Polish companies Synthos Green Energy and PKN Orlen have signed an investment agreement to establish a joint venture for the deployment of a small modular reactor fleet in Poland. The Orlen Synthos Green Energy joint venture will commercialise micro modular reactor and SMR technology, in particular GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy's BWRX-300.

A Memorandum of Understanding has been signed between Rolls-Royce SMR Limited and Sheffield Forgemasters to jointly explore commercial mechanisms for a long-term collaboration on the supply of forgings to the Rolls-Royce UK small modular reactor fleet. A Rolls-Royce-led UK SMR consortium aims to build up to 10 SMRs by 2035.

France's Framatome and Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom have signed a new strategic cooperation agreement further expanding the companies' efforts to develop fuel fabrication and instrumentation and control  technologies. The new agreement expands the companies' existing relationship, established through a 2017 Memorandum of Understanding, creating a framework for joint work in new areas.

NuScale Power, Prodigy Clean Energy and Kinectrics have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to explore and inform the development of a regulatory framework to address licensing and deployment of a Prodigy Marine Power Station. The MPS would integrate up to 12 NuScale Power Modules into a marine-based nuclear power plant system.

After two weeks of talks, the COP26 meeting on climate change has only hours to produce a text on emissions reductions that every country in the world can sign up to. The goal of the meeting in Glasgow, Scotland has been to review progress on the commitments that countries made in Paris in 2015 and agree the next set of commitments. In parallel many other agreements and commitments have been made.

NuScale Power and Romanian national nuclear company Nuclearelectrica yesterday signed a teaming agreement to advance the deployment of NuScale's small modular reactor technology in Romania. The signing came a day after plans for the cooperation were announced on the sidelines of the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow.

Countries have "re-appreciated" the value of nuclear power, International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol said at COP26 today. Birol, who called for new build in Europe, North America and Asia, also said that national commitments made at COP26 would put the world on track to limit global warming to 1.8°C.

NuScale Power of the USA and Romanian national nuclear company Nuclearelectrica plan to construct a NuScale small modular reactor plant in Romania by 2028. The announcement came during a meeting yesterday between US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry and Romanian President Klaus Iohannis on the sidelines of the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow.

Bulgarian Energy Holding has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with US engineering firm Fluor to look at the possibility of replacing coal boilers with NuScale small nuclear reactors, among other things. The country has committed to stop using coal for electricity generation by 2037 or 2040.

GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy and BWXT Canada have entered into a teaming agreement to cooperate on engineering and procurement to support the design, manufacturing and commercialisation of the BWRX-300 small modular reactor. The BWRX-300 is one of three SMR designs under consideration for deployment at Ontario Power Generation's Darlington site.

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power plan to leverage data gathered through decades of experience of the storage of used Candu fuel to underpin cooperative research activities under a new Memorandum of Understanding between the two organisations. They will engage in knowledge-sharing and other joint activities to advance storage, transportation and disposal practices for used fuel, and to explore opportunities to collaborate on nuclear decommissioning and waste management initiatives.

The UK nuclear insurance pool has expanded its capacity to EUR1.2 billion (USD1.4 billion), which will provide the "insurance certainty" to allow the nuclear sector to support the net zero transition, London-based Nuclear Risk Insurers said yesterday. It has finalised its position on covering the extensions of liability created as part of the 2004 Protocol Amendment to the Paris Convention which comes into force on 1 January 2022.