Russia wants to build a nuclear power plant on the moon in the next few years .
Project aims to supply energy for its lunar space programme
Guy Faulconbridge, Wednesday 24 December 2025, https://www.independent.co.uk/space/russia-china-space-race-moon-nuclear-power-b2890010.html
Russia is reportedly planning to establish a nuclear power plant on the moon within the next decade.
This ambitious project aims to supply energy for its lunar space programme and a joint research station with China, as global powers intensify their
efforts in lunar exploration.
Historically, Russia has held a prominent position in space, notably with Yuri Gagarin’s pioneering journey in 1961.
However, its dominance has waned in recent decades, with the nation now trailing behind the United States and, increasingly, China.
The country’s lunar aspirations faced a significant setback in August 2023 when its uncrewed Luna-25 mission crashed during a landing attempt.
Furthermore, the landscape of space launches, once a Russian speciality, has been revolutionised by figures such as Elon Musk, adding to the competitive pressure.
Russia’s state space corporation, Roscosmos, said in a statement that it planned to build a lunar power plant by 2036 and signed a contract with the Lavochkin Association aerospace company to do it.
Roscosmos said the purpose of the plant was to power Russia’s lunar programme, including rovers, an observatory and the infrastructure of the joint Russian-Chinese International Lunar Research Station.
“The project is an important step towards the creation of a permanently functioning scientific lunar station and the transition from one-time missions to a long-term lunar exploration program,” Roscosmos said.
Roscosmos did not say explicitly that the plant would be nuclear but it said the participants included Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom and the Kurchatov Institute, Russia’s leading nuclear research institute.
The head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Bakanov, said in June that one of the corporation’s aims was to put a nuclear power plant on the moon and to explore Venus, known as Earth’s “sister” planet.
The moon, which is 384,400 km (238,855 miles) from our planet, moderates Earth’s wobble on its axis, which ensures a more stable climate. It also causes tides in the world’s oceans.
The Reality of SMR Timelines for AI Data Centers: A Veteran’s View
Nov 2,2025, By Tony Grayson, Tech Executive (ex-SVP Oracle, AWS, Meta) & Former Nuclear Submarine Commander
If you’ve been following the recent nuclear boom, you’ve seen the headlines: Amazon commits to 5 GW. Google signs for advanced reactors. Oracle announces gigawatt-scale campuses. The message is clear: nuclear is the solution.
There is just one problem: GPUs move in 3-year cycles. Reactors move in decades.
I spent my early career commanding nuclear submarines, where “downtime” wasn’t a metric; it was a mission failure. Later, I built data center infrastructure for Oracle, AWS, and Meta. I know the difference between a PowerPoint slide and a commissioned plant. I know what it takes to cool a reactor core versus a Blackwell rack……..
Below is the reality check on SMR timelines for AI data centers, HALEU fuel shortages, and what infrastructure buyers should actually do.
SMR Timelines for AI Data Centers: The Executive Summary
To optimize for decision-making, we must look at the specific delivery windows. Here is the realistic availability for nuclear power sources.
- Near-Term (2025–2029): Reactor Restarts
- Status: Feasible but limited.
- Timeline: 3–5 years.
- Examples: Palisades (Michigan) or Three Mile Island Unit 1.
- Constraint: These require existing sites in good condition with willing local stakeholders.
- Medium-Term (2030–2035): Gen III+ Large Reactors
- Status: Proven technology, difficult execution.
- Timeline: 10–14 years.
- Constraint: The Vogtle Units 3 & 4 (AP1000) proved that even “off-the-shelf” designs can take a decade and cost $30B+.
- Long-Term (2035–2045): Advanced SMRs (Gen IV)
- Status: Experimental supply chain.
- Timeline: Factory scaling likely post-2035.
- Constraint: HALEU fuel availability and lack of factory fabrication lines.
If your strategy relies on SMR timelines for AI data centers intersecting with your 2028 capacity needs, you are missing the target.
The HALEU Fuel Gap: The Supply Chain That Doesn’t Exist
The biggest risk to the “Advanced Nuclear” narrative is not the reactor; it is the fuel.
Many Gen IV designs (like TerraPower’s Natrium) require HALEU (High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium).
- The Demand: The DOE projects we need >40 metric tons by 2030.
