Westinghouse Electric Company and Ukrainian officials have reiterated their support for a comprehensive program to implement efficiency and safety improvements to the country's nuclear fleet, which they said will provide significant energy supply and security for Ukraine. Westinghouse, which is majority-owned by Japan's Toshiba, was one of several US-based companies to join an official delegation to Kiev led by US Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker yesterday.
A $3 million upgrade of the Michigan Ion Beam Laboratory will enable tests on radiation damage in materials to be performed much quicker than previously possible. Such tests will help in the life extension of existing reactors and in the development of advanced reactor designs.
The owners of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in the USA have reached a $400 million settlement with Nuclear Electric Insurance Limited for outages caused by the failures of replacement steam generators. Pedro Pizarro, president of Southern California Edison, majority owner of the San Onofre plant, said yesterday that the settlement appropriately resolves the plant owners' claims.
The nuclear regulators of the USA and Spain have renewed a bilateral agreement, originally signed in 1979, on cooperation. Meanwhile, a new director has been appointed to head the Spanish regulator.
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has issued a 40-year operating licence to the Tennessee Valley Authority for Watts Bar unit 2. The unit is the first to receive NRC authorization since Watts Bar 1 in 1996.
KazAtomProm and Centrus Energy Corp have signed a memorandum of cooperation that "specifies the development of mutually beneficial relations on competitive supplies of Kazakhstan's uranium to the world market", the Kazakh state-run company said today.
The single-unit Pilgrim plant - the only nuclear power plant in the US state of Massachusetts - will be permanently shut down by mid-2019, owner Entergy announced today. The utility said the continued operation of the plant is not economically viable.
Lawmakers in Wisconsin have introduced legislation that would end the US state's 32-year-old effective ban on the construction of new nuclear plants. Bills introduced to both of the state's legislative houses seek to change the approval process for new nuclear power plants by repealing current legislation and specifically including nuclear in a list of generating options. 
A US Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management project to demolish and decontaminate the site of the world's first plutonium processing facility at the USA's Los Alamos National Laboratory has reached a milestone with the demolition of a key building.