Thursday, 13 August 2026

Criticality benchmarks for shipping high-assay low-enriched uranium sit on the licensing path for advanced reactor startup, and the federal program producing them is funded through the Inflation Reduction Act, according to Neutron Bytes.

That program, the DOE/NRC Criticality Safety for Commercial-Scale HALEU for Fuel Cycle and Transportation program, or DNCSH, exists to publish criticality benchmarks so the NRC can license commercial-scale HALEU facilities and transport packages with confidence, Neutron Bytes reported.

Its opening round came in August 2024 and directed USD 17 million to 16 national lab-led projects, each aimed at the data gaps that matter for transport, according to Neutron Bytes.

HALEU is defined as uranium enriched above 5% and up to just under 20% U-235. That threshold matters for what a shipment is and how it must be packaged, and it separates the advanced reactor fuel supply question from conventional light-water fuel.

One prototype already moved without crossing that line. Deployable Energy's Unity prototype microreactor runs on uranium oxide fuel enriched to 4.95% U-235, below the HALEU band, and Neutron Bytes reported that the fuel traveled separately from the reactor itself. Loading happened on site, only after the reactor was in place and checked out.

The sequencing is a practical detail with regulatory weight: a reactor shipped unfueled is a different transport problem from a reactor shipped loaded, and fuel moved on its own falls under package licensing rules that the DNCSH benchmarks are meant to underpin.

A framework agreement covering the first-of-a-kind deployment of an ARC-100 small modular reactor at Idaho National Laboratory has been signed by ARC Clean Technology, World Nuclear News reported.

The deal runs multi-year and was struck with Battelle Energy Alliance, the contractor that manages and operates the laboratory. ARC Clean Technology also holds an award under the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program run by the US Department of Energy, which supports faster development of advanced SMRs.

The ARC-100 is a sodium-cooled fast reactor rated at 100 MWe, which World Nuclear News describes as designed for "safe, flexible, and economical operation".

Its lineage runs through the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II, an integral sodium-cooled fast reactor prototype. That unit started up at Argonne National Laboratory in 1961 and was shut down for good in 1994.

Irfan Ali, President and Chief Strategy Officer at ARC Clean Technology, tied the deal to the company's work on advanced nuclear, calling it a step in bringing that technology to market.

Commissioning of the demonstration unit at Point Lepreau was being targeted for 2029, subject to approvals and licensing, according to World Nuclear News.

A project in Victoria, Texas, will deploy GE Vernova 7HA.02 gas turbines alongside GVH BWRX-300 small modular reactors (SMRs), subject to a final investment decision in 2027, according to the GE Vernova Newsroom.

The agreement announced by the GE Vernova Newsroom advances engineering design, licensing and safety analysis for the site.

On the reactor side, the GE Vernova Newsroom said the first BWRX-300 is under construction at Ontario Power Generation's Darlington site in Canada, with completion expected by the end of the decade. That unit will be the first grid-scale SMR in the Western world, according to the same release.

Nuclearelectrica set a controlled shutdown of Cernavoda unit 2 for 7.00am on 13 August. The reason is the Danube: Romania pulled the second unit at the plant out of service after the river hit a record low, World Nuclear News reported.

Cooling water drove the decision. World Nuclear News put the river at 182 centimetres on the morning of 12 August, under the 185-centimetre threshold Cernavoda needs to run normally.

The first unit went offline weeks earlier. Nuclearelectrica disconnected unit 1 from the National Energy System on 28 July, blaming what it called the "unprecedentedly low level of the Danube, caused by severe drought".

Cernavoda is the only nuclear station Romania has. Its two Candu reactors are rated at 650 MWe each and supply roughly a fifth of national electricity.

Hungary faces the same shortage of river water at Paks, where units 1, 3 and 4 have been shut down and unit 2 is running at reduced power, according to World Nuclear News.

The Hungarian government said on 12 August it was acting to keep cooling water flowing from the Danube to the Paks reactors. The remedy is stone dumped into the riverbed. Hungary said 35,000 cubic metres in a first round, then 110,000 cubic metres, would hold the level at the plant's cooling channel above -90 cm within a few weeks and let the station run at full capacity.

Blue Energy and GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy have signed an agreement opening the next phase of work on a planned 2.5-GW gas-plus-nuclear project in Victoria, Texas, according to Power Magazine.

The agreement was announced on August 13, Power Magazine reported.

Under the deal, the data-center power concept shifts from an announced collaboration into engineering, licensing, and safety analysis, according to Power Magazine.

The 2.5-GW figure covers the combined gas and nuclear project at the Victoria site.