Nuclear Notes is produced by the Breakthrough Institute, and covers the policy, regulation, technology, and business of advanced nuclear energy in the United States and beyond.
Every Thursday, we track what’s really going on in the field: the new rules moving through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the advanced reactors moving from design to deployment, the companies going public and the utilities merging, and the executive orders and acts of Congress reshaping how the country builds. We explain not just what happened, but why it matters and how the pieces fit together.
Trump Says Yes to Saudi Enrichment
For over a decade, the United States has been deliberating and negotiating a nuclear deal with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Over many years, and multiple administrations, talks have progressed, stalled, regressed, and repeated.
In November 2025, the White House announced agreements with Saudi Arabia, including a long-anticipated civilian nuclear cooperation agreement. But the “Joint Declaration on the Completion of Negotiations on Civil Nuclear Cooperation” was not a 123 Agreement.
Section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act governs the transfer of U.S. civilian nuclear technology, equipment, and materials to foreign countries. These agreements require congressional approval and are mandatory for American civilian nuclear technology to be exported.
This week, the Trump administration announced reaching a broad nuclear agreement with the Saudis, which was formally signed yesterday. Most notably, the agreement could eventually allow the Saudis to enrich uranium, which has been the sticking point for years. The New York Times also reported that the agreement’s provisions may limit the ability of international inspectors to watch for the diversion of nuclear materials for weapons. Notably, the United States, not international inspectors, would inspect to assure that enriched uranium was not diverted for weapons.
So, what does this mean? And what comes next?
Given the Trump administration’s interest in exporting more nuclear energy hardware and technology and competing for the global nuclear reactor market, namely against Russia and China, the deal with Saudi Arabia should not be surprising. Trump’s concessions to Saudi Arabia in the deal are surprising.
The United Arab Emirates signed a 123 agreement with the United States before construction of its four-reactor Barakah complex, and that included a ban on enrichment and on reprocessing spent fuel to recover plutonium. That is now referred to as the “gold standard,” but Saudi Arabia has refused to agree to those terms.
Last year, Breakthrough wrote that the details of the agreement would carry enormous weight, arguing that a well-crafted 123 agreement should build in safeguards, including robust verification measures, close cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and prohibitions on reprocessing spent fuel. Breakthrough also said that it should defer on sensitive issues, like enrichment, or create an alternative mechanism to keep concerns in check.
As reported in the Wall Street Journal, the agreement would bar reprocessing for military purposes. As for enrichment, reportedly, there will first be a two-year study to examine the value of enrichment for Saudi Arabia. If the study concludes that Saudi enrichment is appropriate, a U.S. company would build and presumably operate the facility under a “black box” arrangement, where the enrichment technology would not be transferable to the Saudis. If the U.S. were to renege down the line, the Kingdom wouldn’t be allowed to carry out enrichment on its own or with a different foreign partner for a decade.
Opinions are swirling on whether the decisions on enrichment and reprocessing are disastrous or practical. The text has not been made public, but the details will undoubtedly face opposition in Congress.
Two factors are driving the kingdom’s push for nuclear energy: 1) reducing oil consumption in its electric sector, which would make more oil available for export, and 2) competing with its neighbors. The United Arab Emirates’ Barakah plant, built by South Korean firms with mostly South Asian labor, based on a Westinghouse design, is an international benchmark for on-time, on-budget construction. Egypt is building four large pressurized water reactors in partnership with the Russian state nuclear monopoly. And, more acutely, Iran has been enriching uranium to near weapons-grade levels.
Some have argued that a Saudi civilian nuclear program would push Iran to complete the steps to build a nuclear warhead, which would drive Saudi Arabia to acquire them too, as the Kingdom has said publicly, multiple times. The ongoing war only exacerbates these questions. An alternative to consider is that blocking engagement altogether would not have eliminated Saudi Arabia’s long term strategic calculations.
The terms, that are still yet to be seen, may leave open the possibility that Saudi Arabia could eventually use its civilian nuclear program to get weapons material. It may also be the best result possible after 20 years of negotiation with Saudi Arabia. Time will tell.
NRC License Renewals Were “Reasonable,” Appeals Court Rules
In a major victory for keeping reactors on line, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected an argument that the NRC failed to consider climate change and aging plant equipment when it set up the rules for extending plant licenses.
