A licence has been issued by the Russian nuclear regulator Rostechnadzor to the Siberian Chemical Combine for the construction of the BREST-OD-300 reactor at its site in Seversk, Russia. It will be the world's first experimental demonstration power unit featuring a lead-cooled fast neutron reactor.

The four nuclear power units under construction in Turkey will be completed one per year between 2023 and 2026, Anastasia Zoteeva, CEO of the Akkuyu Nükleer AS project company, said in a television interview with Bloomberg HT on 8 February. Zoteeva also said the Rosatom majority-owned company was open to talks with potential investors in the project, for which it has a power purchase agreement for the first 15 years of each unit's operation.

Estonia needs to put in place the necessary legislation and competencies if a small modular reactor is to be in operation by 2035, speakers at a conference organised by Fermi Energia agreed yesterday. The Baltic country aims to stop generating electricity from oil shale by 2035, but has yet to officially launch a nuclear programme.

A newly signed Memorandum of Understanding could see investment of up to GBP900 million (USD1.2 billion) in the Welsh nuclear supply chain if the Sizewell C nuclear power plant project receives the go-ahead from the UK government. The MoU between the Sizewell C Consortium and the Welsh government follows news last week that Horizon Nuclear Power had withdrawn its planning application for the Wylfa Newydd project on Anglesey.

General Atomics has completed the construction and testing of the first of seven superconducting magnet modules that will make up the Central Solenoid of the ITER international fusion machine. The module is part of the USA's largest contribution to the fusion project, and will be shipped to the ITER construction site in France later this year.

Poland's Council of Ministers yesterday approved an energy policy to 2040 (PEP2040) that aims to reduce the share of coal in the country's electricity generation mix from 72% in 2020 to 56% in 2030. The policy includes construction of six nuclear power units.

The dome has been installed on the containment building of unit 4 at the Fangchenggang nuclear power plant in western China. The unit is the second of two demonstration Hualong One (HPR1000) reactors being built by China General Nuclear at the site in the Guangxi Autonomous Region, about 45 kilometres from the border with Vietnam.

The European Parliament Committee on Industry, Research and Energy has approved a draft resolution on the safety of the Ostrovets nuclear power plant in Belarus. Committee members voted 66 in favour and two against the resolution, with seven abstentions. The document, which was initiated by Lithuania, will be discussed at the plenary session of the European Parliament next week.

Following a demonstration run lasting 168 hours, unit 5 of the Fuqing nuclear power plant in China's Fujian province entered commercial operation on 30 January, China National Nuclear Corporation has announced. The unit is the first of two demonstration Hualong One reactors at the site and is the world's first Hualong One to be commissioned. Unit 6 is scheduled to begin operation by the end of this year.

Horizon Nuclear Power, the UK project developer owned by Japan’s Hitachi, has withdrawn its application for planning consent for the Wylfa Newydd nuclear power plant. Earlier this month, Horizon had for the second time secured a deferral on a decision for the Development Consent Order for the project on Anglesey.

The World Association of Nuclear Operators has completed a pre-startup peer review of unit 6 at the Tianwan nuclear power plant in China's Jiangsu province. Travel restrictions amid the pandemic meant the review of the domestically-designed ACPR1000 was carried out using local experts on-site with WANO experts participating remotely.

The OECD Nuclear Energy Agency has launched an initiative together with Poland's Ministry of Climate and Environment and the International Framework for Nuclear Energy Cooperation to collaborate on issues of common interest related to innovative nuclear financing. The initiative began with a technical workshop on 14-15 January, which brought together experts from the public, private and academic sectors to discuss a number of fundamental issues pertaining to the financing of nuclear new build.