- US Exim Bank Approves $98M for Romania’s SMR Project
- Newcleo Raises $151 Million From New Investors, Moves to Paris
- Japan’s Economy Minister Calls For ‘As Many Reactor Restarts As Possible’
- Sweden PM Says Country To Start Building New Nuclear Power Plant By 2026
- AI Model from Atomic Canyon & ORNL Sets New Benchmarks in Nuclear Search
- General Atomics Creating “Nuclear Fuel Digital Twin” to Test Silicon Carbide Cladding Technology
US Exim Bank Approves $98M for Romania’s SMR Project
(Balkan Green) The Export-Import Bank of the United States signed off on a $98 million loan for a small modular reactor (SMR) project in Doicesti, Romania. The final investment decision is slated to be made after the completion of the upcoming FEED study.
It is part of the initial $275 million financing package. The package is said to include funding from countries including Japan, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates.
The money will specifically go toward critical activities such as site development, obtaining regulatory approvals, and conducting detailed engineering work, according to RoPower Nuclear.
Romania’s Ministry of Energy estimates that the SMR project in Doicești will require a budget of $4.9 billion as a first of a kind (FOAK) SMR. The US Exim Bank and US International Development Finance Corp. (DFC) have expressed interest in providing up to $3 billion and $1 billion, respectively. The Ministry of Energy of Romania values the project at $4.9 billion.
The Exim Bank is the USA’s official export credit agency with the mission of supporting American jobs by facilitating US exports. To advance American competitiveness and assist US businesses as they compete for global sales, Exim offers financing including export credit insurance, working capital guarantees, loan guarantees, and direct loans.
Earlier this summer, a South Korean investment fund obtained preliminary national security approval from the Romanian government to acquire one-third of the capital in RoPower Nuclear SA. Other investors include Nova Power & Gas (part of the E-INFRA group and joint owner of RoPower), Fluor, Samsung C&T Corporation and Sargent & Lundy.
The Romania SMR project is to build a 462 MW capacity plant using NuScale technology with six modules, each with an installed capacity of 77 MW. The facility would operate for 60 years.
NuScale previously had a contract to build a similar 462 MW plant, composed of six 77 MWe SMRs, in Idaho. Rapid increases in the prices of steel, concrete, and other key items caused by inflation resulted in the utility customer cancelling the project before it broke ground.
The site is 60 miles northwest of Bucharest, near the village of Doicesti at a former coal power plant. Project firm RoPower Nuclear’s owners, each with 50%, are state-owned Nuclearelectrica, operator of Romania’s only nuclear plant Cernavoda, and Nova Power and Gas, subsidiary of E-Infra from Cluj.
The cost estimate should be more accurate when phase 2 of the front-end engineering design (FEED) is completed. Fluor was hired for the job in July 2024, with NuScale as a subcontractor. Fluor is NuScale’s majority equity investor. The study needs to lay out the schedule as well. The next step is making the final investment decision, after which construction can start.
Romanian Minister of Energy Sebastian Burduja said, “I am convinced that at the end of the decade we can be among the world’s first SMR-powered countries, which will mean a historic opportunity to develop a local supply chain, and Nuclearelectrica has every chance to operate other such projects across the entire region.”
Nuclearelectrica CEO Cosmin Ghita said, “This financial commitment by EXIM Bank is a vote of confidence not only in Romania’s ability to implement state-of-the-art nuclear technologies, but also in the solid partnership between our country and the U.S.”
History of the Project
World Nuclear News reported the partnership between the USA and Romania on SMRs began in March 2019 with a memorandum of understanding between state-owned nuclear power corporation Nuclearelectrica and NuScale to study potential developments.
NuScale Power and RoPower Nuclear – owned jointly by Nuclearelectrica and Nova Power & Gas – completed Phase 1 of a Front-End Engineering and Design (FEED) study in late 2023, which analyzed the preferred site of the first VOYGR-6 SMR power plant.
In July 2024, Nuclearelectrica and RoPower Nuclear signed the FEED Phase 2 contract with Fluor Corporation of the USA for the Doicenti SMR project. Under the FEED 2 contract, Fluor will provide RoPower Nuclear with the design and engineering services required for the implementation of the project, at the end of which there will be an updated cost estimate and schedule as well as the safety and security analyses needed for a final investment decision.
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Newcleo Raises $151 Million From New Investors, Moves to Paris
Nuclear energy company Newcleo has raised 135 million euros ($151 million) from new investors. At the same time the firm announced it is moving its base to Paris from London.
