Unlocking Used Nuclear Fuel and Major Regulatory Changes

News Rundown: Summaries for every major nuclear headline

While there was certainly phenomenal news to report on from every corner of the nuclear industry, both in the U.S. and abroad, there was an overabundance of headlines from the nuclear fuel chain, specifically on the topic of used nuclear fuel.

We now have more companies looking into how best to utilize the energy stored within used nuclear fuel, companies developing permanent nuclear waste storage solutions, and an IPO to look forward to from one of the biggest names in used fuel handling.

Reactor Developers

Natura Resources Partners with NGL Energy Partners to Enable Large-Scale Produced Water Treatment with Small Modular Nuclear Reactors in the Permian Basin

Natura Resources is working with NGL Energy Partners to explore using molten salt reactors for thermal desalination. There is an outsized need for water treatment solutions in places like Texas’s Permian Basin. Referencing an article written by Natura’s Chief Nuclear Officer, Bill Jessup, in The National Interest back in November (link):

“For every barrel of oil produced in the United States, approximately 10 barrels of water are also produced during operations. Data from B3 Insight indicate that 20 million barrels of water were produced in the Permian Basin every day in 2024. By 2030, industry experts expect this figure to rise by 30 percent to 26 million barrels per day. Typically regarded as a waste product for disposal into depleted reservoirs, interests in critical mineral extraction and desalination for beneficial reuse are interesting prospects whose economics prefer low-cost, carbon-free power.”

There are a few ways to go about the desalination process, which refers to the method of removing impurities from water and potentially making it potable. The method being explored between the two companies will be thermal desalination, which involves using heat to evaporate water and then condensing it back into liquid freshwater. This contrasts with some of the other methods like reverse osmosis, which is used on submarines and involves using semi-permeable membranes to separate water from salts without a phase change.

Building Small Modular Momentum

Kairos Power provided some updates on the progress with their Engineering Test Unit (ETU). The ETU is a full-scale, non-nuclear mockup of their molten salt reactor. Kairos is utilizing their ETU series, starting with the ETU 1 and now utilizing the ETU 2 and ETU 3, to test and iterate their reactor design and supporting systems. ETU 2 has a “more refined system architecture, a fully modular design, and more mature systems – making ETU 2 more representative of the Hermes demonstration reactor that will follow”.

Kairos also provided some updates with construction methods being utilized at their Hermes site in Tennessee. The company validated the use of precast concrete for modular shielding structures and they are preparing to install dampers in the foundation for Hermes to demonstrate seismic isolation systems. The successful utilization of seismic isolation systems will help to standardize reactor construction and increase siting flexibility due to the reduced impact of the unique geology of each site.

Radiant receives DOE approval of Preliminary Documented Safety Analysis, latest milestone towards start up of first reactor

Radiant Nuclear received approval for their Preliminary Documented Safety Analysis (PDSA) as they progress their Kaleidos reactor design towards achieving criticality by the Reactor Pilot Program’s July 4th goal. With the Nuclear Safety Design Agreement (NSDA) and the PDSA completed, the company only has the Documented Safety Analysis (DSA) remaining to close out their major documents submittals for the DOE.

The above chart is pulled from DOE-STD-1271-2025, a document detailing the path for operating a nuclear fuel facility or starting up a reactor under DOE oversight. Radiant has recently completed the middle phase and will now work on progressing their reactor construction as they prepare their DSA for review.

Antares is expanding its existing headquarters, Antares Prime, to support the next phase of reactor development and manufacturing

Sodium heat-pipe reactor developer Antares recently doubled the size of their manufacturing facility, Antares Prime, from 145,000 square feet to 322,000 square feet. The facility is designed to manufacture the first 50 of the company’s reactors. As most of the reactor developers have noted, the goal is for the deployment of their designs in fleets, not one-off demonstrations.

Antares does note that they’ll potentially produce variants of their R1 microreactor depending on its use in applications across defense, space, and industrial environments.

