Week 16 of 2025
Three nuclear energy innovation news!
🌛 China and Russia announce plans to construct a nuclear power plant on the Moon to support the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), aiming for completion between 2033 and 2035. The facility is intended to provide continuous power for lunar operations, supplementing solar energy sources. Chinese engineers have proposed a design utilizing annular fuel rods and a beryllium reflector, enabling a compact configuration.
🚀 The Fusion Industry Association unveils its Fusion Spacecraft Propulsion Roadmap, outlining a strategic plan to harness fusion energy for space travel. The roadmap envisions deploying fusion-powered spacecraft in the 2030s, aligning with the anticipated commercialization timelines of most fusion developers. Fusion propulsion promises significant advancements in power density, thrust-to-weight ratios, and specific impulse, potentially reducing Mars transit times from nine months to approximately 90 days.
💸 Terra Innovatum, a developer of gas-cooled micro-modular nuclear reactors, is set to go public through a merger with GSR III Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) listed on NASDAQ under the ticker GSRT. The transaction assigns Terra Innovatum a pre-money equity valuation of $475 million and is expected to provide up to $230 million in gross proceeds. Each reactor unit is engineered to produce 1 MWe using low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel, with the capability to generate up to 5 MWe when utilizing high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU).
👨🎓 Papers of the week: "Novel geopolymer materials for fast and thermal neutron shielding", Annals of Nuclear Energy (2025).
👉 New composite for cost-effective and efficient neutron shielding.
