Author: Fission Today

On 24 February 2026, the world marks the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. While global headlines are filled with news about negotiations and attempts to inspire hope for peace, the Greenpeace Ukraine office is experiencing Russia’s so-called “peaceful intentions” firsthand. For several months now, staff members have had only a few hours of electricity and heating per day, often without hot water, without the ability to use elevators, or to cook meals for themselves and their children. Greenpeace activists from Poland painted the slogan “PEACE NOT OIL” on the side of the Andromeda – tanker transporting oil…

DOE-EM Restarts Uranium Recovery at SRS DOE Awards $19M for Spent Fuel R&D DOE Recycles Hanford Building for Uranium Fuel Production Six Things You Should Know About Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Natura, NGL Collaboration for Nuclear Powered Water Treatment in Texas NextEra Pitches Investors to Fund New Nuclear Capacity Newcleo Closes Funding Round Of $85 Million for Lead Cooled SMR Avalanche Energy Raises $29 Million for Fusion Work DOE-EM Restarts Uranium Recovery at SRS Decision leverages Savannah River Site to produce fuel for advanced nuclear reactors. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) announced that it is restarting…

Peoples Gas, the Chicago-based gas utility, has settled a discrimination lawsuit alleging that it engaged in systemic race discrimination against Black employees and customers through fostering a hostile work environment, discriminatory job and territory assignment, discriminatory overtime and pay, discriminatory performance and discipline practices, and retaliation. Eleven former and current employees of the gas utility filed the suit, Towns et al. v. Peoples Gas, in 2023. The plaintiffs and the utility had been in settlement discussions since May; they settled in December with a confidentiality agreement before the case could go to trial. Peoples Gas did not admit liability. The…

Understanding how much fissile material — enriched uranium and separated plutonium — was produced, and at what time, by the Manhattan Project is one of those seemingly-obscure technical questions that comes with a lot of important historical implications. It is what determined the scheduling of the bombings, for one thing. For another, it is how you might answer questions about what would happen if the war had carried on. And for yet another, it is a way to debunk the various conspiracy theories that periodically emerge about either the United States having atomic bombs before July-August 1945, or being dependent on German…

Updated 17 February 2026 On 13 February 1960, France detonated a nuclear weapon over the deserts of Algeria. It was the first of what were eventually 17 nuclear detonations across two sites. Four of these took place while Algeria’s fight for independence was still raging. To this day, communities harmed by the development of France’s nuclear weapons arsenal are seeking recognition, compensation and redress. ICAN joins other organisations in a joint statement on the anniversary of France’s first nuclear detonations in Algeria, “66 Years Since the First French Nuclear Explosion in Algeria … No Truth Without Transparency, No Justice Without…

19 February – VIRTUAL EVENT-Decision Time: AI and Our Nuclear Arsenal  12:45 p.m. Central / 1:45 p.m. Eastern Command and control of nuclear weapons is a delicate and complicated system, designed to prevent error while ensuring reliability under high-pressure conditions. In environments where vast amounts of data shape high-stakes outcomes, artificial intelligence has become a natural consideration.  The integration of a rapidly evolving technology raises fundamental questions about responsibility, data quality, and system reliability. When a single error could have irreversible consequences, how can confidence be built around the integration of machine learning into systems that have long relied on human judgment and oversight? What guardrails should be maintained? Where are there opportunities for…

In a milestone for the U.S. nuclear fuel cycle, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on Feb. 13 issued its first approval of a commercial Category II nuclear fuel fabrication facility, granting a license to TRISO-X, a wholly owned subsidiary of X-energy, which allows the company to fabricate commercial tristructural isotropic (TRISO) fuel using high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) at its TRISO-X Fuel Fabrication Facility (TF3) under construction in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Issued under 10 CFR Part 70, the 40-year Special Nuclear Material license (SNM-7007)—expiring on Feb. 13, 2066—authorizes TRISO-X to receive, acquire, possess, and transfer special nuclear material, including uranium enriched…

Final Investment Decision Approved for Six 77 MW NuScale SMRs in Romania US Pledges $9 Billion Investment for Armenia SMRs Centrus Taps Fluor as EPC for Expansion of Uranium Enrichment Plant Solstice Plans Expansion of UF6 Conversion Capacity NRC Licenses TRISO-X LLC Fuel Fabrication Facility in Tennessee Project Omega to Recycle Spent Nuclear Fuel NGO Coalition Wants to Slam the Lid on Spent Fuel Reprocessing Inertia Fusion Raises $450 million in Series A Funding Helion Heats Up Fusion Progress with Tritium Fuel NuScale Power and ORNL Use AI to Reduce Nuclear Fuel Costs   ORNL to Give SMRs a Competitive Edge…

I’ve been working on upgrades to the NUKEMAP for several years now, but I actually would like to get them implemented this year. I figured that one way to both make this “invisible” work visible to the rest of the world would be to write about it on here, and that this would also, perhaps, encourage me to Get It Done. NUKEMAP as it looks in Chrome on a Mac in February 2026. Sorry, New York. Note the use of Protomaps and not Mapbox or Google Maps, both of which became prohibitively expensive. Over the past few years, I’ve done…

West and Central African states met the 27th of January, in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, for a conference on strengthening the TPNW. The meeting was hosted by Austria, which is co-chair of the informal working group on the universalisation of the Treaty, and Ghana, which ratified the treaty last September, as well as ICAN, the civil society coordinator for the TPNW, with the collaboration of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). 19 countries in the region were represented, including those that have yet to sign or ratify the treaty. Also attending the meeting were the UN Deputy High…