All articles tagged with #department of energy
A review of the documentary 'To Use a Mountain' that traces the stalled push to bury nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, highlighting the human cost to rural and Indigenous communities, the DOE’s utilitarian approach, and the broader environmental justice issues tied to nuclear policy, all told through an impressionistic, human-centered cinematic style.
The U.S. Department of Energy awarded Waterleaf P1 HoldCo (a Lilac Solutions subsidiary) a $100 million grant to develop a commercial lithium extraction and refining facility on the Great Salt Lake’s northeastern shore, aiming to double U.S. lithium production and strengthen domestic supply chains; Utah is positioning itself as a leader in critical minerals, with federal coordination on water use and brine return amid environmental concerns as the project moves forward.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear says the White House didn’t brief him before unveiling a $100 billion data-center and energy hub on a DOE site in Paducah, a move that underscores the political scramble surrounding large-scale AI infrastructure. Beshear criticized the lack of details on scope, power needs and environmental implications, while DOE says it notified his office in advance. The project—funded by NextEra Energy and Brookfield—has sparked local and state scrutiny over electricity costs, environmental impact, and governance as Beshear weighs a potential presidential run and issues an executive order to set standards for data centers.
In a federal court filing, the Energy Department said it recommended canceling more than 600 clean-energy grants in states that voted for Kamala Harris, with 284 grants terminated in October 2025. Democrats decry the move as partisan retaliation by the Trump administration, arguing grants were targeted based on political identity; the filing describes the cuts as part of a broader effort to punish opponents, while supporters frame it as a policy-driven action.
A court filing reveals the Energy Department acknowledged that about 284 federal research grants were canceled solely because the recipient state voted for the Democratic candidate in 2024 (blue states with two Democratic senators), with 340 other grants proposed for termination but not canceled. The DOE said the tranche was selected for political reasons rather than programmatic factors, while officials later disputed that the terminations were politically motivated. The episode unfolds amid White House and OMB moves to grant political appointees greater control over federal grants and their alignment with the president’s priorities.
Three DOE-backed microreactors have reached criticality—Unity by Deployable Energy, plus Antares and Valar Atomics—marking a milestone in demonstrating compact reactors for powering data centers and other high-demand loads; however, experts say criticality is only an early step and scaling, HALEU fuel supply, financing, and NRC licensing remain major hurdles before any commercial deployment.
Three startups in the DOE’s pilot program have turned on new reactors and reached criticality, a milestone meant to jump‑start a new wave of small modular reactors and carbon‑free power. While the speed is aided by regulatory cuts and lab support, experts caution these are test reactors, not commercial products, and licensing, fuel supply, and cost hurdles still loom before any grid deployment—despite Valar Atomics’ criticality demonstrations (even powering an Nvidia chip) and other pilots aiming to be critical soon, including Antares Nuclear and Deployable Energy; Aalo Atomics has yet to hit criticality.
Darío Gil, the DoE’s science under-secretary, is leading a high-profile push into AI and quantum science through the Genesis initiative, which aims to create an overarching AI platform that connects scientific instruments, supercomputers, and data across 17 national labs. The first Genesis funding round drew about 5,000 proposals and $293 million in awards, with the program totaling roughly $520 million so far. The effort coincides with a 2028 target to build a fault-tolerant quantum computer, even as researchers worry that basic-science funding could be squeezed by AI investments. Gil argues the funds will remain spread across disciplines and emphasizes collaboration with industry and academia to harness, safeguard, and guide AI’s future.
The Energy Department announced a $17.5 billion loan package to support the construction of 10 large nuclear reactors, signaling a major federal push to expand nuclear power in the United States, with the Vogtle plant in Georgia shown among the facilities.
The Energy Department will provide about $17.5 billion in loans to five special-purpose vehicles to finance the construction of 10 large AP1000 reactors (two per project, each ~1.1 GW). The loans aim to lower costs and speed completion by up to three years, with significant equity contributions from Westinghouse and partners; long-term power purchase agreements from major tech firms are expected to support the projects, though site selections have not been announced yet.
The White House moves to unwind the EPA’s endangerment finding, rolling back greenhouse-gas regulations and avoiding reliance on a DOE-backed contrarian report; the five researchers behind that report faced heavy criticism and lawsuits, and EPA’s final action signals a regulatory argument rather than a challenge to mainstream climate science.
NASA and the DOE signed an agreement to pursue a lunar nuclear power system that could fuel Artemis-era bases on the Moon by 2030; nuclear fission would provide continuous electricity for years without refueling, supporting deep-space outposts and aligning with a Trump-era push to establish lunar infrastructure, building on decades of space-nuclear research.
The U.S. Department of Energy announced collaborations with 24 organizations to advance the Genesis Mission, leveraging AI to accelerate scientific discovery, enhance national security, and promote energy innovation, in line with President Trump's initiatives to boost American AI leadership.
CoreWeave has joined the Department of Energy's Genesis Mission to support advanced scientific workloads with its AI cloud platform, aiming to accelerate discovery science, enhance national security, and promote U.S. energy innovation through high-performance, reliable AI infrastructure.
AMD has partnered with the US Department of Energy to develop two new supercomputers, Lux and Discovery, at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, with a $1 billion investment aimed at advancing AI and scientific research.