The last of 10 buildings at the Radioactive Materials Handling Facility at the Energy Technology Engineering Center in Ventura County, California have been demolished, accomplishing one of the US Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management's priorities for 2020.

The UN Climate Change secretariat said yesterday that it "remains committed to working with all US stakeholders and partners around the world" as it noted that the USA's withdrawal from the Paris Agreement three years ago had formally come into effect. In a joint statement with Chile, France, Italy and the UK, it said: "There is no greater responsibility than protecting our planet and people from the threat of climate change".

Los Alamos National Laboratory has agreed to license Kilopower space reactor technology to New Mexico company Space Nuclear Power Corporation, which aims to commercialise the technology for use in space in the next few years.

Holtec International's canister-based dry used fuel storage technology is set to be deployed in Japan following its signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy. Holtec said its technology provides an alternative option to the technologies currently used in Japan.

Poland will ask the European Commission to approve state aid for the construction of what will be the country's first nuclear power plants, Secretary of State for Strategic Energy Infrastructure Piotr Naimski told reporters in Warsaw yesterday, according to Reuters. "It is impossible these days to build a nuclear power plant without state support," Naimski said.

Ultra Safe Nuclear Technologies (USNC-Tech) - a subsidiary of Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation (USNC) - has developed a design concept as part of NASA-funded research into nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) systems for potential use in deep space travel. The concept uses a specialised variation of USNC's proprietary fully ceramic microencapsulated, tristructural isotropic fuel, developed for use in power reactors.

The US Department of Energy and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration have agreed to extend their existing cooperation by a further 10 years. One area for continued cooperation is space nuclear power and propulsion.

US Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette and Poland's Secretary of State for Strategic Energy Infrastructure Piotr Naimski yesterday discussed the signing of the first intergovernmental agreement to cooperate on the development of Poland's civil nuclear power programme. Brouillette signed the agreement yesterday and it will be signed by Naimski once it is received in Warsaw.

Cold functional testing of unit 3 at the Vogtle nuclear power plant near Waynesboro, Georgia, has been completed, Georgia Power announced yesterday. The tests mark the first time the reactor systems have been operated together with the auxiliary systems.

The US Department of Energy has approved a cost-share award of more than USD1 billion for the construction of the first NuScale small modular reactor power plant in the USA. Meanwhile, the US International Development Finance Corporation has signed a Letter of Intent to support NuScale in the development of nuclear generating capacity in South Africa.

The socioeconomic impacts of nuclear power plant closures are swift, severe and lasting, and the effects are felt more deeply in rural communities where most plants are located, a new report from the Nuclear Decommissioning Collaborative has found.

Teams led by TerraPower and X-energy have been announced as the recipients of USD160 million in initial funding under the US Department of Energy's Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program. The companies get USD80 million each to build a demonstration plant that can be operational within seven years.