Tuesday, 11 August 2026

The Korea Research Institute of Ships & Ocean Engineering (KRISO) has secured Approval in Principle from the American Bureau of Shipping for a conceptual container ship design driven by two small modular molten salt reactors, World Nuclear News reported.

The certified vessel is a 15,000 TEU class ship, according to World Nuclear News. Its hull is sized to pass through the expanded Panama Canal and targets a service speed of 25 knots, with the reactor placed centrally to limit wave impact and reduce collision risk.

Work on the design was split between two Korean institutes. KRISO handled the high-speed hull, the layout of the reactors and major systems, and power operation and control technologies, working with Samsung Heavy Industries. The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) is developing the molten salt reactor intended for marine use.

The collaboration traces back to February 2023, when KRISO joined eight other South Korean organisations in signing a memorandum of understanding to jointly develop a molten salt reactor suitable for ships.

World Nuclear News put the fuel case in blunt terms: shipping burns some 350 million tonnes of fossil fuel each year and is responsible for about 3% of worldwide carbon emissions.

Holtec International, Entergy Services and Hyundai Engineering & Construction have signed a non-binding Memorandum of Agreement to evaluate potential deployments of Holtec's SMR-300 small modular reactor for large-load customers across Entergy's Gulf South service territory, according to a GlobeNewswire announcement.

The agreement sets up a framework for the three parties to assess customer demand, candidate sites and possible commercial structures for potential dual-unit SMR-300 projects. No project has been committed under the MOA.

GlobeNewswire described the SMR-300 as a Generation III+ pressurized water reactor rated at roughly 340 MWe net per unit, built on conventional pressurized water reactor technology, standard nuclear fuel and fully passive safety systems. Paired in the standard dual-unit layout, the design would deliver about 680 MWe of firm, carbon-free electricity.

Work would be split between the two suppliers. Holtec would take reactor technology, nuclear systems, manufacturing and nuclear procurement; HDEC would take balance-of-plant engineering, procurement and construction.

Entergy and its affiliates operate one of the country's largest nuclear fleets and electric utility systems, serving customers in Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas. That footprint defines the geography the three companies will screen for candidate sites.

Any Gulf South project would lean on Holtec's first-of-a-kind SMR-300 build at the Palisades site in Michigan, where the Pioneer 1 and 2 units are expected to serve as the global reference plant for later SMR-300 deployments, per the announcement. The reference-plant sequencing matters commercially: repeat units priced off a completed first-of-a-kind carry different construction risk than a standalone order.

The stated target market is large-load customers, the category that covers heavy industrial and data center demand. The dual-unit configuration cited by Holtec, at approximately 680 MWe, is sized for that kind of concentrated single-point load rather than for diffuse residential growth.

Romanian naval engineers detonated 180 kilograms of explosives on August 3 to strip out a rock outcrop in the Bala Canal, a branch of the Danube, according to CleanTechnica.

The controlled blast cleared the way for a temporary dam, CleanTechnica reported.

The Bala Canal work involved military engineers rather than civil contractors, per the same account.

Oklo, a publicly traded small-modular-reactor firm backed by OpenAI chief Sam Altman, has split its first atoms in a test reactor, according to Canary Media.

Canary Media described Oklo as one of the highest-profile companies working on next-generation nuclear energy technologies.

The company debuted on the stock market two years ago, Canary Media reported, and became retail investors' go-to for betting on America's atomic renaissance.

CNNC Huaxing, a subsidiary of China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), has run hot power generation testing to completion at the country's first megawatt-class helium turbine test facility, World Nuclear News reported.

CNNC said no Chinese high-power turbine had previously produced electricity with pure helium alone serving as the working fluid. The company described the result as work on core power equipment for gas-cooled microreactors moving from theoretical verification to engineering demonstration, calling it a "decisive step forward".

A helium turbine takes the reactor coolant directly through the expansion stage, so no water-steam loop sits between the core and the generator.

Commercial gas-cooled operation in China currently runs on the steam side of that split. Two small reactors feed one 210 MWe steam turbine at the demonstration High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor - Pebble-bed Module (HTR-PM) at Shidao Bay, which began commercial operation in December 2023, according to World Nuclear News.

Constellation Energy is working to return Three-Mile Island Unit 1 to service by late 2027 under its new name, the Crane Clean Energy Center, Neutron Bytes reported.

Staffing and licensing, not the reactor itself, set the pace. Neutron Bytes reports that hurdles outside the vessel are the main constraints on getting the 835 MW pressurized water reactor back on the grid.

Two commitments underwrite the project: a 20-year power purchase agreement with Microsoft, and a USD 1 billion federal loan that closed in November 2025, per Neutron Bytes.

The site needs an operating organization it no longer has. Constellation's target is over 600 full-time employees, with roughly 3,400 direct and indirect jobs attached to the effort. Around 90 operator candidates are working through accredited classroom instruction, simulator time and NRC examinations, with fuel delivery planned by late 2026.

A reactivated operating license controls the rest of the timeline. Neutron Bytes puts the targeted NRC decision on that license in May 2027, with fuel load and the return to commercial operation both targeted for late 2027.

Transmission access moved earlier. FERC approved a waiver in June 2026 that transferred 760 MW of capacity interconnection rights for the Crane restart.

Holtec's Palisades plant took the same licensing route ahead of Crane, obtaining its 10 CFR 50.82(a)(2) exemption in July 2025 and reactivating its power license the following month, in August 2025, according to Neutron Bytes.

A 425 MW nuclear fusion project in Chesterfield County, Virginia has cleared the first batch of PJM Interconnection's new first-ready, first-served generation queue, with an in-service date targeted for January 1, 2032, Power Engineering reported.

The batch was large. PJM Interconnection, described by Power Engineering as the largest US grid operator, greenlit 715 power projects in that first round of submissions.

The fusion entry is filed under the developer name 4th Power LLC, which Power Engineering traces to Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS). The company submitted its PJM application in April, the first time a fusion power company has requested to join a major grid operator, according to the same report. Its first plant, now named the Fall Line Fusion Power Station, is the project PJM deemed qualified for study in Cycle 1. The Chesterfield County site sits in Dominion Energy territory.

On the storage side of the same brief, Eolian is targeting spring 2027 operations at Flint Grid, a 200 MW / 1.06 GWh grid-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) in Jersey Township, Licking County, Ohio. Power Engineering reported that Flint Grid is the first large-scale BESS to qualify for the PJM capacity market and the largest BESS to clear the 2027/28 Residual Capacity Auction.

Base Power announced a USD 1 billion Series D financing round at a USD 13 billion post-money valuation, according to Power Engineering. The round accompanied the launch of Base Core, a home battery rated at 39.2 kWh / 78.4 kWh and now in production at Base Factory 1 in Austin.