The UK's Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has today launched two consultations on the management of radioactive waste. The consultations are on a draft national policy statement for geological disposal infrastructure and on Working with Communities as part of the search for a host for the GDF. Both consultations started today and run until 19 April.

Small modular reactors (SMRs) could be "a crucial technology" in efforts to decarbonise the UK's energy system, according to a report published today by the Policy Exchange. The report makes recommendations as to how government policy can lay the groundwork for their development and deployment.

The UK government has published initial pre-consultation draft versions of the Nuclear Safeguards Regulations to enable early engagement with Parliament, industry and other stakeholders. The draft regulations, which the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy published on 19 January, set out the nuclear safeguards regime for the UK and the powers of the BEIS secretary of state to make regulations under the Nuclear Safeguards Bill.

The UK government must take urgent action to "flesh out" plans and proposals set out in its Clean Growth Strategy if the country is to meet its emission targets to 2032, according to the Committee on Climate Change. Reliance on nuclear energy to decarbonise power generation calls for the timely completion of Hinkley Point C and the construction of additional nuclear power plants, it said.

EDF Energy is confident Hinkley Point C will come on line in 2025 and that Sizewell C will be 20% cheaper to build, the company's new CEO, Simone Rossi, said yesterday in his first major speech since taking over from Vincent de Rivaz at the helm of the UK company in November.

The UK government aims to maintain as many of the benefits the country has enjoyed from its membership of the European Atomic Energy Community since joining the EU and Euratom in 1973 through a "close and effective association" in the future, Greg Clark, secretary of state for business, energy and industrial strategy told Parliament yesterday. The UK will exit Euratom at the same time as withdrawing from the EU, on 29 March 2019.

The UK's Office for Nuclear Regulation has clarified two points in the impact assessment of the Nuclear Safeguards Bill published last month by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. The clarifications are "part of our ongoing constructive engagement" with BEIS to develop a domestic safeguards regime as part of the UK's exit from the European Atomic Energy Community, the ONR said.

EDF Energy has awarded nuclear services company Cavendish Nuclear a five-year contract to support the continued operation of its UK fleet of advanced gas-cooled reactors (AGRs). The contract is worth some GBP7.5 million ($10.2 million).

The Centre for Advanced Robotics at the Queen Mary University of London was recently awarded a GBP1.0 million ($1.3 million) grant to help establish a centre of excellence for nuclear robotics in the UK. The focus of the centre will be to develop technology for aiding radioactive waste management.

Magnox Ltd has emptied more than half of the used fuel from the Wylfa reactors on Anglesey, in Wales, the UK's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority said today. When operating, Wylfa's two reactors together contained nearly 100,000 fuel elements.

An international team led by the University of Sheffield has discovered that the toxic element arsenic prevents uranium from an abandoned mine in the UK migrating into rivers and groundwater. The discovery could help in the remediation of former uranium mines and other radioactively contaminated areas around the world, the scientists believe.

Duncan Hawthorne, CEO of Horizon Nuclear Power, says a consensus is forming across government and industry that the Hinkley financing model - which involved EDF and its Chinese partner CGN covering the entire cost of construction - will not be repeated, according to his comments to the Financial Times published yesterday. Horizon is the UK subsidiary of Hitachi-GE, which regulators informed last week had successfully completed the Generic Design Assessment process for its UK Advanced Boiling Water Reactor.