WASHINGTON— The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced the next steps in the Trump administration’s efforts to strengthen domestic supply chains for nuclear fuel. DOE has conditionally selected Standard Nuclear as the first U.S. company accepted into the recently announced fuel line pilot program, announced in July 2025. The initiative, issued in accordance with President Trump’s Executive Order Deploying Advanced Nuclear Reactors for National Security helps to eliminate America’s reliance on foreign sources of enriched uranium and critical materials while opening the door for private sector investment in America’s nuclear renaissance. “With President Trump’s leadership, the Energy Department is moving at a rapid pace to unleash innovation and maintain American leadership in nuclear energy development,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said. “Advanced nuclear reactors will be a game-changer for the United States, and with that comes the need to fabricate the fuel these reactors. The Department of Energy is partnering private sector innovation with DOE expertise to assure stronger U.S. nuclear supply lines.” Standard Nuclear (Oak Ridge, Tennessee) is the first conditional selection under DOE’s new pilot program and will leverage the Department’s authorization process to ensure a robust supply of nuclear fuel in both Tennessee and Idaho. The advanced fuel is in high demand as reactor developers get ready to test their designs that utilize TRISO fuel. Standard Nuclear will be responsible for all costs associated with the construction operation, and decommissioning of the facility. Reactor project developers will manage the sourcing of nuclear material feedstock for fuel fabrication, which could be acquired through DOE’s high-assay low-enriched uranium allocation program. The fuel line pilot program supports DOE’s new reactor pilot program that aims to have at least three advanced reactor designs achieve criticality by July 4, 2026. Both pilot programs directly support President Trump’s executive orders to

Dive Brief: Dominion Energy’s 2.6-GW Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project is still on schedule for completion by the end of 2026, and should qualify for Inflation Reduction Act tax credits under the new safe harbor deadlines, the utility’s leadership said in a Friday earnings call. However, the company expects a slightly higher price tag for the project due to President Trump’s new tariff policies. Dominion estimates that the new tariffs will make the project more expensive by $506 million, increasing the total cost of the project to $10.9 billion. The added expenses will increase customer bills by an average of three cents a month over the entire life of the project, said Bob Blue, Dominion’s president, CEO and chairman. The utility has slightly lowered its expectations for tariff-related price increases since last quarter “despite a doubling of the steel tariff,” Blue said, “due to both working with vendors to identify cost mitigation strategies as well as completing our analysis of the final trade regulations and appendices.” Dive Insight: Blue said that the proposed tariff increases for Mexico and the European Union would add an additional $134 million to the project’s costs. “The project fabrication and installation are going very well, and CVOW continues to be one of the most affordable sources of energy for our customers,” he said. “We will install our first turbine in September, which is in line with our original schedule … In fact, we’re well ahead of plan, installing monopiles at a pace that exceeds any other U.S. offshore wind project to date.” Blue said the project has installed 134 of its 176 monopiles, or 76%, and all of its pin piles. The utility’s anticipated completion of Charybdis, the first Jones Act-compliant offshore wind turbine installation vessel in the U.S., was delayed by work on the vessel’s internal communication technology. “We

President Donald Trump has employed several powers of the executive branch to enact a wide range of tariffs, including country-specific levies. However, Trump’s future use of tariffs as a negotiating tool is likely to be determined in the courts, where several states and businesses plan to argue that he lacks the statutory authority to impose sweeping tariffs on all countries that trade with the U.S. One of the critical proceedings challenging Trump’s tariff use began Thursday. The administration is facing off against lawyers from five companies and 12 states before 11 judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The court will decide whether to lift its stay of a U.S. Court of International Trade ruling that blocked Trump’s broad use of duties, including a global 10% baseline tariff and various other country-specific levies, without congressional approval. The case, V.O.S. Selections, Inc. v Trump, is one of several lawsuits with plaintiffs fighting tariffs imposed by the Trump administration. Here’s a look at five such cases and where they currently stand: 1. V.O.S. Selections, Inc. v. Trump On April 14, V.O.S. Selections and four other import companies sued the Trump administration in the USCIT, claiming the president exceeded his statutory authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) by imposing tariffs without congressional authorization.  The plaintiffs also claimed that the tariffs hurt them financially by increasing costs and disrupting their operations. On April 23, 12 states filed a parallel lawsuit, mainly making the same arguments. So, the USCIT consolidated the two cases, and a three-judge panel ruled on May 28 that the president had no authority to impose across-the-board tariffs under the IEEPA. As a result of the findings, the USCIT issued a permanent injunction against future tariffs. The Trump administration immediately appealed the ruling to the U.S.

