Framatome and General Atomics are to collaborate on the development of accident-tolerant fuel channels fabricated from a silicon carbide composite rather than the current zirconium alloys. Advanced nuclear fuel designs using silicon carbide in the fuel channel, the say, will enhance safety and fuel performance.

Nawah Energy Company has started loading fuel assemblies into unit 1 of the Barakah nuclear power plant in Abu Dhabi. Once all four units at the plant begin operating, the plant will meet up to 25% of the country’s electricity needs and help to avoid around 20 million tonnes of CO2 emissions every year.

A campaign to move used highly enriched uranium fuel from Canada to the USA, which began in 2015, has been completed a year ahead of schedule, the US Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited have announced.

The US Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration has awarded an initial USD3.6 million contract to BWXT Nuclear Operations Group as the manufacturer of a uranium-molybdenum alloy high assay low-enriched uranium fuel to facilitate the conversion of US research reactors that currently use high-enriched uranium.
 

Unit 4 of the Beloyarsk nuclear power plant in Russia's Sverdlovsk district has been restarted after being loaded with the first serial batch of mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel. By 2021, the BN-800 fast neutron reactor should be operating with a full core of MOX fuel assemblies.

Siberian Chemical Combine has completed acceptance tests of its ETVS-22, ETVS-23 and ETVS-24 experimental fuel assemblies with mixed uranium-plutonium (nitride) nuclear fuel for fast neutron reactors. Based in Seversk, SCC is a subsidiary of TVEL, the nuclear fuel manufacturing subsidiary of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom.

Orano TN has completed the first transfer and storage of used fuel canisters with a higher than usual heat load using its Extended Optimised Storage dry storage system. The use of EOS, which is licensed by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission for heat loads of up to 50 kW per canister, means used fuel can be transferred to secure dry storage after a shorter period of time.

Global Nuclear Fuel accident-tolerant fuel assemblies have been loaded into a US reactor for the first time. Lead test assemblies using the company's ARMOR-coated zirconium cladding and IronClad accident-tolerant fuel solutions have been installed at Exelon's Clinton boiling water reactor power plant in Illinois.

South Korea's Nuclear Safety and Security Commission today approved Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power's application to construct additional capacity for the interim storage of used fuel at the Wolsong nuclear power plant. Current storage at the existing used fuel facility is nearing full capacity.

The State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine has approved commercial operation using Westinghouse fuel at unit 3 of the South Ukraine nuclear power plant. The regulatory authority signed the relevant document after pilot operation of the unit had shown the fuel was "safe, reliable and efficient", Energoatom said on 28 December.

The first Russian-made nuclear fuel assemblies with experimental accident-tolerant fuel rods for commercial reactors have been manufactured and passed acceptance inspection at Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrates Plant, a fabrication facility of Rosatom’s fuel manufacturer subsidiary TVEL. The ATF rods are to be loaded into one of the VVER-1000 units at the Rostov nuclear power plant in western Russia in the first quarter of 2020, TVEL said yesterday.

The core of unit 5 at the Zaporozhe nuclear power plant in Ukraine has been fully loaded with VVER-1000 fuel produced by Westinghouse, operator Energoatom announced yesterday. In July 2018, unit 3 of the South Ukraine plant became the first VVER-1000 reactor anywhere to operate with a full core of fuel not supplied by Russia.