News

The first workshop of Utah Governor Spencer Cox’s WGA Chair initiative – which will focus on nuclear energy – couldn’t come at a hotter time for U.S. nuclear power.  

Just this week, the President signed an agreement with Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, to speed up the development of nuclear power in both countries. Starmer called this moment a “golden age of nuclear” in a statement on Monday.

Known as the Atlantic Partnership for Advanced Nuclear Energy, the multi-billion-dollar agreement seeks to speed up construction of new nuclear reactors to provide reliable power to key sectors, such as AI.  

Already, the Administration has set a goal to quadruple the country’s nuclear energy capacity by 2050. 

Meanwhile, the Department of Energy announced $134 million in funding last week for two nuclear fusion programs. The funding will help bridge the gap between fusion research and commercialization. Unlike traditional fission, nuclear fusion technology has not yet emerged as a practical reality for commercial power generation.  

In other news, two recent announcements highlight the potential of recycling spent nuclear fuel at a commercial scale. California-based Oklo unveiled plans to build a spent fuel recycling facility in Tennessee to reprocess spent fuel into fresh fuel for reactors like the Aurora Powerhouse, which will be built at the Idaho National Lab. 

Additionally, Curio announced the completion of laboratory-scale demonstrations of its NuCycle recycling technology in partnership with multiple national labs. If scaled up, Curio’s repurposing method could ease a key bottleneck in the nuclear fuel production process.  

Elsewhere, it seems hard to open the news lately without seeing stories about small modular reactors and their potential use alongside AI data centers. Small reactors can be co-located directly with AI facilities, which circumvents transmission hurdles and avoids adding load to the strained energy grid.  

Nuclear power also offers unmatched reliability, as small modular reactors are designed to only require a few minutes of downtime per year. This consistency is essential for the AI and data center industries, which stand to lose billions in lost productivity from even a few minutes of downtime. 

Earlier this week, Governor Cox told attendees at Utah Energy Week that an “awakening” is underway in energy innovation. His WGA Chair initiative – Energy Superabundance – is charting a course for western leadership in the energy space, and the Governor envisions nuclear power as a key piece in an energy abundant future.

Just in the past few weeks, Utah officials signed an MOU with TerraPower to explore siting a Natrium nuclear reactor and energy storage plant in Utah, and Valar Atomics broke ground on the site of the state’s first nuclear test reactor at the San Rafael Energy Research Center.  

To help chart a course for the fast-approaching future of nuclear energy, Governor Cox and Idaho Governor Brad Little are assembling some of the country’s top nuclear experts for a two-day workshop on Monday and Tuesday (September 22 & 23) at the Idaho National Laboratory. 

On Monday, Governors Cox and Little will sit down with INL Lab Director John Wager for an in-depth discussion. Their conversation will be followed directly by a keynote address from Bradley Crowell, a Commissioner of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.  

After Commissioner Crowell, three panel discussions on Monday afternoon will explore key questions such as how to overcome permitting and regulatory challenges, generating public investment and policy support, and strategies for driving private sector investment in nuclear technologies. 

Tuesday (September 23) will feature a packed morning of discussions on some of the big questions animating the nuclear energy industry. Experts from national labs, top private sector companies, state and federal agencies, trade unions, and other groups will provide a full range of perspectives on the future of nuclear power.  

Tuesday’s discussions will explore questions around supply chain challenges, the nuclear fuel cycle, workforce and construction capacity, building public trust in nuclear projects, and more. 

Check out the full workshop agenda here, and be sure to register for our free livestream here. 

Power of waves: the startup Eco Wave Power recently unveiled a cutting-edge system to generate power from ocean waves in the Port of Los Angeles. The technology is comprised of seven steel “floaters” that rise and fall with the motion of the waves, creating hydraulic pressure that drives a generator on land.

The project is the first onshore wave energy installation in the country, and it marks an important milestone in the effort to bring wave energy to more spots along America’s coasts.  

Fresh water under the ocean floor: scientists in Hawaii recently returned from a two-week expedition off the coast of Hawaii Island in search of fresh water hidden beneath the ocean floor.  

Some researchers hypothesize that a potentially massive underground reservoir of fresh or brackish water may extend miles offshore, which could challenge conventional ideas about island hydrology. 

Thousands of miles away in the North Atlantic, an expedition this summer tapped a massive undersea aquifer that experts suspect could stretch from New Jersey to Maine. That project extracted more than 13,000 gallons of fresh water from beneath the sea floor, which labs around the world will test to uncover its origins and its potential uses.  

Clean Energy Week: the week of September 15-19 is National Clean Energy Week, which celebrates clean energy innovation in important industries like nuclear, solar, wind, wave, hydropower, geothermal, natural gas, biomass, carbon capture, storage, and waste-to-energy technologies.   

The week is dedicated to bipartisanship and bringing together policymakers, business leaders, advocates, and anyone interested in harnessing the power of emerging clean energy sources to create jobs, power the economy, and preserve the environment.  

Western Governors across the region also made Clean Energy Week proclamations in their states, including Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy, Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs, Colorado Governor Jared Polis, Idaho Governor Brad Little, Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, North Dakota Governor Kelly Armstrong, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek, South Dakota Governor Larry Rhoden. 

Health care provider shortage: a recent article from KANW and the Mountain West News Bureau explores challenges and solutions to the rural health care provider shortage, which Western Governors have been working to resolve for years.  

WGA Senior Policy Advisor Lauren Cloward explained WGA’s work on the issue, including Policy Resolution 2025-05, which the Governors approved in June.  

“For years, the Western Governors have been addressing the shortage of qualified healthcare workers in their states. This resolution that we have [is] geared specifically at those federal efforts and how those federal programs are already underway,” Cloward said. 

Read the story for more and find WGA Policy Resolution 2025-05, Physical and Behavioral Health Care in Western States, here. 

Mammoth skeleton: this summer, researchers in Wyoming uncovered a large, mostly intact mammoth skeleton in the Bighorn Mountains.  

The skeleton was discovered in Natural Trap Cave, an 80-foot-deep chasm that has preserved an impressive collection of Ice Age fossils. Experts say the cave maintains a consistent temperature and humidity level that preserves bones and other artifacts better than other areas.  

The cave – Natural Trap – got its name from the countless animals that have mistakenly fallen into the pit over more than a hundred thousand years.