Energy Investment Decision Symposium

The program spans project execution, nuclear energy, and grids, AI, and infrastructure. Sessions address financing and delivering the U.S. energy buildout; grid capacity, interconnection, transmission, reliability, and cost allocation; and the effects of data-center and industrial demand on power planning. Nuclear topics include power for data centers, first-of-a-kind project cost and delivery, nuclear finance, HALEU and fuel supply, utility choices among large reactors, SMRs, and microreactors, and pathways to SMR deployment. Other sessions cover LNG security, trade, and investment; energy storage and grid-edge technologies; AI in energy operations; and project bankability, permitting, policy, supply-chain, and delivery risks. The program also includes executive roundtables, a project-execution clinic, and an energy startup pitch competition.

Resources for the Future and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation bring together researchers and stakeholders to examine energy economics, policy, and technology, with an emphasis on connecting research and decision-making. In-person attendance is by invitation only. The program includes an opening discussion on how researchers can collaborate with decision-makers amid changes in the US energy research and policy landscapes. Topical breakout sessions use lightning talks, practitioner reflections, and moderated discussion to cover energy supply chains, energy workforce transitions, industrial decarbonization, and energy system resilience. Other sessions address consumer perspectives on electricity rate design, energy efficiency, vehicle purchases, and energy policy choices; clean-energy research and deployment involving nuclear energy, geothermal technologies, carbon capture, and carbon dioxide removal; and the United States’ position in global clean-energy innovation. Facilitated networking focuses on data access, combining quantitative and qualitative research, reaching new audiences, and building communities of practice. The program also includes participant-nominated breakfast salons and a funders’ panel on emerging energy-system research needs and opportunities for impact.

The symposium examines oil, gas, and LNG markets; AI-driven power demand; tariffs and the gas supply chain; critical minerals in the energy supply chain; geothermal opportunities; and changing global energy trade flows. The program includes a panel on the 2027 energy economy outlook, a session on gas-fired generation and AI data centers, and sessions on LNG and tariffs, critical minerals, geothermal, and energy trade.

The conference theme is “Going Critical: Creating a Durable Nuclear Resurgence.” Plenary discussions address how technology, finance, and public policy can sustain nuclear energy momentum, and how public confidence, domestic supply chains, workforce development, investment, and state leadership can support deployment at scale. John Wagner, Laboratory Director at INL, is a featured speaker; the opening plenary also includes U.S. NRC Commissioners Douglas Weaver and Bradley Crowell. The technical program features expert-led presentations and peer-reviewed research on advanced reactors, fuel cycle and waste management, reactor physics, fusion, AI and machine learning, materials science, instrumentation and controls, criticality safety, and robotics. Named session topics include nuclear energy markets, financing and economics; hybrid and integrated energy systems; maritime and data center applications; nuclear safeguards; cybersecurity; molten salt reactor fuels and materials; and advanced/additive manufacturing. Panels address uranium mining remediation, environmental review, digital twins, advanced reactor fuel supply and fabrication, and nuclear deployment pathways.

The program brings together energy, industrial transformation, and advanced manufacturing, with cross-cutting themes of workforce development, standards, finance, AI and digital transformation, policy, and resilience planning. Roundtables, workshops, and demos are designed to address tradeoffs involving affordability, risk, standardization, and deployment speed. Program tracks include Powering Growth, with sample sessions on data-center power and cooling, new nuclear deployment, solar cost reduction, and scaling geothermal; Industry Reimagined, covering industrial heat electrification, next-generation steel, and EPC project-delivery costs and risks; Next-Gen Manufacturing, addressing hardware investment and bankability, additive manufacturing, and sustainability tradeoffs in product design; and Future Workforce, on nuclear workforce readiness, apprenticeships, and aligning training programs with real projects. Additional sessions are in development in areas including energy storage, fusion, industrial efficiency, critical minerals, and sustainability tradeoffs. The listed sessions are samples and subject to change.

An intensive workshop on projected electricity demand and expanding the supply of natural resources used to generate power. Topics include natural gas, geothermal development and repurposing oil and gas assets; hydrogen, uranium, lithium and critical minerals; and water, environmental, storage, site-selection and regulatory considerations. Program discussions cover grid shortfalls and raw materials for electricity generation, solutions for increasing electricity supply, geothermal, and technology including ORC, sensors and small nuclear reactors. Other sessions address AI prompts for grid and behind-the-meter planning; lithium direct lithium extraction (DLE) and hydrogen technologies; regulatory and legislative factors affecting geothermal, critical minerals, low-carbon energy, grids and data centers; and mining and oil-and-gas intersections, including near-surface imaging and copper for electricity transmission. The program also includes an AI prompt clinic focused on water, the environment, science and regulations.

The program includes symposia on AI, machine learning, and data science across electrochemical systems; energy storage and battery materials; and the translation of battery materials into manufacturable electrodes and cells. Battery topics include fast charging, electrolyte and interphase engineering in lithium- and sodium-ion batteries, solid-state battery benchmarking, and beyond-lithium-ion chemistries such as lithium-sulfur, lithium-air, sodium-ion, magnesium and multivalent-ion, and redox-flow batteries. Manufacturing themes include scalable synthesis, coating and drying, in-line metrology, quality assurance, pilot-line scale-up, cost models, reliability testing, and raw-material processing. Other symposia address industrial electrochemistry and process intensification, including reactor scale-up, techno-economic analysis, life-cycle analysis, commercialization, and hybrid process systems; water electrolysis, hydrogen, renewable fuels, and fuel cells; and carbon nanostructures for energy conversion and storage. Additional listed topics include corrosion, semiconductor materials and processing, and electrochemical systems for energy conversion.

The forum brings together cleantech innovators, investors, corporates, and other ecosystem participants to address grid stability, water scarcity, waste-to-value, critical minerals, and geopolitical pressures on supply chains and energy security. The program includes a closed-door, peer-level executive roundtable and an opening plenary covering cleantech trends, capital flows, innovation, and the 2027 Global Cleantech 100. Agenda topics include nuclear fuel supply and nuclear supply chains; mineral processing, refining, recovery, and the post-mining supply chain; physical AI applications in grid construction, critical minerals, and dual-use; data-center power demand, grid capacity, water use, cooling, and wastewater resource recovery. Other sessions address heat resilience, energy efficiency for AI compute, geopolitical risk across energy and cleantech supply chains, and investor perspectives on cleantech funding. Innovation Showcases feature cleantech companies presenting technologies and business models.

The technical program solicits new, significant work relevant to the nuclear industry, with summaries and abstracts presented orally. Topics include advanced reactors and power systems; energy storage integration with nuclear plants; fusion; nuclear fuel recycling, waste forms, transmutation and disposal; AI applications in nuclear safety and materials research; nuclear nonproliferation; advanced and additive manufacturing; and thermal hydraulics. Embedded topics include Decommissioning Environmental Sciences and Remote Technology, covering robotics and remote systems, decommissioning, environmental remediation, nuclear cleanup, used-fuel management, and related AI, digital-twin and regulatory topics. Accelerator Applications covers accelerator facilities and design, nuclear data, materials science, medical and industrial applications, security and forensics, and environmental studies. Accepted and presented summaries are slated for publication in ANS Transactions.