In this week’s issue, we examine China’s rapid expansion of its nuclear energy capacity and its plans to construct even more nuclear power facilities going forward. We spotlight President Joe Biden’s signing of the Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act as the latest action by the United States to decrease its dependence on Russian energy sources. Finally, we highlight key nuclear technology, security, and geopolitical developments, reports, and analyses.

Source: World Nuclear Association

President Joe Biden signed a bipartisan bill prohibiting Russian imports of enriched uranium. The Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act will ban uranium imports from Russia beginning 90 days after its enactment, as well as provide waivers until 2028 for utilities that would otherwise be forced to shut down nuclear reactors once Russian supplies are cut off. The bill also frees up $2.7 billion passed in previous legislation to build out the American uranium processing and enrichment industry. Sanctions against Russia’s nuclear industry have taken longer than for other energy sources, in part because Russia supplies roughly 20% of U.S. nuclear fuel, and American companies have been paying around $1 billion a year for enriched uranium from Rosatom.

Energoatom, the national nuclear energy generating company of Ukraine, signed a cooperation memorandum with South Korea’s Hyundai Engineering & Construction to collaborate on constructing new nuclear power units in Ukraine. The memorandum emphasizes the international partnership amid wartime and includes plans for new Westinghouse AP1000 reactors at the Khmelnitsky nuclear plant. During the talks, the two sides discussed possible agreements with Holtec International on constructing factories for producing equipment for SMRs and containers for nuclear waste. The agreement aligns with Ukraine's ambitious nuclear expansion plan to add nine new AP1000 reactors.

IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi has warned against any attacks of any kind from or against the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. In his latest update on the situation at the six-unit nuclear power plant in Ukraine, Grossi said the agency’s experts had heard military activity on most days, “including artillery and rocket fire some distance away…as well as small arms fire both near to and further away from the site.” The IAEA was also made aware of reports alleging that a training base for drone operators as well as drone launch pads have been deployed near Zaporizhzhia Unit 6 and its training center.

South Korea’s Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) is in talks with the British government to build a nuclear power station at the Wylfa site in Wales. When asked for a comment, a Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson said that British official Andrew Bowie would meet with KEPCO representatives in London in the coming week. Last month, Great British Nuclear bought the land for nuclear development from Japanese company Hitachi at Wylfa after Hitachi scrapped plans to build a nuclear power plant there in 2020.

The China Atomic Energy Authority and Hungary's Ministry of Foreign Affairs signed a memorandum of understanding on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. This agreement was among 18 signed during President Xi Jinping's visit to Hungary, which also included discussions on deepening economic cooperation and advancing key infrastructure projects. Despite lacking specific details, the memorandum underscores China's continuing role in the global nuclear energy landscape, with Hungary aiming to significantly increase its reliance on nuclear power to between 60 and 70 percent by the beginning of the next decade.

China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN) and Électricité de France (EDF) signed a letter of intent to deepen their cooperation in the field of nuclear energy, as part of a wider range of business agreements discussed during Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit to France. The commitment to strengthen nuclear collaboration highlighted areas such as nuclear power engineering, talent training, and power plant operations. China and France have worked together in the past on the Daya Bay nuclear power plant’s construction in the 1980s. They are both two of the world’s biggest generators of nuclear energy and have plans to expand capacity in the coming years.

Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP), ARC Clean Technology, and New Brunswick Power signed a trilateral collaboration agreement to further cooperation in the global deployment of small modular reactors (SMR). The agreement established firm commitments to deliverables, processes, and timelines to advance discussions for participation and potential investment in the deployment of ARC SMR units, starting with the commercial demonstration unit in the province of New Brunswick. ARC is developing the ARC-100, which is a Generation IV sodium-cooled fast reactor suitable for on-grid and industrial applications.

The European Union has informed the United Kingdom that it will be locked out of the Iter nuclear fusion experiment in France, rebuffing the United Kingdom’s attempts to continue collaborating on the project. Brussels told London that it will be locked out of the project within months unless it affiliated with Euratom, which the United Kingdom quit when it left the European Union. Iter is an international project to build the world’s biggest tokamak in order to achieve commercial nuclear fusion.

IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi has proposed a set of practical measures to revitalize the agency’s 2023 Joint Statement with Iran during a visit to the country. The joint statement sets out the terms for cooperation on inspections and safeguards in Iran as well as specifying additional steps to be taken by the two parties. Discussions have been held on various issues including points needing clarification from Iran and voluntary measures that Iran could adopt.

Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) came to an agreement with Canada’s Candu Energy to pursue a contract for refurbishing a nuclear reactor in Romania. This partnership is oriented towards the re-tubing and life extension of the Cernavoda Unit 1 Nuclear Power Plant, aiming to extend its operational life by 30 years. The collaboration reinforces South Korea's international role in nuclear energy while seeking to secure the contract for the project within the year.

Westinghouse Electric Company signed an agreement with British company Community Nuclear Power (CNP) that puts it on track to deploy the United Kingdom’s first privately-financed small modular reactor (SMR) fleet. The agreement is to build four Westinghouse AP300 SMRs in the North Teesside region of northeast England and develop a fully licensed site for the project by 2027. Westinghouse’s AP300 SMR is based on Westinghouse’s AP1000 large reactor technology, enabling a more streamlined licensing process.

Chile signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the IAEA to use nuclear technology to study microplastics pollution in Antarctica. The partnership aligns with the agency's NUTEC Plastics initiative to track the distribution of marine plastics and implement strategies to mitigate pollution. Additionally, the IAEA and Chilean officials have discussed utilizing nuclear tech for advancements in health, like cancer care, and enhancing the mining of lithium, highlighting Chile's expanding role in nuclear science despite not having a nuclear power program.

The British government is awarding £196 million ($245 million) to Urenco to build a uranium enrichment facility with the capacity to produce up to 10 tons of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) per year by 2031. The funding is part of the £300 million HALEU program announced earlier this year, with the energy department saying that the remaining funding will be allocated later this year to other parts of the program. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero says the new facility will be built at Urenco’s Capenhurst site in northwest England.

Polish Industry Minister Marzena Czarnecka stated that Poland’s first nuclear power plant is realistically seen starting operations in 2040, several years later than planned by the previous government. Poland’s new government has already signaled a delay in plans to build the country’s first nuclear plant by 2033 as it reworks climate and energy plans of the previous administration. Poland has chosen Westinghouse Electric to build Poland’s first nuclear facility in Kopalino-Lubiatowo.

Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) is set to resume output from the No. 7 unit at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant in October under a best-case scenario. The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa facility is the largest nuclear power plant in the world, with seven units and a capacity of about 8 gigawatts. The restart of unit 7 is part of a series undertaken by the Japanese government to restart five nuclear reactors across the nation by 2025. This will be the first time Tepco will operate a nuclear reactor under the safety rules implemented after the meltdown at its Fukushima Daiichi facility in 2011.

Poland’s Ministry of Climate and Environment approved industrial group Industria’s plan to construct a power plant based on Rolls-Royce’s small modular reactor (SMR), with Minister Paulina Hennig-Kloska adding that the investment would be in line with Poland’s energy and climate policies. Obtaining the decision-in-principle entitles Industria to apply for a number of further administrative arrangements, such as a siting decision and a construction license. The application concerns the construction of a nuclear power plant that uses Rolls-Royce SMRs and a used nuclear fuel storage facility.

The French Nuclear Safety Authorization (ASN) gave the green light for a next-generation European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) to be put into service at the Flamanville Nuclear Power Plant. The authorization means that the reactor can be filled with fuel and begin testing in the coming months. Électricité de France (EDF) hopes to have the reactor up to full power by the end of the year, as the project is expected to be put into service some 12 years later than initially planned.

Slovakia’s government has approved a plan to build another nuclear reactor at the Jaslovske Bohunice Nuclear Power Plant. The government said its ministers of finance and economy would work out the details by the end of October, and the new reactor is expected to have an output of 1,200 megawatts. Slovakia currently generates over 50% of its electricity from its two nuclear power plants.

French utility Électricité de France (EDF) has signed green bank loans for a total amount of about €5.8 billion ($6.3 billion), which will be used to finance the life extensions of the existing nuclear power plant fleet in France. ASN said the improvements and measures will be applied to each reactor individually during their fourth periodic safety reviews, which are scheduled to run until 2031. EDF originally announced its Grand Carénage life extension program for its nuclear fleet in 2011, with the total cost for the program amounting to €49.4 billion.

