Kemmerer in Wyoming has been selected as the preferred site for the Natrium nuclear power plant demonstration project, TerraPower has announced. The location is near the coal-fired Naughton power plant, which is due to retire in 2025, and was chosen after an extensive evaluation process and meetings with community members and leaders.

US President Joe Biden yesterday signed into law the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal). The USD1.2 trillion package is a key part of the president's Build Back Better agenda and contains a total of more than USD62 billion for the US Department of Energy to deliver a "more equitable clean energy future", including preventing the premature retirement of existing nuclear plants and investing in advanced nuclear projects.

Texas-based Uranium Energy Corp has agreed to buy Uranium One Americas Inc from Rosatom's Uranium One Group. The acquisition will create "hub-and-spoke" operations in Wyoming for UEC, centred on U1A's Irigaray plant, and will position it as the largest American uranium mining company, UEC said.

Delaying the retirement of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power would reduce California's power sector carbon emissions, reduce reliance on gas, save billions in power system costs and bolster system reliability, according to a new report by authors from Stanford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and LucidCatalyst. The plant could further increase its value to the state by providing multiple services including desalination and hydrogen production.

A two-year effort by Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management and contractor Isotek to process and dispose of a low-dose inventory of uranium-233 stored at the US Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee has been completed. As well as eliminating legacy nuclear material the effort has also provided nuclear isotopes for next-generation cancer treatment research.

NuScale Power and Romanian national nuclear company Nuclearelectrica yesterday signed a teaming agreement to advance the deployment of NuScale's small modular reactor technology in Romania. The signing came a day after plans for the cooperation were announced on the sidelines of the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow.

Framatome yesterday announced its first 100% accident tolerant fuel assembly has been delivered to Exelon Generation's Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant in Maryland, USA. The assembly - described by the company as a nuclear industry "first" - was loaded into one of the plant's two pressurised water reactors during a recent refuelling outage.

The preliminary design of X-energy's TRISO-X Fuel Fabrication Facility to produce tri-structural isotropic fuel on a commercial scale has now been completed, X-energy and Centrus Energy Corp announced today. The companies have also signed a contract for nuclear fuel and services provider Centrus to continue its work as the project enters its next phase.

The US Air Force has confirmed the Eielson base in Alaska as the facility planned to host its first small nuclear power plant. A microreactor of up to 5 MWe could be operational there as soon as 2027, according to Eielson.

Georgia Power has shifted back by three months the schedule for the Vogtle 3 and 4 expansion project, citing the need for extra time to address construction challenges and to allow for comprehensive testing. An in-service date in the third quarter of 2022 is now projected for Vogtle 3, with Vogtle 4's in-service date set for the second quarter of 2023.

Lightbridge Ltd has completed work to design an experiment for the irradiation of samples of its metallic fuel material in the Advanced Test Reactor at the Idaho National Laboratory. The work was carried out in collaboration with INL under the US Department of Energy's Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear voucher programme and marks a milestone towards testing of the material in the reactor.

A USD50 million cost-shared award from the US Department of Energy will see Exelon Generation's Limerick plant in Pennsylvania become the first nuclear power station in the USA to upgrade to a fully digital safety system. Control room digitalisation will enable automation, decrease system interruptions, and improve performance, ultimately improving operations and significantly reducing costs.