UK-based innovative reactor developer Newcleo has signed a framework agreement with ENEA - the Italian national agency for new technologies, energy and sustainable economic development - to cooperate on the development of small, lead-cooled fast reactors.

The US Department of Energy has awarded USD36 million for 11 projects seeking to increase the use of nuclear power as a reliable source of clean energy and to limit the amount of radioactive waste produced from advanced reactors.

Tokamak Energy of the UK announced it has demonstrated a world-first with its privately-funded ST40 spherical tokamak, achieving a plasma temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius, the threshold required for commercial fusion energy.

Feedback is being sought on the proposed plan ahead of a formal Invitation to Tender for the Advanced Modular Reactor Research, Development & Demonstration programme.

Sandia National Laboratories has improved its Maccs code - used to simulate the impact of severe accidents at nuclear plants and other nuclear facilities - to make it better able to evaluate potential health and environmental risks posed by advanced nuclear reactors and small modular nuclear reactors.
 

The Swedish Energy Agency has awarded Swedish Modular Reactors AB - a joint venture between Uniper Sweden and LeadCold - funding of just over SEK99 million (USD10.6 million) in support of the construction of a demonstration LeadCold SEALER lead-cooled small modular reactor at the Oskarshamn plant site.

Studies at Australian nuclear science and technology organisation ANSTO have confirmed that a crocodile that lived some 93 million years ago in what is now Central Queensland ate dinosaurs. Neutron and synchrotron instruments were used to reveal and reconstruct the crocodile's fossilised stomach contents.

California-based Oklo Inc and Argonne National Laboratory have signed an agreement formalising their commitment to commercialising recycling technology for advanced reactor fuel as part of a US Department of Energy-funded project.

Researchers at the Joint European Torus in the UK doubled previous records by producing a total of 59 megajoules of heat energy from fusion over a five second period.

A full-scale electrically heated prototype for the US Department of Energy's Microreactor Applications Research Validation and Evaluation reactor has been built at Idaho National Laboratory.

The national laboratories from the UK, USA, France, Canada and Japan have held a summit at which they agreed to collaborate on research and innovation to get to a net zero energy economy.

Two newly announced North American initiatives aim to accelerate the deployment of fusion technologies for power generation.