The British Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has granted a nuclear site license for the Sizewell C site in eastern England. The issuing formalizes ONR’s regulatory responsibility and allows it to require Sizewell C Ltd. to request permission for the start of nuclear-related construction. The plan is for Sizewell C to feature two European Pressurized Reactors (EPR) producing 3.2 gigawatts of electricity, enough to power the equivalent of around six million homes for at least 60 years.

Members of Estonia’s parliament, the Riigikogu, have submitted a draft resolution which will allow preparations to begin for the adoption of nuclear energy in the country and the creation of a legislative and regulatory framework. The draft calls for the Riigikogu to pass a “fundamental decision” on whether to allow for the production of nuclear energy in Estonia, with its findings based on the analysis conducted by Nuclear Energy Working Group 2021-2023, which concluded that nuclear energy was feasible. A recent IAEA mission to Estonia reported that the country has developed a comprehensive assessment of its nuclear power infrastructure to decide whether to launch a nuclear power program.

The government of Uganda is hosting an IAEA Integrated Uranium Production Cycle Review (IUPCR) mission, which will review Uganda’s potential to produce uranium. The IUPCR missions are designed to assist IAEA member countries in the development of infrastructure for national uranium production programs through all phases of the uranium production cycle. Ugandan Minister of State for Energy and Mineral Development Phiona Nyamutoro elaborated that Uganda plans to develop nuclear power plants with a total output of 24,000 MW, and uranium exploration is ongoing in the country.

The United Kingdom is consulting on a proposed National Policy Statement (NPS) for nuclear fusion energy to set out and streamline the process for fusion power plants. The British government has proposed developer-led site selection for fusion power plants, as well as elaborating that fusion power plants will not be subject to the same nuclear site licensing process as fission reactors. The proposals reflect the government’s view that the risks of fusion are not on the same magnitude as fission and are more similar to other facilities such as chemical plants.

The World Energy Congress 2024 held a panel which stated that the public and political perception of nuclear energy has significantly improved over the past few years. The session, “Leap of Scale or Faith: Realizing the Full Potential of Nuclear”, featured prominent officials such as IAEA chief Rafael Mariano Grossi and the deputy of the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), Lawrence Piketty. Both reiterated that reaching the target of net-zero emissions by 2050 would be nearly impossible without nuclear energy.

Kazatomprom released its first quarterly update for 2024 demonstrating that the company’s first quarter uranium production saw a slight year-on-year increase from 4,744 tons of uranium (tU) to 5077 tU. The company also reiterated that its production guidance for 2024 of 21,000 to 22,500 tU remains unchanged. However, Kazatomprom noted that sanctions pressure from the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and limited access to some key materials may lead to differing annual production volumes from internal expectations.

Two Republican lawmakers are urging the Biden administration to prevent French company Électricité de France (EDF) from working on civil nuclear power projects with Russia. In a letter seen by Reuters, Representative Michael McCaul and Senator Jim Risch urged Biden not to waive sanctions on Russia which might allow EDF to engage in nuclear power projects with Russia. The two lawmakers added that exempting EDF from U.S. sanctions would also allow EDF to purchase a subsidiary of a U.S. company that had been engaged in nuclear power projects in Russia.

The Department of Energy has determined that a federal consolidated interim storage facility is needed to help manage the United States’ commercial spent nuclear fuel. The Department of Energy recently approved Critical Decision-0 for the Federal Consolidated Interim Storage Facility, which is the first step of a process that the Department uses to manage capital asset projects and determines a mission need for the agency. The facility would be licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and initially built to store around 15,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel.

TerraPower Director of External Affairs Jeff Navin provided an update on the status of the company’s Natrium advanced reactor. According to Navin, fuel supply remains TerraPower’s main concern for the first Natrium plant, stating, “I can’t tell you today that I can account for every kilogram of HALEU that we will need, where it will come from, and where we’ll have it.” The Natrium is a 345 MWe sodium-cooled fast reactor with a molten salt-based energy storage system, and TerraPower expects to begin non-nuclear related construction in Wyoming this June.

U.S. production of uranium in the first quarter of 2024 measured at 82,533 pounds, the highest Q1 production of uranium in the United States since 2018 and almost 80% more than production for the whole of 2023. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) latest Domestic Uranium Production Report, U.S. uranium production in 2024 comes from 5 facilities, all of which use in-situ leach methods rather than conventional mining and milling. The EIA also listed three additional U.S. uranium mills as “on standby” in Q1.