With those additional funds, the company has raised a total of over 535 million euros and can now count on more than 700 shareholders. This latest round of funding has seen an increasing number of European players joining newcleo’s growing investor base.
According to the they include funding from Inarcassa (Italian National Pension and Security Fund for Engineers and Architects), Walter Tosto (a leading Italian nuclear engineering and manufacturing company), Ingérop (a leading French nuclear engineering and consulting company), family offices and individual investors active in AI and data centres development.
Newcleo’s shift from Britain to France will make it easier for the start-up to access a broader range of European funding opportunities, according to Stefano Buono, newcleo CEO and chairman.
The firm said in a press statement the decision to relocate to France reflects newcleo’s focus on growing its European presence and delivering on its ambitious timelines and strategic projects.
These include the development of a precursor reactor in Italy by 2026, the establishment of a MOX manufacturing plant in France by 2030, the construction of a prototype reactor in France by 2031, and the delivery of commercial reactors starting from 2033.
“We are now better positioned to deepen our European partnerships and tap into funding resources from institutional and industrial investors,” Buono said.
Between 2025 and 2027 the company plans to invest 133 million euros in Italy, where it is building a 50-million-euro materials research and development center in Turin in collaboration with the Italian Institute of Technology.
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Japan’s Industry Minister Calls For ‘As Many Reactor Restarts as Possible’
- Japan’s newly appointed industry minister Yuji Moto calls for country to strengthen its nuclear energy industry
(NucNet) Japan will need to maximize the use of existing nuclear power plants as AI and data centers are expected to boost electricity demand, the new economy minister said, indicating no major shift in policy under newly appointed prime minister Shigeru Ishiba.
It is natural for Japan to pursue both nuclear and renewable energy to meet growing energy demand without increasing carbon emissions, said Yoji Muto, who was appointed to the role this past week. Muto said the new administration will plan restarting as many reactors as possible so long as they are safe.
Muto said securing energy will be “the most important part of Japan’s growth.” He added demand for power will be coming from data centers and semiconductor factories.
He added said that Japan will need to protect its nuclear industry by developing next-generation reactors. The government is in the process of revising its energy plan that will dictate the power mix, which is currently 70% fossil fuels such as natural gas and coal, beyond 2030.
Muto’s comments point to a continuation of former prime minister Fumio Kishida’s policy that moved Japan back towards nuclear energy as a major power source.
Ishiba had said during his campaign that Japan should reduce its dependence on nuclear energy, but later said that he would support the restart of existing plants.
Kishida said before he left office that he was working on plans to restart units at Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (TEPCO) Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear power station.
Kashiwazaki Kariwa, the world’s biggest nuclear station with seven units and a net installed capacity of about 7,965 MW, has been offline since 2012 pending safety checks after the 2011 Fukushima disaster.
The Japanese Government has announced its intention to restart Units 6 and 7 at the Tepco-operated Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant, located in the Niigata prefecture of central Japan. The Government said it will discuss the additional measures needed to restart the two units but has not yet given a schedule.
Government officials have been meeting with provincial leaders to gain their acceptance to reopen the reactors. The central government has been seeking Niigata Governor Hideyo Hanazumi’s approval for the restart, but as of late August he has yet to announce whether he will give his consent.
TEPCO has to overcome a reputation for its management of the plant that include security violations, mismanagement of low level radioactive waste, and a predisposition to avoid communicating with the public in a transparent manner about plant operations.
Units 6 and 7, both 1,356 MW advanced boiling water reactors, began commercial operation in 1996 and 1997 respectively. All seven units at the plant were put offline following the 2007 Niigata-Chuetsu earthquake
12 Out Of 33 Reactors Have Resumed Operation
Before the Fukushima disaster in 2011 Japan’s fleet of 54 nuclear plants generated about 30% of the country’s electricity, but were all shut down for safety checks following the accident.
Among the 33 operable nuclear reactors in Japan, 12 have now resumed operations after meeting post-Fukushima safety standards. The restarted plants are: Sendai-1 and -2, Genkai-3 and -4, Ikata-3, Mihama-3, Ohi-3 and -4 and Takahama-1, -2, -3 and -4.
Map: U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency nuclear generated about 6.1% of the country’s electricity in 2022. The Tokyo-based Japan Atomic Industry Forum said recently that the fleet generated 81 TWh of electric power in 2023, about 50% higher than 2022.
International Atomic Energy Agency director-general Rafael Grossi has expressed his support for increasing Japan’s nuclear capacity and offered Japan technical assistance as its bids to restart Kashiwazaki Kariwa.
