Wednesday, 8 July 2026

Two boiling water reactors at India's Tarapur station in Maharashtra are generating again after both sat idle since 2020 for a major overhaul, World Nuclear News reported. The pair, first switched on in 1969, formed the country's first commercial nuclear power plant.

India's Atomic Energy Regulatory Board cleared TAPS unit 2 to run again on 7 May, once Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited finished the refit, according to World Nuclear News. The board set a ten-year window for continued operation.

Unit 1 received its own restart permit last December and is back at its rated 160 MWe output. GE built both reactors under a turnkey deal at an original 200 MWe rating before they were cut to 160 MWe gross.

Engineers swapped out the reactor coolant recirculation piping for forged components in corrosion-resistant stainless steel, the regulator said. The work also brought a containment filtered venting system and an alternate cooling water system into service.

The same site runs two Indian-designed pressurised heavy water reactors, Tarapur 3 and 4, which reached the grid in 2005 and 2006, World Nuclear News reported.

Construction of the first unit at Turkey's Akkuyu nuclear plant is complete and cold-hot testing, part of the commissioning process, has begun, according to Rosatom.

Rosatom is building four VVER-1200 reactors at the site under a build-own-operate model. The construction licence for unit 1 was issued in 2018, with work starting that year, according to World Nuclear News. Nuclear fuel was delivered to the site in April 2023.

Unit 1 has a staff of 1,930 people, more than 40% of whom are Turkish citizens, according to Rosatom director general Alexei Likhachev.

The testing programme covers checking the operation of the four main circulation pumps at temperatures of at least 260 degrees Celsius during hot tests, according to World Nuclear News.

Once completed, the 4,800 MWe plant is expected to meet about 10% of Turkey's electricity needs.

Turkey is also developing plans for small modular reactors, aiming to add 5 GWe of capacity by 2050, which would mean the equivalent of at least 16 individual SMRs, according to World Nuclear News.

The Department of Energy's Office of Energy Dominance Financing issued a conditional loan commitment of $17.5 billion for American Nuclear Supply Chain Loans, financing five projects that will deploy 10 large-scale commercial nuclear reactors, according to the DOE.

The DOE said the loans aim to accelerate the deployment of the 10 reactors across the United States by up to three years.

The financing supports President Trump's executive order objective of having 10 new large nuclear reactors with complete designs under construction by 2030, per the DOE announcement. The department described the project as a step toward advancing the executive order titled Reinvigorating the Nuclear Industrial Base.

Each of the 10 AP1000 reactors will generate 1.1 GW of power, according to the DOE. The combined output from all 10 reactors would provide enough electricity to power nearly 10 million American households, the department said.

The DOE stated that Westinghouse and each utility partner must each commit $500 million in equity, totaling $1 billion per project. Both parties are required to fully commit that equity upfront before accessing DOE loan funds, according to the announcement.

Westinghouse has signed letters of intent with seven potential partners, each with identified project sites, the DOE said.

According to the department, Westinghouse's AP1000 units are the only licensed large-scale advanced commercial reactors operating in the United States today.

The Williams Treaties First Nations are committing CAD 700 million to the Darlington New Nuclear Project (DNNP) run by Ontario Power Generation (OPG), the group said in a GlobeNewswire release.

The capital is directed at Canada's first grid-scale Small Modular Reactor (SMR), which the release characterized as the first such project in the G7. The parties described the stake as the largest collective First Nations investment in nuclear generation in Canada.

Backing for the deal comes from a loan guarantee issued by the Canadian Indigenous Loan Guarantee Corporation (CILGC), a wholly owned unit of Canada Development Investment Corporation (CDEV), per the release.

Ontario carries half of that guarantee as a participating guarantor, taking a 50 per cent share through the Indigenous Opportunities Financing Program run by Building Ontario Fund (BOF).

MPA Morrison Park Advisors advised the Nations on the transaction and ran the financing placement as sole agent and bookrunner.

Canada's federal government launched a nuclear energy plan that backs the Darlington New Nuclear Project, which will be the first small modular reactor deployment in the G7, according to Natural Resources Canada.

Nuclear energy supplies 13 percent of Canada's national electricity and adds 22 billion Canadian dollars to the economy each year, Natural Resources Canada said. That contribution flows through the operation of 17 Canadian CANDU reactors at home and the servicing of nine reactors abroad in countries including Romania, India and South Korea, according to the agency.

The sector accounts for 90,000 direct and indirect jobs, and 90 percent of jobs within the nuclear industry itself are high-skilled roles, Natural Resources Canada said.

