WEEK OF OCT 21, 2024

What’s Ahead

The North Anna Power Station in Virginia. — The North Anna Nuclear Generating Station in Virginia. The site is now being considered for potential deployment of a small modular reactor through a partnership between Dominion Energy and Amazon.

Michael Stuart / CC BY-SA 4.0

DOE and big tech throw support behind nuclear

The Department of Energy opened applications for up to $900 million in funding for small modular reactors last week. Most of the funds, up to $800 million, are for two Generation 3+ SMR projects that are close to a final design, for near-term deployment in the early 2030s. The other $100 million will provide support for site selection and preparation, supply chain development, design, and licensing. SMR deployment is an ongoing goal that faced a major setback last year when the company NuScale Power terminated plans to build an SMR due to concerns over its commercial viability. Amid these headwinds, some lawmakers are seeking to further support advanced reactor development, with the House Appropriations Committee pushing to provide DOE additional funds to support deployment of at least one SMR.

DOE’s funding announcement comes as tech giants Amazon and Google have both announced agreements to support new SMR projects. Amazon will support the development of four advanced SMRs in Washington and an SMR in Virginia. The company has also invested $500 million in X-energy, which X-energy said will fund the completion of the reactor design that will be used for the Washington projects. X-energy’s Xe-100 design has received significant funding through DOE’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program. Google has agreed to purchase electricity from multiple SMRs to power their data centers and offices. They intend to bring the first of these SMRs online by 2030.

Biden appoints new members to National Science Board

President Biden appointed eight new members to the National Science Board last week, filling all the vacancies on the 24-member panel. Among the new members is sociologist Alondra Nelson, who was acting director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy earlier in the Biden administration and issued a major policy memo directing all science agencies to require that the research they fund be free to the public at the time of publication. The other appointees are Universities Space Research Association CEO Jeffrey Isaacson, former NIST Director Willie May, former White House Deputy CTO Ryan Panchadsaram, University of Maine President Joan Ferrini-Mundy, University of Southern California computer scientist Yolanda Gil, University of Florida computer scientist Juan Gilbert, and naval engineer Sarah O’Donnell. The NSB oversees the National Science Foundation and its members serve for six-year terms.

NASA reviewing new concepts for Mars Sample Return

Last week, NASA formed a team to recommend a new architecture for the Mars Sample Return mission after assessing concept studies the agency solicited in a bid to control the mission’s ballooning costs. The team will review eight studies from industry as well as studies from a team across NASA centers, the Jet Propulsion Lab, and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab. The review team’s report is expected by the end of 2024 and will be led by Jim Bridenstine, who served as the NASA administrator during the Trump administration. The agency will also discuss the mission at the National Academies Astrobiology and Planetary Sciences Committee meeting on Monday.

Semiconductor packaging gets a boost

The Department of Commerce issued a $1.6 billion funding opportunity for R&D in advanced semiconductor packaging last week. The awards will be made over five years and range from $10 million to $150 million. The funding targets five complementary areas: equipment and processes, power delivery and thermal management, connectors, chiplet development, and electronic design automation. The department anticipates reserving up to $50 million of the funding for awardees’ future prototyping activities, to be conducted at the National Semiconductor Technology Center’s facility for advanced prototyping and packaging, which is planned to be operational in 2028. Also last week, the department signed a preliminary agreement to provide Wolfspeed Inc. up to $750 million in direct funding to construct a silicon carbide manufacturing facility in North Carolina and expand a device manufacturing facility in New York.

Also on our radar

The U.S. has relaxed export controls on certain space technologies.
NIST Director Laurie Locascio is stepping down in January to become president of the American National Standards Institute.
NIST has awarded $15 million to ASTM International to establish a Standardization Center for Excellence for critical and emerging technologies.
The House Science Committee is calling on NSF to take further steps to combat sexual harassment at research bases in Antarctica, including by modifying the terms of the competition for the management contract for the U.S. Antarctic Program.
DOE awarded $49 million last week for 19 fusion materials and technology research projects as part of a pivot to align funding with the goals of the Decadal Fusion Energy Strategy announced in June.