Department of War Partners With Department of Energy in Historic Nuclear Energy Initiative

Announced at the end of the day, Friday, the DOW will be partnering with the DOE to ship the first reactor core produced by Valar Atomics from California to Utah in preparation for fueling and testing of their design under the DOE’s Reactor Pilot Program. The flight will take place on Sunday, February 15th, shortly after we publish this weekend’s News Rundown.

Fuel and Supply Chain

New Mission for Hanford Facility to Unleash American Nuclear Renaissance

General Matter, the private uranium enrichment startup, announced a partnership with the DOE to potentially use the Fuels and Materials Examination Facility (FMEF) at the Hanford site in Washington for advanced nuclear fuel cycle technologies and materials. General Matter will be evaluating the site to assess its potential return to service and provide a new life for an idle DOE asset.

Details are sparse as to what exactly this facility could be utilized for, as the company already has identified their main production facility will be in Kentucky with a second site in Utah being utilized for component and hardware manufacturing.

Deep Isolation Launches Full-Scale Demonstration Program for Nuclear Waste Disposal

Following the completion of Project UPWARDS, which verified the design, manufacturing, and physical testing of Deep Isolation’s Universal Canister System (UCS), and Project SAVANT, which verified long-term corrosion resistance of the UCS, the company is finally proceeding with a full-scale test of their waste disposal technology. The test will be conducted at the Deep Borehole Demonstration Center in Texas where the company will drill down and place one of their UCS’s about a mile below the Earth’s surface (without any actual nuclear waste inside). The U.S. has been in desperate need of a permanent nuclear waste storage solution since the Yucca Mountain nightmare, and this looks to be one of the most promising initiatives currently underway.

DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy Awards $19 Million to Advance Recycling of Used Nuclear Fuel

The DOE awarded over $19 million to five companies researching and developing recycling technologies for used nuclear fuel. There are multiple ongoing efforts to unlock the other 95% of energy remaining in used nuclear fuel stored in pools and casks across the US. Here’s the five companies and a brief description from the linked press release of what they’re working on:

• Alpha Nur Inc. will research and validate a process that will recover highly enriched uranium (HEU) from used nuclear fuel produced by U.S. based research reactors and transform it to a usable high assay low enrichment uranium (HALEU) form for reuse in small modular reactor designs.

• Curio Solutions, LLC will develop a process designed to produce uranium hexafluoride gas from used fuel.

• Flibe Energy Inc. will study the use of electrochemical methods to process used nuclear fuel.

• Oklo Inc. will study heavy element deposition in molten salt to optimize a pyro-processing plant design.

• Shine Technologies, LLC will develop a process design that incorporates transport, storage, and disposal together with hydro-processing of used fuel.

DOE prepares to send nuclear waste cross-country

While the ultimate goal is analysis of high burn-up fuel from a reactor in Virginia, the nuclear industry is getting a taste of the regulatory nightmare that is shipping spent nuclear fuel through more than one state at a time. Planned for fall of 2027, a cask of high burn-up fuel from a reactor in Virginia will be shipped to INL over 2,500 miles with a roadmap that travels through 13 states. With unique regulatory hurdles in every single state, and apparently specific pushback from the Kansas legislators, compliance has to be found with a long list of federal agencies including the NRC, Department of Transportation, Federal Railroad Administration, Pipeline and Hazarded Material Administration, and even the FBI, which is barely the start of the list. This goes to highlight the unspeakably high standards the nuclear industry is held to compared to the other energy industries.

Nuclear Heavyweight Holtec Files for IPO

We wrote up a business segment overview of the company now famous for pulling an Uno reverse card on a decommissioning project in Michigan. Holtec is widely recognized throughout the world for their used nuclear fuel storage cask system, as well as their ongoing decommissioning projects across the US. Along with additional business segments in heavy manufacturing, green energy technology, and even their own line of small modular reactors, there’s a lot to learn about the latest company to offer shares to the public.

