Wednesday, 1 July 2026

Argentina wants to sell nuclear technology abroad. Its Guidelines for the Argentine Nuclear Policy 2026 name high-value exports as the top priority for the sector, followed by energy security, homegrown technological capacity, and regional influence, according to World Nuclear News.

The blueprint landed as the country marked the 76th anniversary of the founding of the National Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA), World Nuclear News reported.

Reactivating domestic uranium supply sits at the core of that plan. Secretary of Nuclear Affairs Federico Ramos Napoli wrote on X the week before publication that reactivating uranium mining is a priority for the government.

Argentina has bought all its reactor fuel abroad since operations ceased in 1997 at the San Rafael Industrial Mining Complex at Sierra Pintada in Mendoza. Every kilogram powering the Atucha I, Atucha II, and Embalse reactors has been imported since that shutdown.

Sierra Pintada is the country's largest known uranium deposit, and only 20% of it was extracted across its entire production life, according to World Nuclear News. Remediation work at the site has moved forward since January as a condition for restarting output.

Argentina runs three nuclear reactors that supply about 7% of its electricity, with the first commercial unit online since 1974. Work on the CAREM25 small modular reactor has stopped under the current government, World Nuclear News reported.

Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) has started transferring fuel assemblies out of the used fuel storage pool at unit 2 of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Tepco lifted the first assembly from a rack inside the pool with a remotely controlled crane and set it into a transport cask on Tuesday, the company said.

The pool holds 615 assemblies in all, of which 587 are used and 28 unused. Tepco expects to clear every one of them by the end of fiscal year 2028, which closes in March 2029. Crews finished installing the fuel handling equipment for the job in March 2026.

Unit 2's reactor melted down after it briefly lost cooling, yet the reactor building that houses the pool avoided the hydrogen explosion that struck other units. Because the building stayed intact, the pool was reachable without the debris clearance that slowed access elsewhere on the site.

Work has moved through the plant one reactor at a time. Tepco emptied all 566 assemblies from the unit 3 pool by February 2021.

Alleima has opened its Tube Mill 2026 production facility in Sandviken, Sweden, reopening a steam generator tube line that had been shut for 10 years and lifting the plant's capacity by 60%.

The reopened line produces tubing for both conventional reactors and small modular reactors (SMRs). "By upgrading and reopening our tube mill, we strengthen our ability to meet the growing demand within the nuclear segment," chief executive Goran Bjorkman said.

Alleima runs research and development programs with several advanced modular reactor developers spanning helium, lead, sodium and molten salt designs.

Doosan Enerbility, NuScale Power, Rolls-Royce SMR and Westinghouse were among the companies present at the opening.

Alleima traces its nuclear tube work to 1964, and says it has since delivered tube bundles to more than 400 steam generators across more than 20 countries, plus more than 60,000,000 metres of nuclear fuel tubes to more than 100 reactors.

The New York Power Authority has opened a search for developers and delivery partners to bring at least 1 GW of advanced nuclear capacity to Upstate New York.

Alongside the developer call, the authority invited training providers to apply for nuclear workforce development funding.

NYPA is weighing two reactor options: a large-scale unit such as the AP1000, a small modular reactor such as the BWRX-300, or a combination of both.

Whichever route wins must show a credible path to generate 1+ GW and break ground before 2033, the cutoff for eligibility under the US Inflation Reduction Act Investment Tax Credit.

Developers face a June 26 deadline for the qualifications submissions, while training providers have until July 31 to file their applications.

Governor Kathy Hochul framed the two solicitations as a step toward expanding new nuclear development in the state.

Nuclear already carries a large share of the state's supply. Four reactors run by Constellation Energy account for about 21.4% of New York's electricity and 41.6% of its carbon-free electricity, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute.

That fleet shrank at the start of the decade. Two pressurised water reactors at Indian Point shut down early in 2020 and 2021 under a settlement between former owner Entergy and the State of New York.

Four steam generators have reached unit 4 at Turkey's Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant, closing out delivery of the main reactor hall equipment for that unit.

Each generator runs about 14 metres in length and 4 metres across, built at the Atommash plant in Volgodonsk. The 340-tonne components travelled 3,000 kilometres by sea to reach the site.

Rosatom is constructing four VVER-1200 reactors at Akkuyu under a build-own-operate arrangement. Concrete for unit 4 was first poured in August 2023. Unit 1 is targeted to start feeding Turkey's grid during 2026.

Once finished, the 4800 MWe plant should cover roughly 10% of the country's electricity demand.

Turkey is also drawing up plans for small modular reactors, targeting 5 GWe of added capacity by 2050.