The UK government aims to maintain as many of the benefits the country has enjoyed from its membership of the European Atomic Energy Community since joining the EU and Euratom in 1973 through a "close and effective association" in the future, Greg Clark, secretary of state for business, energy and industrial strategy told Parliament yesterday. The UK will exit Euratom at the same time as withdrawing from the EU, on 29 March 2019.

The Californian Public Utilities Commission yesterday approved Pacific Gas & Electric's request to retire the state's only operating nuclear capacity - the two-unit Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant - by 2025.

The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission yesterday terminated proceedings on Energy Secretary Rick Perry's proposed rulemaking on grid resilience and reliability, which would have recognised the attributes of generation sources able to store fuel on site. FERC has instead launched a new proceeding to "holistically" examine the resilience of the system.

The UK's Office for Nuclear Regulation has clarified two points in the impact assessment of the Nuclear Safeguards Bill published last month by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. The clarifications are "part of our ongoing constructive engagement" with BEIS to develop a domestic safeguards regime as part of the UK's exit from the European Atomic Energy Community, the ONR said.

The Ontario Energy Board (OEB) has published its decision on Ontario Power Generation's (OPG's) application regarding payments for regulated nuclear and hydropower output in 2017-2021. While approving budgets for the refurbishment and extended operation of reactors, the regulator called for OPG to cut costs.

The Gundremmingen B boiling water reactor in southern Germany was disconnected from the grid on 31 December after 33 years of operation. The government had ordered the plant to close by the end of last year as part of the country's energy transition.

Construction of China's 600 MWe demonstration fast reactor at Xiapu, Fujian province, has officially begun with the pouring of the first concrete for the reactor's basemat. The reactor is scheduled to begin commercial operation by 2023.

The Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian Parliament, has approved amendments to the law governing Rosatom, which give the state nuclear corporation's supervisory board the power to approve the development and financing of nuclear power projects. The law was presented by Alexey Dmitrienko, a member of the Federation Council's economic policy committee, on 26 December.

An anti-nuclear activist in the 1970s was afraid of tyranny. An anti-nuclear activist now is afraid of radiation. But tyranny didn't happen and the effects of radiation are misunderstood. The threat of climate change IS real and, to fight it, we need nuclear power, writes Scott L. Montgomery.

A bill that would recognise the environmental and fuel diversity attributes of New Jersey's nuclear power plants has been approved by House and Senate utility committees and will now go forward to the full legislative body.

Duncan Hawthorne, CEO of Horizon Nuclear Power, says a consensus is forming across government and industry that the Hinkley financing model - which involved EDF and its Chinese partner CGN covering the entire cost of construction - will not be repeated, according to his comments to the Financial Times published yesterday. Horizon is the UK subsidiary of Hitachi-GE, which regulators informed last week had successfully completed the Generic Design Assessment process for its UK Advanced Boiling Water Reactor.

The day before British Prime Minister Theresa May and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker agreed a deal to complete the first phase of Brexit negotiations, a senior civil servant assured the nuclear industry that the British government aimed to achieve a smooth departure from the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom). Meanwhile, European electricity association Eurelectric has outlined the objectives it says are needed for a "sound Brexit transition".