Nuclear energy provides enormous opportunities to bring about a fast, cost-effective and just decarbonisation, World Nuclear Association Director General Sama Bilbao y León said yesterday in a COP26 event titled The Role of Nuclear Energy in a Net-Zero Future. Innovations in technologies - such as small modular reactors - and new ways of financing projects will help nuclear play its role in decarbonising the world, participants said.

A five-year test programme on an innovative mining method that could potentially be used to access high-grade orebodies that are either too small or too deep to be mined economically using conventional methods has been completed by Denison Mines Corp and Orano Canada Inc. The patented Surface Access Borehole Resource Extraction - SABRE - mining method has been tested on the McClean Lake property in Saskatchewan, Canada.

Researchers at the US Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory have developed a new method of simulating what happens to a nuclear fuel pin when it overheats, using a newly developed detector which they plan to use in future tests of advanced light-water reactor fuel designs, beginning next year.

Framatome yesterday announced its first 100% accident tolerant fuel assembly has been delivered to Exelon Generation's Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant in Maryland, USA. The assembly - described by the company as a nuclear industry "first" - was loaded into one of the plant's two pressurised water reactors during a recent refuelling outage.

Nuclear technologies have a vital contribution to make in achieving net-zero but nuclear companies are working at the same time to address their own greenhouse gas emissions. Panellists at a World Nuclear Association Strategic eForum, Committing to Net Zero, this week discussed corporate emissions pledges and what nuclear technologies can offer as COP26 draws near.

Rosatom's scientists have developed a new, highly accurate digital model of the public impacts of radiation releases. They said its results highlight the "conservatism" of nuclear plant design and can enable better economics.

Lightbridge Ltd has completed work to design an experiment for the irradiation of samples of its metallic fuel material in the Advanced Test Reactor at the Idaho National Laboratory. The work was carried out in collaboration with INL under the US Department of Energy's Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear voucher programme and marks a milestone towards testing of the material in the reactor.

Bruce Power has today launched Bruce Power Net Zero Inc to leverage the net-zero generation provided by Bruce's nuclear power plants to enable the company to achieve its own ambition to be net-zero by 2027 and support Ontario and Canada in reaching net-zero by 2050. The new entity is led by Bruce Power Chief Development Officer and EVP Operational Services James Scongack.

A project to demonstrate the production of clean hydrogen energy from nuclear power at the Palo Verde nuclear power plant in Arizona is to receive USD20 million in federal funding as part of US Department of Energy efforts to reduce the cost of clean hydrogen to USD1 per kilogram. The announcement comes as DOE marks Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Day.

A 2029 start-up for an ARC-100 advanced small modular reactor in New Brunswick is an "aggressive" but achievable target, the CEO of ARC Clean Energy Canada said yesterday. Bill Labbe was speaking at an event hosted by the Organization of Canadian Nuclear Industries, held as the company prepares to begin the second phase of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission's Vendor Design Review process.

A full-scale first-of-its kind mock-up of the main vessels of the U-Battery advanced modular reactor, revealed yesterday by U-Battery and Cavendish Nuclear, has demonstrated how the reactor can be built using modular techniques. The project was made possible with funding from the UK Government's Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy under its Advanced Manufacturing and Materials Programme.

Radiation from used nuclear fuel could be used to create a valuable fuel additive needed for renewable biodiesel, scientists in Slovenia and the UK have shown. The research highlights that there are "unexplored renewable processes that can be realised using ionising radiation - especially considering used fuel pools as a source of catalytic energy," said the paper, published in Nature Communications Chemistry last week. It was written by scientists from Slovenia's Jožef Stefan Institute and the UK's Lancaster University and Aston University.