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X-energy Commences First Irradiation Tests of Advanced TRISO-X Nuclear Fuel at Idaho National Laboratory

LCG, November 6, 2025--X-energy Reactor Company, LLC, (X-energy) and the U.S. Office of Nuclear Energy today announced the start of confirmatory irradiation testing at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to qualify X-energy’s proprietary TRISO-X fuel pebbles for commercial use in the Xe-100 Small Modular Reactor (SMR). (TRISO stands for TRi-structural ISOtropic). This is the first time that TRISO-X fuel pebbles will undergo irradiation testing in a U.S. lab, which is a critical step in meeting requirements set forth by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for the commercial deployment of advanced reactors that will use the fuel.

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NextEra Energy and Google Collaborate on Accelerating Nuclear Power Deployment

LCG, October 28, 2025--NextEra Energy and Google yesterday announced two agreements that will help meet growing electricity demand from artificial intelligence (AI) with clean, reliable, 24/7 nuclear power and strengthen the nation's nuclear leadership. First, Google signed a new, 25-year agreement for power generated at the Duane Arnold Energy Center, Iowa's only nuclear power facility. The 601-MW boiling water reactor unit was shut down in 2020 and is expected to commence operations by the first quarter of 2029, pending regulatory approvals to restart the plant.

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Industry News

Cal-ISO to Line Up Band-Aid Power for Next Summer

LCG, Oct. 5, 2000the governors of the California Independent System Operator yesterday sent the Cal-ISO staff in search of temporary peaking power to help the agency avoid the power crunches that threatened to force rolling blackouts all summer long this year.

Due to a strong economy fueled by a power-hungry high tech industry, and because regulatory fiddle-faddling has delayed the development of new power plants, the state's demand for electricity has outstripped its ability to produce power. It is estimated that Silicon Valley, in the southern San Francisco Bay Area, has a power demand that grows by 10 megawatts per day.

During this past summer, Cal-ISO was forced to declare an unprecedented 31 "stage two" power emergencies this past summer, and ask utilities to conserve power.

Yesterday's action by the ISO's Board of Governors will allow the purchase of up to $255 million worth of peaking generation. The projects under consideration amount to about 2,000 megawatts, after a preliminary evaluation based on environmental, economical and reliability considerations.

Patrick Dorinson, a spokesman for Cal-ISO, said "The board approved management to pursue agreements for temporary peaking power generators that would be used to maintain electric reliability during the summer months."

The ISO would have the right to call on the peaking power for up to 500 hours during the summer season, between June 1 and October 31, in exchange for a capacity payment. The ISO would require that the generation be scheduled in the forward markets as much as possible. An astonishing 25 percent of power purchases this past summer were made in the highly volatile spot market.

Owners of the units would be allowed to run the plants whenever they wished and participate in the markets on their own, so long as it did not interfere with Cal-ISO's ability to call on those plants when needed to ensure reliability.

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