Indian contractor Larsen & Toubro has completed on schedule the installation of the 'dry shield' for the reactor pressure vessel of unit 3 of the Kudankulam nuclear power plant under construction in in Tamil Nadu. Separately, Russia's Atommash has announced the start of manufacturing a set of steam generators for unit 5 at the same plant.

Mohamed Al Hammadi, CEO of Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation, describes the significance of the recent start-up of the first nuclear power unit in the Arab world.

The French nuclear safety authority, Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire, has published the report of an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Pre-Operational Safety Review Team mission conducted last year at the Flamanville 3 EPR. The mission team identified eight good practices and made six recommendations and 15 suggestions.

Fuel loading began today at unit 1 of the Belarusian nuclear power plant, Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom has announced. At 11:45am local time, the first fuel assembly was loaded into the reactor and a total of 163 assemblies will be loaded before the end of the month.

The Nuclear and Radiation Safety Department of the Belarusian Emergencies Ministry (Gosatomnadzor) has issued a permit for the loading of fresh fuel into unit one of the nuclear power plant under construction near Ostrovets in the Grodno region. It consists of two VVER-1200 reactors that are scheduled for commissioning this year and next.

Romania has launched a tender for a new feasibility study to complete units 3 and 4 of the Cernavoda nuclear power plant for which it is prepared to pay up to RON1 million (USD245,000). There is also the option of a single unit being put up for auction, according to a report by Economica.Net.

The first T-pylon on National Grid's Hinkley Connection is scheduled to be constructed at the end of July 2021. It will be one of 116 T-pylons along the 57km route, which will connect low-carbon energy from EDF Energy's Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant to six million UK homes and businesses. It will also allow for more capacity on the network for renewable energy from the South West peninsular.

Replication is the key to reducing the cost of nuclear new-build projects and attracting investment in firm, low-carbon power and heat, Julia Pyke, director of Sizewell C financing & economic regulation at EDF Energy, said last week. The following is an abridged version of her presentation to participants in an OECD-Nuclear Energy Agency webinar on the Paris-based agency’s newly published Policy Brief, Unlocking financing for nuclear energy infrastructure in the COVID-19 economic recovery.

Nawah Energy Company has started up unit 1 of the Barakah nuclear power plant, located in the Al Dhafrah region of Abu Dhabi. Nawah is the joint venture nuclear operations and maintenance subsidiary of Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation and the Korea Electric Power Corporation. The APR1400 attained a sustained chain reaction for the first time early yesterday morning and is expected to enter commercial operation later this year.

Exports of nuclear energy equipment and technology to meet the needs projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change could be worth USD1.3-1.9 trillion to the USA over the period to 2050, a new report by consulting firm UxC has concluded.

A ceremony was held yesterday within the ITER Assembly Hall to mark the official start of the assembly of the tokamak fusion device of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor at Cadarache in south-eastern France. Assembly of the tokamak is expected to take five years to complete.

The sheer size of nuclear projects might be a barrier in some markets where private investors are looking for short‑term paybacks. However, during a period of economic recovery, large‑scale and long‑term energy infrastructure projects, such as nuclear power plants, can galvanise the social cohesion and economic spill‑overs required to re-launch general economic activity.