Kazatomprom CEO Galymzhan Pirmatov says he is "concerned" that more US reactors would be forced to close if the Trump administration were to introduce tariffs and force utilities to buy at least one-quarter of their uranium from domestic miners, the Financial Times reported yesterday.

TVEL and Slovak utility Slovenské elektrárne have signed contract documents on the supply of nuclear fuel to nuclear power plants in Slovakia for 2022-2026 with the possibility of extension to 2030.

Framatome has received a voucher through the US Department of Energy's Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear programme to support development of Lightbridge Fuel in collaboration with Idaho National Laboratory.

Fuel transfer operations at the shut down San Onofre nuclear power plant in California can resume following approval by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Such operations were suspended following an incident last August during the lowering of a used fuel canister into a storage vault.

The batch of fuel assemblies made by Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrates Plant for the initial fuel loading of unit 2 of the nuclear power plant under construction in Belarus has passed its final inspection. NCCP is a subsidiary of Russian fuel manufacturer TVEL.

China National Nuclear Corporation says it is now capable of mass producing China Fuel 3 (CF3) fuel assemblies for the domestically-designed HPR1000 (Hualong One) pressurised water reactor design.

NuScale Power and Enfission, LLC are to work together to explore the use of Enfission's next-generation nuclear fuel technology in NuScale's small modular reactors (SMRs) under a newly announced memorandum of understanding.

The full-scale in situ system test at the Onkalo underground characterisation facility near Olkiluoto has proceeded to the concreting phase in the construction of the end plug for the deposition tunnel, Finnish waste management company Posiva has announced.

Final system-wide trials began yesterday of the new dry interim used fuel storage facility at the site of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. The facility is expected to be handed over to the state-owned enterprise Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the coming months.

Framatome, the French fuel and technology company said "two full fuel assemblies" of its Enhanced Accident Tolerant Fuel would be loaded at Exelon's Calvert Cliffs plant in February 2021.

TVEL, the nuclear fuel subsidiary of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, is working on a 'dual-component' approach to closing the nuclear fuel cycle, as well as accident-tolerant fuel and innovations in fuel for VVER units.

Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe visited the Fukushima Daiichi site today as the process to remove used fuel from unit 3 officially began. It has taken several years for Tepco to remove debris from the reactor building service floor and prepare for this work to reduce the hazard at the accident site.