Areva and EDF's program for testing the mechanical properties of Flamanville 3's reactor pressure vessel has been extended. Previously the tests were to be carried out on samples from two forged parts but will now be conducted on three.

Turkey's Council of Ministers has ordered the acquisition of land enabling construction of a 380 kV transmission line for the planned Akkuyu nuclear power plant. The order is contained in three announcements published in the official state gazette on 10 April.

European electricity association Eurelectric has welcomed the European Commission's recently published Nuclear Illustrative Program (PINC), but expressed regrets at its failure to address the issue of premature reactor closures due to market conditions. European nuclear industry association Foratom also called on the PINC to address the impact of market conditions on nuclear investments.

The UK's nuclear supply chain needs to speak to a wider audience about its achievements and be ready to welcome professionals from other sectors into the new build fold, writes Tom Greatrex.

Investment of between €350 billion ($399 billion) and €450 billion will be required over the next 35 years to maintain the European Union's nuclear generating capacity at between 95 and 105 GWe, according to the European Commission's latest Nuclear Illustrative Program.

The state of Wisconsin has lifted a moratorium that had prevented it from considering applications to build new nuclear power plants. Governor Scott Walker signed Assembly Bill 384 into law at a ceremony held at the Wisconsin Energy Institute on 1 April, lifting the moratorium imposed in 1983.

ASE Group has announced plans for Russia to connect its first Generation-III+ nuclear power unit to the grid this summer. The first fuel assembly was loaded at unit 1 of the Novovoronezh II nuclear power plant in western Russia on 24 March at 3.28am, while the "active phase" of the loading process began the following day.

The Vogtle 3 and 4 construction project has achieved multiple milestones over the past month and is now more than 60% complete, Georgia Power announced.

The UK needs new nuclear power and there are projects beyond Hinkley Point C (HPC) that will also ensure the country meets future demand for this affordable, low-carbon baseload source of electricity, a parliamentary committee heard yesterday.

Vincent de Rivaz, the CEO of EDF Energy, said today that the Hinkley Point C (HPC) project will "clearly and categorically" go ahead. Giving evidence to the UK parliament's Energy and Climate Change Committee, de Rivaz confirmed that, according to the French economy minister, the repeatedly postponed final investment decision on the project to build two EPR units at the site in Somerset, England would finally be made "by early May". He would not himself give a specific date and said the decision would be made "very soon".

China's operating nuclear generating capacity will double over the next five years under the country's latest Five-Year Plan. The plan also calls for the preparation for construction of inland nuclear power plants and work on a reprocessing plant to start by 2020.

The UK's Office for Nuclear Regulation, the Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales have provided an update on their assessment of the two designs currently going through the Generic Design Assessment (GDA) process - Hitachi-GE's UK Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (UK ABWR), and the Westinghouse AP1000 reactor design. The update is provided in the regulators' quarterly report - covering November 2015 to January 2016 - which was issued yesterday.