The U.S. Department of Air Force has announced its notice of intent to award advanced nuclear technology company Oklo a contract to pilot a microreactor at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska.

Two recent news stories—the Department of Defense’s launching of the Advanced Nuclear Power for Installations (ANPI) program and the development of prototype nuclear batteries in Japan and South Korea—are tied together in an article by London-based writer Nick O’Hara, creator of the Substack Gridlocked: Why the 21st Century is Broken and How to Fix It.

According to O’Hara, these two developments taken together “could be the shard of light we need in otherwise dark times. Because innovations in advanced nuclear technology could be critical to unlocking the path to decarbonizing our societies and combatting climate change.”

Dozens of Westinghouse employees and supply chain partners descended on Washington, D.C., last week to build legislative support for new nuclear projects.

A bill being considered in the Texas legislature would create a taxpayer-funded program to draw advanced nuclear projects to the state.

GOP state Rep. Cody Harris authored House Bill 14, which proposes use of public dollars to help fund nuclear construction, provide grants for reactors, and continue development research. The legislation would allocate up to $2 billion for a new Texas Advanced Nuclear Deployment Office and create within it a state coordinator position to assist in the state and federal permitting processes, according to Inside Climate News.

A bill that would fully repeal the state’s entire moratorium on new nuclear projects survived a key deadline in the Illinois General Assembly last week.

To stay afloat in the spring legislative session, bills needed to be assigned to committee by March 21, and state Sen. Sue Rezin’s Senate Bill 1527 now sits with the Senate’s Energy and Public Utilities committee for review.

Coons

Moran

The bipartisan Financing Our Futures Act, which expands certain financing tools to all types of energy resources and infrastructure projects, was reintroduced to the U.S. Senate on February 20 by Sens. Jerry Moran (R., Kan.) and Chris Coons (D., Del.).

Via amendment to the Internal Revenue Code, the legislation would allow advanced nuclear energy projects to form as master limited partnerships (MLPs), a tax structure currently available only to traditional energy projects.

An MLP is a business structure that is taxed as a partnership but the ownership interests of which are traded like corporate stock on a market. Until the Internal Revenue Code is amended, MLPs will continue to be available only to investors in energy portfolios for oil, natural gas, coal extraction, and pipeline projects that derive at least 90 percent of their income from these sources. This change would take effect on January 1, 2026.

The International Energy Agency has published a new report examining opportunities for the nuclear power industry to address concerns related to energy security and climate change. The Path to a New Era for Nuclear Energy explores areas of policy, innovation, construction, and financing with an emphasis on investment-related issues regarding small modular reactors.

The IEA report describes encouraging developments taking place in the nuclear energy industry, such as increasing investment, technology advances, and supportive policies in many countries. But it also notes that certain key challenges need to be overcome if nuclear energy is to meet the needs of rising electricity demand, including demands from artificial intelligence and data centers. In addition to examining the present global status of nuclear power, the report evaluates the long-term outlook, quantifying expected capacity and investment through 2050.

Kairos Power and Google announced over the weekend a new power purchase agreement to provide the tech giant with 500 megawatts of clean energy by 2035.

Under the agreement, California-based Kairos Power will develop, construct, and operate a series of advanced reactor plants and sell energy, ancillary services, and environmental benefits to Google. Plants will be sited in “relevant service territories” to supply clean electricity to Google data centers. The first reactor is planned to be deployed by 2030 to support Google’s 24/7 carbon-free energy and net-zero goals.

Washington, D.C. — In an open letter to Science magazine, the American Nuclear Society (ANS), a professional nuclear science and technology society representing over 10,000 members worldwide, expressed its membership’s skepticism toward claims made in a recent article that advocated high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) fuel should be reclassified by the United States and restricted from commercial use in powering advanced reactor designs. The ANS emphasized the importance of a balanced, science-based discussion, and scrutinized the unscientific and hyperbolic nature of the arguments presented in the article.

“We acknowledge the importance of this discussion and the necessity of continually evaluating the proliferation risks associated with nuclear materials,” wrote ANS President Lisa Marshall in the letter. “However, after extensive technical review of the article by members and officers of the ANS Fuel Cycle and Waste Management Division and the ANS Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy Division, we remain unconvinced of the positions advocated by the authors.”

