The first full assemblies of a new kind of nuclear fuel have been loaded into Russia's Balakovo 1 for a five-year trial. Rosatom's REMIX fuel promises to close the fuel cycle using today's light-water reactors.

The US Department of Energy is asking the public for its input on plans to create a new programme to assure the availability of high-assay low-enriched uranium fuel - needed for the demonstration and commercial deployment of advanced reactors - in the USA. Meanwhile, Centrus is working with Clean Core Thorium Energy on advanced fuel using HALEU and thorium.

A cleaning technique from the oil and gas industry is being used to decontaminate old pipeline sections from the UK's Harwell research site, saving money and allowing them to be recycled instead of disposed of as radioactive waste.

GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy is using immersive virtual reality to help nuclear power plant operators train personnel for outage, operations and maintenance work ahead of the spring 2022 outage season. The Nuclear Virtual Reality Solution at the company's Wilmington, North Carolina, headquarters is also being used to provide plant-specific technical training.

The first phase of a district heating demonstration project at the Qinshan nuclear power plant in China's southern Zhejiang Province has today been commissioned, China National Nuclear Corporation announced. With a total investment of about CNY940 million (USD148 million), the project entered its trial operation phase on 15 November.

French engineering group Assystem has signed a cooperation agreement with newly-created French micro-reactor developer Naarea to build its ultra-compact eXtra Small Modular Reactor (XSMR). Dassault Systèmes is to supply Naarea with a cloud-based platform on which to virtually design the 1 to 40 MW molten salt reactor. Naarea expects the first units of XSMR to be produced by 2030.

France's EDF and water, waste and energy management company Veolia will early next year create a joint venture - to be known as Waste2Glass - to develop Veolia's GeoMelt vitrification technology. The partners hope to extend the application of the technology beyond high-level radioactive waste.

The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration is seeking proposals from nuclear and space industry leaders to develop innovative technologies for a fission surface power system for lunar power applications. It hopes to deploy such a system by 2030.

GSE Solutions has been contracted by Talen Energy to support the development of the infrastructure needed to bring power from Talen's two-unit Susquehanna nuclear power station to the flagship Susquehanna Hyperscale Data Center Campus which is being developed by Talen subsidiary Cumulus Data. The Pennsylvania campus will be home to a carbon-free cryptocurrency mining facility as well as a data centre.

Southern Company and the US Department of Energy have signed an agreement to design, construct and operate the Molten Chloride Reactor Experiment - a proof-of-concept critical fast-spectrum salt reactor. Southern will lead a collaborative effort to build the MCRE - which it says will be the world's first fast-spectrum salt reactor to achieve criticality - at Idaho National Laboratory.

US President Joe Biden yesterday signed into law the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal). The USD1.2 trillion package is a key part of the president's Build Back Better agenda and contains a total of more than USD62 billion for the US Department of Energy to deliver a "more equitable clean energy future", including preventing the premature retirement of existing nuclear plants and investing in advanced nuclear projects.

Russia is ready to test a batch of fuel assemblies made from recycled uranium and plutonium. The REMIX fuel concept could be used with any reactor and promises a step-change in resource efficiency and waste reduction, according to Rosatom.