- The Supply: Current U.S. capacity is negligible (less than 1 ton/year).
- The Problem: Prior to 2022, Russia was the primary commercial supplier.
Until domestic enrichment scales, a process that involves centrifuges, licensing, and billions in CAPEX…Gen IV SMRs have no fuel……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://www.tonygraysonvet.com/post/nuclear-power-for-ai-datacenters
Why Nuclear Fusion Will Not Solve the AI Power Problem
By Kurt Cobb – Dec 22, 2025, https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Why-Nuclear-Fusion-Will-Not-Solve-the-AI-Power-Problem.html
- Claims of “net energy gain” in fusion experiments often exclude the massive energy consumed by the full system, leading to misleading headlines.
- Even under optimistic timelines, commercial fusion power would not arrive until the latter half of the century.
- Fusion exemplifies a recurring pattern in energy history: bold promises that underestimate the time, cost, and complexity of real-world deployment.
With the supposed need for vast new electricity generation to fuel the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, AI companies are pushing nuclear power as one solution to provide that power for the many data centers they plan to build. (Count me skeptical of the boom and therefore of the need for vast new electricity generation capacity. See here, here, here, here, and here.) AI boosters usually talk about expanding existing nuclear power technologies, that is, fission reactors that run on uranium and (more dangerously) on plutonium.
But it is well to keep in mind that there are two kinds of nuclear power: fission and fusion. For now, there are no commercial fusion reactors since with current technology it takes far more than the equivalent of a kilowatt of energy to produce a kilowatt of electricity. This is because it takes a lot of energy just to get a fusion reaction going. The current state of affairs in fusion reminds me of the old joke about the manufacturer who admits he loses a nickel on every sale, but claims he makes it up in volume.
Fortunately, fusion researchers are smarter than this and await the day when fusion technology can produce more energy than it consumes. That waiting has spawned another well-worn joke about the coming of clean, limitless fusion energy, namely, that it’s only 25 years away and always will be. (Whether fusion energy will be clean, that is, non-radioactive, is debatable.)
It’s no surprise, then, that with the AI industry saying it needs a lot more energy now, the predicted advent of net-energy-positive fusion is being moved up. In this case, Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a startup spun off by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, claims that by 2027 it will achieve the feat of producing more energy from a fusion device than is consumed. The Chinese government is a bit more vague, saying its research program may, within a few years, produce more energy than is consumed by a fusion reaction.
When this achievement is announced, it will be important to read the fine print. Eleven years ago, scientists working on fusion at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California were able to produce more energy output in a fusion experiment than was used to produce the fuel. That feat, however, didn’t take into account the amount of energy needed by the entire system, which was 118 times more than the energy output. Some media outlets (who apparently did not read or understand the background materials) erroneously reported that the experiment had, in fact, achieved the feat of producing more energy than it consumed.
In 2022, the same laboratory declared it had achieved a net energy gain (read the second subheading) from a fusion reaction. Again, reading the fine print is important. As this article points out, “while a single shot may produce more energy than the fuel absorbs, the entire facility, from lasers to cryogenics to control systems, still consumes far more power than it delivers.” Said simply, you have to look at the whole system to understand the energy balance. This analysis suggests that the entire system actually consumed about 100 times the energy output of the experiment. The experiment did mark progress. But we remain nowhere near producing net energy from fusion reactions, not least because there is currently no system that can provide more than a momentary burst of energy instead of the sustained reaction seen in conventional fission reactors.
The Chinese government said it expects to have a pilot fusion plant operating by the 2030s or 2040s. First, that’s pretty far away (and vague), and the realization of commercial fusion power is much further away, even if this plan comes to fruition. A pilot plant is only the second stage of the development of commercial fusion power. First comes the prototype, which helps validate the technology. Then comes the pilot plant, which demonstrates that such technology will, in fact, integrate successfully with the existing electric grid.
Then comes a demonstration plant, which is a full-size test of the economic and commercial viability of the technology. At this stage, utility managers want hard evidence that such plants are reliable and profitable. Demonstration plants could be as far off as the 2050s or 2060s, again, even if we assume the schedule for pilot plants proves to be doable. And then, utilities would have to decide to try to build their own fusion plants, and that might only begin in the late 2050s. Widespread adoption might take another 20 to 30 years.
