Nuclear Energy

The U.S. and Iran concluded on Saturday the third round of nuclear talks and agreed to meet again on May 3, said Omani foreign minister Badr Al-Busaidi, who is mediating between the parties.

Why it matters: The talks in Muscat on Saturday were the first time the parties dived into the technical details of a possible nuclear deal, especially the limitations the U.S. wants to impose on Iran's nuclear program and the sanctions Iran wants the U.S. to lift.

Lawyers were arguing earlier this month before the Supreme Court over permitting facilities to handle temporary nuclear waste storage when Justice Neil M. Gorsuch pointed to the skunk in the room.

That would be the lack of a single permanent facility where the government could dump radioactive waste by burying it deep in the earth and, with any luck, out of mind for generations to come.

The U.S. nuclear energy sector’s dependence on Russian uranium created during a failed Obama-era reset with Moscow is coming back to bite Americans as the Kremlin moves to block future exports of the vital fuel. 

Vladimir Putin’s new restrictions on uranium exports to the U.S., announced last week, come as the country’s war in Ukraine continues to heighten tensions with the United States and the West. His announcement created an immediate impact, as uranium prices soared and worries grew that American utilities might have trouble meeting electric demand next year.

The Energy Department said on Monday that it had finalized a $1.52 billion loan guarantee to help a company restart a shuttered nuclear plant in Michigan — the latest sign of rising government support for nuclear power.

Two rural electricity providers that planned to buy power from the reactor would also receive $1.3 billion in federal grants under a program approved by Congress to help rural communities tackle climate change.

A non-binary former Biden administration official avoided jail time in Virginia last week, after striking a plea deal that included community service and mental health treatment, after he stole a woman's luggage from the Reagan International Airport in 2018.

Democrats and Republicans in a bitterly divided Congress can agree on one thing: the US needs more nuclear to power America’s rapidly growing energy appetite — and fast.

The Senate overwhelmingly approved a major bill Tuesday night to make it easier, cheaper and faster to permit and build new nuclear reactors. The ADVANCE Act, which passed with just two senators voting no, now heads to Biden’s desk for signing, which he is expected to do.

A major expansion underway inside Iran’s most heavily protected nuclear facility could soon triple the site’s production of enriched uranium and give Tehran new options for quickly assembling a nuclear arsenal if it chooses to, according to confidential documents and analysis by weapons experts.

Artificial intelligence may come for our jobs one day, but before that happens, the data centers it relies on are going to need a lot of electricity.

So how do we power them and millions of U.S. homes and businesses without generating more climate-warming gases?

Microsoft founder, billionaire philanthropist and investor Bill Gates is betting that nuclear power is key to meeting that need — and he’s digging into his own pockets to try and make it happen.

Bill Gates has a new technology he’s excited about. The New York Times reports that the Microsoft co-founder is very excited about TerraPower, a nuclear power company working on a new type of reactor that’s smaller and could be more easily assembled than traditional nuclear power generators.

“If you care about climate, there are many, many locations around the world where nuclear has got to work,” Gates told the newspaper. “I’m not involved in TerraPower to make more money. I’m involved in TerraPower because we need to build a lot of these reactors.”