The Rubin Central Design Bureau for Marine Engineering, based in Saint Petersburg, Russia, is reviving plans from the 1980s to establish a system for the underwater exploration of mineral resources. The Russian Nuclear Community reports on its website atomic-energy.ru today that federal agencies are considering the use of a nuclear reactor to power this proposed system.

X-energy and Southern Nuclear Operating Company have signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on development and commercialization of their respective advanced reactor designs.

Brazil's fuel cycle company INB has celebrated the successful underwater repair of a damaged fuel rod canister in the storage pool of Angra 2.

A Russian government decree published yesterday indicates the country plans to construct 11 new nuclear power reactors by 2030 - including two BN-1200 sodium-cooled fast neutron reactors. The document, which covers "territorial planning for energy" for the period, also identifies six points for radioactive waste disposal.

The British government has confirmed the full list of ministerial responsibilities within the newly created Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. The list was included in a statement today by Greg Clark, the department's Secretary of State.

Cold and active commissioning has been completed of the full-scale demonstration GeoMelt In-Container Vitrification plant at the UK's Sellafield site. The first commercial vitrification of radioactive waste was performed last week.

An operator training simulator developed by the National Research Nuclear University has been launched at the Rostov nuclear power plant in Russia. Rosenergoatom, the nuclear power plant operator subsidiary of state nuclear corporation Rosatom, has given its permission for personnel to be trained using the new equipment.

EDF Energy has launched a competition aimed at finding new ways of inspecting and monitoring its UK nuclear power plants, offering successful projects up to £10,000 ($13,000) of funding. The competition opened yesterday and the deadline for applications is 28 September. Successful projects are to start in January next year.

A Chinese-developed digital instrumentation and control (I&C) system for nuclear power plants recently passed an independent review by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Sheffield Forgemasters International Ltd and NuScale have announced they will work together to develop the manufacturing techniques required for the future deployment of small modular reactors in the UK.

Transatomic Power Corporation has released technical information on the design of its molten salt reactor, which it says offers multiple advantages over existing generation technologies.

Areva has announced a number of contracts in the nuclear fuel cycle. The contracts relate to used fuel management at a Belgian research reactor, a Romanian waste repository and the supply of used fuel storage canisters in the USA.