You wouldn’t just buy an engine. You want the whole damn car. That’s the driving philosophy behind Applied Atomics, a startup building not just the SMR but also the complete power plant surrounding it, along with plans to sell energy—not reactors—to power-hungry customers. The company officially emerged from stealth this morning with a $2M batch […]
The time has finally come: Commonwealth Fusion Systems is assembling SPARC. The megafunded fusion company has been working on the components of its flagship tokamak for the last several years, and now it’s putting the pieces together. This week, the company announced the installation of the cryostat base in the SPARC facility—the first piece of […]
A young fusion firm in Sweden has closed a funding round in its quest to harness the power of the atom. Novatron Fusion is working toward building a stable and easily manufacturable fusion machine using magnetic confinement. Last week, it closed a €10M funding round to push it into the next stage of development: building […]
Kazakhstan has long been one of the world’s top producers of uranium to fuel nuclear reactors around the globe. Now it’s gearing up to reap the benefits at home. This week at the National Kurultai, an assembly of the country’s leadership, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed a decree establishing a national nuclear energy agency. The […]
First Light Fusion is going through changes. Until recently, the fusion developer planned to build a fusion plant of its own, but a few weeks ago announced it would take a different tack. Instead of pursuing a commercial fusion machine, First Light will commercialize its amplifier technology to support the burgeoning fusion sector. “If the […]
With the resurgence in nuclear power development comes a surge in fuel demand. Around the globe, once-abandoned uranium mining and enrichment projects are gaining steam, and companies are on the hunt for untapped uranium deposits to exploit. This search is driven, in part, by an increase in the spot price of uranium over the last […]
In its bid to develop an inherently safe molten salt reactor, Amsterdam-based Thorizon has raised a €20M ($21.7M) batch of funding. The round of funding—part of the company’s Series A—was led by the Dutch National Promotional Institution, and included participation from Positron Ventures, PDENH, and Impuls Zeeland. In the round announcement, Thorizon signaled that it’s […]
It was bound to happen sometime. The problem of Yucca Mountain has once again reared its ugly head—this time, in the form of the Supreme Court case Nuclear Regulatory Commission v. Texas. The case deals with a license the NRC awarded to allow the construction of a private, temporary nuclear waste storage facility in the […]
The Lone Star State is positioning itself as the most pro-nuclear state in the union, and industry is taking notice. The latest to take up the reins in Texas: microreactor developer Last Energy. On Friday, Last Energy announced that it secured a site in Haskell County in north Texas, near Abilene, to build 30 microreactors […]
In a country where it’s tough to find broad bipartisan support for most anything, fusion energy has managed to buck the trend. At least, that’s how it sounded from the stage Wednesday afternoon at the Fusion Industry Association meeting, where the US House Fusion Energy Caucus co-chairs and vice chairs reassured the industry that they’re […]