Dive Brief: PG&E has lined up 10 GW of data center projects — with about 1.3 GW added in the second quarter — and expects that load growth to begin reducing customer rates as soon as 2027, company executives said Thursday during a second quarter earnings call. With more than 50 projects in its queue, PG&E continues to attract mostly smaller data centers, CEO Patti Poppe said. But the company is also pursuing contracts with larger customers, including a 90-MW deal with Microsoft. The company does not plan to issue additional equity to fund its five-year, $63 billion capital plan, regardless of pending state legislation on wildfire mitigation and bill affordability, Poppe said. Dive Insight: PG&E finds itself in a “Goldilocks” zone of growth — it’s on track for enough steady growth that customers should benefit within the next few years, Poppe said Thursday. “This is because our demand is differentiated by having a diverse set of projects, ensuring that our development pipeline remains robust and not reliant on a single location, counterparty or approval,” she said, later adding that customers would likely begin to see rate benefits in 2027. Poppe estimated, as she has in the past, that every 1 GW of additional load growth brought to the PG&E area will decrease customer bills by 1% to 2%. But Poppe said PG&E has found other potential areas of cost savings as well. Currently, the average customer pays $20 a month for vegetation management, she said, but just $1 per month for undergrounding power lines. “Undergrounding is the right permanent solution in our highest-risk areas. Not everywhere, but our highest-risk areas,” she said. “So we’re going to continue to advocate for undergrounding as a key part of the wildfire mitigation solutions here in California.” The company has been piloting new

Goksenin “Goksi” Ozturkeri is a senior advisor at GS Power Partners, an independent power producer. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) made its way to President Donald Trump’s desk and was signed into law on Independence Day. Fortunately for those of us in the clean energy industry — though also unfortunately — this is not our first rodeo. We have dealt with tariffs in the past, along with nearly two decades of dead stops, step-downs and extensions. Tax credits expire, then get resurrected last-minute. Projects move forward, then stall, then move forward. While these policy pendulum swings can make long-term planning feel impossible, we shouldn’t confuse complexity with catastrophe. Our sector’s secret weapon is agility. We move fast, adapt faster and often turn policy hiccups into competitive advantage. If solar and wind are indeed the fastest and cheapest sources of energy, we can solve the rest. In the distributed generation space, our real edge is speed: going from development, construction to operation in months rather than years, even under OBBBA’s compressed timelines. Companies in our space are typically nimble and able to pivot quickly, more so than many of our utility-scale counterparts. Early in my career, I identified universal truths that all renewables stakeholders, big and small, live by, and that now underpin my best practices. Migraines per megawatt One hard truth is this: big projects, big problems; small projects, big problems. Distributed generation project development suffers many of the same headaches that our grid-scale brethren do. Uniquely for distributed generation is that every project has a ZIP code, and every ZIP code has an opinion. It is just as debilitating when we’re dealing with multiple small assets, and sometimes even more, than one large project.  I call this the “migraines per megawatt” ratio — the number of local

Industry body Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) announced in a release sent to Rigzone recently that it has extended the deadline for nominations for the latest edition of its annual awards ceremony to August 11. OEUK noted in the release that the extension gives applicants “more time to recognize their colleagues and teams”. The industry body noted in the release that the OEUK Awards “celebrate the outstanding achievements of businesses and individuals across the nation’s offshore energy sector – including oil, gas, wind, hydrogen, and carbon capture and storage”. OEUK pointed out in the release that this year features a brand-new category, titled Outstanding Contribution to Circular Economy. It said this award “recognizes companies leading the way in sustainability through reuse and repurposing”. The 2025 OEUK Awards will take place at P&J Live in Aberdeen, Scotland, on November 20. Award categories include Apprentice of the Year, Early Career Professional of the Year, People & Culture, Outstanding Contribution to Energy Security, Outstanding Contribution to Energy Decarbonization, Outstanding Contribution to Circular Economy, Innovative Supply Chain Company of the Year (Large Enterprise and SME), and Neighbor of the Year. The OEUK Awards website describes the OEUK Awards as a “flagship event” and “one of the most anticipated events on the industry calendar”. According to the site, this year’s show will feature over 550 guests, “including industry leaders, government representatives, and media professionals”. OEUK’s release also announced that nominations for the OEUK Award for Excellence in Decommissioning have been extended to August 11. Winners will be announced at a gala dinner during OEUK’s Offshore Decommissioning Conference on November 25, the release highlighted. “We’re pleased to give organizations and individuals a little more time to submit their nominations for this year’s OEUK Awards – an opportunity to spotlight the exceptional people and companies shaping the future