A Nuclear-Power Startup Says It Can Rouse the Slow-Moving Industry

Alva Energy plans on developing 10 GWe of new nuclear energy, not through building new reactors, but through uprates of existing facilities. Focusing on pressurized water reactors, Alva plans on constructing a brand new facility on site that will house new steam piping, a new turbine generator, and supporting systems to balance and coordinate the interaction between the facility and the existing reactor plant.

In coordination with the next scheduled refueling downtime, Alva will replace the reactor plant’s steam generators to produce 20-30% more steam. This new steam will all be directed through new piping to the Alva facility, unlocking 200-300 MWe. Each project is expected to cost roughly $1 billion and be able to be completed in under five years.

TRISO-X Receives First-Ever Part 70 HALEU Fuel Fabrication License

TRISO-X, a wholly-owned subsidiary of high-temperature gas-cooled reactor developer X-energy, became the first ever Category II nuclear fuel facility in the US. A Category II facility is allowed to handle fuel enriched up to just under 20% U-235, high-assay low enriched uranium (HALEU). While this is not the first facility to ever fabricate fuel enriched to this level, it is the first time a facility will be authorized to do it commercially. Currently, the only active producer of HALEU fuel with an NRC license is BWXT. Standard Nuclear has recently started fabricating HALEU fuel under DOE-regulated programs.

Project Omega Emerges From Stealth to Recycle America’s Spent Nuclear Fuel

Project Omega recently emerged from stealth after an oversubscribed $12 million seed round led by Starship Ventures. The company joins the cadre of other efforts to unlock the potential within used nuclear fuel. The company hopes to utilize not only some of the parts of used fuel for powering advanced reactors, but also to utilize some of the other critical isotopes present in used fuel to “enable next‑generation power sources for missions where reliability is non‑negotiable”.

Policy, Regulation, and Industry

DOE’s NEPA categorical exclusion for advanced reactors.

In no way are we trying to downplay the significance of this change, but we would like to stress that for now this is only applicable to reactors under the cognizance of the Department of Energy. This does not currently apply to any reactor pursuing licensing for commercial operations under the NRC, nor any of the reactors that will eventually work under Project Janus with the U.S. Army and the Department of War. Efforts are underway at both of those regulators for potentially including some kind of categorical exclusion for advanced nuclear.

What does this even mean? Recalling the executive orders signed back in May of 2025, one of them directed Secretary Wright to:

“take action to reform the Department’s rules governing compliance with [NEPA]” in order to “eliminate or expedite the Department’s environmental reviews,” in part by “creating categorical exclusions as appropriate for reactors within certain parameters.”

On a case-by-case basis, the Department of Energy will decide if a project should be granted a categorical exclusion from the lengthy NEPA process. This could potentially shave years off of new reactor projects. The developers will not only be able to skip the required data collection and assessments that go into NEPA, but also the lawfare that is waged by anti-nuclear environmental activist groups using NEPA regulations will be negated.

U.K. Advanced nuclear framework

The U.K. has published a new nuclear regulatory pathway for enabling the rapid deployment of advanced reactor technology in the country. The new framework draws on lessons learned from the construction of the traditional large reactors built at Hinkley Point C. They are also following up on the reactor developer competition coordinated by Great British Nuclear. The competition was to determine which company would be the first to construct a small modular reactor in the U.K. The domestic industrial juggernaut Rolls-Royce won the event.

Recognizing that the current regulatory requirements did not support efficient permitting of advanced reactors, the government has overhauled its regulator to dramatically improve the process. The new program will directly benefit U.K. reactor developers, including Rolls-Royce and U.K. nuclear construction companies like Jacobs Solutions and Amentum.

Hand in hand with the publishing of the Advanced Nuclear Framework, the U.K. also issued a statement on civil nuclear fuel use. The government clarified the expectations of their future nuclear fleet and outlined some of their intentions for how they will support expansion of the domestic nuclear fuel and supply chain.

