Latest News Archives

Three Mile Island, Notorious in Nuclear Power’s Past, May Herald Its Future

The concrete cooling towers that rise from a sliver of land south of Pennsylvania’s capital became symbols nearly a half-century ago of the risks of nuclear energy.

Now, a plan to restart one of the two reactors at Three Mile Island is at the leading edge of efforts to greatly expand the country’s reliance on atomic fission to meet the growing power demands of homes, businesses and data centers.

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Seal of the United States Department of Energy

TCF Base CLIMR Lab Call Offers Critical Commercialization Support for National Laboratories, Plants, and Sites

October 17, 2024 – Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF) Base Core Laboratory Infrastructure for Market Readiness (CLIMR) Lab Call. This lab call represents collaboration among 14 DOE program offices and OTT, demonstrating DOE’s dedication to deploy lasting energy solutions from our renown National Lab, plant, and sites. Funded by the Base Annual Appropriations Technology Commercialization Fund, this initiative is designed to boost America’s energy competitiveness by facilitating the transition of critical technologies for use in the private sector.

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Research Evaluates Transitioning from Coal to Nuclear Energy

October 2024 – Researchers are engaging directly with communities to learn more about local opinions and how to build social and cultural metrics into their energy-planning analysis. That’s work that’s also being done at ORNL, where the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) works with individual sites and utilities to run economic analyses and provide decision-making resources.

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GEN III+ Small Modular Reactor Pathway to Deployment Funding Opportunity

October 16, 2024 – As part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s Investing in America agenda, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today opened applications for up to $900 million in funding to support the initial domestic deployment of Generation III+ (Gen III+) small modular reactor (SMR) technologies.

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Nuclear Safety Training and Workforce Development Program

September 30, 2024 – The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced $100 million in funding to establish a nuclear safety training and workforce development program. Job growth in the U.S. nuclear energy sector is projected to triple by 2050 thanks to investments made by the Biden-Harris Administration’s Investing in America Agenda and the long-term maintenance and sustainability of these reactors is crucial to keeping pace with the growing demand for clean energy.”

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NSUF Awards 19 Rapid Turnaround Experiments

September 25, 2024 – The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy awarded 19 Nuclear Science User Facilities (NSUF) Rapid Turnaround Experiment (RTE) projects Sept. 23. The 2024 third call RTE awards, totaling approximately $1 million, were granted to 19 principal investigators from different institutions including universities and industry. Each project supports the advancement of nuclear energy.

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GAIN Announces Fourth Round FY 2024 Nuclear Energy Voucher Recipients

September 24, 2024 – The Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) announced today that four companies will be provided a GAIN Nuclear Energy (NE) Voucher to accelerate the innovation and application of advanced nuclear technologies. NE vouchers provide advanced nuclear technology innovators with access to the extensive nuclear research capabilities and expertise available across the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratory complex. This is the fourth award for FY 2024.

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GAIN team at Eastern Utah Economic Summit

Eastern Utah Economic Summit Takes Dramatic Shift

September 23, 2024 – As the United States continues its rush to shutter the nation’s remaining coal plants, energy analysts are debating what should fill the gap to meet the growing need for electricity. Increasingly, many are pointing to nuclear energy as the solution.

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Regulatory Update: NRC Issues Construction Permit for Molten Salt Research Raactor at Abilene Christian University

September 16, 2024 – The NRC has issued a Construction Permit to Abilene Christian University (ACU) to build its Molten Salt Research Reactor (MSRR) facility on the university’s campus in Abilene, Texas. It marks the first research reactor project approved by the NRC in a number of decades. The MSRR, which will not generate electricity, will use molten salt coolant with fuel dissolved in the salt.

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Guest columnist: Utilities relying more on natural gas plants

September 11, 2024 – Many states have turned to GAIN as a resource to guide them through technical and regulatory steps for potential nuclear deployment. In many coal-dependent communities, the loss of a major employer can be devastating. Take Eastern Kentucky’s Appalachian Region.

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