A global pioneer in all stages of the nuclear fuel cycle, the UK wants its collaboration with international partners to continue apace. This was the message of the country's delegation to the International Atomic Energy Agency's 60th General Conference held last week in Vienna. The delegation included specialists in nuclear education, research, design, fuel, policy, law and finance.

Holtec International has successfully completed a series of free drop-tests on its HI-STAR ATB-1T waste cask. The cask has a rectangular footprint, unlike cylindrical fuel-bearing transport casks.

Terrestrial Energy USA has been invited by the US Department of Energy to submit the second part of its application for a US federal loan guarantee to support the licensing and construction of its Integrated Molten Salt Reactor.

Newly published findings from a five-year international project to study conditions at the surface and below the Greenland Ice Sheet will be used in evaluations of the future safety of deep geological repositories over time frames of up to a million years.

Russian fuel manufacturer TVEL expects one of its subsidiaries to be able to create superconductors with enhanced performance for new "high energy physics megaprojects" by 2019.

X-energy and Southern Nuclear Operating Company have signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on development and commercialization of their respective advanced reactor designs.

Russia has reached two more milestones in its endeavour to close the nuclear fuel cycle. Mashinostroitelny Zavod (MSZ) - part of Russian nuclear fuel manufacturer TVEL - has completed acceptance tests of components for its ETVS-14 and ETVS-15 experimental fuel assemblies with mixed nitride fuel for the BREST and BN fast neutron reactors. MSZ has also announced the start of research and development work on the technical design of the "absorbent element" of the core of the BREST-OD-300 reactor.

Brazil's fuel cycle company INB has celebrated the successful underwater repair of a damaged fuel rod canister in the storage pool of Angra 2.

Nuclear engineering and climate change experts from Imperial College London have outlined the benefits of the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant project in Somerset, England. They have joined the public debate on EDF Energy's project, after new British Prime Minister Theresa May's cabinet announced last week that it wants to review the deal and decide in early autumn whether to commit its support.

Most of the fuel that melted in unit 2 of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan remains within the reactor pressure vessel, an examination using a muon detection system indicates.

Transatomic Power Corporation has released technical information on the design of its molten salt reactor, which it says offers multiple advantages over existing generation technologies.