The federal agency tasked with overseeing the U.S. nuclear stockpile has begun furloughing employees as part of the ongoing federal government shutdown, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Monday. In a visit to Nevada, Wright said the National Nuclear Security Administration is furloughing 1,400 federal workers as part of the shutdown, which began Oct. 1. Nearly 400 federal workers will remain on the job, along with thousands of NNSA contractors, the Energy Department said.
Last fall, the house of Bezos announced a $500 million investment in SMR startup X-Energy. On Thursday, the e-tailer revealed that X-Energy's Xe-100 SMR designs would eventually supply Washington State with "up to" 960 megawatts of clean energy. "Eventually" is the key word here as construction isn't expected to start until the end of the decade and the plants won't begin operations until sometime in the 2030s.
In May, Ford gave Ontario Power Generation the green light to start construction on the first of four small modular reactors next door to the Darlington station in Clarington, Ont., east of Toronto. The project is called the Darlington New Nuclear Project. 'With President Trump taking direct aim at Canada's economy, it's never been more important to build and build fast,' Ford said in a statement on Thursday 'Shovels are already in the ground building the first small modular nuclear reactors in the G7 at Darlington. Ontario welcomes the federal government's support and expects that the same streamlined federal approvals will be extended to the new large-scale nuclear facilities Ontario is building.'