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Over 80 years after scientists of the ‘Manhattan Project’ harnessed the power of the atom to end World War II, the top-secret worksite has a new mission to help dominate AI before China does. The first phase of the United States' latest uranium enrichment facility opened in Oak Ridge, Tennessee in May. ... The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported 99% of U.S. nuclear fuel is imported from other countries. In 2023, most of America's uranium products came from Russia, Canada, Australia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. The U.S. banned the import of uranium products from Russia in May 2024, but companies can...

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:Section 1. Purpose. The United States originally pioneered nuclear energy technology during a time of great peril. We now face a new set of challenges, including a global race to dominate in artificial intelligence, a growing need for energy independence, and access to uninterruptible power supplies for national security. It took nearly 40 years for the United States to add the same amount of nuclear capacity as another developed nation added in 10 years. Further, as American...

Today, President Donald J. Trump took a series of executive actions to unleash nuclear energy in the U.S. as part of the administration’s effort to secure the energy future of America and unleash American energy dominance.Joining President Trump were some of the top leaders in nuclear energy:“We have some of the largest companies in the world — the hyper-scalers — who need this energy for AI, who are now working with us to fund the development and construction of the next-generation nuclear,” said Constellation Energy CEO Joseph Dominguez. “Nuclear is a 24/7 resource. These datacenters run 24/7. Some of them...

Home | Politics Tags: trump | nuclear | license Trump Seeks to Fast-Track Nuclear Licenses, Overhaul Regulatory Agency Trump Seeks to Fast-Track Nuclear Licenses, Overhaul Regulatory Agency (AP) Friday, 23 May 2025 02:57 PM EDT Comment| Print| A A President Donald Trump ordered the nation's independent nuclear regulatory commission to cut down on regulations and fast-track new licenses for reactors and power plants on Friday, seeking to shrink a multi-year process down to 18 months. The requirement was part of a batch of executive orders signed by Trump on Friday that aim to boost U.S. nuclear energy production amid a...

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese authorities decided to form the strategic alliance for defense, trade and energy. Russia will deliver oil to China and China will collaborate with Russia in Geopolitical strategic defense of Euresia. Russia's Security Council and the Military Commission of the Chinese Communist Party's Politburo will form a forum and will work closely to make sure both countries can create and maintain the necessary military and political infrastructure as well as coordination. According to some international think tanks, sources close to Russia's Security Council say recommending countermeasures to check the U.S. geopolitical "offensive" in Eurasia...

A new report from GlobalData, a data and analytics group, projects global nuclear power capacity will hit 494 GW by 2035. The group’s “Nuclear Power Market, Update 2025–Market Size, Segmentation, Major Trends, and Key Country Analysis to 2035” said capacity gains will be tied to advancements in deployments of small modular reactors (SMRs), along with the continuing worldwide shift to cleaner forms of energy. The report released April 21 said recent gains in nuclear power have been driven by moves toward more low-carbon baseload power. Measures promoting energy security, in addition to interest in decarbonization of industrial sectors, also is...

The stock market's response to emerging technologies can sometimes be as volatile as the innovations themselves. A recent example of this occurred on January 27, 2025, when a sharp sell-off hit the nuclear energy sector. This sudden downturn was triggered by news surrounding DeepSeek, a new artificial intelligence (AI) model touted for its potentially lower energy consumption compared to existing AI technologies. The market, seemingly fearing that a less power-hungry AI could diminish the need for energy production, reacted negatively, impacting companies across the energy sector. However, a closer examination suggests that this market dip represents a significant overreaction, obscuring...

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON, Jan 2 (Reuters) - Constellation Energy has been awarded a record $1 billion in contracts to supply nuclear power to the U.S. government over the next decade, the company said on Thursday. Constellation, the country's largest operator of nuclear power plants, will deliver electricity to more than 13 federal agencies as part of the agreements with the U.S. General Services Administration. The deal is the biggest energy purchase in the history of the GSA....

As tech companies reboot nuclear energy, the site of the famous meltdown represents both the industry’s demise and its rebirth.Jane Fonda isn't a nuclear expert, but she played one on TV. In the 1979 film The China Syndrome, Fonda portrayed Kimberly Wells, a vivacious news reporter who discovered a cover-up at a nuclear power plant. The conspiracy involved the possibility of a meltdown that could "render an area the size of Pennsylvania permanently uninhabitable." The movie's timing and location were both impeccable. Twelve days after Fonda's film hit theaters, a reactor at Three Mile Island (TMI) in central Pennsylvania...

The U.S. nuclear energy sector’s dependence on Russian uranium created during a failed Obama-era reset with Moscow is coming back to bite Americans as the Kremlin moves to block future exports of the vital fuel. Vladimir Putin’s new restrictions on uranium exports to the U.S., announced last week, come as the country’s war in Ukraine continues to heighten tensions with the United States and the West. His announcement created an immediate impact, as uranium prices soared and worries grew that American utilities might have trouble meeting electric demand next year. It's the latest fallout from a series of foreign policy...