Even if fusion-generating plants turn out to be feasible, the idea that they are going to provide any near-term fix for our energy needs or for addressing climate change is completely misguided.
Energy transitions take time. They occur over more than one generation. In times of great stress, such as ours, people look for miraculous solutions. Fusion seems like one of those solutions. But it will almost certainly NOT turn out to be miraculous and, if feasible, will be painstakingly slow to emerge as a major energy source for human civilization.
Scottish Government urged to intervene in Edinburgh AI data centre plans
THE Scottish Government has been urged to intervene after council
officials ruled that an environmental impact assessment for a huge
artificial intelligence data centre is not required.
Edinburgh City Council
is currently considering plans for a new AI data centre on the site of the
former RBS headquarters in South Gyle, near Edinburgh Airport. Shelborn
Drummond Ltd, an offshoot of Shelborn Asset Management, is behind the plans
for the “Green Data Centre”.
We previously told how the Shelborn data
centre, and another proposed by Apatura near to Heriot-Watt University,
would demand the equivalent amount of energy as building five cities the
same size as the capital within its boundaries. The revelation about the
vast amount of electricity the sites will consume has sparked concerns from
environmental campaigners, and had previously raised concerns that there
would be no requirement for the firms behind the plans to carry out an
environmental impact assessment (EIA).
A screening opinion published on
Friday December 18, by a senior planner at the local authority, ruled that
an EIA would not be required. Action to Protect Rural Scotland (APRS) said
the Shelborn data centre will use the same amount of energy as a quarter of
a million households, and it was “gobsmacking” that the impact on the
local environment would not be taken into consideration.
The National 22nd Dec 2025, https://www.thenational.scot/news/25715123.scottish-government-urged-intervene-edinburgh-ai-data-centre/
Trump orders return to Moon by 2028, lunar base with nuclear power by 2030.
NASA is directed to pursue a commercial pathway to replace the International Space Station by 2030, continuing the transition toward privately owned and operated orbital platforms.
By Stephen Pope, December 19, 2025, https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/trump-moon-2028-lunar-base-golden-dome
In a sweeping reset of US space policy, President Donald Trump on December 18, 2025, signed an executive order directing NASA to return astronauts to the Moon by 2028, establish the first elements of a permanent lunar base by 2030, deploy nuclear power systems on the Moon and in orbit, and accelerate development of the administration’s “Golden Dome” missile defense program.
The order, titled Ensuring American Space Superiority, sets some of the most aggressive space and defense timelines ever laid out in a single White House directive, blending civil exploration, national security, and commercial space development into one policy framework.
Under the order, NASA is instructed to land Americans on the Moon by 2028 through the Artemis program, and then move quickly toward establishing an initial, sustained lunar presence by the end of the decade. The administration frames the Moon not only as a destination, but as strategic infrastructure — a platform for economic activity, scientific research, and preparation for future missions to Mars.
Lunar nuclear reactors
A central and notable element of the policy is nuclear power. The order calls for deploying nuclear reactors on the lunar surface and in orbit, with a lunar surface reactor required to be ready for launch by 2030. The White House argues that nuclear power is essential to sustaining long-duration operations on the Moon, where solar energy alone may not support continuous activity.
The executive order also reiterates Trump’s push for the Golden Dome missile defense initiative, directing the government to develop and demonstrate prototype next-generation missile defense technologies by 2028. It also calls for improved detection and countermeasures against threats to US space assets, extending from low Earth orbit to the moon, including concerns over nuclear weapons placed in orbit.
The order places heavy emphasis on accelerating procurement and integrating commercial space capabilities. NASA and the Department of Commerce are directed to reform their space acquisition processes within 180 days, with a stated preference for commercial solutions, faster contracting methods, and reduced bureaucratic friction. The policy also seeks to attract at least $50 billion in additional private investment into US space markets by 2028.
Compressed timelines
Commercial space involving many companies is positioned in Trump’s order as a replacement, not just a partner, for legacy government programs. NASA is directed to pursue a commercial pathway to replace the International Space Station by 2030, continuing the transition toward privately owned and operated orbital platforms.
The order also makes structural changes to space governance. It revokes the National Space Council and shifts coordination of national space policy to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Several agencies are given near-term reporting deadlines, including a 90-day requirement for NASA to outline how it will meet the Moon and exploration goals within existing funding levels.
