Funding is in place for the first five years of a seven-year project to build a demonstration Natrium reactor in Wyoming - subject to the completion of the legislative process - and a location will be selected by the end of the year, representatives from TerraPower and PacifiCorp told the state legislature’s Joint Minerals Committee last week. Amendments to existing state laws could further improve the prospect of building the demonstration reactor.

A major project to build a new ventilation system at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, USA has passed a milestone with the completion of the foundations for one of two major buildings for the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System. The 55,000 square feet (5100 square metre) New Filter Building will house the high-efficiency particulate air filter units that will clean air extracted from the WIPP underground.

"The easy part is over" for US emission reductions and the country risks a "flatline" to 2050, Washington DC-based think tank ClearPath has warned in a new report. Utility commitments to net-zero and longer operation for nuclear power plants can help avoid the flatline but public policy is also needed, it said.

The USA's National Ignition Facility has achieved a record fusion yield that it says puts it "at the threshold of fusion ignition". The record laser shot produced 25 times more than the facility's next best experiment.

A legacy radioactive source from a US Department of Energy waste inventory is now being reused more than 40 years after it was put into storage. The collaborative effort to prepare and transport the small neutron-emitting, plutonium-beryllium source from Idaho National Laboratory to Pacific Northwest National Laboratory takes the 'reduce, reuse and recycle' concept to the next level, the Department's Office of Environmental Management said.

A bipartisan infrastructure bill passed by the US Senate this week includes, amongst other things, provisions for investment in advanced nuclear reactor demonstration projects. The bill would also include investment in research hubs for next generation technologies such as carbon capture and clean hydrogen.

Nuclear safety regulators in Canada and the US have completed their first collaborative project on licensing of SMRs. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission have issued a joint report to provide feedback to X-energy on the manufacturing codes it proposes to use in both countries for the reactor pressure vessel of its Xe-100 design.

Four first-of-a-kind 3D-printed fuel assembly channel fasteners have been installed and are now under routine operating conditions at unit 2 of the Tennessee Valley Authority's Browns Ferry nuclear power plant in Alabama. The components were produced at the US Department of Energy's Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has discontinued work on a rulemaking that would have added a framework for licensing commercial reprocessing facilities to its regulations. In a notice published by the US Federal Register on 29 July, the regulator said its decision was based on the costs of conducting the rulemaking coupled with limited interest from industry.

Federal-level legislation will come too late to save the Byron and Dresden power plants from early retirement this autumn, Exelon CEO Chris Crane has said. The company is still hopeful that aid at the state level will save the plants. A group of Illinois legislators has called for the state's General Assembly to reconvene as soon as possible to vote on the provisions.

US energy retailer Energy Harbor has claimed "strong demand" for its tariffs offering carbon-free electricity from nuclear power plants. Interest in and sales of 100% carbon-free retail electricity products from the company's clean, reliable nuclear fleet have increased significantly this year, it said yesterday.

Romania and the USA have started cooperation work towards the expansion and modernisation of the Cernavoda nuclear power plant. A working meeting last week followed a series of strategic agreements by Romania.