Holtec Recovers the Tilted Palisades Fuel Assembly

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In this issue

› Holtec recovers its tilted fuel assembly

› Westinghouse renews its AP1000 certification through 2066

› X-energy, Amazon and AEP plan a 960 MW Indiana reactor

Market signal

Last

Week

Cost of capital
US 10-year Treasury

5.15%

−0.8%

Nuclear sector
NUKZ ETF

$58.21

−0.4%

Uranium
SRUUF, physical uranium trust

$18.86

+3.5%

Developers
OKLO, SMR, NNE equal weight

−2.6%

In context: Centrus took this week’s hit. It fell down 9.2% on the week, more than triple the developer basket’s slide, though both now sit near down 60% for the year. Uranium also rose; cost of capital eased.

Sources: Yahoo Finance, closes through October 21.

Critical Headlines

Fuel

Westinghouse invests $1 billion in a new LEU+ fuel plant

It's the first new fleet-scale nuclear fuel factory built in the US in more than 50 years, making LEU+, fuel enriched just above today's standard, at a South Carolina site targeting 2030.
Deal

AtkinsRéalis, Indiana and Hoosier Energy signed an MOU to study up to 6 GW of CANDU capacity

No site, budget or vendor is locked in; the real signal is a US electric cooperative looking past the BWRX-300/AP1000 default to Canada's reactor design.
Technology

Oklo detailed plans for Groves-2 Forge, a lutetium-177 isotope facility

It's Oklo's first move from reactor criticality into isotope revenue, a nearer-term cash path than waiting on a commercial NRC license.
Regulatory

NRC and FERC commissioners hold a joint meeting October 22 on grid reliability and nuclear capacity

The two agencies are coordinating data-center load growth directly instead of through separate dockets.

Nuke Map

Source → live map at getentel.com/nukemap

Stat of the week

40 years

How far forward the NRC just extended Westinghouse's AP1000 design certification, folding in nearly 200 license amendments from Vogtle 3 and 4 so future applicants build from a field-proven design instead of re-litigating it.

Source: NRC, October 14, 2026

In depth

Regulatory

Holtec Clears the Tilted Fuel, NRC Flags a Chilled Workplace

Before: Holtec filed a license amendment September 30 to retrieve the DD41 fuel assembly, which tilted 30 degrees in core position H-1 during loading in September; the NRC's preliminary review found no added hazard when the comment period closed October 8.

Now: The NRC approved the amendment on October 13, clearing Holtec to lift DD41 with a containment polar crane and a purpose-built fuel movement device. Holtec completed the recovery on October 21, and the assembly now sits in the spent fuel pool; the company says the device was engineered, built and delivered in two weeks. The same week the approval landed, a separate NRC letter found a chilled work environment¹ in Palisades' supply chain and quality assurance departments, citing employees' fear of retaliation for raising concerns; Holtec has 30 days to file a corrective action plan.

Watch: Holtec's corrective action plan on the chilled work environment, due mid-November

Regulatory

NRC Renews Westinghouse's AP1000 Design Certification Through 2066

Before: Westinghouse's original AP1000 certification never formally absorbed what Vogtle 3 and 4 actually taught the industry; building and starting up those two units generated nearly 200 separate license amendments sitting outside the base design.

Now: The NRC renewed and updated the certification October 14, folding in lessons from Vogtle 3 and 4 into a single design certification²; the renewal runs 40 years, through 2066. New applicants can build from that field-proven baseline instead of re-litigating changes the NRC already approved once.

Watch: Whether Poland's Lubiatowo-Kopalino filing is the first to cite the updated reference design

Deal

X-energy, Amazon and AEP Plan a 960 MW Indiana Reactor

Before: Amazon and X-energy's first joint project, the Cascade facility in Richland, Washington with Energy Northwest, already plans a dozen Xe-100 units at full scale; the partners have talked about reaching 5 GW of new nuclear by 2039 without naming where the rest would go.

Now: AEP, X-energy and Amazon signed a joint development agreement October 19 to study a 12-unit, 960 MW Xe-100 plant at the former Breed Generating Station site in Sullivan County, Indiana, with Amazon providing development funding and AEP citing capital protections meant to keep the project's cost off its other customers.

Watch: Whether AEP reaches the final investment decision the project needs before construction can start

Reference: terms in this issue

Chilled work environment¹: NRC's term for a workplace where employees are too afraid of retaliation to report safety concerns through established channels, triggering a formal corrective-action review.

Design certification²: An NRC-approved reactor design, good for decades, that future plants can reference instead of each site separately re-proving safety from scratch.

Global signal

South Africa

Quantum Leap Energy and Necsa signed a binding Heads of Agreement for an 80/20 HALEU joint venture at Pelindaba, refurbishing a dormant test bench. It's a Western source of HALEU, advanced reactors’ higher-enriched fuel, outside the US, Russia and China.

Question of the week

“X-energy’s 2023 Dow agreement took 24 months to become the Long Mott construction permit application. Does its new Indiana project with Amazon and AEP file one before the end of 2027?

ENTEL’s call

Fourteen months would be ten months faster.

Last week we called YES on the NRC issuing the Palisades retrieval amendment;
it issued October 13.

Until next Thursday,

Jace Arnold

Know someone in nuclear who'd find this useful? Send it along.

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