Days after it launched a USD6 billion programme to support the continued operation of existing nuclear power plants, the Department of Energy has set in motion its programme to invest USD9.5 billion in clean hydrogen technologies which may include the use of nuclear power.

Counterfeit, fraudulent, and suspect items are present in operating US nuclear power plants, a special inquiry by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission Office of the Inspector General has found.
 

The Tennessee Valley Authority has announced a new nuclear programme to explore advanced nuclear technology as part of its decarbonisation goals. One of its first tasks will be to pursue a construction licence application for a light-water, small modular reactor at the Clinch River site.

The US Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management is to deactivate and demolish the land-based prototype for a reactor plant used in the first nuclear-powered submarine. The Submarine 1st Generation Westinghouse was built inside a section of a submarine hull at the Naval Reactors Facility in the Arco Desert, west of Idaho Falls.

California-based Oklo Inc and Argonne National Laboratory have signed an agreement formalising their commitment to commercialising recycling technology for advanced reactor fuel as part of a US Department of Energy-funded project.

Alaskan cooperative utility Copper Valley Electric Association and Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation have agreed to determine the feasibility of building the first commercial installation of a Micro Modular Reactor Energy System in the US state.

A full-scale electrically heated prototype for the US Department of Energy's Microreactor Applications Research Validation and Evaluation reactor has been built at Idaho National Laboratory.

Two newly announced North American initiatives aim to accelerate the deployment of fusion technologies for power generation.

Work on the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System at the US Department of Energy's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico made significant progress last year following earlier delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

A bill removing West Virginia's ban on the construction of new nuclear power plants has completed its passage through the state's legislature and will now go to the state's governor for signature. The ban has been in place since 1996.

Field activities at the Carbon Free Power Project site have been completed in what Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems has described as a major milestone for the project to build a NuScale small modular reactor plant at the Idaho National Laboratory.
 

Lead test assemblies of Westinghouse-developed nuclear fuel are to be loaded into unit 2 of the Vogtle nuclear power plant, marking the first planned installation of nuclear fuel enriched to more than 5% uranium-235 in a US commercial reactor.