The US House of Representatives has passed legislation to authorize Department of Energy research on whether low-dose ionizing radiation poses a risk.

The first batch of molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) produced in the Canadian Light Source (CLS) linear accelerator in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan has been shipped in a developmental milestone for the non-reactor production of medical isotopes.

US energy secretary Ernest Moniz has announced major funding packages to support high performance computing projects - $325 million to build new supercomputers at the US Department of Energy's Oak Ridge and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, plus $100 million for R&D into "extreme scale" supercomputing technologies.

The US Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is to award over $8 million of funding to push forward two projects aimed at securing a domestic supply of the molybdenum-99 without using highly enriched uranium.

The US-based Electric Power Research Institute and Japan's Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry have agreed to extend their collaborative research agreement for a further five years.

A consignment of irradiated experimental fast reactor fuel has returned to the Idaho National Laboratory in the USA from France for the final stages of a study that has been ongoing for over eight years.

France's Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) has agreed to extend its collaboration with Belgium's Nuclear Research Centre (SCK-CEN) while entering a cooperation agreement with Spanish engineering firm Tecnatom.

Five R&D projects supporting advanced reactor technologies have been selected to receive $13 million of cost-share funding from the US Department of Energy (DoE). All of the research is being carried out by public-private partnerships.

Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has awarded US-based waste management specialist Kurion a JPY 1 billion ($10 million) grant to demonstrate technology to remove tritium from contaminated water for possible deployment at Fukushima.

Rosatom plans to "increase interaction" with the Federal Agency for Special Construction, or Spetsstroy, through its capital construction subsidiary.

As part of the restructuring of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (ACEL), a new organization - Canadian Nuclear Laboratories - is set assume full responsibility for all day-to-day operations at its nuclear laboratories.

Samples of novel metallic nuclear fuel designed by US-based company Lightbridge are to be fabricated and irradiation tested at Canada's Chalk River facilities under an initial cooperation agreement signed with Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd (AECL).