Electric utilities and power grid operators increasingly are looking at ways to diminish and avoid disruptions from extreme weather. The power sector also has experience with the financial impacts of wildfires, both with damage to assets and losses incurred when equipment is found liable for causing those events. Undergrounding lines, in addition to enhancing safety,...
Author: Power Magazine
America’s Only Commercial Uranium Enricher Is Privately Building a New Plant Amid a Widening Nuclear Fuel Supply Gap
Urenco USA, operator of the only U.S. commercial-scale uranium enrichment facility, will expand low-enriched uranium (LEU) capacity at its National Enrichment Facility (NEF) in Eunice, New Mexico, by nearly 50% through a privately funded, multibillion-dollar investment that includes construction of a new enrichment plant. The project will add 2.1 million separative work units (SWU) of...
CoutourGlobal Brings Major Solar-Plus-Storage Project Online in Chile
Global clean energy group ContourGlobal announced the start of commercial operation of another utility-scale solar-plus-storage project in Chile, one the company said features Latin America’s longest-duration battery energy storage system (BESS). UK-headquartered ContourGlobal said the 6.5-hour/200-MW BESS, which pairs with a 231-MW solar power facility at the Victor Jara hybrid plant in Tarapacá, is the...
NextEra Will Buy Dominion Energy in Largest-Ever Electric Utility Deal
Florida-headquartered NextEra Energy, one of the largest U.S. power utilities, is set to buy Virginia-based Dominion Energy in an all-stock deal valued at about $67 billion. The companies announced the deal on May 18, one day after several outlets including POWER reported the energy groups were discussing an agreement to create a utility giant that would have assets...
How Trump’s EO 14300 Is Reshaping NRC Nuclear Licensing and Regulation
A year after President Trump signed Executive Order (EO) 14300 directing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to cut red tape and speed nuclear deployment, the agency is claiming a string of historic firsts, a backlog of rules in motion at unprecedented scale, and an internal reorganization due to take effect next month. In a news release...
77 Miles, One Drone: Rewriting the Rules of Infrastructure Inspection
On the morning of Feb. 3, 2026, a small team from Censys Technologies stood at their Daytona Beach headquarters and watched a fixed-wing drone the size of a large model airplane climb into the Florida sky. Over the next two and a half hours, that aircraft—a Sentaero 6 equipped with light detection and ranging (LiDAR)...
From Pilot to Launch: DOE Names First Four Nuclear Energy Launch Pad Developers
The Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Nuclear Energy and the National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC) have announced the first four developers selected for the freshly launched Nuclear Energy Launch Pad—a restructured deployment-support initiative that succeeds the DOE’s Reactor Pilot Program and Fuel Line Pilot Program and broadens federal assistance to cover the full nuclear...
The POWER Interview: How the Oil and Gas Industry Is Advancing Geothermal
The International Energy Agency (IEA) earlier this year reported that its analysis of recent data on geothermal power showed financing for the sector reached nearly $2.2 billion last year. The investment represents an 80% increase from the prior year, and IEA said it shows exponential growth from just $22 million of investment in 2018. Industry...
Project Glasswing: What Power Companies and Grid Operators Need to Know
On April 7, Anthropic announced Project Glasswing, a coalition of 12 major technology companies marshaling a new frontier artificial intelligence (AI) model to find and fix critical software vulnerabilities before attackers can exploit them. While the announcement is framed around technology infrastructure broadly, the implications for the power sector are immediate and serious. Partner posts from Amazon...
Antares Receives DOE Approval of Mark-0 Demonstration Reactor
A California-headquartered advanced nuclear energy company said it has received U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) approval of the Documented Safety Analysis for the company’s Mark-0 reactor. Antares, which is building compact nuclear microreactors, on April 7 said the DOE’s approval confirms the agency’s acceptance of the final design for the Mark-0, along with the safety...









