June 2026 was a milestone month for Western nuclear energy. Four microreactor designs achieved criticality by July 4, surpassing the targets set by executive orders signed by President Trump in 2025. Over the same period, the US Department of Energy committed up to $17.5 billion to support the supply chain for the AP1000, the grid-scale reactor that Washington is positioning as the reference design for high-capacity distributed generation.
On the SMR front, DOE approval of the preliminary safety analysis for Oklo’s Aurora reactor at Idaho National Laboratory marks a concrete step in the federal licensing process. The Reactor Pilot Program, under which the project operates, is designed to build real operational experience at federal sites before pursuing a commercial NRC license. Aurora is a fast fission reactor capable of running on either high-assay low-enriched uranium or fuel recovered from the EBR-II experimental reactor, which operated in Idaho from 1964 to 1994. Oklo held its groundbreaking ceremony in September 2025 and aims to demonstrate that the path from design to power generation can be compressed without sacrificing federal oversight.
Meanwhile, Core Power has launched a feasibility study to assess the integration of BWX Technologies’ mPower SMR onto floating nuclear platforms built in shipyards. The mPower is an integrally pressurized Generation III+ design rated at 195 megawatts electric and 575 megawatts thermal per unit. The study, funded by Core Power, covers systems engineering, operational concept development, marine integration analysis, and the regulatory pathway. The underlying logic is straightforward: shift construction to a controlled industrial environment with the repeatability of a shipyard, then deliver the plant directly to points of demand. Regions with constrained grid capacity, limited land availability, or lengthy infrastructure permitting processes become accessible markets. In the same week, Applied Atomics signed a licensing agreement with BWXT for exclusive rights to deploy mPower in land-based plants across the United States and Canada, while BWXT retains intellectual property and manufacturing rights.
On the supply side, US uranium production more than doubled in 2025, reaching 1.39 million pounds of U3O8 — the highest level in nine years. Urenco announced a multibillion-dollar investment to expand its enrichment facility in New Mexico, adding 2.1 million separative work units and boosting production capacity by nearly 50 percent, with construction set to begin in 2029. In Romania, DP World has initiated a feasibility study for SMR deployment at the Port of Constanta. In Sweden, Studsvik has requested government support to develop up to 1.4 gigawatts of small modular reactor capacity in the country’s south. These are geographically scattered developments, but they all point in the same direction.
From Germany comes a politically significant signal. A group of former nuclear plant managers and engineers has written to the Merz government arguing that restarting German nuclear power is technically feasible, calling for the reactivation of up to 14 reactors to restore the country’s industrial competitiveness and energy security. The Chancellor’s position remains cautious, but internal pressure is mounting and the debate is far from closed. When set against a Goldman Sachs analysis from June that detected few encouraging signals from the Western front, the July rebound carries added weight. The nuclear industry in the United States and Europe is building, piece by piece, the technological, regulatory, and industrial infrastructure on which the next generation of plants will rest. Timelines remain long, but the construction site is open.
