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Study Reveals Three-Dimensional Pore Networks Inside Uranium-Zirconium Metallic Nuclear Fuel

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in collaboration with Idaho National Laboratory (INL), conducted three-dimensional imaging studies on irradiated uranium-10 zirconium metallic fuel, revealing the internal pore networks within the fuel and their relationship with chemical changes and fuel-cladding interactions. The researchers believe these results will help improve metallic fuel performance models, providing references for extending the operating cycles of certain reactors and for the design of next-generation sodium-cooled fast reactor fuel systems. Uranium-10 zirconium (U-10Zr) is a uranium-zirconium alloy metallic fuel containing 10% zirconium, which has been extensively tested in sodium-cooled fast reactors such as Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II) and the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF). As advanced reactor research and development progresses, this type of metallic fuel has regained attention, but the details of pore formation, swelling, heat transfer, and interactions with cladding materials under reactor irradiation conditions still require further clarification.

2026-08-13

HD Hyundai Chairman to Meet Bill Gates to Advance SMR Cooperation

HD Hyundai Chairman Chung Ki-sun will meet Bill Gates, who is visiting South Korea, on August 14, with the two sides planning discussions on cooperation in small modular reactors (SMRs). Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, also serves as chairman of TerraPower, a U.S. small modular reactor company. This will be the latest round of communication between Chung and Gates on related cooperation, following their meeting earlier this year at the Davos Forum in Switzerland. HD Hyundai and TerraPower have been steadily strengthening cooperation in SMR and advanced reactor manufacturing in recent years. In November 2022, HD Korea Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering invested $30 million in TerraPower. In December 2024, HD Hyundai secured an order to manufacture the reactor vessel for TerraPower's 345 MW sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) to be built in Wyoming, U.S.

2026-08-13

Astrotech Plans Commercial Lunar Power Facility, Evaluating Nuclear Fission Power Supplement Options

Astrotech Corporation announced on August 11 that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Lunar Power & Light (LP&L), plans to develop a commercial power generation, storage, and distribution network in high-illumination regions near the lunar poles to provide lunar power services for future government and commercial customers. The company also stated that the plan remains in its early stages, with further progress contingent on technology validation, financing, customer commitments, launch conditions, and relevant government authorizations. According to LP&L's vision, the proposed power grid would consist of distributed elevated solar towers, sun-tracking systems, utility-scale and local battery storage, autonomous control...

2026-08-12

Fuse Energy Technologies Corp. Reports FAETON-X Single-Shot D-D Fusion Neutron Yield of 1.27×10¹²

Fuse Energy Technologies Corp., headquartered in California, USA, announced on August 11 that its megajoule-class dense plasma focus device FAETON-X measured a peak neutron yield of (1.27±0.27)×10¹² neutrons per shot in a single D-D fusion experiment. The company stated that this is one of the highest single-shot fusion neutron yields publicly recorded by a commercial fusion enterprise, and the first to reach the 10¹² order of magnitude. FAETON-X is a megajoule-class pulsed-power fusion system developed by Fuse, designed as a single-pulse flash neutron source, serving pulsed-power fusion R&D and...

2026-08-12

TRISO-X and Oak Ridge National Laboratory Extend Advanced Nuclear Fuel R&D Collaboration

TRISO-X announced on August 11 that it has extended its Collaborative Research and Development Agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The newly signed agreement has a term of 30 months and will continue to advance commercial-scale development of TRISO fuel, manufacturing process optimization, and technology transfer, building on the collaboration established since 2016. TRISO-X is a wholly-owned subsidiary of X-energy, primarily engaged in advanced nuclear fuel manufacturing. Under the agreement, TRISO-X will continue to operate its existing pilot-scale facilities at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, with a focus on transitioning TRISO fuel from laboratory R&D to commercial-scale manufacturing. The collaboration includes optimizing fuel...

2026-08-12

California Governor Says He Will Not Push for Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant Life Extension During His Term

California Governor Gavin Newsom said he will not push to extend the operating life of the state's only commercial nuclear power plant, Diablo Canyon, during his final months in office. This means the plant's fate after 2030 will be left at least to the next state administration to decide. Located in San Luis Obispo County, California, the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant has two units and is owned and operated by Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E). Under an arrangement PG&E reached in 2016, the two units were originally scheduled for phased retirement. However, after California's high temperatures in 2022 triggered power supply strain and blackouts...

2026-08-12

U.S. Moves to Relax Oversight of Small Maritime Nuclear Reactors, Promoting Civilian Floating Nuclear Energy Applications

The U.S. government is pushing to remove or simplify regulatory barriers to deploying civilian nuclear reactors on floating platforms and vessels, aiming to pave the way for small modular reactors to enter maritime shipping and offshore energy applications. The relevant topics will be highlighted during the International Atomic Energy Agency's ATLAS initiative event from August 26 to 27, with the U.S. also planning to showcase reactor technologies suitable for waterborne operations. The day prior, the U.S. will host an industry day, inviting nuclear and maritime sector companies to present their solutions. This move reflects the strategic importance the U.S. energy sector places on small modular reactors. Compared to traditional large-scale nuclear power plants, small modular reactors emphasize high energy density,...