Advanced nuclear power technology and fuel recycling company Oklo Inc. has begun trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Oklo Inc. will be ringing the opening bell at the NYSE on May 24 to celebrate the company’s public listing. Oklo Inc. has recently made progress in developing its nuclear power facilities, including through partnerships with Diamondbacks Energy and Centrus Energy Corp.m, as well as the recent approval of the Safety Design Strategy for its Aurora Fuel Fabrication Facility.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates has brokered a deal with the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to build a nuclear reactor in Wyoming. The new agreement is expected to be formally signed as early as this month, with the two Japanese firms providing technical assistance and data from Japan’s own reactors. TerraPower is already active in the development of new advanced reactors, and it is expected to open its first Natrium power plant as early as 2028.

U.S. Senators Tim Scott and Chris Coons have introduced the Efficient Nuclear Licensing Hearings Act, which would remove the requirement for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to hold a public hearing for every nuclear reactor application. Current law requires public hearings to be held by the NRC toward the end of the reactor license application process in addition to the statutorily required environmental and safety reviews that provide public engagement opportunities for stakeholders and citizens.

NuScale Power Corporation announced the results for the first quarter ending in March 31, 2024. During this quarter, NuScale implemented a series of initiatives to better align resources with the company’s primary objective of transitioning towards commercialization and revenue-producing commercial contracts, which is expected to generate $50 to $60 million in annualized savings starting in the second quarter of 2024. Additionally, NuScale improved its cash position, ending the first quarter with cash and equivalents of $137.4 million and no debt, which is greater than the $125.4 million figure from the first quarter of 2023.

U.S. microreactor developer NANO Nuclear Energy announced that its IPO of 2,562,500 shares of its common stock was being priced to the public at $4.00 per share. The stock began trading on the Nasdaq Capital Market on May 8, and it expects gross proceeds of about $10.25 billion from the IPO. NANO Nuclear Energy said it intends to use the net proceeds to continue the research and development of its proprietary ZEUS and ODIN microreactor designs as well as its high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) activities.

Australia-based Peninsula Energy has boosted estimates for uranium in northeast Wyoming to nearly 85 million pounds at its three mines in the area. To meet the growing demand for uranium worldwide, Peninsula said it has also begun construction on a central processing plant in Wyoming. The Ross processing plant will take uranium processed at other Peninsula-owned mines and produce yellowcake, which will then be shipped to Illinois to turn into enriched fuel for U.S. nuclear reactors.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has received a subsequent license renewal application from Constellation Energy Generation for its Dresden Nuclear Power Station in Illinois. Constellation filed the application on April 17, seeking to renew the licenses of both Dresden reactors from 60 to 80 years. The NRC staff will now review the application to determine if it has sufficient information to complete the agency’s extensive safety and environmental reviews of the Dresden power station.

The George Washington University’s Institute for International Science and Technology Policy published a report assessing the national and international security risks associated with advanced nuclear energy technology and deployment. The report argues that a more nuclearized world will present more proliferation and security risks, with some of the new reactors being built in countries with fragile governance and limited experience and resources. Among other recommendations, the report suggests that the U.S. State Department should commission a new International Security Advisory Board study on how the national security risks posed by nuclear energy have changed over the last two decades.

StartUs Insights published a report on the nuclear energy industry using data covering more than 4.7 million global companies, as well as a sample of 300+ nuclear energy startups developing innovative solutions. According to StartUs Insight’s analysis, the nuclear sector employs approximately 1.1 million people, with an increase of about 41,000 workers over the past year, and leading investors have contributed over $1.3 billion to the industry. Following the overview of the nuclear energy industry, the report recommends that the industry engage with new trends such as fusion technology and small modular reactors, as well as address pressing challenges holding the industry back.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) released a report outlining recommendations for the agency to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) for nuclear energy purposes. NRC staffers identified 36 potential AI cases, including some involving generative AI, as part of its recommendations to the commissioners. The nuclear industry currently uses AI to “change its approach to some non-regulated activities and has expressed interest in using AI for NRC-regulated activities,” per the report, adding that the NRC is investing in AI research to identify where AI could build foundational knowledge across the agency.

For twenty-five years the Partnership for Global Security (PGS) has developed actionable responses to global security challenges by engaging international, private sector, and multidisciplinary expert partners to assess policy needs, identify effective strategies, and drive demonstrable results.