ASE, the engineering subsidiary of Russia's Rosatom, has installed the containment building dome for unit 2 of the nuclear power plant under construction near Ostrovets, in the Grodno region of Belarus. The unit - one of two VVER-1200 type reactors at the plant which will give 2340 MWe net capacity online - is scheduled for start-up in 2020.
Although the delay in receiving the construction licence for the Hanhikivi 1 nuclear power plant will not affect the cost of the project, its impact on the commissioning schedule will become clearer later this year, Fennovoima CEO Toni Hemminki told journalists last week. The company began excavation work at the site in Pyhäjoki in northern Finland in January last year.
The mechanical properties of the vessel head and bottom head of the Flamanville 3 EPR reactor pressure vessel are adequate and are therefore serviceable, the French nuclear regulator has concluded. However, the Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire (ASN) still requires the vessel head to be replaced by the end of 2024.%201%2048.jpg "Karachi-2_RPV_lift_(CNNC)-48")
The reactor pressure vessel has been hoisted into place at Karachi unit 2 in Pakistan. All of the main reactor components - the RPV and three steam generators - have now been installed at the Chinese-designed Hualong One unit. 
Regular electricity production at Finland's Olkiluoto 3 is now expected to start in May 2019, the first-of-a-kind EPR unit's supplier consortium has told Finnish utility Teollisuuden Voima Oyj. Regular production had previously been scheduled to begin at the end of 2018. 
The Vogtle AP1000 construction project in Georgia has marked multiple construction milestones including a concrete "super placement" for unit 3 and the lift of the 237-tonne CA03 module for unit 4.
Russia plans to put into operation a nuclear icebreaker "capable of piercing ice of any thickness", the country's president, Vladimir Putin, said yesterday.
Toshiba has made its first payments to the owners of the VC Summer and Vogtle nuclear construction projects under its guarantee obligations as the parent company of Westinghouse Electric Company. The Japanese company also confirmed it is to acquire KazAtomProm's 10% stake in Westinghouse on 1 January. 
US energy secretary Rick Perry has called on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to act swiftly to address threats to grid resiliency through market reforms to recognise the attributes of baseload generation sources including nuclear. Perry also announced further support of up to $3.7 billion in loan guarantees to the owners of the Vogtle nuclear construction project in Georgia.
Unit 3 of the Tianwan nuclear power plant in China's Jiangsu province today attained a sustained chain reaction for the first time. The Russian-supplied VVER-1000 is scheduled to enter commercial operation next year.