News

NuScale Power and the National Nuclear Energy Generating Company of Ukraine (Energoatom) announced Wednesday that the two companies have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to explore the deployment of NuScale Power plants in Ukraine.(read more)

The Center for Advanced Energy Studies (CAES) announced the opening of its newest laboratory, the Small Modular Reactor (SMR) Simulator Laboratory, featuring NuScale Power’s Energy Exploration (E2) Center, at its Idaho Falls headquarters.(read more)

Thirteen months after the startup for Unit 1 at the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant in the Abu Dhabi Emirate, Unit 2 has been successfully started up as well, the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation said.(read more)

Orano USA said Wednesday its first TN-LC transport cask had been delivered to a delegation from Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co., Ltd. (KHNP).(read more)

A Republican congressman from Illinois, Adam Kinzinger, has sent a letter to the Oval Office urging President Biden to evoke emergency powers to support two nuclear power plants in his state in light of the state legislature’s unwillingness to act.(read more)

Nuclear service provider Westinghouse, the UK National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL), and Terrestrial Energy have signed an agreement for nuclear fuel development with the aim of supplying enriched uranium fuel for use in Terrestrial Energy’s Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR).(read more)

Swedish power conglomerate Vattenfall said Tuesday it had signed a nuclear services contract with Westinghouse Electric Sweden that covers dismantling of reactor tanks in Ringhals Units 1 and 2 in southern Sweden. (read more)

Focusing laser light from the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, scientists were able to generate, for just 100 trillionths of a second, a blast of energy measured at more than 10 quadrillion watts of fusion power, the laboratory announced last week.(read more)

Earthmoving preparations for the construction of Unit 4 are underway at the site of Akkuyu NPP, the first nuclear power plant in Turkey. The works are carried out in accordance with the Limited Work Permit (LWP) issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Authority of the Republic of Turkey on June 30, 2021.(read more)

The reactor vessel and four steam generators for Unit 2 of Rooppur nuclear power plant have been delivered to Bangladesh, Russian nuclear corporation Rosatom said Tuesday.(read more)

The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute said this week it had developed a device to produce two pharmaceutical isotopes including Zr-89, which has a half-life of 3.3 days, making it one of the longer-lasting isotopes that extends options for viable cancer diagnosing.(read more)

Nuclear services provider Westinghouse said that the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee had received several of its irradiated EnCore nuclear fuel rods for a year of testing that is geared towards supporting the company's efforts to have the "accident-tolerant" fuel become certified by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.(read more)

China General Nuclear has taken the newly commissioned Taishan Unit 1 offline to study and repair issues involving damaged cladding in about five of its fuel rods, which has raised radiation levels slightly in the reactor’s primary circuit.(read more)

Installation of metal structures for the inner containment dome has been completed in the power unit No. 1 reactor building at the Rooppur NPP construction site in the People's Republic of Bangladesh (PRB) said the project general contractor ASE, the engineering division of Russian nuclear power player Rosatom.(read more)

China General Nuclear said on August 1 that the first Phase II Hongyanhe Nuclear Power Plant reactor in the Liaoning Province in eastern China – Unit 5 overall – had passed its operational milestones to enter into commercial operating status.(read more)

Exelon Generation, owner and operator of the Byron and Dresden nuclear energy facilities, announced Wednesday that it would file Post Shutdown Decommissioning Activity Reports (PSDARs) today with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, detailing long-term site restoration plans for both stations after they shut down this fall.(read more)

Technicians have begun hot functional testing at the Russian-built Unit 2 of the Belarus Nuclear Power Plant, nuclear power giant Rosatom has announced.(read more)

The Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) said the NuScale small modular reactors project in development for eastern Idaho had been shifted from 12 units to six with each unit now expected to deliver 77MWe rather than 60MWe.(read more)

Scalding temperatures, including a near-record high for the planet, set this summer in Death Valley, battering storms, forest fires in the west and crumbling ice caps have yet to impress legislatures in Illinois as they have made little progress in pushing for a nuclear power support bill according to a state senator.(read more)

A report released by Belgium’s Federal Planning Bureau concludes that the nuclear phase-out passed into law in 2003 and re-affirmed on two occasions (in 2015 and 2018) will cause harmful greenhouse gas emissions to rise.(read more)

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, Department of Economic and Community Development Commissioner Bob Rolfe and Kairos Power officials announced on July 16 that the privately funded, advanced nuclear engineering company will establish a low-power demonstration reactor in Oak Ridge.(read more)

China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC)' said construction of a multi-purpose small modular reactor (SMR) demonstration project had begun at the Changjiang Nuclear Power Plant in South China's Hainan Province.(read more)

Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation’s JV Operating and Maintenance Subsidiary Nawah and Westinghouse sign five-year support agreement for Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant, the companies said Tuesday.(read more)

India's industrial manufacturer Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) said Friday it had won a major order for the supply of 12 Steam Generators from Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), a contract valued at about $190 million.(read more)