Canada produced roughly 24 percent of total global uranium output in 2024, according to the agency. About 90 percent of that uranium is exported for peaceful use as fuel in nuclear power plants abroad, and all active uranium mining and milling is concentrated in Saskatchewan, Natural Resources Canada said.

Uranium mining and milling contributed approximately 2.6 billion Canadian dollars to the economy in 2024 while directly employing over 3,400 Canadians, according to the agency. Nearly half of those workers and residents are in Saskatchewan's north, Natural Resources Canada said.

In September 2025, Prime Minister Carney referred the Darlington New Nuclear Project to the Major Projects Office, according to Natural Resources Canada.

L&T Heavy Engineering has manufactured the first End Shield for the Kaiga 5 and 6 construction project at its Hazira facility, according to World Nuclear News.

The component weighs 107 tonnes and measures about 9.3 metres across, with a thickness of nearly a metre, World Nuclear News reported.

Kaiga units 5 and 6 are Indian-designed 700 MW pressurised heavy water reactors, according to World Nuclear News, which said NPCIL is planning to build ten of them in fleet mode.

Excavation works for the units began in May 2022, per World Nuclear News. NPCIL aims for the first new unit at the Kaiga nuclear power plant to achieve criticality in five years.

Larsen & Toubro has already manufactured and dispatched four of the eight steam generators for the units, World Nuclear News reported.

Canada's government nuclear strategy sets a domestic goal of up to ten new large-scale reactors, with two under construction by 2035 and a further five planned or in development by 2040, according to World Nuclear News.

The plan pairs domestic buildout with a target to double Canadian uranium exports over the decade to 2035, drawing on new mine output entering service by 2035, World Nuclear News reported.

To speed approvals, the strategy sets a target of completing federal regulatory review within two years, part of a wider streamlining of the framework for nuclear projects.

Financing rules are still being drafted. The Departments of Finance and Natural Resources Canada will publish a draft Policy on Federal Financing of New Nuclear Power Projects by April 2027, according to World Nuclear News.

Abroad, the strategy aims to secure at least four new international markets for CANDU technology by 2040 and to engage six to ten new nuclear entrant countries across a 15-year horizon. World Nuclear News reports that CANDU reactor technology runs 26 units worldwide, 17 of them in Canada.

World Nuclear News reported that 38 countries have endorsed the Declaration to Triple Nuclear Energy by 2050.

Holtec International and EDF submitted a joint proposal to the UK Government to deploy Holtec's SMR-300 small modular reactors at Cottam in Nottinghamshire, according to GlobeNewswire.

The former Cottam coal power station site will host up to four SMR-300 units, representing approximately 1.3 gigawatts of generating capacity, GlobeNewswire reported. The two companies also signed Heads of Terms to establish a joint venture to advance the project's development.

The proposal follows Holtec's completion of the United Kingdom's Generic Design Assessment process for the SMR-300, which resulted in regulatory confirmation of the reactor's fundamental safety, security, and environmental adequacy, according to GlobeNewswire.

Cottam will host a second-of-a-kind SMR-300 site. The first-of-a-kind twin Pioneer units in Michigan are being built by a joint venture of Holtec and Hyundai E&C. Holtec's construction permit application for the twin Pioneer units is under review by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, while pre-construction activities continue at the site.

Rick Springman said Holtec plans to substantially expand its UK presence with a significantly larger operation center and is evaluating a manufacturing plant to build nuclear equipment in the country.

The U.S. Department of Energy has offered a conditional loan pledge worth as much as USD 17.5 billion to finance 10 large nuclear reactors planned across the country, according to Power Engineering Nuclear.

The money would flow through as many as five loans, each tied to a site holding two reactors, the outlet reported. Westinghouse would team up with up to five utilities or energy firms to build the projects.

Utility partners and Westinghouse would each have to put in USD 500 million of project equity before drawing down the federal loans, a combined USD 1 billion committed per project, according to Power Engineering Nuclear.

Each AP1000 unit produces about 1.1 GW, so the 10 planned reactors would add roughly 11 GW of capacity, the outlet reported.

The DOE expects that buying equipment in bulk across several projects could cut deployment timelines by up to three years, according to Power Engineering Nuclear.

The pledge came after President Donald Trump signed an executive order seeking support for 10 large reactors to be designed and under construction by 2030.

Vogtle Units 3 and 4 in Georgia were the last two large U.S. reactors to reach commercial operation, starting in 2023 and 2024, the outlet reported.