In addition, the order revises prior space traffic management policy by removing language that had described government-provided tracking services as free, potentially opening the door to paid or commercially supported models in the future.
Taken together, the executive order outlines an expansive vision with compressed timelines, placing pressure on NASA, the Pentagon, and industry to deliver rapid progress.
Over the Moon and Down to Earth
15 December 2025, https://www.banng.info/news/regional-life/over-the-moon-and-down-to-earth/
Varrie Blowers writes for the December 2025 issue of Regional Life magazine
If Bradwell is an unsuitable site for nuclear development……what about the Moon? Although it can be seen shining over the Blackwater and appear quite close, the Moon is actually almost 239,000 miles away. But Sean Duffy, the Acting Administrator of NASA, is over the Moon at the idea of such development.
A new space race is starting between the USA and Russia in collaboration with China planning to build nuclear reactors on the Moon, in 2030 and 2035 respectively, to power bases. No doubt other members of the space club will wish to follow where they lead. Is this a case of the unbelievable becoming believable?
A key problem for building nuclear reactors on the Moon is getting them up there in the first place – in the hope that the transporting rockets do not explode (not unknown!) and shower radioactive particles on populated areas below.
Another is that a stable power supply would be required to sustain the astronauts who would have to get the reactors up and running. This would seem to be impossible; the location for the proposed bases is the Moon’s dark South Pole, where solar power could not provide a consistent supply.
Among other serious problems are:
the Moon’s very environment with its extreme thermal cycles, abrasive dust, reduced gravity, cosmic radiation, the lack of atmosphere;- astronauts in space suits, it seems, would be unable to maintain the reactors regularly meaning that electronic components that could last for a very long time without being replaced would be needed;
- the vast expense and need for sustained funding with cost and time overruns
So why would any nation wish to attempt to undertake a project that appears to be a non-starter? To undertake space exploration…… or space exploitation?
The motive behind the bases is the desire to exploit what are regarded as the Moon’s vast resources of minerals, including rare earths, metals and helium.
All of this prompts the question of ‘Who owns the Moon?’. The answer according to the UN Outer Space Treaty of 1967 is that space, including the Moon, belongs to us all and should be used peacefully for the benefit of all nations. It is, however, unlikely that any nation with a base would regard the resources as ‘belonging to us all’.
History should warn us that in this grab for the Moon’s riches, likely clashes between nations would arise, perhaps even leading to military conflict in space.
We are in danger of transporting our problems to the Moon. Back down to Earth, we have enough problems to cope with.
Trump’s rush to build nuclear reactors across the U.S. raises safety worries
NPR, December 17, 2025
In May, President Trump sat in the Oval Office flanked by executives from America’s nuclear power industry.
“It’s a hot industry. It’s a brilliant industry,” the president said from behind the Resolute desk.
It’s also an industry that’s having a moment. Billions of dollars in capital are currently flowing into dozens of companies chasing new kinds of nuclear technologies. These are small modular designs that can potentially be mass produced in the hundreds or even thousands. Their proponents say these advanced designs promise to deliver megawatts of power safely and cheaply.
But there’s a problem, Joseph Dominguez, the CEO of Constellation Energy, told the president.
New nuclear plants keep getting caught up in safety regulations.
“Mr. President, you know this because you’re the best at building things,” Dominguez, whose company runs about a quarter of America’s existing nuclear reactors, said. “Delay in regulations and permitting will absolutely kill you. Because if you can’t get the plant on, you can’t get the revenue.”
Now, a new Trump administration program is sidestepping the regulatory system that’s overseen the nuclear industry for half a century. The program will fast-track construction of new and untested reactor designs built by private firms, with an explicit goal of having at least three nuclear test reactors up and running by the United States’ 250th birthday, July 4, 2026.
If that goal is met, it will be without the direct oversight of America’s primary nuclear regulator. Since the 1970s, safety for commercial reactors has been the purview of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. But the NRC is only consulting on the new Reactor Pilot Program, which is being run by the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy……………………………………………………………………………………………………
Sites across the country will host new reactor designs
The new pilot program may be an unproven regulatory path run by an agency with limited experience in the commercial sector, but supporters say it’s energizing an industry that’s been moribund for decades.
