⚛️Amazon, X-energy, KHNP Unite

AI isn’t just hungry for data, it’s starving for power.

That’s why Amazon just teamed up with X‑energy, KHNP, and Doosan to add 4 Xe‑100 SMRs to the U.S. grid, starting with a site in Seadrift, Texas.

The Xe‑100 is a 320 MWt high-temperature gas-cooled reactor fueled by TRISO-X. TRISO stands for TRI-structural ISOtropic particle fuel. Imagine each uranium fuel kernel as a poppy seed wrapped in multiple armor-like ceramic layers. These layers:

• Trap radioactive byproducts inside

• Withstand extreme heat (1600°C+)

• Make meltdown basically impossible

Now add the “X”: TRISO-X is the proprietary version developed by X-energy, tailored specifically for their Xe-100 reactors. It’s designed to run hotter, longer, and safer than traditional fuel. Perfect for energy-hungry AI data centers.

Amazon is not new to nuclear, it already has a 5 GW nuclear roadmap. What’s new is that they’ve roped in two global heavy hitters, supercharging a tech-driven vision into a fully-engineered, cross-border supply chain.

• X‑energy brings the reactor and TRISO‑X fuel

• KHNP brings proven nuclear operations

• Doosan brings manufacturing scale

• Amazon brings the demand, finance, and execution muscle

Together, they’re turning advanced reactors from theory to steel and concrete.

This isn’t concept stage anymore. It’s build phase.

🏛️Trump to Make Cold War-era Plutonium Available for Nuclear Power

The U.S. has 20 metric tons of Cold War plutonium gathering dust in bunkers. With power demand soaring, Trump’s team wants to turn a Cold War liability into a 21st-century energy asset.

According to a leaked memo and anonymous sources cited by Reuters, the administration is preparing to offer that weapons-grade plutonium stockpile to U.S. nuclear companies, for free. 

This is part of Trump’s May executive order to revitalize the nuclear fuel cycle, rather than bury surplus plutonium at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, the DOE will issue a call for proposals to recycle the material into advanced reactor fuel.

The plutonium comes from the 34-ton stockpile of surplus plutonium originally slated for disposal under a 2000 U.S.-Russia non-proliferation pact.

With a new wave of SMRs and high-temperature reactors in the pipeline, there’s growing interest in non-LEU fuels, including TRISO and metallic fuels where plutonium can play a role.

If this goes forward, it would be one of the most geopolitically symbolic moves in nuclear fuel history: turning warheads into watts at a time when U.S. energy independence is once again a national priority.

📅 WNA 2025 Is the Next Catalyst, and We're Covering It in Premium

This week’s World Nuclear Association Symposium (Sept 3–5) could be a major turning point for uranium sentiment and contracting. It was in 2021. It definitely was in 2023. And this year, the stars are aligning again.

In past WNA years, uranium spot price moved fast:

2021: Spot went from ~$30 to $45+ in weeks

2023: ~$65 to $100 in six months

The key reason? The biennial Nuclear Fuel Report is set to drop. It’s the industry’s core roadmap, projecting long-term uranium demand across SMR growth, utility procurement, and global policy shifts. This year’s report could mark the first time SMRs are formally modeled as demand-driving infrastructure.

That’s the moment hype becomes forecast.

Lucijan (aka @TriangleInvestor) will be on the ground in London at the WNA Symposium, attending meetings, panels, and receptions and writing a Premium-exclusive field report for Nuclear Update members.

Expect a boots-on-the-ground recap of key sentiment shifts, utility contracting signals, and what the world’s largest uranium producers are (and aren’t) saying behind closed doors.

👀 Want the full post-WNA breakdown?

🚢 Life Under Pressure: Inside a $4B Nuclear Submarine

Ever wonder what it’s like to live and work in a metal tube hundreds of feet below the ocean’s surface?

In this video, step aboard a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine and get a rare look at the surprisingly organized chaos of life underwater. From stacked sleeping quarters to tight galley kitchens, from torpedo rooms to grooming rules, this is the ultimate deep-sea dorm tour.