Cameco, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) and Global Nuclear Fuel-Americas (GNF-A) announced on July 7 they have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding to explore several areas of cooperation to advance the commercialization and deployment of BWRX-300 small modular reactors (SMRs) in Canada and around the world.(read more)

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a Facebook feed that it was discontinuing its pursuit of a 40-year license renewal process that would fast track reactors into operations permits that would allow them to remain commercially viable up to 100 years.(read more)

Ukraiine's Energoatom announced a new cooperative agreement with re-focused Westinghouse Electric intending to advance the development of new nuclear units at existing Ukrainian power plant sites.(read more)

On June 29, an official ceremony was held that was dedicated to the first concrete pouring into the foundation plate of the reactor building for Kudankulam NPP Unit 5 (Republic of India). The concrete pouring commemorated the official commencement of the main stage of the nuclear power plant stage 3 construction.(read more)

Ukrainian nuclear power operator Energoatom and the Organization of Canadian Nuclear Industries (OCNI) on June 29 used the convenience of video conferencing to sign a letter of intent, formalizing prior agreements on the implementation of joint projects with Canadian companies in the nuclear energy sector.(read more)

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), in collaboration with Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation, has submitted a Letter of Intent to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to apply for a license to construct a research and test reactor facility on the UIUC campus.(read more)

Concreting of the inner containment cylindrical part has been completed at Rooppur NPP power unit 2 reactor building which is being constructed in the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, Rosatom said.(read more)

Rosenergoatom, the operations division of Rosatom subsidiary Atomenergoprom, said that the Kola Nuclear Power Plant had been selected for hydrogen production and that construction of a new on-site reactor would begin in 2028.(read more)

Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation (USNC) announced Wednesday that it had begun working with the Nuclear Research & Consultancy Group (NRG) from the Netherlands to implement a program to analyze performance and safety attributes of their Fully Ceramic Microencapsulated (FCM) fuel designed for use in its Micro Modular Reactor (MMR).(read more)

Finish utility Teollisuuden Voima (TVO), owner of the Olkiluoto nuclear plant, said it had signed a contract for what will be one of the largest battery energy storage systems in Europe.(read more)

The Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) said this week it had surpassed more than 100 million consecutive safe hours of work without a single Lost Time Injury at the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant, a feat that was accomplished in a four-year stretch.(read more)

The first powered-up European Pressurized Reactor at the Taishan Power Plant in Guangdong Province, China, has came under media scrutiny this week after a build up of radioactive gas came about, the result of about five damaged fuel rods.(read more)

Toshiba Energy Systems & Solutions Corporation of Japan said Tuesday it had completed its first manufacturing of toroidal field coils for ITER, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, which is under construction in southern France.(read more)

The China National Nuclear Corporation said its 24th commercial reactor had reached commercial operations status after completing 100 continuous hours of operations at full power.(read more)

TerraPower, which announced this week it would site a demonstration sodium-cooled fast reactor in the state of Wyoming, contacted the mayors of four potential locations just hours before the announcement, according to the Casper Star-Tribune.(read more)

Russian nuclear power giant Rosatom said Tuesday that the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) installation is completed at Unit 1 of the future Akkuyu nuclear power plant.(read more)

Sellafield Ltd said Tuesday it had awarded a contract to manufacture up to 1,000 stainless steel boxes that will store radioactive wastes retrieved from the Pile Fuel Cladding Silo (PFCS) and Magnox Swarf Storage Silo (MSSS) at Sellafield, Europe's largest and most diverse nuclear processing and research facility. (read more)

The machine that will be starting the most important hazard and risk reduction job on the Sellafield site later this year has now moved across the specially installed rails at the top of the Magnox Swarf Storage Silo (MSSS), Sellafield Ltd. announced.(read more)

Delays in Unit 3 hot functional testing have set the commercial operations schedule of the new reactor at the Plant Vogtle expansion project in Waynesboro, Georgia, back three weeks to a likely start in early 2022, said Georgia Power this week.(read more)

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) said Tuesday that it had completed Phase 1 of its pre-licensing vendor desigh review for the SSR W300 molten salt reactor designed by Moltex Energy.(read more)

Holtec International this week said it had completed the transfer of irradiated fuel at the retired Oyster Creek nuclear power plant to dry storage, putting the decommissioning project on pace to become the fastest on record for the United States.(read more)

Around the globe, 10,000 radiation detection devices at ports of call could be instrumental in saving the lives of the endangered rhinoceroses with a new program in which harmless, stable isotopes are injected into live rhino horns to substantially aid in cracking down on smuggling, which, in turn, could curtail poaching, (read more)

A new report by one of the planet’s most influential energy organizations says that nuclear energy should play a significant role in the challenge to create a net-zero emissions energy sector by 2050.(read more)

Belgian researchers at Sabca and the Belgian nuclear research center SCK CEN say they have developed a drone-based technology that measures radiation levels on the ground.(read more)

The sixth unit at the Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant in the Jiangsu province in China has been connected to the grid, the China Nuclear Energy Association announced.(read more)

Excavation of the final disposal repository unit for spent nuclear fuel in Finland began as of May 5, Posiva Oy has announced.(read more)