“This is exactly what we need to do,” said Isaiah Taylor, founder and CEO of Valar Atomics, a small nuclear startup headquartered in Hawthorne, Calif. “We need to make nuclear great again.”
Valar and other companies plan to build smaller reactors than those currently used in the nuclear industry, and that makes a Chernobyl or Fukushima-type accident impossible, noted Nick Touran, an independent nuclear consultant. “The overall worst-case scenario is definitely less when you’re a smaller reactor,” he said.
Critics, however, worry that the tight July 4 deadline, political pressure and a lack of transparency are all compromising safety. Even a “small” release of radioactive material could cause damage to people and the environment around the test sites.
“This is not normal, and this is not OK, and this is not going to lead to success,” warned Allison Macfarlane, a professor at the University of British Columbia who served as chairman of the NRC under President Barack Obama. “This is how to have an accident.”
AI’s need for speed
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. Right from the start it was clear that, unlike the slow and deliberate safety culture that has dominated nuclear power for decades, this new program would be all about speed.
…………officials responsible for overseeing safety would do “whatever we need to ensure that the government is not stopping you from reaching [nuclear] criticality on or before July 4, 2026.”
A new regulator
Before the executive order, the Energy Department did not regulate the safety of commercial nuclear reactors. That job fell to another body: the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The commission was set up in 1975 by Congress as an independent safety watchdog, said Allison Macfarlane, the former NRC chair. Part of the reason the NRC was formed was because the predecessor to the DOE, known as the Atomic Energy Commission, oversaw both safety and promotion of nuclear power at the same time.
“This was a very strong conflict of interest,” Macfarlane said.
But in recent years, companies, particularly those trying to build new kinds of reactors, had become frustrated with the NRC, Macfarlane said. “The promoters of these small modular reactors were becoming very vociferous about the NRC being the problem,” she said.
In 2022, the NRC rejected a combined license application for Oklo, a new nuclear startup. Oklo had submitted an application to build and operate its small reactor, called the Aurora powerhouse. But the NRC denied the application because it contained “significant information gaps in its description of Aurora’s potential accidents as well as its classification of safety systems and components.”
Oklo was told it could resubmit its application to the NRC, but it never did.
Then at the May signing of the executive order, Oklo’s CEO Jacob DeWitte appeared behind President Trump applauding the new reactor program at DOE.
“Changing the permitting dynamics is going to help things move faster,” DeWitte said to the president. “It’s never been more exciting.”
Oklo had another connection to the Energy Department — the secretary of energy, Chris Wright, was a member of Oklo’s board of directors until he took the helm at the DOE. Wright stepped down following his confirmation in February.
In August, a little over a month after that initial meeting between industry executives and the DOE, the Office of Nuclear Energy announced the 11 advanced reactor projects had been selected for the Reactor Pilot Program. Three of Oklo’s reactors were part of the new pilot program, including a test version of the reactor design rejected by the NRC…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Valar’s design looks far different from the reactors that are running today. It will use a special type of fuel together with a high-temperature gas to generate heat and electricity. Taylor said gathering real data will speed development and increase safety over the long-term….
(Valar is also party to a lawsuit against the NRC arguing the commission does not have the authority to regulate small reactors. In his interview, Taylor told NPR the company intends to file for an NRC license “when we’re ready.”)
………………………………………………….. critics question whether the pilot program will really produce safe nuclear reactors.
The July 4, 2026, deadline puts enormous pressure on the program, said Heidy Khlaaf, the chief AI scientist at the AI Now Institute, which recently published a report warning that AI development could undermine nuclear safety.
“I think these manufactured timelines are actually incredibly concerning,” Khlaaf said. “There’s no timeline for assessing a new design and making sure it’s safe, especially something we haven’t seen before.”
Then there’s the question of public transparency. The NRC makes many of the documents around its decisions available publicly. It also frequently allows the public to comment as well, added Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists. The new pilot program is far more opaque and “is really an attempt to subvert the laws and regulations that go around commercial nuclear power,” he said.
While many of the test reactors are small and tout themselves as inherently safer than existing nuclear power plants, they are still capable of leaking radiation in an accident, Lyman noted. “If they are located closer to populated areas, if there aren’t any provisions for offsite radiological emergency planning … then you are potentially putting the public at greater risk, even if the reactors are small,” he said.
