Photographs taken inside the underground Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) have confirmed that a single waste drum was the source of the contamination incident that has stopped operations at New Mexico facility since February 2014.

Fluor is to provide operations and maintenance services to the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in California under a five-year contract with Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E). Meanwhile PG&E has taken steps to address a potential gap in emergency procedures at the plant.

The UK has agreed to extend the secondment of a senior nuclear inspector to Vietnam's Agency for Radiation and Nuclear Safety as part of their continued cooperation. Meanwhile, US-based GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy has agreed to cooperate in training for nuclear safety analysis while Russia will help promote nuclear energy in the country.

Preparations are under way to resume development of Energy Fuels' Canyon uranium mine in Arizona, the company has announced.

Texas-based Waste Control Specialists (WCS) has announced plans to apply for a licence to construct and operate an interim storage facility for used nuclear fuel at its facility in Andrews, Texas. Areva is to assist the company with its application and related environmental report.

The US Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) has hailed calls from the chairman of the Senate subcommittee responsible for energy funding to take steps to avoid a decline in US nuclear capacity as a well-timed "clarion call".

The $30 billion earmarked for the US Department of Energy in the 2016 budget proposal is 9% up on the amount it received for 2015. The $1 billion budget requested by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is nearly 3% down on the previous year as its new reactor workload decreases.

The US Department of Energy has announced a five-year funding renewal for the Consortium for the Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors, an initiative to develop advanced computing capabilities to model existing, operating nuclear reactors.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has published the final two volumes of its safety evaluation report for the proposed Yucca Mountain geologic nuclear waste repository, completing the technical safety review of the Department of Energy's application.

Start-up dates for the first new nuclear power plants to be built in the USA in 30 years have been pushed back by 18 months. Vogtle 3 is now expected to enter service in the second quarter of 2019 with unit 4 following in the second quarter of 2020.

Ur-Energy envisages operating Shirley Basin as a commercial satellite in situ leach (ISL) operation, processing the uranium at its existing facilities at Lost Creek after completion of a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) for the Wyoming project.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has formally withdrawn plans to prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) for Dominion Energy's planned North Anna 3 following an earlier decision to revert to the reactor design originally envisaged for the Virginia site.