The UK government has announced funding of £8 million ($13 million), with half coming from industry, to train the next generation of nuclear technicians and engineers.

Statements by a European Commission spokesman indicate the UK's Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant project will be approved under state aid rules.

The simulator of the Sizewell B plant in the UK is being upgraded and additional training devices installed under a contract awarded to L-3 MAPPS by EDF Energy.

Investigations into potential cracks in boiler spines at two units at each of the Heysham I and Hartlepool sites are likely to take until the end of the year to complete, EDF Energy has announced.

Cavendish Fluor Partnership has been formally awarded the contract by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to manage 12 UK nuclear sites and their respective decommissioning programs.

The final shipment of used fuel from the UK's Sizewell A nuclear power plant has been sent for reprocessing at Sellafield, marking the end of a five-year operation to remove all fuel from the site.

The third stage of the generic design assessment (GDA) for the Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR) is to begin in September after regulators completed their initial high-level assessment of the Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy reactor design without identifying any fundamental issues to prevent it from being built in the UK.

The UK's Office for Nuclear Regulation has said it is satisfied that EDF Energy is taking "appropriate and conservative action in the interests of continued nuclear safety" in its decision to shut down its reactors at the Heysham 1 and Hartlepool sites in response to the identification of unexpected "cracking" in a boiler spine of unit 1 at Heysham 1.

EDF Energy says it has shut down four of its UK reactors after discovering a fault in a "boiler spine" in unit 1 of its Heysham 1 nuclear power plant - "although routine inspections of other boiler spines have not previously indicated any similar defects."

A new centre for developing technologies for remote handling in extreme conditions has opened at the Culham Science Centre in the UK. A £15.6 million ($26.2 million) purpose-built facility is to be constructed at the site by 2016.

Operations have ended at a post-irradiation examination facility at the UK's Harwell nuclear research site. Decommissioning activities will begin in about three years.

Thales Group has secured a ten-year, £30 million ($51 million) contract to provide long-term support for computerised control systems at seven of EDF Energy's UK nuclear power plants.