Ukraine plans to sign an agreement to construct new nuclear power reactors by the end of this year, Ukrainian prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told the country's cabinet of ministers today.

Installation of the first of the four steam generators at the Leningrad II nuclear power plant in western Russia will be completed within the next few days, general designer of the new plant Atomenergoproekt said today.

The process of loading fuel assemblies into the reactor core of unit 1 at the Fangjiashan plant in China's Zhejiang province has begun.

Finland's Olkiluoto 3 will start operations in 2018, 13 years after work began on the first-of-a-kind EPR, the Areva-Siemens consortium building the plant has informed client Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO).

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.

South Korean designers have secured help from Argonne National Laboratory to develop an advanced reactor, which is partly based on America's successful EBR-II prototype. A 150 MWe sodium-cooled demonstration unit is slated for 2028.

Public support for the construction of Poland's first nuclear power plant has soared to 64%, but an independent Polish think-tank warns that public debate must be refocused away from current concerns about international political crises if that support is to be long lived.

China National Nuclear Corporation has signed a cooperation agreement with hydroelectric company China Three Gorges Corporation. The two companies will work together on nuclear power projects.

Unit 1 of the Fuqing nuclear power plant in China's Fujian province has been connected to the electricity grid, becoming China National Nuclear Corporation's tenth operating power reactor. It is expected to enter commercial operation by the end of the year.

Westinghouse and Blue Castle Holdings have signed a memorandum of understanding to pursue the development of a two-unit AP1000 plant at Green River in Utah.

Poland will reduce dependence on brown and black coal by introducing nuclear power and renewables, according a draft energy policy to 2050 released for consultation.

At Sanmen 1 the first components of the reactor itself have been put into position after a year of preparation. The reactor internals are steel structures sit within the reactor pressure vessel and will support the fuel assemblies and control rods.