Perhaps most worrying, said former NRC Chair Macfarlane, is how the DOE’s safety assessment might be used to build more small reactors across the country, once the pilot reactors are built.
………………………………………..Macfarlane is unconvinced. She said relying on the hasty DOE analysis for the construction of potentially dozens or even hundreds of small reactors around the U.S. is the real risk.
“They can look at what the DOE did, they can take it as a piece of input, but they have to do their own separate analysis,” she warned. “Otherwise, none of us are safe.” https://www.npr.org/2025/12/17/nx-s1-5608371/trump-executive-order-new-nuclear-reactors-safety-concerns
US pauses implementation of $40 billion technology deal with Britain.
Reuters, By Alistair Smout, December 17, 2025
- Summary
- Companies
- US frustrated with non-tariff issues, NY Times says
- Trade talks have been stop-start this year
- UK says relations still strong, complex talks take time
- Britain has secured some tariff relief
Dec 15 (Reuters) – The United States is stalling the implementation of a $40 billion technology agreement with Britain, officials said, following concerns in Washington over London’s approach to digital regulation and food standards.
The “Tech Prosperity Deal,” covering artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and civil nuclear energy, was agreed during President Donald Trump’s state visit to Britain in September, in a celebration of the countries’ close ties and ability to work together on trade and technology……………………………………………………………………………………………….
Under the Tech Prosperity Deal, Britain and the United States agreed to work together on quantum computers and artificial intelligence, while the likes of Microsoft, Google, Nvidia and OpenAI pledged to invest tens of billions of dollars in Britain.
The White House did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-suspends-technology-deal-with-uk-ft-says-2025-12-16/
Why Nuclear Reprocessing?
Does Britain really need nuclear power? – by Ian Fairlea beyondnuclearinternational
“…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..The initial rationale for reprocessing in the 1950s to the 1980s was the Cold War demand for fissile material to make nuclear weapons.
Reprocessing is the name given to the physico-chemical treatment of spent nuclear fuel carried on at Sellafield in Cumbria since the 1950s. This involves the stripping of metal cladding from spent nuclear fuel assemblies, dissolving the inner uranium fuel in boiling concentrated nitric acid, chemically separating out the uranium and plutonium isotopes and storing the remaining dissolved fission products in large storage tanks.
It is a dirty, dangerous, unhealthy, polluting and expensive process which results in workers employed at Sellafield and local people being exposed to high radiation doses.
Terrorism
A major objection to reprocessing is that the plutonium produced has to be carefully guarded in case it is stolen. Four kilos is enough to make a nuclear bomb. Perhaps even more worrying, it does not have to undergo fission to cause havoc: a conventional explosion of a small amount would also cause chaos. A speck of plutonium breathed into the lungs can cause cancer. If plutonium dust were scattered by dynamite, for example, thousands of people could be affected and huge areas might have to be evacuated for decades………….. https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2025/12/14/does-britain-really-need-nuclear-power/
Google, NextEra expand collaboration to develop nuclear-powered gigawatt AI campuses
The initial three campuses under this new accord are now in the active development phase.
Interesting Engineering ByAman Tripathi, Dec 13, 2025
NextEra Energy and Google Cloud announced a significant expansion of their ongoing collaboration, creating a partnership designed to develop multiple gigawatt (GW)-scale data center campuses across the United States………………………………………………………………………………………………..
This collaborative effort focuses on accelerating the deployment of data centers by systematically addressing critical infrastructure hurdles.
These challenges include land acquisition, managing load interconnection, and the simultaneous development of supporting power generation resources needed to sustain large-scale artificial intelligence operations.A central component of this energy strategy involves the revitalization of nuclear power capabilities to support the electrical grid.
“Most recently, the companies announced the restart of the Duane Arnold Energy Center in Iowa followed by two new long-term power purchase agreements to add 600 megawatts of clean energy capacity to Oklahoma’s electricity grid to support Google’s technology infrastructure,” noted a press release.
To facilitate this restart, NextEra Energy has formally requested that the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) restore grid connection rights for the shuttered facility.
This regulatory filing seeks to reclaim interconnection rights that had previously been transferred from the nuclear plant to a planned solar energy project at the same site.
