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Tennessee's Top Officials Push Hard to Bind Nuclear Energy with Data Centers: Tennessee's Computing Blueprint and the Clash with Reality

Against the backdrop of an increasingly white-hot global artificial intelligence arms race, competition in computing infrastructure has substantively evolved into competition in energy supply capacity. Recently, at the ImagineIF tech futurism conference held in Nashville, multiple Tennessee political figures collectively spoke out, outlining a strategic blueprint centered on Oak Ridge and relying on nuclear energy and small modular reactors (SMRs) to power hyperscale data centers across the United States. However, beneath the grand framework of a multi-trillion-dollar investment vision and the historical narrative of the Manhattan Project, this industrial concept is facing regulatory approval bottlenecks, lagging power grid interconnection, rising community resistance, and environmental equity...

2026-10-07

U.S. Department of Energy Commits $4.2 Billion Loan to Support Vistra Nuclear Plant Expansion and Upgrade

On October 5, 2026, the Office of Energy Dominance Financing of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced a commitment to provide a conditional loan of up to $4.2 billion to fund the expansion and modernization of nuclear power plants owned by Vistra Corp. in Pennsylvania and Ohio. It is understood that this investment aims to implement U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order on revitalizing the nuclear industrial base. U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright stated that by increasing the power generation of existing nuclear power plants, affordable...

2026-10-06

Europe Completes Delivery of Final ITER Vacuum Vessel Sector, Marking Conclusion of 16 Years of Manufacturing

Recently, Fusion for Energy (F4E), in collaboration with Ansaldo Nucleare, Westinghouse, and Walter Tosto, has completed the manufacturing of Europe's final vacuum vessel sector for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) and delivered it to the ITER project site at Cadarache in southeastern France. It is understood that the ITER vacuum vessel has an internal volume of 1,400 cubic meters and is composed of nine wedge-shaped steel sectors, each over 14 meters tall and weighing up to 440 tonnes. Once assembled, the vacuum vessel will have an outer diameter of 19.4 meters, a height of 11.4 meters, and weigh approximately 520...

2026-10-06

Korea Holds Briefing Session on Bidding for Auxiliary Equipment for Czech Dukovany Nuclear Power Project

Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) officially held the briefing session on bidding for auxiliary equipment for the Czech Dukovany Nuclear Power Project on September 30 at the Radiation Health Institute in Seoul. As the Czech Dukovany new Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) project has fully transitioned from the preliminary supplier qualification and registration stage to the substantive bidding and equipment procurement stage, this briefing session was aimed at providing comprehensive guidance and support for Korean domestic equipment manufacturers to participate in the bidding. The meeting attracted approximately 130 plant auxiliary equipment (...

2026-10-04

CGN Environmental Protection and Cangnan Nuclear Power Sign a New Round of General Contracting Agreement for Nuclear Environmental Protection Business

Recently, CGN Environmental Protection and Cangnan Nuclear Power officially signed a new round of general contracting agreement for nuclear environmental protection business. This marks a comprehensive upgrade of their cooperation from version 1.0 to version 2.0, and also a substantive implementation of the Group's deepening reform strategy in the field of nuclear environmental protection. Zhan Weihua, Deputy Party Secretary and General Manager of Cangnan Nuclear Power, and Qin Geng, Party Committee Member and Chief Accountant; Ren Junhua, Deputy Party Secretary and General Manager of CGN Environmental Protection, Lu Shubao, Party Committee Member and Deputy General Manager, and Yang Wei, Party Committee Member and Deputy General Manager attended the signing ceremony. In 2025, CGN Environmental Protection transitioned toward nuclear environmental protection business and signed the first round of general contracting agreements with multiple plants. Over the past year, the company has continuously honed its capabilities in business undertaking and execution, and is accelerating the construction of an integrated...

2026-10-02

The first concrete pouring for the nuclear island of Unit 2 of State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC) Guangxi Bailong Nuclear Power Project was successfully completed.