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Sweden PM Says Country to Start Building New Nuclear Power Plant by 2026
- Stockholm plans equivalent of two reactors by 2035 with ‘massive expansion’ to be completed by 2045
(NucNet) Sweden will begin construction on a new nuclear power plant before the country’s next legislative election in 2026 as it pushes ahead with ambitious plans to increase nuclear capacity
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson made the announcement as part of a commitment by his right-wing coalition government which has vowed to massively ramp up nuclear energy in Sweden. However, a a formal decision on the type of reactor to be built, who will supply it, or build it, or a construction schedule has yet to be formally decided by the government.
That said the government wants to increase nuclear power production equivalent to two nuclear reactors by 2035, with a “massive expansion” to be completed by 2045.Asked by daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter if construction would begin before the next general election, Kristersson replied: “Yes, it will.”
“The decisions required to build new nuclear power will have been taken. And hopefully that will be combined with a physical spade in the ground. “We are totally committed. If we are going to succeed at electrification then we need to double electricity production, and nuclear power is an integral part of that.”
Stockholm recently announced it intends to invest over SEK1bn (€88M, $97M) in 2025 to expand fossil-free electricity production including plans for an investment of more than $9M in pilot and demonstration nuclear power projects.
The government, which took office last year, has taken a number of measures to remove barriers and create better conditions for new nuclear power. Late last year Sweden’s parliament approved a bill allowing more nuclear reactors to be built than planned, scrapping the previous cap of 10.
New laws will also allow construction of nuclear reactors at sites other than existing ones. Parliament also established a new energy policy goal of a completely fossil-free electricity system by 2040, which includes nuclear power.
The government is calling for new nuclear power with a total output corresponding to at least two large-scale reactors to be in place by 2035. By 2045 it wants a further expansion that could correspond to at least 10 new large-scale reactors.
Nuclear Plans Could Cost Around $38 Billion
In January 2024 Sweden’s government appointed a national coordinator for the expansion of nuclear power who called on Stockholm to establish an organization that can oversee its ambitious plans for the deployment of large-scale nuclear reactors and small modular reactors.
Carl Berglof said the new organization would manage activities and resources common to several nuclear power projects. He has a central role in speeding up the expansion of new nuclear power and pushing for the measures required for the roadmap for new nuclear power in Sweden to be implemented. He must submit a plan to proceed by the end of 2024.
Since 2011 Berglof served as nuclear industry specialist first at Vattenfall and later at the energy industry association Swedenergy. He managed the Swedish Atomic Forum for seven years representing the Swedish nuclear industry in the national energy policy sphere and with EU institutions.
A government commission said recently that Sweden’s plans for a rapid expansion of its nuclear power capacity are likely to cost around 400 billion crowns ($38B, €34B) and should be financed by a mix of government loans and price guarantees.
Sweden-based power company Vattenfall announced earlier this year that it had shortlisted Rolls-Royce SMR and GE Hitachi’s BWRX-300 SMR designs in an ongoing evaluation to potentially deploy new reactors at its existing Ringhals nuclear site in southwest Sweden. Vattenfall wants to put the first SMR into operation in the first half of the 2030s. It has begun acquiring land in the area but has not yet applied for environmental permits.
Sweden’s six existing nuclear plants are at three sites: Forsmark, Oskarshamn and Ringhals. According to International Atomic Energy Agency data, nuclear energy provided 28.6% of the country’s electricity generation in 2023.
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AI Model from Atomic Canyon and ORNL Sets New Benchmarks in Nuclear Search
Atomic Canyon and the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) announced the initial results of their collaboration. Within just six months, the team developed an advanced AI model capable of understanding complex nuclear terminology using the Frontier supercomputer (the world’s fastest).
Atomic Canyon said in a press statement that the specialized open-source AI model has set new benchmarks for accuracy, efficiency and speed in AI search.
Developed to be open source, the model will be available to ORNL, the nuclear national lab complex, independent researchers and nuclear institutions. It will also be integrated into Neutron, Atomic Canyon’s AI search platform. (Image: Microsoft Bing Image Creator)
Designed to improve efficiency, modernize the regulatory approval process and streamline workflows, Neutron, trained on millions of pages of documents from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the firm says it represents a new dimension in AI search capabilities in the nuclear regulatory space.
