The Hiroshima High Court today overturned a temporary injunction against the operation of unit 3 at Shikoku Electric Power Company's Ikata nuclear power plant in Japan's Ehime prefecture. Meanwhile, the Mito District Court has ordered a suspension of the operation of unit 2 at Japan Atomic Power Company's Tokai plant in Ibaraki prefecture.

The UK's Office for Nuclear Regulation has today provided EDF with permission for Reactors 3 and 4 at the Hinkley Point B power station in Somerset, England, to return to service for a limited period of operation. This follows ONR's assessment of whether cracking observed in the graphite bricks that form the reactor core could compromise the key nuclear safety requirements.

Tokyo Electric Power Company has failed in its duty to protect nuclear materials at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture, according to Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority. A series of security breaches has prompted the regulator to suspend the process for inspections needed to restart unit 7 at the plant.

The process of loading 241 fuel assemblies into the core of unit 2 at the Barakah nuclear power plant in the UAE has begun, operator Nawah Energy Company has announced. The move follows the issuance last week by the Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation of the operating licence for the second of four Korean-designed APR1400 units at the site.

Rosatom has received regulatory approval to start the commercial operation of the second VVER-1200 reactor at the Leningrad nuclear power plant in western Russia, which is scheduled for the end of this month. The existing Leningrad plant site in Sosnovy Bor has four RBMK-1000 units, while Leningrad II will have four VVER-1200 units.

The nuclear energy industry will continue to innovate and adopt advanced technologies to constantly improve the way nuclear power plants generate efficient, reliable and carbon-free electricity to power an increasingly interconnected world, writes Catherine Cornand, senior executive vice president of the Installed Base Business Unit at Framatome.

Exelon Corporation plans to separate its regulated utility and competitive energy businesses into two publicly traded companies, creating the USA's biggest fully regulated transmission and distribution utility, as well as its largest carbon-free power producer.

France's nuclear safety regulator, the Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire, has set the conditions for the continued operation of EDF's 900 MWe reactors beyond 40 years. The regulator said it considers the measures planned by EDF combined with those prescribed by ASN will ensure the safety of the units for a further 10 years of operation.

Bruce Power's Major Component Replacement project remains on track despite a two-month delay caused by the pandemic, the company said yesterday as it marked the first anniversary of the start of work at Bruce 6.

Czech scientists have received a US patent for their discovery that a polycrystalline-diamond coating can significantly protect fuel rods against corrosion during both normal reactor operation and accidents. Researchers from the Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics and Cybernetics of the Czech Technical University and the Institute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic obtained an EU patent for the technology in April last year.

The China Experimental Fast Reactor has been restarted and reconnected to the grid, marking its entry into its high-power operation phase. The sodium-cooled, pool-type fast reactor began a refuelling and maintenance outage at the end of July last year, having completed commissioning tests for the power test phase of the reactor, which verified that its performance had met the design requirements under stable conditions and expected transient operating conditions.

The Spanish nuclear regulator has approved the renewal of the operating licence for Iberdrola's Cofrentes nuclear power plant near Valencia until the end of November 2030. The 1064 MWe boiling water reactor, which entered commercial operation in March 1985, is then scheduled to be decommissioned.