The Ogle County Board has approved a zoning change that designates 524 acres around the Byron nuclear power plant, located in northern Illinois, as industrial rather than agricultural.

Wald

“We’re going to have to do things differently if we hope to trim the output of climate-changing emissions,” writes Matthew L. Wald in an essay recently published by the Breakthrough Institute. Wald is an independent energy analyst, writer, and Nuclear News contributor who formerly worked for the Nuclear Energy Institute and the New York Times. In the essay, he says that despite optimism surrounding progress in clean energy, consumption of fossil fuels is growing, and greenhouse gas emissions are increasing.

Wald suggests that this situation is unlikely to turn around until small modular reactors and other advanced nuclear technologies are demonstrated to be commercially viable.

Race to zero emissions? Wald notes that “global consumption of fossil fuels grew 1.5 percent last year.” Furthermore, “the fossil mix is getting worse; oil was up even faster than total fossil consumption, and demand passed 100 million barrels a day for the first time.

The peaceful uses of nuclear science and technology today hold more promise to heal the world since Austrian Swedish physicist Lise Meitner and her colleagues discovered nuclear fission in 1938, said Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in a new essay titled “Nuclear Must Be Part of The Solution” published by the magazine Foreign Affairs.

While no development details have been released, Constellation is asking to rezone 658.8 acres of land it owns around the Byron nuclear plant in Illinois for possible long-term use.

Las Vegas, Nev. — The American Nuclear Society (ANS) issued the following statement during the 2024 ANS Annual Conference in Las Vegas:

“The American Nuclear Society applauds the Group of Seven (G7) leaders’ Apulia communiqué in its call for continued international cooperation in strengthening, expanding, and diversifying civil nuclear supply chains as the world deploys advanced reactors.

The U.S. Senate yesterday passed the Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act, sending legislation that would make sweeping changes to the approval process for new technology in the nuclear energy sector to President Biden for final approval.

The legislation passed with an overwhelming majority in the Senate—the vote was 88–2—having cleared the House of Representatives in May.

Donalds

Byron Donalds, the Republican representative from Florida’s 19th Congressional District, is a well-known proponent of nuclear energy. In his latest op-ed, which appeared in The Floridian, Donalds describes himself as “unabashedly pronuclear” and characterizes his state as a supporter of nuclear power, with four operating reactors providing 69.3 percent of Florida’s carbon-free electricity, powering 2.3 million homes. He emphasizes, however, that “there’s so much nuclear potential yet to be realized in the Sunshine State.”

Environmental benefits: Donalds notes that nuclear energy provides “countless environmental benefits” to Floridians, as well as reliable electricity. The 1,132 acres on which the state’s St. Lucie nuclear power plant is located have mangrove swamps, beaches, marshes, and other wildlife habitats that are home to more than 180 species of animals—36 of which are endangered or threatened.

Members of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday included nuclear energy as part of their discussions of the increasing demand for electricity anticipated in the coming decade, spurred in large part by the rise of artificial intelligence, data centers, and public consumption.

GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH)—the nuclear business unit of Massachusetts-based GE Vernova in partnership with Japan’s Hitachi—has announced that it is forming a group of qualified supply chain companies to advance the manufacture, commercialization, and international deployment of its BWRX-300 small modular reactor. The company stated that it is forming the group to help ensure “a reliable, cost-effective and innovative” process for getting its SMR commercialized and deployed around the world.

The Group of Seven (G7) recommitted its support for nuclear energy in the countries that opt to use it at a Ministerial Meeting on Climate in Italy last month.

In a statement following the April meeting, the group committed to support multilateral efforts to strengthen the resilience of nuclear supply chains, referencing the goal set by 25 countries during last year’s COP28 climate conference in Dubai to triple global nuclear generating capacity by 2050.

Next-generation reactor company Oklo Inc. is teaming up with Diamondback Energy Inc. to bring Oklo’s Aurora Powerhouse units to the American Southwest.

The companies signed a nonbinding letter of intent (LOI) this week to collaborate on a 20-year power purchase agreement that would provide 50 MW of electricity per unit to Diamondback’s Permian Basin operations area. The agreement lays out options to renew and extend the agreement for an additional 20-year term, since the units are designed to operate for 40 years without needing to refuel. Diamondback is an independent oil and gas company headquartered in Texas.