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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

California Utilities Tottering on Brink of Bankruptcy

LCG, Dec. 14, 2000--California's two largest utilities acknowledged yesterday that they are flirting with bankruptcy and may soon not have enough money to pay for electricity which they deliver to their retail distribution customers.

"We continue to have the ability to make power purchases on behalf of our customers," said Pacific Gas & Electric Co. spokesman Ron Low. "But we cannot go on indefinitely borrowing money topay for our customers' electricity."

PG&E and Southern California Edison Co. are now in an $8 billion hole that gets deeper every day as the two companies are forced to pay market prices for power which they deliver to customers protected by rates frozen at a level 10 percent lower than they were paying in 1997.

So far in December, electricity prices have averaged about $330 per megawatt-hour, with a spike yesterday to $1,407 on the spot market. PG&E has since May paid around $4.6 billion more for power than it has collected from its customers. For SoCal Ed the figure is some $3.5 billion.

As a part of electric deregulation in California, the state's three investor-owned utilities (San Diego Gas & Electric Co. is the third) sold off their non-nuclear power plants. They were also enjoined by the state's restructuring law from entering into long-term power purchase agreements with the companies that bought their plants, and forced to purchase all of their power through a quasi-public agency, the California Power Exchange.

Yesterday, some operators of the state's power plants were declining to sell electricity to PG&E or SoCal Ed unless they received cash on the barrel head, a sure sign the power producers are worried about the possibility of bankruptcy.

Financial markets are beginning to take notice of the financial plight of the utilities, with Standard & Poor's placing both PG&E and SoCal Ed on its credit watch with "negative implications." But S&P said it expected that the two companies would eventually be allowed to collect most of their power costs from customers.

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