EDF has been instructed to further reinforce the embankment, or dyke, of the canal supplying cooling water to its 3820-megawatt Tricastin nuclear power plant in southern France by "no later than" the end of 2022, the French nuclear safety authority, Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire, said yesterday. The company is not required to close the plant while it carries out the work.

Units 1 and 2 of the Forsmark nuclear power plant can be operated safely for a further 10 years, until 2028, taking them beyond their initial 40-year planned operation, the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority said yesterday.

Eight welds in the main steam transfer pipes that penetrate the two walls of the containment of the Flamanville EPR must be repaired before the reactor is commissioned, France's nuclear safety regulator, the Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire has told EDF. The utility will assess the decision's impact on the cost and schedule of the project.

Armenia has made progress in strengthening its regulatory framework for nuclear and radiation safety but still faces challenges, including a shortage of qualified and experienced staff at its regulatory body, an International Atomic Energy Agency team of experts said today, on completion of an Integrated Regulatory Review Service follow-up mission.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has published its final safety evaluation report on Tennessee Valley Authority's application for an early site permit for the potential use of a site at Clinch River for two or more small modular reactors. The regulator concluded there are no safety concerns to prevent issuing such a permit.

An International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) team of experts yesterday concluded an 11-day mission to review Canada's preparedness and response arrangements for nuclear and radiological emergencies. An Emergency Preparedness Review is one of the peer reviews offered by the IAEA to strengthen nuclear safety in Member States.

Nuclear power reactors in Japan that have resumed operation could be forced to temporarily shut down again if back-up safety measures are not in place by specified deadlines under new rules approved by the country's Nuclear Regulation Authority. Operators of restarted units have already said they expect delays in the completion of such facilities.

There are "no radiation safety-related obstacles" for granting multi-metal company Terrafame a permit to recover uranium as a by-product from its Sotkamo mine, the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority has told the government. The government will now make the final decision on whether to issue the permit.

Finnish utility Teollisuuden Voima Oyj is to employ liquid absorbers featuring bitumen in order to eliminate vibrations in the pressuriser surge line of the first-of-a-kind EPR at Olkiluoto. Suppressing the vibrations is one of the issues TVO must resolve before the regulator will allow fuel loading to proceed.

Fuel transfer operations at the shut down San Onofre nuclear power plant in California can resume following approval by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Such operations were suspended following an incident last August during the lowering of a used fuel canister into a storage vault.

GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy has initiated a vendor design review by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission for its BWRX-300 small modular reactor.

The nuclear industry, both in the UK and internationally, is "changing rapidly and is facing significant challenges", the UK's Office for Nuclear Regulation says in its Strategic Framework for International Engagement to 2025.