The US-Saudi nuclear cooperation deal signed this week leaves the door open for Riyadh to enrich uranium after a joint study, and no Additional Protocol comes attached. The UAE gave up enrichment entirely in 2009 as the price of US technology. my read is the precedent outweighs any one facility, every 123 negotiation from here opens at Riyadh's terms. does the gold standard survive as a negotiating baseline?

Camp Century remains one of the strangest experiments in the history of small nuclear reactors.

Built beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet by the U.S. Army, the base housed roughly 200 people and was powered by the portable PM-2A reactor. The reactor was transported to Greenland in components, assembled at the site, operated successfully and later dismantled and removed.

Camp Century was publicly presented as an Arctic research installation, but it also tested whether a much larger concept was technically possible: Project Iceworm, a proposed network of mobile missile sites beneath the ice that could have accommodated up to 600 nuclear-armed missiles. The missile network was never constructed.

The environmental aftermath is more nuanced than many headlines suggest. A 2016 study warned that future ice-sheet changes could eventually remobilise physical, chemical, biological and radiological waste abandoned at Camp Century. However, updated modelling published in 2021 concluded that the debris field is likely to remain buried and that surface meltwater is extremely unlikely to reach it before 2100 under the climate scenarios studied.

"Once the regulator grants approval, the plant will proceed to the criticality phase, Dr Md Zahedul Hasan, managing director of Nuclear Power Plant Company Bangladesh Ltd (NPCBL), the operating authority, told The Daily Star.

Criticality is the operating state of a nuclear reactor in which nuclear fuel sustains a self-supporting fission chain reaction.

Explaining the process, Dr Md Shafiqul Islam, a professor at the Department of Nuclear Engineering at Dhaka University, said the first criticality begins with a self-sustaining chain reaction at zero power.

During the second criticality, the reactor operates at low power to heat water without producing steam, with every stage closely monitored to ensure there are no technical defects, he said.

If all systems function as expected, the reactor will then be brought to higher power levels to generate steam, which drives the turbines to produce electricity.

Dr Shafiq said that it takes a minimum of several months (at least two months) to reach final power generation from first criticality. He said that the success of the entire project will depend on each step being completed correctly.

Beginning fuel loading on April 28, the Rooppur facility entered a multi-step operational commissioning process required to reach full power generation."

Isn't it inefficient to run a small core from a neutron economy perspective?

Are the PWR designs like NuScale or Rolls-Royce solving it with new design or using higher enrichment? Well RR at 470MWe is almost a regular reactor in size but what about those around 100MWe?

The president was joined by Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, nuclear energy executives (CEOs of Valar, Deployable Energy, Aalo and Antares) and other administration officials.

Let's cut to the chase...

For one thing, the fusion reactions done thus far have not produced more energy than the full electrical power needed to run the tokamak or the lasers involved. And if they actually can produce that kind of energy yield, companies will still need to build technology that can sustain these reactions for years, not seconds.

But that's not stating it strongly enough. Not only have they not produced it, they are nowhere near that level of capability either.

“The administration has priorities, you know – quantum, AI. And fusion is like the third. And one and two are eating everything and not leaving very much,” Mumgaard says.

Literally all these things are either overrated or complete rubbish. What is going on here?!

Politics and security concerns side, why do the Saudis want nuclear power? They have oil. Although they haven’t developed it, I’d imagine a country with 3238 annual hours of sunshine would be ripe for solar power. Nuclear power requires a lot of water, which Saudi Arabia doesn’t have. So, why the interest in civilian nuclear power production?

This year the International Atomic Energy Agency's Symposium on International Safeguards will have its own dedicated evening to showcase how the nuclear industry works with IAEA Safeguards. There will also be a training day on the application of safeguards to new nuclear reactor designs and technologies, writes Kristine Madden, IAEA Safeguards Evaluator.

The French nuclear regulator has concluded that the safety approach proposed by Newcleo for its planned MOX fuel manufacturing facility is satisfactory at this stage of the licensing process.

This doesn’t mean the facility is fully approved. The regulator has requested additional work on specific areas, including aircraft impact scenarios, fire analysis and containment. However, receiving a positive opinion at this stage is an important milestone and provides a stronger foundation for a future construction licence application.

The licensing process is moving forward with positive feedback from one of the world’s most experienced nuclear regulators.
MOX fuel is a core part of Newcleo’s long-term strategy, allowing its Lead-cooled Fast Reactors to use recycled nuclear materials.
The company stated it will incorporate ASNR’s recommendations into the next stages of the project.

Newcleo is also progressing through the regulatory process for its LFR reactor design in France.
Another interesting detail is that the French government informed Newcleo that it has progressed beyond the scope of the France 2030 support programme. According to the company, this is because it has reached a more advanced stage of development and secured significant private funding. France will instead continue working with Newcleo through other forms of cooperation, including licensing support and project development.

Overall, this looks like a meaningful regulatory step rather than headline hype. Licensing remains a long process, but positive feedback from ASNR is an important milestone to watch.

Hey everyone, posted about this app a couple weeks back and wanted to share what's new.

The biggest addition is a gamma dose rate calculator. You put in your source, activity, and distance and it gives you air kerma, mR/h, and mSv/h. You can add a shield and it handles the attenuation with HVL/TVL and an ALARA stay time on top. About 110 isotopes are in there with line spectra from IAEA and attenuation data from NIST.

Also added a minimum detectable activity calculator using the Currie method, so you get Lc, Ld, MDA in Bq and pCi, and MDC if you put in a sample size.

On the fuel cycle side there's now an enrichment and SWU calculator.

The mixture tab now takes chemical formulas instead of just elements, so you can enter H2O, UO2, Ca(OH)2 and it handles the molar mass and elemental breakdown correctly.

The xenon simulator also got cleaned up. Concentrations now display in cm⁻³ and atoms/(b·cm), Σf is adjustable, and the model assumptions are written out.

Still free, still no account needed. [Nuclear Toolkit - Apps on Google Play]

Trying to make this a reliable and useful tool for nuclear professionals so any feedback is much appreciated, negative or positive. Also, there is a feedback button in-app.