On the same day the US Senate passed a bill to accelerate the development of advanced nuclear reactors, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy highlighted nuclear energy developments as the greatest achievements of the Trump administration to date in the area of energy dominance.

Nuclear energy has faced serious challenges in recent years because of several factors: competition from low gas prices, subsidised renewables and slow growth in electricity demand in certain markets. But because of several powerful forces we are seeing signs that this year nuclear energy will come roaring back, writes Jarret Adams.

Unit 1 of the Edwin I Hatch nuclear power plant in the US state of Georgia has begun operating with test accident-tolerant fuel assemblies. The fuel, loaded during a recent outage, is the first of its kind to be installed in a commercial nuclear reactor.

A new process for the chemical decontamination of the reactor cooling system and subsystems in nuclear power plants has been developed by Germany's Siempelkamp NIS Ingenieurgesellschaft mbH. The procedure - which took four years to develop - has been successfully demonstrated in a German nuclear power plant.

Those who enter the workforce in the coming years will be greeted with the opportunity to be a part of one of Canada's most exciting industries, Glenn Thibeault, Ontario's energy minister, told delegates at the Canadian Nuclear Association's Annual Conference & Trade Show, which was held in Ottawa on 23 February.

Russian President Vladimir Putin met with the director general of Rosatom yesterday for an update on the state nuclear corporation's performance and investment strategy. The former deputy minister of economic development and trade, Alexey Likhachov took over the helm of Rosatom in October 2016, when Putin appointed Sergey Kirienko as first deputy head of the Presidential Administration.

Canada has launched a process to prepare a roadmap to explore the potential of on- and off-grid applications for small modular reactor (SMR) technology. The roadmap will help position Canada to become a global leader in the emerging SMR market, according to Natural Resources Canada.

A small drone is to be deployed to measure radiation levels at the damaged reactors at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The UK-developed RISER - Remote Intelligence Survey Equipment for Radiation - has already been used successfully at Sellafield, in England.

The UK's National Nuclear Laboratory is to carry out an expert peer review of a Canadian research programme on microbiologically influenced corrosion of canisters that will be used to dispose of used nuclear fuel. The NNL has been contracted by Canada's National Waste Management Organisation to review its work on the potential for corrosion of the copper-clad canisters.

Nuclear companies have some of the most technologically advanced projects in the energy industry. Yet, perceptions of digitalisation are somewhat skewed, write Janette Marx and Hannah Peet.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission is to conduct pre-licensing vendor design reviews (VDR) of small modular reactor designs from NuScale Power and Westinghouse Electric Company. The reviews of the NuScale SMR and Westinghouse's eVinci micro reactor will incorporate the first two phases of the VDR process.

Shine Medical Technologies has completed construction and taken occupancy of Building One at its medical isotope production facility in Janesville, Wisconsin. Construction of the main production facility is to begin soon.