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From the long-awaited commissioning of Vogtle 3 to the NuScale pilot’s collapse, here are the biggest wins and losses for nuclear from this year.

Funny.

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This is not the dawn of the long-threatened nuclear renaissance — it’s more like the swan song of the conventional nuclear industry in the U.S.

GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy just signed a landmark contract to construct a small reactor. NuScale and Holtec also aim to deploy small light-water reactors by 2030.

A small modular nuclear reactor just got US approval — a big milestone Modular reactor pioneer NuScale finally got one of its designs certified by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but the company is still years away from a deployment.

Nuclear plants big and small are getting support from the feds. Still, problems persist — TerraPower can’t source fuel, Oklo and NuScale are tangled in red tape, and more.

But will their remarkable performance in the lab ever translate into real market momentum? Caelux and other tandem-solar startups are betting the answer is yes.

TerraPower notches a record-setting investment round led by South Korea’s SK. But it has no supplier of the enriched fuel it needs, now that sourcing from Russia is off the table.

Bill Gates’ nuclear startup wins $750M, loses sole fuel source. TerraPower notches a record-setting investment round led by South Korea’s SK. But it has no supplier of the enriched fuel it needs, now that sourcing from Russia is off the table.

TerraPower notches a record-setting investment round led by South Korea’s SK. But it has no supplier of the enriched fuel it needs, now that sourcing from Russia is off the table.

“The scale of energy demand and delivery that will eventually result from these massive charging networks will be like nothing the grid has ever seen. Making good on the promise of the EV revolution is at least as much about building, financing, managing and dispatching utility-scale infrastructure assets as it is about the cars themselves.”

GlassPoint is back from liquidation with big plans to decarbonize heavy industry using solar-powered steam — and funding from BlackRock to make it happen.

Solarcycle just landed $6.6 million in venture capital funding to power its giga-scale recycling ambitions.

Definitely not a tokamak.

Nuclear startup Avalanche Energy has modest funding, a skeleton crew, a pocket-sized prototype — and grand ambitions.

This tiny fusion reactor is made out of commercially available parts Nuclear startup Avalanche Energy has modest funding, a skeleton crew, a pocket-sized prototype — and grand ambitions.

Auxin Solar, the tiny company whose trade petition is rattling the whole U.S. solar industry, produces solar panels of questionable quality in volumes that appear to be lower than claimed, sources tell Canary Media.

From Rod Adams: Oklo's COL application is part of an effort to achieve a difficult, but important goal. The company has challenged the standard way of doing things and designed a nuclear power system that is as different from a conventional reactor as a gasoline powered scooter is from a 100 MW slow speed diesel pushing a large container ship. Oklo submitted a license application they believe satisfies the letter and the intent of the governing regulations in a form appropriate for its proposed system. The NRC reviewers are not yet satisfied with the information provided and left open the opportunity to modify the application to fill in the gaps it believes exist. The NRC chose to deny the application instead of continuing the process of obtaining additional information. That might have been stimulated by a legislative timeline of 3 years from docketing to final determination. I expect Oklo will be resubmitting its application before the end of the summer.

Longer explanation

Oklo's application doesn't follow the Standard Review Plan format. That 4,500 page document of regulatory guidance fits the large light water reactor systems, structures, components, and processes it was designed for. But it is unwieldy and inappropriate for Oklo's reactor design. Reviewers are used to the SRP and the applications produced using its specified format; they are not yet comfortable with the way that the Oklo application provides required information.

The NRC's denial of Oklo's novel COL application is a disappointment, but it's not a complete surprise. Oklo is doing something that is difficult by pushing change in a federal regulatory agency whose processes and procedures have been developed over decades to focus on a particular kind of reactor. Oklo's 1.5 MWe reactor uses liquid metal filled heat pipes to passively move heat energy out of a few dozen assemblies containing metallic alloy fuel rods. That is a completely different machine than a 1,000 MWe reactor that pumps high pressure water through a core made up of hundreds of assemblies consisting of a bundle of hundreds of thin walled tubes filled with UO2 pellets. Oklo and the NRC review team have worked diligently to come to an agreement that the COL contained information required for a complete safety review. Oklo has answered every request for information it has received, but the NRC has judged those responses to be not yet complete. The NRC had the option of obtaining information it thought was missing through another, more focused round of RAIs and response. Under the pressure of a Congressionally mandated deadline of 3 years for reviewing a docketed application, it chose to deny the application "without prejudice." This gives the NRC the opportunity, outside of a formal license review process, to communicate what they believe is missing from the application. It gives Oklo the opportunity to produce a better application that fills those information gaps.