In a move that could signal the beginning of the end for the expensive and unreliable Biden-Harris green energy ideology, 14 of the world's biggest banks have announced they are lining up behind President Donald Trump's plans for nuclear energy in the world's future. Online reporting cited documentation of the plans by the Financial Times: The statement said, "Banks and funds totaling $14 TRILLION in assets have just signed an unprecedented statement in support of nuclear power. They'll be presenting the pledge to support the goal of tripling nuclear THIS MORNING at the Rockefeller Center in New York City to...

He states that there will be “Rapid Approvals” for the following: —— new drillings, new pipelines, new refineries, new power and electric plants, and new reactors of all types (nuclear) —— “This will quickly reduce the prices of everything almost immediately.”

Vast swaths of the United States are at risk of running short of power as electricity-hungry data centers and clean-technology factories proliferate around the country, leaving utilities and regulators grasping for credible plans to expand the nation’s creaking power grid. In Georgia, demand for industrial power is surging to record highs, with the projection of new electricity use for the next decade now 17 times what it was only recently. Arizona Public Service, the largest utility in that state, is also struggling to keep up, projecting it will be out of transmission capacity before the end of the decade absent...

Japan is stepping up efforts to have local authorities approve the restart of the world’s biggest nuclear power plant, the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa facility north of Tokyo... Next week, Japan’s Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Ken Saito, is expected to ask the local governor of the Niigata prefecture to approve the restart of the power plant.. In the wake of the Fukushima disaster in 2011, Japan closed all its nuclear power plants that underwent rigorous safety checks and inspections. Kashiwazaki-Kariwa has been offline since 2012, while the Nuclear Regulation Authority in 2021 barred the plant’s operator, utility Tepco, from operating the...

Japan will have as many as nine nuclear reactors in operation this winter, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Thursday, seeking to ensure stable power supplies during peak demand. With five reactors currently running, the additions would boost combined capacity from nuclear power to around 10% of the country's electricity needs amid concerns of a power crunch this winter. "We want to have ample capacity to ensure a stable supply of electricity during peak times," Kishida said. "The national government will take the lead" on restarting these reactors, "making tenacious efforts to secure the understanding and cooperation of local governments and...

Thirty-five years after the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine exploded in the world’s worst nuclear accident, fission reactions are smoldering again in uranium fuel masses buried deep inside a mangled reactor hall. “It’s like the embers in a barbecue pit,” says Neil Hyatt, a nuclear materials chemist at the University of Sheffield. Now, Ukrainian scientists are scrambling to determine whether the reactions will wink out on their own—or require extraordinary interventions to avert another accident. Sensors are tracking a rising number of neutrons, a signal of fission, streaming from one inaccessible room, Anatolii Doroshenko of the Institute for Safety...

A simple visit to an obscure factory by Chinese President Xi on Monday is all it took to raise the specter that China could be contemplating cutting off supply of critical materials to the U.S. and potentially crippling large swathes of its industries. Also, fueled by political innuendo in Xi’s recent call for a new “Long March” in reference to a key founding tenet of the Chinese Communist Party, speculators are growing increasingly wary of Chinese export restrictions to the U.S., including rare earth minerals. As the world’s largest producer, the Middle Kingdom has a vice-like grip on rare earths...

There seems to be a similarity between international trade disputes and Texas Hold’em. There is always a certain amount of bluff that is part of the negotiations. The question is, how much is a bluff and how much is not. The Peoples Republic of China (PRC) has just revealed that they are going to use their stake in rare earth minerals production as their show card. Make no mistake -- the communist government is not bluffing. However, one good card does not make a winning hand. To understand the problem, we first must understand where rare earth mineral deposits are...

America’s uranium industry has been absolutely devastated by Department of Energy decisions and political maneuvering by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and individuals closely tied to her. ... in 1976, the uranium extraction industry employed 35,000 people. Today .. fewer than 500 people in this country are involved in it .. 20 percent of our electrical power is dependent on those 500 people, that’s every fifth light-bulb. We’re now producing enough uranium to power 4 or 5 of our nuclear reactors, that’s 94 dependent on foreign uranium. ... Since 2011, DOE has sold off roughly $1 billion of publicly-owned uranium...

The big worry about nuclear reactors is that the solid fuel rods are going to melt down. If the core of the reactor loses its cooling water – as it did both at Three Mile Island and Fukushima – then the fuel rods overheat. Even though the nuclear reaction may stop, the decay heat is enough to melt the zirconium fuel rods so that the uranium pellets inside get exposed. If there is some water remaining, the heat may be enough to split off hydrogen, which can cause a hydrogen explosion, as occurred at Fukushima and was feared at Three...