Spoiler: the food’s not bad, but the WiFi situation? Not ideal.

Check it out👇

🤯Commonwealth Fusion Systems Raises $863 Million

The world’s most credible fusion startup Commonwealth Fusion Systems just closed an eye-popping $863 million Series B2, bringing total funds raised to nearly $3 billion. 

That is roughly one-third of all private fusion capital globally.

The money will be used to build actual infrastructure: SPARC, a net-energy fusion demo reactor, and ARC, a full-scale fusion power plant set for Virginia.

CFS technology hinges on high-temperature superconducting magnets, making their reactor design smaller, cheaper, and more power-dense than conventional fusion concepts.

SPARC, their near-term test machine, is already under construction in Devens, Massachusetts and aims to demonstrate net energy gain within a few years. If that goes to plan, the ARC power plant follows, pumping fusion-generated electricity into the U.S. grid sometime in the early 2030s.

The funding round included a 12-company Japanese industrial consortium, Morgan Stanley’s Counterpoint Global, Stanley Druckenmiller, Google, NVIDIA’s venture arm, and Breakthrough Energy Ventures, among dozens of others.

Hedge funds, banks, industrial giants, state pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and Big Tech are all piling into the same trade: fusion as a viable clean energy solution for the age of AI and power-hungry data centers.

And Google isn’t just investing, it’s buying half the electricity from ARC.

Fusion’s selling point has always been "limitless, clean power." And now it comes with execution velocity and capital discipline.

⚛️For the Nu-clearly Curious

Historic First: Palisades Transitions Back to Operations Status
On August 25, 2025, the Palisades Power Plant officially transitioned from decommissioning to operational status under the oversight of the U.S. NRC.

This milestone follows the agency’s July 24 approval to reauthorize power operations, making Palisades the first nuclear plant in U.S. history to move from decommissioning back to operations.

With this transition, Palisades is now authorized to receive nuclear fuel and restart the plant once allowable conditions are met within the approved Technical Specifications.

X-energy Signs Agreement To Advance Xenith Microreactor Development For Military
US-based reactor and fuel developer X-energy has signed an agreement with the US DoD defence innovation unit and the US Department of the Air Force to advance development of its Xenith high-temperature gas-cooled microreactor

Indonesia plans 7 GW nuclear power plants as part of long-term energy strategy
State electricity company PT PLN has revealed that Indonesia is set to build nuclear power plants with a total capacity of up to 7 GW by 2040 as stipulated in the draft of the country’s long-term power supply roadmap.

Alberta exploring nuclear to meet growing electricity demand
The province of Alberta has launched a 1-month public consultation to develop a roadmap for building nuclear power plants needed to meet growing electricity demand & secure the next generation of carbon free energy.

📸Lights, Camera… Isotope?

Welcome back to Atomic Alternatives, where we explore the surprisingly normal places nuclear tech hides in plain sight.

Today’s case? Medical imaging. Every year, tens of millions of people get scanned using a radioactive tracer that was literally cooked inside a nuclear reactor.

Instead of capturing an external image like an X-ray, nuclear imaging goes internal. Doctors inject tiny amounts of radioactive isotopes (called radiotracers) into your bloodstream.

These isotopes are chemically designed to target specific tissues, your heart, your bones, or even a cluster of suspicious cells.

As the isotopes decay, they release radiation from within your body, which gets picked up by scanners like PET (Positron Emission Tomography) or SPECT (Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography).

It’s like turning your organs into a movie set, except the camera’s rolling from the inside out.

These diagnostic isotopes are typically produced in research reactors, often as byproducts of fission reactions. One of the most widely used is technetium‑99m, which traces its roots back to molybdenum‑99, another isotope generated in reactors.

Without these reactors, millions of scans a year simply wouldn’t happen. That’s why isotope supply is considered a critical piece of national health infrastructure, even if nobody talks about it.

😂Meme of The Week

Thanks for reading.

Stay curious, stay critical (like a reactor), and keep glowing 😎

– Fredrik
📬 [email protected]
🔗 nuclearupdate.com