The United States and Japan have struck deals, valued up to $73 billion, for a number of new energy projects this week as part of its Japan-U.S.Strategic Investment.
In the new deals struck by the two countries Thursday, the two governments will invest up to $40 billion to construct GE Vernova Hitachi small modular reactors (SMRs) in both Tennessee and Alabama. This second round of announcements comes as a part of President Donald Trump’s trade deal in July 2025, in which Japan pledged to invest up to $550 billion in strategic U.S. sectors.
“The groundbreaking commercial deployment of the advanced SMRs in the U.S. will serve as a tremendous next-generation stable power source, stabilizing electricity prices for American people and strengthening the Japan-U.S. leadership in global technological competition,” the two governments said in its joint release.
TerraPower’s subsidiary TerraPower Isotopes has made plans to build a new actinium-225 manufacturing facility in Philadelphia and expand its current manufacturing facility in Everett, Wash.
The subsidiary company said in its March 17 press release the facility is expected to be a multi-year buildout with production of the medical radioisotope to begin in 2029. Actinium-225 is a radioactive isotope that has a key use in cancer treatment, such as alpha therapy.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) said in a March 17 press release that TerraPower Isotopes made a $450 million investment to establish the new Philadelphia facility. Pennsylvania will provide the isotope company a $3 million Pennsylvania First grant and a $7 million grant through Pennsylvania Strategic Investments to Enhance Sites program, according to the release.
ZettaJoule opened a new office in Houston at Rice University’s innovation hub named Ion, the company announced Thursday.
The Houston-based small modular reactor developer’s Chief Commercial Officer and Co-Founder Jeff Harper said in a press release that having its operations in Houston gives the company opportunities to collaborate with gas and oil companies. The company has plans to use its reactor to provide power to those sectors, steelmaking and data centers.
Using Japan’s high temperature engineering test reactor technology, ZettaJoule is developing its own high-temperature gas-cooled SMR. The company recently entered into a $1 billion agreement with Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station to explore building a test reactor.