The week in nuclear, from Oak Ridge to Onagawa.

Issue 9 wondered whether a fourth Pilot Program reactor would go critical by July 4. Four did, one more than Executive Order 14301 asked for.

In context: The order asked for three advanced reactors critical outside the national labs' normal process by July 4, and DOE delivered four across 30 days. The bottleneck people assumed was technical turned out to be mostly procedural.

Uranium held near $85 a pound and Cameco is up on the year, a repricing of timelines rather than a broken thesis.

• NRC staff recommend the first US construction permit for TVA's BWRX-300 at Clinch River
  Evaluation posted to ADAMS June 29, full review expected by December. First US small modular reactor cleared to break ground through the commercial licensing path.
• Centrus signs a $900M contract to build commercial HALEU capacity at Piketon
  Delivers one metric ton of HALEU by 2032, options to $1.07B. The only US enrichment cascade moves from demonstration to commercial scale.