President Donald Trump yesterday announced a "complete review" of US nuclear policy as the first of six new initiatives to secure domestic energy independence and create a "new era of American energy dominance."

The House Energy and Commerce subcommittee yesterday passed HR 3053, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017, by 49 votes to four. The legislation aims to reform US nuclear waste management policy to ensure the government can meet its obligations to dispose of used fuel and high-level waste. It will "preserve" Yucca Mountain as the "most expeditious path" to achieving this.

Areva NP is to supply advanced fuel to four different nuclear facilities from 2020 under recently signed contracts worth $560 million. The contracts involve the company's Atrium 11 boiling water reactor and Gaia and HTP pressurised water reactor fuel designs.

A US court has blocked EnergySolutions Inc's $367 million acquisition of Waste Control Specialists LLC, ruling in favour of an antitrust filing against the merger by the US Department of Justice.

The USA has a moral obligation to address its nuclear waste issue, and restarting the Yucca Mountain licensing process and committing to establishing an interim storage facility for used fuel will accelerate the fulfilment of that obligation, US Energy Secretary Rick Perry this week told House and Senate appropriations subcommittees.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued a notice of non-conformance to Westinghouse over concerns about quality assurance at its Mangiarotti subsidiary.

Westinghouse Electric Company yesterday announced the formal launch of its "accident-tolerant fuel solution", EnCore Fuel, during the company's Fuel Users' Group Meeting. EnCore Fuel is intended to offer "design-basis-altering safety, greater uranium efficiency and estimated economic benefits up to hundreds of millions of dollars" to Westinghouse's nuclear fuel customers.

The OECD-Nuclear Energy Agency and the US-based Electric Power Research Institute have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to exchange global nuclear research experience. The MOU outlines the scope and objectives of a five-year agreement to establish dialogue between them. Representatives of each organisation will now be invited to participate in each other's committee meetings and they may also organise joint events, seminars, workshops and training activities.

The most Toshiba may have to pay the owners of the Vogtle nuclear power plant construction project is $3.68 billion under an agreement signed on 9 June. Georgia Power has also finalised a new service agreement with Westinghouse allowing for the transition of project management. 

Investment of $310 million in recently completed refuelling and maintenance outages at Exelon's nuclear power plants in upstate New York would not have been possible without the state's clean energy legislation, Exelon said yesterday. Meanwhile, 13 US states have joined a coalition committed to upholding the Paris climate change agreement.

The US Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will need to rebuild their organisational capabilities in order to restart the suspended licensing process for the Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive waste repository, according to the Government Accountability Office.

The Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania will be permanently shut down around the end of September 2019 if there are no policy reforms, US utility Exelon announced today. The company had warned last week the plant was at risk of early retirement.