security considerations, and today’s action does not authorize the siting, construction or operation of any facility.

Standing inside the reactor core and the control room have to be some of the coolest things I've done as a nuclear nerd. The ship was built as part of Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" program and sailed for about 10 years. The reactor was de-fueled in 1971 and the pressure vessel was removed in 2022. According to lore, Gene Roddenberry was inspired by the design aesthetic in the lounge for the TV show Star Trek.

"NEi: How is MBIR different from earlier research reactors?

VK: Flexibility and scale. MBIR is a fast-neutron reactor designed with the needs of the global nuclear industry in mind for the next 50 years. Its defining feature is the testing equipment: instrumented cells and autonomous loop devices – independent circuits inside the core – that can fully replicate the operating conditions of different reactor types using different coolants (sodium, lead, lead-bismuth, gas), temperatures and pressures. That means several reactor concepts can effectively be modelled simultaneously, and prospective structural and fuel materials tested to support Gen IV concepts. An extensive network of vertical and horizontal experimental channels and ex-vessel devices adds capacity for large-scale materials science testing.

Beyond research, MBIR also has a practical dimension: it can produce a wide range of medical and industrial isotopes, and – as a functioning power plant – it will supply heat and electricity to the surrounding region, supporting local infrastructure.

NEi: Why are materials such a critical bottleneck for fast reactors?

VK: Two factors. First, compatibility with liquid-metal coolants – sodium, lead, lead-bismuth – places tough demands on the corrosion resistance of structural materials. Second, radiation damage in a fast-neutron spectrum causes swelling, radiation creep and helium embrittlement, which can sharply cut the service life of fuel cladding and in-vessel components. Solving these problems is one of the hardest engineering challenges in the industry, and it determines not just safety but the economics of fast reactors – burn-up and how long a fuel cycle can be achieved.

NEi: What role do research reactors play in moving Gen IV technology toward commercialisation?

VK: A decisive one. Many Gen IV concepts – sodium, lead, gas or molten-salt cooled fast reactors – already exist on paper or as pilot designs, but moving to industrial deployment requires large-scale experimental verification: confirming computational models, testing fuel and material behaviour, working through operating regimes. Research reactors remove uncertainty from that process, and MBIR’s capabilities should shorten the path from concept to deployment while lowering technological and investment risk.

Almost every aspect of reactor operation needs experimental validation; in practice, that means things such as neutron-physics characteristics of the core for each reactor type; how structural materials behave in contact with different coolants (corrosion in lead or molten salts, high-temperature creep for gas-cooled designs); thermal-hydraulic processes at temperatures well above those in conventional water reactors, including severe-accident scenarios; and fuel performance at high burn-up and damage doses. This is an enormous body of data that can only be generated through a dedicated experimental base.

There’s a real gap opening up in the current global research infrastructure. More than 670 research reactors have been built worldwide over the course of the nuclear era, but the overwhelming majority were commissioned more than 40 years ago, and the fleet is ageing faster than experimental demand is growing. The shortage of fast research reactors is particularly acute, even though they are the ones critical to closed fuel cycle and Gen IV development. That’s the gap MBIR is intended to fill, and it’s being built explicitly on a logic of international cooperation, pooling resources and expertise for Gen IV development"

On this day in 1959, Dresden-1 achieved criticality for the first time as the first commercial, privately financed nuclear plant in the United States.

In honor of the occasion, here's a selection of artifacts, documents, and photos from the early history of the plant. First, a pen and pencil set Commonwealth Edison gave away for the initial criticality. Then an invitation to the kickoff ceremony for major construction, with some items from GE Vallecitos, where the initial group of operators was trained. Then a publicity photo, memo, and candy dish from the dedication of the plant in 1960. And finally, for the operational phase of the plant, a BWR/1 fuel spacer grid, photos of the first in service inspection, and the first in service inspection report sent to the State of IL boiler inspector