The US government, working with NuScale Power, is to provide USD14 million in support for the Front-End Engineering and Design study for Romania's deployment of a first-of-its-kind small modular reactor plant as part of a flagship project launched at the Group of Seven leaders' summit in Germany.

The leaders of the Group of Seven large industrialised nations should incentivise the extension of the operating life of existing nuclear reactors and support the restart of others to help achieve the goal of achieving a low-carbon and secure energy supply, the nuclear industry has said.

Work has begun on a protective enclosure for a former reactor on the US Department of Energy's Hanford site in Washington State. The K East Reactor is the seventh at the site to be placed in interim safe storage.
 

Polish state-owned energy company Enea SA has signed an agreement with US small modular reactor developer Last Energy to cooperate on the deployment of SMRs, potentially in Poland. Meanwhile, France's EDF has signed further cooperation agreements with Polish companies to support its offer to supply 4 to 6 EPRs in Poland.

Orano Federal Services and TerraPower will gain access to the US Department of Energy's national laboratories to help advance their nuclear technologies under the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) initiative.
 

A low-carbon future - anchored by the strength and resilience of the current nuclear fleet - is within our grasp if we make the right choices today, Nuclear Energy Institute President and CEO Maria Korsnick said in her annual State of the Industry address to the US organisation's Nuclear Energy Assembly in Washington DC.

The US space agency NASA has selected three design concepts for a 40KW nuclear power system designed to last at least 10 years in the lunar environment to help "lay the groundwork for powering our long-term human presence on other worlds".

The USA’s Maryland Energy Administration has awarded grants to Maryland-based X-energy and Frostburg State University to evaluate the benefits of repurposing a coal-fired electric generating facility with X-energy’s Xe-100 small modular reactor.

Nuclear fuel innovation company Clean Core Thorium Energy has signed a new strategic partnership agreement with the US Department of Energy which details next steps for irradiation testing and qualification of its Advanced Nuclear Energy for Enriched Life fuel in Idaho National Laboratory's Advanced Test Reactor.

The US Department of Energy's Frontier supercomputer system at Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been ranked as the fastest computer in the world, as well as becoming the first to break the exascale performance barrier.

Texas-based Uranium Energy Corp has agreed to acquire Canadian company UEX Corporation to create a combined, diversified portfolio of uranium production and development assets.
 

This is a "fantastic moment" for the USA to reclaim global nuclear energy leadership, says Kathryn Huff.