The first concrete pouring for the nuclear island of Unit 2 of SPIC Guangxi Bailong Nuclear Power Project was completed at 16:07 on September 30, after 69 hours and 40 minutes of continuous work. A total of 6,732.5 cubic meters of concrete was used for this pouring, marking another important milestone for the project after the FCD achievement for the nuclear island of Unit 1. Phase I of the Bailong Nuclear Power Project plans to build two CAP1000 nuclear power units. These two units adopt independently designed and domestically manufactured Generation III passive nuclear power technology, with each unit having a capacity of up to 1.25 million kilowatts. At present, Unit 1 has entered the construction and installation stage, and the steel containment vessel bottom head, CA20, CV1R, CA01...

2026-09-30

Pressurizer of Lufeng Nuclear Power Unit 1 Successfully Hoisted into Place

On September 30, the pressurizer of Lufeng Nuclear Power Unit 1, constructed by China Nuclear Industry 23 Construction Co., Ltd., was successfully hoisted into place. The success of this hoisting marks major progress in the installation of the primary circuit main equipment in the nuclear island of Lufeng Nuclear Power Unit 1, laying a solid foundation for the subsequent surge line welding, system equipment installation, and commissioning work. The pressurizer is a core main equipment of the nuclear island reactor coolant system and a Class 1 nuclear safety equipment. It undertakes the tasks of pressure regulation and overpressure protection for the primary circuit system and is key equipment for ensuring the safe and stable operation of the reactor. This equipment is a vertical cylindrical pressure vessel with a body height of more than ten meters and a total hoisting weight of over one hundred tons. It is installed in the pressurizer compartment of the CA01 module, with stringent design and manufacturing standards...

2026-09-30

Main Coolant Piping Welding of Lufeng Nuclear Power Unit 6 Successfully Completed

On September 28, the main coolant piping welding of the nuclear island of Lufeng Nuclear Power Unit 6 was successfully completed. All non-destructive testing of the main coolant piping was finished, with the first-pass qualification rate of radiographic testing (RT)/ultrasonic testing (UT) reaching 100%, laying a solid foundation for subsequent key milestones such as nuclear loop flushing and cold functional testing. Facing the high standards of main coolant piping welding, the project department strictly implemented nuclear safety supervision and control requirements, carried out precondition verification across all dimensions of personnel, machines, materials, methods, and environment, established a main coolant piping welding control zone, strictly controlled the working environment including temperature, humidity, and cleanliness, and ensured stable and controllable welding conditions. The project team fully drew on the main coolant piping welding experience of Unit 5, formulated a special plan and implemented full-process management, and through digital monitoring means throughout the entire welding process, tracked key parameters such as welding deformation and temperature in real time, refined the process disclosure, in-process inspection, and quality acceptance procedures for each weld joint, and applied the work style of "strict, cautious, meticulous, and pragmatic" to every welding operation and every weld seam, ensuring the successful completion of the main coolant piping welding of Unit 6.

2026-09-30

Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics Makes Important Progress in Electrolyzer Design and Electrocatalytic Materials Research

Recently, the National Key Laboratory of Thorium-based Nuclear Fission Energy at the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has made important progress in the fields of membrane-divided electrolyzer design and electrocatalytic materials. Researchers combined electrolyzer reactor design with electrocatalytic material innovation to develop an anion exchange membrane-divided H-type electrolysis system based on nonporous metal-organic framework (MOFs) materials, achieving efficient electrochemical recovery of uranium resources and complete degradation of organic ether solvents in uranium-containing organic ether wastewater. The related results, titled "Nonporous Metal-Organic Framework Enables Record-High Uranium Extraction and Complete Diglyme Degra...

2026-09-30

Argonne National Laboratory Achieves Latest Research Progress in Advanced Reactor Passive Safety, Revealing Flow Characteristics of Reactor Cavity Cooling System Using NSTF Facility

A research team at Argonne National Laboratory, under the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), has achieved the latest research progress on passive shutdown decay heat removal mechanisms for next-generation advanced nuclear reactors. Under unplanned reactor shutdown or sudden emergency accident conditions, nuclear fuel continues to release decay heat. Ensuring continuous and reliable heat removal under complete power loss and without manual intervention is a core issue in the inherent safety design of Generation IV advanced reactors. The Argonne research team recently focused on the transient thermal-hydraulic response characteristics of key passive heat removal systems under realistic dynamic decay heat curves. This...