Neutron uses AI-powered search, trained on all 52 million pages from the NRC’s Agency-wide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) database. Despite ADAMS offering access to millions of publicly available documents for nuclear facilities, the process of addressing NRC requests and obtaining regulatory approvals is currently cumbersome. Cutting search time by orders of magnitude, Neutron identifies and streamlines patterns and processes, leading to renewed growth in the nuclear sector.
The model now returns the correct search result within the top ten results about 98% of the time, and within the top 5 results approximately 93% of the time, based on a new industry-first evaluation benchmark developed from real-world user queries. These independently verifiable initial results have validated Atomic Canyon’s goal of an open source search platform that will streamline nuclear processes and regulatory review.
“Atomic Canyon has developed an AI model that will help propel nuclear energy development,” says Thomas M. Evans, Group Lead and Distinguished R&D Staff at ORNL.
“What they have achieved is significant: it will be a valuable tool for the research, engineering and deployment of nuclear energy and the transition to a future powered by sustainable energy.”
“Our collaboration with ORNL and the use of Frontier has enabled us to develop a tool that is not just a research milestone but a practical, commercial application that will transform data management within the nuclear sector,” said Kristian Kielhofner, co-founder and CTO of Atomic Canyon.
“This AI model fundamentally changes how the nuclear industry interacts with vast, complex datasets, making data retrieval faster and more reliable than ever before.”
By utilizing state-of-the-art sentence-embedding algorithms, the model accurately interprets and processes complex nuclear terminology, achieving unparalleled performance metrics in the industry.
The AI model was developed to handle larger contexts, allowing for more comprehensive processing of nuclear data and enabling faster, more accurate searches across very large regulatory databases. Additionally, it employs the world’s first commercially usable SPLADEv2 sparse embedding model, setting new standards in AI-driven nuclear search.
“The use of AI technology to do this sort of necessary, but tedious, work is a meaningful first step along the long road to licensing, and Frontier provides a terrific resource to train these types of models” said Bronson Messer, director of science for the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility, which is home to the Frontier supercomputer.
Using the Frontier supercomputer, Atomic Canyon trained the AI model on publicly available documents from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) Agency-wide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS). By making the resulting AI model open source, Atomic Canyon hopes to enable nuclear stakeholders, such as researchers and plant managers, to build on their work to innovate for a safe, clean, sustainable, nuclear future.
In partnership with ORNL, Atomic Canyon will continue to refine and expand the model’s capabilities using Frontier over the next six months, with plans to release subsequent versions.
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General Atomics Creating “Nuclear Fuel Digital Twin” to Test Silicon Carbide Cladding Technology
General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) announced that it has completed a significant milestone under contract with the Department of Energy (DOE) to develop a “Nuclear Fuel Digital Twin”, a modeling and simulation capability intended to help accelerate the process of nuclear fuel qualification and licensing for current and next generation reactor materials. GA-EMS completed preliminary development of four individual performance models in support of its SiGA[tm] silicon carbide (SiC) composite cladding technology.
“A digital twin is a virtual representation of a physical object or system – in this case our SiGA cladding nuclear fuel system,” said Scott Forney, president of GA-EMS.
“When complete, this digital twin will allow us to predict SiGA performance within a nuclear reactor core, reducing fuel development and testing costs and reducing the time it will take to get regulatory approval for this revolutionary technology, without sacrificing safety.”
The four individual physics-informed models capture the complex mechanical response of SiGA cladding while exposed to irradiation. A multi-scale modeling approach was taken where each individual model covers a different length scale – from a mechanism-based microscale model to a reactor system level model. In future work, these individual models will be combined into one integrated model called a digital twin.
GA-EMS’ SiGA composite is a continuous SiC fiber reinforced, SiC matrix composite material that is the backbone of the company’s cladding technology. SiGA cladding provides both safety and economic benefits to the utilities as it can survive temperatures far beyond that of current materials and can reduce the frequency of fuel reloads.
“We have been able to expedite development and verification of the individual models by leveraging the expertise at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Idaho National Laboratory,” said Dr. Christina Back, vice president of GA-EMS Nuclear Technologies and Materials.
GA-EMS is near completion of a 30-month contract with the DOE to deliver individual models for nuclear-grade SiGA materials to form the basis of a future digital twin. Under a synergistic program, GA-EMS recently announced irradiation testing of its silicon carbide composite tubes and the manufacture of the first full-length (12 foot) silicon carbide composite tubes designed for pressurized water reactors. Under contract with the DOE, GA-EMS is advancing SiGA cladding technology to enhance nuclear fuel efficiency and improve safety for current and future nuclear reactors.
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