2026-08-12

Kyoto Fusioneering and Oak Ridge to Build World's First Fusion Blanket Verification Facility UNITY-3

Kyoto Fusioneering (KF), a Japanese fusion energy engineering company, announced that it will jointly build a facility named UNITY-3 with the U.S. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to verify the breeding blanket technology required for commercial fusion power plants. The project is described as the world's first facility dedicated to breeding blanket demonstration, and KF will also relocate its U.S. business base to Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The project has received support from the U.S. Department of Energy's relevant roadmap, Tennessee's nuclear energy supply chain investment fund, and the DOE, indicating that the fusion industry is shifting from purely plasma physics breakthroughs toward engineering, system integration, and supply chain development. The breeding blanket is a critical component for deuterium-tritium fusion power...

2026-08-12

Solaris Invests in Deployable Energy, Pushing "Unity" Transportable Microreactor Toward Commercial SMR

Houston-based advanced nuclear startup Deployable Energy (CEO Bobby Gallagher, former Australian Army/offshore drilling background) has reached a strategic partnership with NYSE-listed U.S. energy infrastructure company Solaris Energy Infrastructure, Inc. (NYSE: SEI): Solaris will take an equity stake in Deployable and leverage its own experience in grid construction and operations under harsh conditions (defense bases, heavy industry, data centers) to help the latter bring the Unity Nuclear Battery—a roughly 1 MWe-class, container-sized, portable microreactor that fits in a pickup truck bed for highway transport—to commercial deployment. The Unity reactor has already achieved...

2026-08-12

Deep Fission Details 'One-Mile-Deep PWR' Roadmap at Canaccord Conference, Targeting First Commercial Operation by End of 2027

On August 11, Deep Fission (FISN) unveiled a differentiated nuclear commercialization pathway at Canaccord Genuity's 46th Annual Growth Conference: rather than reinventing nuclear fission technology, the company aims to deploy mature pressurized water reactors in underground boreholes approximately one mile deep. CEO Liz Muller emphasized that the core approach is to change where reactors are deployed, not to adopt an entirely new reactor physics model. Given that PWR technology has been used in commercial nuclear power for decades, the company hopes to shorten the validation cycle by leveraging mature technology and avoid the new fuel, new material, and new design licensing hurdles faced by some advanced nuclear projects. According to the company's plan...

2026-08-12

Sophelio Launches Fusion Equilibrium Challenge, Opening DIII-D and MAST Experimental Datasets

On August 11, Sophelio launched the Fusion Equilibrium Challenge. The competition has been accepted into the 2026 Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) competition track, making it the first fusion energy-related challenge to enter this track. The challenge is co-organized by Sophelio together with the DIII-D National Fusion Facility, the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) FAIR-MAST project, and the Institute for Fusion Studies (IFS) at the University of Texas at Austin, with data hosted on the Hugging Face platform. Open to the global machine learning community, the competition re...

2026-08-12

TVA Preserves Bellefonte Nuclear Plant Site for SMR Development, Accelerates Negotiations with GE Vernova Hitachi

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is preserving the unfinished Bellefonte Nuclear Plant in Jackson County, Alabama for potential future development. Based on current progress, TVA is accelerating negotiations with GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy, and if the two parties ultimately reach an agreement, this long-idle nuclear plant site could be used to deploy multiple BWRX-300 small modular reactors. TVA spokesperson Scott Fiedler stated that the agency's current goal is to protect and preserve the Bellefonte site for future energy development. Small modular reactors are one of the technologies TVA is considering when evaluating potential power generation options, but no final decision has been made yet...

2026-08-12

Nuclea Signs MOU with Utah Office of Energy Development to Advance Microreactor Testing at USREL

Nuclea Energy USA Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of advanced nuclear technology developer Nuclea Energy Inc., recently announced that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Utah Office of Energy Development to explore the possibility of deploying a nuclear test reactor at Utah's San Rafael Energy Laboratory to advance the development and commercialization of Nuclea's Morpheus microreactor. This collaboration is seen as an important step for Nuclea's micro modular reactor moving from technology validation toward actual deployment. According to the MOU, Nuclea and the Utah Office of Energy Development will evaluate test reactor siting, coordination with the U.S. Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and...

2026-08-12

GAO: DOE Nuclear Cleanup "End-State Contract Model" Exceeds Budget by $500 Million in Six Years and Misses Goals

A report released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) on July 29 shows that the Office of Environmental Management (EM) at the U.S. Department of Energy has accumulated over $500 million in cost growth on nuclear waste cleanup contracts since 2020, yet the agency cannot fully explain the reasons for these increases. EM is responsible for cleaning up 15 sites in the United States contaminated by nuclear weapons production and energy research. To address long-standing contract management problems, EM adopted the End-State Contract Model (ESCM) starting in fiscal year 2020, breaking cleanup work into smaller task orders under larger master contracts, with the goal of improving cost predictability, accelerating cleanup progress, and enhancing performance outcomes...

2026-08-12

U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration Extends Savannah River Site Management and Operating Contract to September 2027

The U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA) announced on August 10 that it has exercised the remaining option on the Savannah River Site (SRS) Management and Operating contract with Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, LLC, extending contract performance through September 30, 2027, with an estimated contract value of $2.3 billion. NNSA stated that exercising this remaining option will help maintain continuity and stability of the contractor workforce, allowing related work to continue advancing around the agency's critical missions. The current SRS Management and Operating contract was originally scheduled to expire on September 30, 2026...

2026-08-11