2026-09-30

Brookfield Renewable Discloses Strategy for Nuclear Energy Business Segment

At the Brookfield Affiliates Investor Day 2026 held on September 29, Brookfield Renewable Partners (BEP) highlighted the strategic progress and industrial layout of its nuclear energy business segment. Brookfield management noted that as AI data centers, manufacturing reshoring, and deep electrification across society drive a sharp increase in global electricity demand, power supply has become a key bottleneck constraining economic growth. Nuclear energy, with its high reliability, round-the-clock baseload attributes, and value for national energy security, is entering an unprecedented super expansion cycle not seen in decades. The...

2026-09-30

The main control room large screen of Unit 1 of SPIC Lianjiang Nuclear Power Project was successfully lit up

On September 28, the main control room large screen of Unit 1 of SPIC Lianjiang Nuclear Power Project was successfully lit up, marking that the unit construction has entered a new stage and laying a solid foundation for the subsequent cold test, hot test, and high-quality commissioning. The main control room is the control center of a nuclear power plant, mainly including important equipment such as the unit operation operator workstations and related control panels. It is the "brain" of the nuclear power plant and undertakes the core functions of unit operation monitoring, organization, and command.

2026-09-29

ENN's "Xuanlong-50U" Device Successfully Achieves Hydrogen-Boron Fusion Reaction

In late September 2026, ENN achieved a major breakthrough in the commercialization of hydrogen-boron fusion: the Xuanlong-50U device achieved a hydrogen-boron fusion reaction. This is the first time a global commercial fusion company has achieved a hydrogen-boron fusion reaction on its own device, and also the first time China's magnetic confinement fusion device has achieved a clean neutron-free fusion reaction with advanced fuels (hydrogen-boron, deuterium-helium-3). Hydrogen-boron fusion has commercialization advantages such as being neutron-free, having abundant and easily accessible fuel, and low cost. Its product is helium (α particles), but compared with deuterium-tritium fusion, it requires higher reaction temperature and triple product, and more demanding reaction conditions. In this experiment, the ENN fusion team, through the synergy of high-energy neutral beam injection and radio-frequency waves, greatly increased the non-thermal equilibrium fast proton fraction at the first resonance peak of the hydrogen-boron reaction...

2026-09-28

Dongfang Electric Signs Low-Pressure Diaphragm Supply Agreement with Électricité de France, Supporting the Upgrade and Retrofit of European Pressurized Water Reactor Nuclear Power Units

Recently, Dongfang Electric International Corporation (hereinafter referred to as "Dongfang International"), a subsidiary of China Dongfang Electric Group Co., Ltd., and Arabelle, a subsidiary of Électricité de France (EDF), officially signed a nuclear power steam turbine low-pressure diaphragm supply agreement. According to the agreement, Dongfang Electric will serve as a key equipment supplier, providing core steam turbine low-pressure diaphragm components for the life extension and modernization technical retrofit projects of pressurized water reactor (PWR) nuclear power units under Électricité de France. For more than three decades, Dongfang Electric Group and Électricité de France have consistently maintained close strategic collaboration in the field of civil nuclear energy, from...

2026-09-28

Rosatom has developed the first batch of nuclear fuel assemblies for the MBIR multi-purpose fast reactor, successfully passing factory acceptance testing

At the site of the Fuel Technology Division of the State Scientific Center — Research Institute of Atomic Reactors (NIIAR, Dimitrovgrad), under the Scientific Division of Rosatom, the first batch of 3 pilot nuclear fuel assemblies (Fuel assemblies / ТВС) for the multi-purpose sodium-cooled fast neutron research reactor (MBIR) successfully completed comprehensive factory acceptance tests. The professional acceptance committee conducted a thorough review of the maturity and completeness of the fuel production process line for this batch as well as all technical performance parameters of the trial-manufactured assemblies, and completed high-precision geometric dimension and quality re-verification measurements item by item. This acceptance review brought together the expertise of multiple core research and manufacturing institutions in the Russian nuclear industry, including the Dollezhal Research and Development Institute of Power Engineering (NIKIET), the Institute of Physics and Power Engineering (IPPE), and the Machine-Building Plant Joint Stock Company (MSZ, Elemash).

2026-09-27