Icebreaker Sibir begins sea trials

Russia’s newest nuclear-powered icebreaker, the Sibir, has left the Baltic Shipyard and headed into the Gulf of Finland for sea trials. Two more identical ships are under construction at the shipyard near Saint Petersburg. Sibir is the first series-produced universal icebreaker of so-called Project 22220, after the first of that class, the Arktika, which entered operation a year …

Southern Company signs agreement with U.S. Department of Energy to demonstrate world’s first fast-spectrum salt reactor in collaboration with TerraPower and Idaho National Laboratory

The Molten Chloride Reactor Experiment will provide crucial operational data for fast-spectrum salt reactors and unlock this uniquely flexible advanced reactor technology for use in a net-zero future. Southern Company and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) have established a cooperative agreement to design, construct and operate the Molten Chloride Reactor Experiment – the world’s …

The small nuclear power plants billed as an energy fix

“We’ll likely have more accidents than existing reactors because it’s a new technology, but these will be accidents and not disasters,” says Troels Schonfeldt, co-founder of Denmark’s Seaborg Technologies. His nuclear power company is one of several developing a new generation of smaller nuclear power plants. Like others in the industry, Mr Schonfeldt wants to …

TerraPower picks Kemmerer for nuclear plant

TerraPower has chosen the Naughton power plant in Kemmerer as the site of its first Natrium nuclear reactor, the company said Tuesday. The decision comes nearly six months after the nuclear developer and regional utility Rocky Mountain Power announced plans to build the demonstration reactor at one of four retiring Wyoming coal plants. Also in contention were …

Congress Appropriates ~$1.1B Dollars to X-energy’s ARDP Project with Historic Legislation Recognizing Clean Energy Supply as vital to US Infrastructure and Economic Health.

The historic Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act has passed into law. The package provides almost $2.5 Billion dollars through Fiscal year 2025 for the Department of Energy’s contribution to the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program, which selected X-energy and Terrapower to demonstrate their advanced nuclear reactors before the end of the decade. Each company will split …

Dual criticality for Chinese demonstration HTR-PM

The second reactor of the High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor-Pebble-bed Module (HTR-PM) at the Shidaowan plant in China’s Shandong province has reached criticality for the first time, China Huaneng has announced. The first of the unit’s twin reactors achieved first criticality in September. According to China Huaneng – the lead organisation in the consortium to …

Go mini-nuclear with AUKUS, Rolls-Royce urges Australia

London: Rolls-Royce says the AUKUS security agreement between Australia, the United Kingdom and the US paves the way for Australia to embrace small modular nuclear reactors. This week Rolls-Royce announced it had raised nearly £500 million ($915 million) in government and private equity funding to build its small modular reactor design. Currently, no such reactors exist …

Nuclearelectrica confirms plans to replace coal-power plants with small nuclear reactors

The locations of the small-sized nuclear reactors in Romania will be decided under a study that started last year, but some of them may coincide with the coal-fired power plants that were closed or are going to be closed, confirmed Teodor Chirica – CEO of Romanian nuclear company Nuclearelectrica, which recently sealed with the US …

GE Splitting Into Three Companies, Will Spin Off Energy Group

General Electric (GE) has announced plans to split into three separate companies, breaking up into publicly traded groups for its energy, healthcare, and aviation divisions. The company on Nov. 9 said the GE Power, GE Renewable Energy, and GE Digital groups will be combined into one business, with the company pursuing a tax-free spin-off of …