The move follows a licensing change request that NextEra filed with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in January, marking a distinct shift from solar back to nuclear baseload power to meet steady demand.
Digital transformation of operations
Beyond the construction of physical infrastructure, the partnership will implement a digital transformation of NextEra Energy’s operations using Google Cloud’s artificial intelligence tools. ,…………………………………………………………
NextEra Energy Chairman and CEO John Ketchum characterized the partnership as a reflection of the current moment where the energy and technology sectors are becoming increasingly intertwined. He noted that the joint effort intends to build infrastructure at scale and change how energy companies function.
Similarly, Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian stated that combining NextEra’s domain expertise with Google’s AI infrastructure is necessary to support the digital future of energy infrastructure and meet the rising demand for AI technologies. https://interestingengineering.com/energy/nuclear-powered-gigawatt-ai-campuses-google
Search for UK fusion plant engineering partner to restart in 1-2 years after failed first attempt
09 Dec, 2025 By Thomas Johnson
The procurement for an engineering partner to construct the UK’s Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (Step) fusion power plant will resume “in a year or two” after a failed first attempt, but the choice of a construction partner is imminent.
……………………..
The government launched a competition to select engineering and construction partners for the prototype fusion energy plant in Nottinghamshire in May last year, with the contracts rumoured to be worth close to £10bn. Then in January, the shortlist for both partners was revealed.
The shortlisted organisations for Step’s engineering partner were:
- Celestial JV: consisting of Eni UK Limited as the lead member and AtkinsRéalis, Jacobs Clean Energy (now Amentum), Westinghouse and Tokamak Energy as other members.
- Phoenix Fusion Limited: consisting of Cavendish Nuclear as the lead member, KBR and Assystem Energy and Infrastructure as other members.
Engineering procurement hits the wall
Despite announcing the two-consortia shortlist, the project recently divulged that the process of selecting the engineering partner had broken down, with the approach being taken as being deemed “not suitable”…………………………………………………………..
Speaking at the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA) annual conference on 4 December, UKIFS chief executive Paul Methven stated procurement for the engineering partner would resume “in a year or two”……………………………………………………………… https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/search-for-uk-fusion-plant-engineering-partner-to-restart-in-1-2-years-after-failed-first-attempt-09-12-2025/
U.S. Nuclear Fusion Industry Asks for Federal Help
By Irina Slav – Dec 09, 2025, https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/US-Fusion-Industry-Asks-for-Federal-Help.html
The nascent nuclear fusion industry in the United States has asked the Trump administration for billions in financial support in order to advance the technology, which is seen as one of the most promising for the future—but also one of the most challenging.
“Now is the time for the U.S. to make a significant investment, and that means over a billion dollars per year in annual appropriations and a one-time infrastructure investment,” the chief executive of the Fusion Industry Association, Andrew Holland, said this week, as quoted by Reuters. “If they ask for it, we are confident Congress would pass it,” he added, following a meeting between industry representatives and officials from the Department of Energy.
Reuters noted in its report that the Trump administration had just canceled several billion dollars in subsidies for the wind and solar industries. Presumably, some of that money could be redirected towards nuclear fusion. The Department of Energy even set up an Office of Fusion earlier this year as it shut down the wind and solar offices.
Nuclear fusion has long been considered the answer to zero-emission by-product-free energy generation. However, no one has cracked the nuclear fusion code yet because of the challenges associated with the environment in which the process could take place.
Nuclear fusion research and development have gained momentum in recent years after several momentous breakthroughs and achievements. The global race to overcome the engineering challenges to achieving zero-emission power from a nuclear reaction without risking disaster and radiation has heated up.
Earlier this year, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), a multinational endeavor to build a system to experiment with nuclear fusion, completed the world’s most powerful electromagnetic system in a landmark moment for fusion research.
There is still a long way to go before nuclear fusion becomes commercially viable; One of the main challenges remains the ratio between input energy and output energy, with the former currently exceeding the latter.
