TVA just won the first US construction permit for a BWRX-300 small modular reactor, four months ahead of the NRC's own schedule.
In context: The NRC's push to speed advanced-reactor reviews under EO 14300 is now producing back-to-back wins, and demand isn't waiting for them: the same week, Amazon signed a 20-year deal to fund new capacity at a Maryland reactor that has been running since the 1970s.
Market signal
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▲ News hot
General Matter files a 1,000-plus-page NRC license application for a new US-owned enrichment plant in Paducah; Bechtel picks a contractor to build two AP1000 assembly halls in Poland
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▼ Market cold
Oklo (OKLO) 8.3% lower to $37.11
NuScale (SMR) 12.7% lower to $7.76
closes, September 22 to 29
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Green headlines and falling share prices have run together for weeks.
Oklo and
NuScale both ended September below their 50-day averages, and those averages sit well under their 200-day, while uranium spot held near a six-month high. What a milestone grants is permission to spend, so each gate cleared turns a maybe into a bill that arrives years before the first payment. Equity value priced that far out gets marked down first when risk appetite contracts, whatever the NRC approved that week.
This week at a glance
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Polimex Mostostal will design, build and commission the halls at Lubiatowo-Kopalino, each 129 meters long with three overhead cranes, feeding modules directly to the three-unit AP1000 project.
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Deliveries begin before the end of the decade from Centrus's Piketon, Ohio plant, with Antares prepaying to help expand capacity. It is Centrus's second definitive HALEU contract this month, after Radiant's Kaleidos deal on September 9.
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The at-the-market filing, dated August 11, lets NuScale sell new stock into the market at its own pace rather than in one priced offering, adding potential supply on top of an already-thin share price.
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Announced at the Third Annual South Carolina Nuclear Summit, the partnership adds digital control-room simulators and a multidisciplinary certificate track as Westinghouse's AP1000 pipeline grows beyond Vogtle.
Source → live map at getentel.com/nukemap
Stat of the week
173%
NuScale's weighted-average diluted share count rose this much year over year, from about 133 million shares in the second quarter of 2025 to about 365 million in the same quarter this year, mostly from new stock sales funding operations.
In depth
Reference: terms in this issue
Construction permit: NRC authorization to begin building a reactor. It does not allow fuel load or operation; a separate operating license comes later, after construction finishes.
Extended power uprate: An NRC-approved package of equipment and setpoint changes that raises how much electricity a reactor is licensed to produce, without adding a new unit.
At-the-market (ATM) offering: A facility that lets a public company sell new shares gradually at the prevailing market price, instead of pricing one large offering all at once.
10 CFR Part 70: The NRC's licensing pathway for facilities that possess and process significant quantities of enriched uranium, covering fuel fabrication and enrichment plants.
Regulatory
Clinch River Gets Its Construction Permit
Before: Clinch River's construction permit application cleared NRC staff's final safety evaluation in June and a mandatory hearing in Oak Ridge in August, with a commissioner vote still pending.
Now: The NRC
granted the construction permit for TVA's GE Vernova Hitachi BWRX-300 at Clinch River on September 29, closing formal review in 14 months, four months ahead of the agency's own schedule. It is the first construction permit issued in the US for a BWRX-300, and the second US commercial reactor construction permit granted this year, after TerraPower's Natrium in March. NRC Chairman Ho Nieh
called it proof the agency can make rigorous, credible safety decisions that let major American nuclear projects move forward. TVA has not announced a construction start date and still targets commercial operation in the early 2030s.
Watch: Whether TVA sets a construction start date
Deal
General Matter Files for a Second Paducah Enrichment Plant
Before: The Paducah site already has one enrichment project underway, GLE's laser-based facility backed by Cameco and Silex, which expects an NRC license in early 2027. General Matter, planning its own facility next door, had not yet filed anything with the NRC.
Now: General Matter
submitted a license application to the NRC on September 29 under 10 CFR Part 70, more than 1,000 pages covering safety, environmental and security analysis, for a centrifuge enrichment plant on the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant site. The company plans a separate amendment next year to add HALEU production, aiming to enrich uranium at commercial scale by the end of the decade.
Watch: Whether General Matter files its planned HALEU amendment next year
Deal
Amazon Funds a 190 MW Uprate at Calvert Cliffs
Before: Calvert Cliffs' two reactors have run since the 1970s with no uprate approved and no long-term hyperscaler contract attached to new capacity.
Now: Constellation and Amazon signed
a 20-year power purchase agreement on September 30 covering 690 MW of Calvert Cliffs output, including a 190 MW uprate slated for 2030 to 2032. The deal unlocks more than $3 billion in Maryland infrastructure investment and, Constellation says, gives it the revenue certainty to pursue a 20-year license renewal at the plant. A related retail agreement will supply Amazon's operations across the 13-state PJM market.
Watch: Whether Constellation files the license renewal application
Global signal
Taiwan
Taiwan's nuclear regulator completed its review of Taipower's
restart plan for the shuttered Maanshan plant, following a 2025 law letting idled reactors seek license renewal.
Civic groups gave feedback during the review, and restart isn't expected before 2028.
Question of the week
“TVA just won the first US construction permit for a small modular reactor, while Amazon's new Calvert Cliffs deal only pays to upgrade a reactor already decades old. For power this decade, which bet wins: new SMR designs, or uprating the reactors already running?
Reply to this email with your take.
The open beta is live
The Wire is the research. The application is where that research lives: 31 projects, the rung each one sits on, and the filing that put it there. Free for ninety days with no card, and priced after that. We open seats by hand, so tell us what you sell and we will send your link. What we ask back is that you tell us the day a row is wrong.
Until next Thursday,
Jace Arnold
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