The statement highlighted the £300 million investment made to establish a U.K. HALEU supply chain. In order to meet the increased demand for new nuclear fuel, the other stages of the fuel chain will also have to expand capacity. There is an ongoing effort by Westinghouse to reopen the Springfields conversion facility in the U.K.. This would expand capacity for the fuel chain stages immediately prior to and after enrichment.

NRC Major Reorganization Supports Efficiency, Innovation

The NRC announced a significant reorganization of their office, stemming from some of the executive orders signed by the administration in 2025. From the current web of division heads and departments, the NRC will “reorganize around core business lines of new reactors, operating reactors, and nuclear materials and waste”. The other major feature is instead of a new uranium enrichment facility coordinating through the same licensing office as a reactor developer, the NRC will integrate their licensing and inspection functions within each business line. A new organizational chart and change management plan are expected to be issued within the next 60 days.

NASA Testing Advances Space Nuclear Propulsion Capabilities

This is one of the many applications of nuclear fission that people rarely talk about. Nuclear thermal propulsion is being developed by NASA for use most likely in the trip to Mars and beyond. Using nuclear propulsion as opposed to chemical propulsion affords the opportunity for significantly longer trips and much shorter timelines to make those trips.

Additionally, with higher power availability on board, it can support complex instrumentation and improved communication systems for the crew to utilize. The most recent test highlighted in the article is designed to verify the appropriate flow of fluid through the reactor in different design scenarios, ensuring reactor safety.

Nuclear Scaling Initiative secures $3.5M to advance U.S. reactor orderbook

Jeff Bezos’ climate change fund, the Bezos Earth Fund, has committed a $3.5 million grant to the Nuclear Scaling Initiative to facilitate the development of a large reactor orderbook. The idea of an orderbook is to line up the major utilities, industrial companies, tech companies, and governments interested in ordering and constructing reactors to power their customers, facilities, and countries. In theory, if enough serious people are lined up in the orderbook, companies like Westinghouse and their supply chain partners will be more willing to invest the billions of dollars required to reinvigorate the nuclear supply chain necessary for that size of a deployment. Without an orderbook, it is going to be very difficult for anyone to commit billions of dollars to projects that are going to be built one at a time with little certainty of follow-on opportunities.

We think this is actually a very significant development. One of the biggest climate change focused philanthropic organizations in the world is getting behind nuclear power. It’s okay to get excited.

NRC’s Statement of Regulatory Priorities for Fiscal Year 2026

The NRC released a roadmap for 2026 regarding the major changes they intend to propose and issue final rulings on. Based on the list provided, this could be one of the most significant years in the NRC’s history since their formation. Some of the major incoming changes include:

• Streamlined reviews of proven reactor designs

• The establishment of a licensing pathway for factory fabricated microreactors to accommodate the diverse manufacturing, construction, and operational methods different from traditional large light water reactors.

• Modernizing materials licensing, which would affect light water reactor licensees, licensees transporting waste from advanced and microreactors, and reprocessing facility applicants.

• Revisions to the NRC’s radiation protection regulatory framework, specifically reconsidering reliance on the Linear No Threshold (LNT) model and the as-low-as-reasonably-achievable (ALARA) standard.

Nuclear central in France's latest energy strategy

The French government published their “Multiannual Energy Programme”, which describes the country’s energy strategy from 2026 to 2035. One of the most significant changes from previous energy plans is the cancellation of the previous objective of shutting down 14 reactors and instead extending the lives of those reactors alongside the construction of six additional new reactors.

Something Missing?

Looking for the other major headlines announced this week? Well, they’re probably covered in our other bi-weekly report, the Nuclear Sector Newsletter, that focuses on the publicly-traded side of the nuclear industry. It’s $10/month for coverage of all the public nuclear companies and comes with coverage for quarterly earnings and major announcements. Don't forget the huge trove of these reports we’ve stacked up for our subscribers to read through as well!

Here’s a snapshot of the companies covered in our Nuclear Sector Newsletter: