Westinghouse will work with UK shipbuilder Cammell Laird as well as the country’s Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (NAMRC) on a study to explore potential design efficiencies to reduce the lead times of its small modular reactor.

As the first of three Chinese-supplied electrical transformers is installed at the Iter fusion project in France, researchers in the Netherlands are testing the resistance to neutron radiation of materials that will shield the fusion reactor's core.

The Russian government has "suspended" a 2013 agreement with the USA on nuclear energy research and development and "terminated" another, signed in 2010, on cooperation in the conversion of Russian research reactors to low-enriched uranium fuel. The decisions were issued in separate documents signed by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and published on the government's website on 5 October.

A global pioneer in all stages of the nuclear fuel cycle, the UK wants its collaboration with international partners to continue apace. This was the message of the country's delegation to the International Atomic Energy Agency's 60th General Conference held last week in Vienna. The delegation included specialists in nuclear education, research, design, fuel, policy, law and finance.

Holtec International has successfully completed a series of free drop-tests on its HI-STAR ATB-1T waste cask. The cask has a rectangular footprint, unlike cylindrical fuel-bearing transport casks.

Terrestrial Energy USA has been invited by the US Department of Energy to submit the second part of its application for a US federal loan guarantee to support the licensing and construction of its Integrated Molten Salt Reactor.

Newly published findings from a five-year international project to study conditions at the surface and below the Greenland Ice Sheet will be used in evaluations of the future safety of deep geological repositories over time frames of up to a million years.

Russian fuel manufacturer TVEL expects one of its subsidiaries to be able to create superconductors with enhanced performance for new "high energy physics megaprojects" by 2019.

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.

Russia has reached two more milestones in its endeavour to close the nuclear fuel cycle. Mashinostroitelny Zavod (MSZ) - part of Russian nuclear fuel manufacturer TVEL - has completed acceptance tests of components for its ETVS-14 and ETVS-15 experimental fuel assemblies with mixed nitride fuel for the BREST and BN fast neutron reactors. MSZ has also announced the start of research and development work on the technical design of the "absorbent element" of the core of the BREST-OD-300 reactor.

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.