The first ever controlled fusion experiment to produce more energy from fusion than the laser energy used to drive it was conducted at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on 5 December - a breakthrough that has been decades in the making.

The UK Space Agency and the National Nuclear Laboratory are to collaborate on the world's first space battery powered by americium-241. The isotope will be extracted from used nuclear fuel stored at the Sellafield site in Cumbria.

The advanced nuclear fuel company said it expects the first phase of work under two "innovative" agreements with Idaho National Laboratory, in collaboration with the US Department of Energy, will culminate in irradiation testing of fuel samples.

The UK Atomic Energy Authority and the UK Satellite Applications Catapult have partnered to demonstrate how advanced remote handling and robotics technology developed for fusion energy research can be used to provide maintenance for in-orbit satellites.

NuScale Power, Shell Global Solutions and research participants including Idaho National Laboratory, Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, Fuel Cell Energy, FPoliSolutions, and GSE Solutions will develop a clean hydrogen production system for use in small modular reactor power plants.

The UK's First Light Fusion plans to build a 60 MW pilot power plant based on its unique projectile fusion technology to prove the integrated engineering for electricity generation and the production of tritium. It has partnered with Canadian Nuclear Laboratories to design a system for extracting tritium from the reactor.

Existing boreholes at the Rosemanowes quarry in Cornwall, southwest England, have been successfully sealed by Nuclear Waste Services in a demonstration of the technology it plans to use to seal boreholes drilled during the search to find a suitable location for a Geological Disposal Facility in the UK.

A consortium comprising EDF UK R&D, the UK Atomic Energy Authority, the University of Bristol and Urenco has been awarded GBP7.7 million (USD9.3 million) in funding from the UK's Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy to develop a hydrogen storage solution.

A new agreement between the Japan Atomic Energy Agency and Polish National Centre for Nuclear Research has added the basic design of a research reactor to their ongoing collaborative R&D on high-temperature gas-cooled reactor technology.

An EDF-led consortium has been awarded UK government funding to investigate the feasibility of using nuclear-generated heat and electricity to create hydrogen for use in the production of asphalt and cement.

Ukraine and the USA have announced a project to demonstrate the production of hydrogen and ammonia using small modular reactor and innovative electrolysis technologies in Ukraine. The public-private consortium also includes Japanese and South Korean companies.

The US Administration has issued a new report setting out initial priorities - including fusion - it says will enable it to reach net-zero by 2050, and is providing more than USD1.5 billion under Inflation Reduction Act funding to upgrade facilities and modernise infrastructure at the national laboratories which will undertake the research and innovation to support this.