Year: 2025

  • How Did the MOX Project Get So Expensive? [Redux]

    Plutonium, a source of nuclear reactor fuels with incredible potential, is getting a new look. President Trump’s Executive Order 14302, Reinvigorating the Nuclear Industrial Base (May 23, 2025), directed the Executive Branch to strengthen the U.S. nuclear fuel cycle. Though plutonium reuse is mentioned several times, paragraph 3(c) specifically pertains to using surplus material from…

  • Atomic Show #337 – Leigh Curyer, CEO NexGen Energy

    NexGen Energy is a uranium mining company that is nearing the end of a long transition from a successful exploration entity to a uranium producing company. The company is in the final stages of hearings and approvals needed from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to allow it to begin constructing the mine infrastructure for its…

  • Atomic Show #335 – Dr. Hash Hashemian, President American Nuclear Society

    Dr. Hash Hashemian has been an inspiring leader in the nuclear industry for half a century. He was recently inaugurated as the President of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) after serving for a year as the Vice President/President Elect. His company, AMS Corporation, provides key services and products to nearly every nuclear power plant in…

  • Atomic Show #334 – Jonathan Nistor, COO Blue Wave AI Labs

    Blue Wave AI Labs has been creating and supplying artificial intelligence tools – mainly in the form of machine learning – to operating nuclear power plants since 2016. Their initial set of tools focused on improving boiling water reactor core reload designs. The company was formed to address the chosen problem because it was a…

  • New York’s next nuclear plant is likely to be a four unit BWRX-300 installation

    On June 23, New York’s Governor Hochul announced that she had directed the New York Power Authority to build a new nuclear energy facility with at least 1 GWe of capacity. During the announcement speech, she provided several bits of information leading to an informed prediction that the facility will initially include 4 BWRX-300’s on…

  • Atomic Show #333 – Kurt Terrani, CEO Standard Nuclear

    Standard Nuclear emerged from the start-up stealth mode in early June 2025 with the announcement of successfully raising $42 million from a group of venture capitalist led by  Decisive Point with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Washington Harbour Partners, Welara, Fundomo and Crucible Capital. Though Standard Nuclear is young enough to have a single page web site, it owns and operates the largest…

  • Atomic Show #332 – Thomas Jam Pedersen, CEO Copenhagen Atomics

    Copenhagen Atomics is an ambitious Danish company with a bold, potentially world-changing vision. They’re driven by a goal of manufacturing one reactor per day from a high quality, certified factory. If they achieve that goal, they would be adding an additional 37 GW/year of heat to the global energy supply. They want to help make…

  • Accelerating Nuclear Using The Bully Pulpit

    Part 2 – Changing Culture and Reducing Uncertainty President Trump signed five Executive Orders on May 23 that are designed to accelerate the process of unleashing nuclear energy’s incredible potential. Those orders build on strong and growing public support as well as recently enacted, strongly bipartisan laws that have made it abundantly clear that America…

  • Using the bully pulpit to energize the atomic energy industry

    Part 1. Addressing the nuclear waste issue Nuclear power has been steadily regaining its political and public popularity for about a decade and a half. A number of new laws, head of state actions and international commission decisions have made it clear that nuclear energy’s reliability, contributions to economic growth, safety and cleanliness are valuable…

  • Atomic Show #331 – Caleb Brooks, Kronos MMR Project lead for University of Illinois

    The University of Illinois-Urbana Champagne (UIUC) is planning to build a uniquely capable micro reactor project on its campus. For decades, the university hosted a traditional research reactor that supported important research projects and provided operating experience. But, like the majority of university research reactors, it did not produce any useful heat or electricity. Kronos…