Two old-guard anti-nuclear groups, Beyond Nuclear and the Sierra Club, claimed that the NRC had not followed the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act, but the court ruled that the NRC’s update of its Generic Environmental Impact Statement in 2024 was “reasonable.”
“We find no basis to conclude that the Commission acted arbitrarily by failing to discuss in greater detail the aging or climate-related inputs in its severe-accident risk analysis,” the decision said. Aging components could increase accident risk, the decision said, but the NRC also has “enforceable regulatory requirements specifically designed to manage aging,” and accounts for uncertainty “through an assumed failure rate and a wide margin of error.” Therefore the court found that the issues were considered in the decision, and that the agency deserved deference on the best way to consider them.
Plants in the current fleet were licensed for 40 years. That period was often used for accounting purposes, and within the industry, many experts believed that they could be obsolete by the end of that period. But the plants have proven remarkably durable, and the Commission has approved 20-year extensions for 94 reactors, and 16 extensions for an additional 20 years, which would allow 80 years of operation, presuming that all other requirements are met.
Earlier this month the Commission posted a proposed streamlining of the license renewal rules, following up on an Executive Order issued by President Trump in May, 2025. It has already promised to complete reviews in 12 months, rather than the current 22-month schedule.
Beyond Nuclear and the Sierra Club took the counter-intuitive position of arguing that, because of climate change, the government should shut down an enormous fleet of zero-carbon energy producers. And some extreme climate conditions, like heat waves, result in sharply increased emissions from the power sector, as utilities call on inefficient fossil-powered peaker plants.
Beyond Nuclear said that the decision showed “a shocking disregard for the ever worsening weather conditions” but did not announce any plan to appeal.
Pebble-Bed Fuel Is on a Roll
The future mix of reactor types isn’t clear, but TRISO-X thinks a lot of reactors will be running on tri-structural isotropic fuel, and has announced a $1 billion new fuel-manufacturing facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, that will employ about 1,100 workers. The state is chipping in $11 million.
TRISO fuel uses kernels of fissile material, uranium or plutonium, encased in heat-resistant ceramics and carbon. The heat from fission can be moved out of the core for conversion into usable energy by inert gas or by molten salt. In either case, the reactor can operate at far higher temperatures than water-based reactors, with lower pressures.
TRISO-X is a subsidiary of X-energy, which is planning its first project at a Dow plant in Seadrift, Texas, which will use the high-temperature steam for chemical processing. Amazon wants the output of four more reactors adjacent to Energy Northwest’s Columbia Generating Station in eastern Washington state, near Richland. That would be a four-module project, but Energy Northwest could build eight more. Each reactor has an electric capacity of 80 megawatts.
But the new Tennessee factory would produce enough fuel for 55 reactors.
Building Reactor Parts on Spec
Today, the NRC staff is scheduled to take up one of the many rules that may have been sensible in the 1960s and 1970s, but are completely unsuited to advanced nuclear energy. That issue is whether a supplier can fabricate parts for a reactor that does not yet have a designated owner.
The current regulations are a bit like telling Home Depot that it can’t stock 2x4 lumber until the house that they will be used for has a designated buyer. And it stymies the vision of nuclear reactors that can be factory-ordered like other capital goods that are subject to strict licensing, such as airliners.
Specifically, the NRC relies on a code issued by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, which specifies that major safety-related components cannot be constructed or fabricated to code prior to the formal establishment or identification of an owner.
In June, the NRC took note in the Federal Register of a petition from the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry’s largest trade association, that said, “The advanced reactor fleet intends to deploy using a variety of economic models, including factory-built reactors. Given very long lead times for component construction and the need for shorter plant construction durations, it is vital that fabrication begin well in advance of the establishment of the owner.”
Constellation, an Operator, Invests in a Construction Business
Constellation, which owns the largest fleet of reactors, has made an equity investment in Blue Energy, despite not having built a new reactor in decades. Blue Energy wants to use shipyard technology to make prefabricated nuclear plants.
“With demand for near-term power rising, Constellation’s investment will help Blue Energy meet America’s need by making new nuclear development predictable, rapidly scalable, and project financeable for the first time in history,” said Blue Energy’s CEO and co-founder, Jake Jurewicz.
The investment came through Constellation Technology Ventures. David Dardis, senior vice president of Constellation, said in a statement, “Constellation is committed to exploring innovative pathways that can help accelerate the deployment of advanced nuclear technologies in the United States and allocate risk appropriately.”
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