The reactor pressure vessel has been installed at the demonstration Hualong One being constructed as unit 5 of the Fuqing nuclear power plant in China's Fujian province. The reactor is expected to start up next year.

The Ichos consortium has been selected to design and construct the Pallas research reactor, which is to be built at Petten in the Netherlands to replace the existing High Flux Reactor. The consortium comprises Argentinean nuclear technology firm Invap, together with Croonwolter&dros and Mobilis, both part of TBI Holdings of the Netherlands.

Berkeley Energia is finalising arrangements for the start of construction at the Salamanca uranium mine in Spain, the company said in its latest quarterly report published on 23 January. With full funding in place, Berkeley is undertaking detailed final reviews and has selected Sanchez y Lago as its preferred mining contractor.

Austria plans to sue the European Commission for allowing Hungary to expand its Paks nuclear power plant, Austrian Sustainability Minister Elisabeth Köstinger said yesterday. In a statement by the Federal Ministry of Sustainability and Tourism, Köstinger said: "It is a wrong signal if the European Commission classifies subsidies for the construction of nuclear power plants as harmless to energy policy."

Sweden's Radiation Safety Authority today submitted a positive opinion to the government on Svensk Kärnbränslehantering AB's (SKB's) application to build a repository for used nuclear fuel, together with a plant to encapsulate the fuel prior to disposal. However, the Land and Environment Court in Stockholm has called for further documentation on the copper capsules in which the fuel will be stored within the repository.

EDF Energy is confident Hinkley Point C will come on line in 2025 and that Sizewell C will be 20% cheaper to build, the company's new CEO, Simone Rossi, said yesterday in his first major speech since taking over from Vincent de Rivaz at the helm of the UK company in November.

Toshiba Corporation is to sell its claims against Westinghouse Electric Company and Brookfield - which is buying the Westinghouse-related shares that it holds - to Nucleus Acquisition. The Japanese company said it has entered into an assignment and purchase agreement with Nucleus and a share purchase agreement with Brookfield.

Mining operations have resumed after a four-year break at the US Department of Energy's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. A continuous mining machine has begun cutting into panel 8 in the underground salt formation, work that was halted following separate underground events in early 2014.

GE Hungary, a subsidiary of General Electric, has won a €793 million ($970 million) contract to manufacture and supply the turbines for two new reactors under construction at the Paks nuclear power plant, Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported yesterday.

All four steam generators have been installed at unit 2 of the nuclear power plant under construction in Ostrovets in Belarus, the plant owner, Belarus NPP, announced today. The large items of equipment have been placed in their designated positions inside the reactor building, it said.

Toshiba has completed the early payment of $1.86 billion, reflecting the remaining outstanding amount of its parent company guarantee obligation to the owners of the VC Summer AP1000 project in the USA. It settled its parent company guarantee obligation to the owners of the Vogtle project last month.

Russian State Expert Examination Board (Glavgosexpertiza) has announced that the floating nuclear power plant Akademik Lomonosov meets construction standards. The authority said on 9 December it had approved the project in Russia's northernmost city of Pevek that is being funded by Rosenergoatom, the nuclear power plant operator subsidiary of Rosatom.