Nuclear power has an essential role to play in achieving a 'carbon free' future, Rosatom deputy director-general Kirill Komarov said yesterday during the Expo-2017 conference in Astana, Kazakhstan.

The planned Belgian state guarantee for nuclear operators that do not find sufficient civil liability coverage on private insurance markets does not involve state aid, the European Commission has concluded. The commission said the guarantee would improve compensation for potential victims without granting any advantage to operators.

The UK needs to build 14.5 GWe of new nuclear capacity by 2035 or it will fail to meet the Two Degrees scenario, National Grid says in the annual update of its Future Energy Scenarios it published yesterday. The report also suggests that national electricity demand could peak at 85 GWe by 2050, compared with around 60 GWe today. National Grid is the private company which runs Britain's high-voltage electricity network.

Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power has decided to temporarily suspend construction of units 5 and 6 at the Shin Kori nuclear power plant in south-eastern Korea. The move comes two weeks after South Korean President Moon Jae-in issued an administrative order to halt construction of the reactors.

Rosatom saw the value of its long-term portfolio of foreign orders "continue to grow" last year - by 20.9% to $133.4 billion. In a statement to accompany publication of its annual report for 2016, the Russian state nuclear corporation said this meant it had retained its "world-leading position" in terms of contracts to build nuclear units for overseas customers - 34 reactors in 12 countries at the end of last year.

The UK government's Department for Exiting the European Union has today published a position paper on nuclear materials and safeguards issues, which the head of the country's Nuclear Industry Association says "demonstrates the complexity" of replicating arrangements with the European Atomic Energy Community.

The British government and media are discussing with renewed concern the prospect of the UK's departure from the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom). Current plans would see the UK leave both the European Union and Euratom by April 2019.

Nigeria has a committed regulatory body that works for the continuous improvement of nuclear and radiation safety, an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) peer review mission has concluded. However, it noted challenges related to its independence in implementing regulatory decisions and activities.

Global investment in energy dropped in 2016, according to an International Energy Agency report. Although renewables have become cheaper, clean energy rollout has nevertheless "stalled" on lower investments in hydro and nuclear, the report - World Energy Investment 2017 - says.

Energoatom has received regulatory approval to start construction of a central used fuel storage facility at the site of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. The State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine issued a licence on 6 June.

The consequences of US President Donald Trump's "recarbonisation" policy for nuclear energy are likely to be nuanced, a newly released paper from S&P Global Ratings has concluded. The nuclear sector will likely benefit from the removal of existing regulations but suffer under a "watering down" of clean power legislation.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in has been urged to consider the climate and environmental impacts of phasing out the use of nuclear energy in the country. Moon used the permanent shutdown of Kori unit 1 last month to outline his intended nuclear energy phase-out policy.