Report: Small Modular Distractors: Why a European SMR strategy hinders the energy transition
09/12/2025, https://caneurope.org/small-modular-distractors/
Click on image [on original] to download the report
“Our investigation demonstrates why betting on small modular reactors would be a costly mistake for Europe. These projects would be slow to construct, with long delays, over budget, a poor economic fit for our power system needs, and would produce toxic radioactive waste for which we do not have a solution. Many projects would likely not materialise and jeopardise our electricity supply. Distorting funding away from more realistic, lower-cost solutions such as renewables, storage, and demand side solutions risks derailing the energy transition, keeping our emissions and energy prices high.” – Thomas Lewis, Author and Energy Policy Coordinator at CAN Europe
An EU Small Modular Strategy is a distraction
Small modular reactors are not a viable solution to decarbonising our energy system and supporting a transition to net zero. The technology has not been demonstrated at any sort of scale, with great unknowns when it comes to design.
CAN Europe’s latest report details how SMR projects have been shown to be significantly delayed compared to initial estimates, are slower to construct than traditional nuclear, consistently over budget, more expensive than renewables, not economically fit to provide flexibility, not very small, deter funding away from realistic renewable solutions, produce more waste than traditional nuclear, and citizens have little trust in their governments to implement plans fairly. They are also planned under the assumption that the governments would take responsibility and invest in enabling infrastructure such as grids and nuclear storage facilities.
An EU SMR Strategy, as well as national plans to pursue SMRs, risks diverting attention, resources, and political momentum away from the proven solutions needed for a fast, fair, and effective energy transition. While the following recommendations aim to minimise the potential negative impacts of SMR-related initiatives, it is important to underline that only a transition pathway without new nuclear capacity can deliver the speed, cost-effectiveness, and system resilience required for Europe’s decarbonisation.
Diagrams and graphs within the report can be downloaded below: [ on original]
The UK wants to unlock a ‘golden age of nuclear’ but faces key challenges in reviving historic lead.
The U.K.’s Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce called for urgent reforms after identifying “systemic failures” in the country’s nuclear framework. It found that fragmented regulation, flawed legislation and weak incentives led the U.K. to fall behind as a nuclear powerhouse.
The government committed to implementing the taskforce’s guidance and is expected to present a plan to do so within three months. There is not, at the moment, a single SMR actively producing electricity under four revenues. They will all come at best in the 30s,” Ludovico Cappelli, portfolio manager of
Listed Infrastructure at Van Lanschot Kempen, told CNBC.
While SMRs are a “game changer” thanks to their ability to power individual factories or small towns, their days of commercial operation are too far away, he said.
From an investment standpoint, “that is still a bit scary,” he added. To secure the large baseloads needed to offset the intermittency of renewables, “we’re still looking at big power stations,” added Paul Jackson, Invesco’s EMEA global market strategist.
CNBC 6th Dec 2025, https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/06/the-history-of-nuclear-energy-lies-on-british-soil-does-its-future-.html
Do we really want to bust net zero targets for AI cat pics?
In total, across Scotland, according to the tech justice non-profit Foxglove, energy-hungry data centres which would demand “a minimum of 2000MW of electricity supply, and as much as 3000MW” are already in planning.
That figure, Foxglove points out is already equivalent to “the total generation capacity of all of Scotland’s offshore wind turbines in 2024 (2971MW)” or “the total output of the Torness and Hunterston B nuclear power stations while both were still in operation”. One projection from Loughborough University’s Digital Decarb Design Group suggests that, globally, if data consumption continues unabated, “electricity demand
driven by data could exceed global electricity production by 2033”
Of course, AI can be helpful. There are many good things already which have come out of it. It can diagnose disease, prevent accidents, help us cut waste, streamline systems, even streamline the energy and material use by AI itself.
But we only need to open our social media apps to see what much of it is actually doing. I do think my cat looks majestic in full flight, but she is far cuter sitting on the chair by me as I write. Do we really want to risk climate goals in order to just power up relentless AI video slop?
Herald 2nd Dec 2025, By Vicky Allan, Environment correspondent, https://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/25666089.really-want-bust-net-zero-targets-ai-cat-pics/
1 This Month
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
-
Archives
- September 2026 (194)
- August 2026 (330)
- July 2026 (355)
- June 2026 (287)
- May 2026 (306)
- April 2026 (356)
- March 2026 (251)
- February 2026 (267)
- January 2026 (308)
- December 2025 (358)
- November 2025 (359)
- October 2025 (375)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- Atrocities
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Events
- Fuk 2022
- Fuk 2023
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- Weekly Newsletter
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
nuclear-news 