Best of POWER

Welcome to the mid-August issue of the Best of POWER, a bi-monthly e-newsletter from POWER magazine that provides important news and information that many in our audience have found to be must-reads.

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Another Fourth-Generation Nuclear Reactor Begins Construction in the U.S. | Construction of Hermes, Kairos Power’s 35-MWth?iterative non-power demonstration molten salt nuclear reactor, has officially kicked off in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The effort marks another major step for the burgeoning advanced nuclear industry, which celebrated the groundbreaking of TerraPower’s Kemmerer 1, a pioneering sodium-cooled fast reactor demonstration, in June.

PJM Capacity Auction Prices Surge Over Nine-Fold, Signal Urgent Need for New Power Generation | Prices at PJM Interconnection’s 2025/2026 base residual auction (BRA) spiked to $269.92/MW-day for most resources in the wholesale power market, pointing to a tightening supply-demand balance that could have significant implications for the regional transmission organization (RTO).

China Starts Construction of More Reactors as Part of Rapid Nuclear Buildout | Updated data from the China Nuclear Energy Association (CNEA) shows the country has 55 nuclear reactors in operation, ranking third globally behind the U.S. and France. The CNEA said China at present has a world-leading 26 nuclear power units under construction, including Unit 5 of the Ningde Nuclear Power Plant in Fujian Province, where the first concrete was poured on July 28.

Nuclear Power Startup Plans 6-GW Fleet of U.S. Plants | A Kentucky-based group has announced plans to build a 6-GW fleet of nuclear power stations in the U.S., looking to take advantage of bipartisan support for nuclear technology and the need to build more baseload, zero-carbon sources of energy.

Governor Youngkin Has Set the Precedent for Nuclear Energy in America | This month, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and the Commonwealth’s largest utility, Dominion Energy, announced a request for proposal (RFP) for the development and construction of an advanced nuclear small modular reactor (SMR), and the governor signed Senate Bill 454 designed to facilitate the research, design, construction, and deployment of what will be America’s first commercial SMR. These announcements position Dominion Energy to begin developing and testing SMRs and make Virginia the first state in the nation to deploy these clean energy technologies. This is an important milestone as Virginia takes a step toward cleaner and more reliable power supply.

In Case You Missed It: Kemmerer 1 Breaks Ground: A Look at TerraPower's Natrium Fast Reactor Nuclear Power Plant | Bill Gates’ nuclear innovation firm TerraPower has broken ground on the non-nuclear portion of Kemmerer Unit 1, a 345-MW Natrium sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) power plant. The groundbreaking on June 10 makes the federal demonstration project the first advanced nuclear reactor project to move from design into construction in the Western Hemisphere, the company noted.

EIA: U.S. Coal Plant Stockpiles at Highest Level in Four Years | Stockpiles of fuel at U.S. coal-fired electric plants are at their highest levels since the start of the pandemic. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) on August 5 said coal stockpiles totaled 138 million short tons at the end of May, the most since the early months of 2020 when the start of the COVID-19 pandemic lessened demand for the fuel at power generation facilities.

$2.2B for 13 GW of New Transmission Capacity: DOE Unveils Latest Boost for U.S. Grid Modernization | The Biden administration will invest $2.2 billion in eight projects under its Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnership (GRIP) program to bolster the nation’s power grid with nearly 13 GW of new transmission capacity across 18 states.

Fuel Cells: What They Are, How They Work, and Why They’re Important | Fuel cells are not some novel new technology. In fact, most history books credit the invention of the fuel cell to Welsh chemist and physicist William Grove, who, in the late 1830s and early 1840s, conducted experiments proving that electric current could be produced from an electrochemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen over a platinum catalyst.

India's Prototype Fast Breeder Nuclear Reactor Moves Closer to Criticality | India’s Atomic Energy Regulatory Board?(AERB) will allow the country’s flagship 500-MWe/1,250-MWth prototype fast-breeder reactor (PFBR) in Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu, to approach criticality.