Monday, 17 August 2026

A 157-tonne steel core catcher has been installed at what will be the eighth unit of the Leningrad nuclear power plant in Russia, according to World Nuclear News. The lift and positioning of the component at the unit, also designated Leningrad II-4, took eight hours.

Valery Zhemchugov said the operation was completed almost three months ahead of schedule, in full, and in compliance with all quality requirements.

Rosatom said the installation clears the way for preparations to begin on the reactor vessel assembly, which is scheduled for 2029. Construction on the unit started with first concrete in March 2025.

The core catcher sits beneath the reactor vessel and is designed to contain molten fuel in a severe accident, one of the passive safety features that shapes the sequence of civil works before vessel installation.

World Nuclear News reported that the Leningrad plant has an installed capacity of 4,400 MWe and supplies more than 55% of the electricity demand of St Petersburg and the Leningrad region.

AboitizPower Corporation and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power have signed a memorandum of understanding to examine cooperation on nuclear energy technologies and their possible deployment in the Philippines, according to World Nuclear News.

The signing took place on 31 July at KHNP's headquarters in Gyeongju, South Korea, World Nuclear News reported. Choi Il-kyung, Head of Business Operations at KHNP, and Carlos Ramon Aboitiz, Head of AboitizPower, put their names to the document.

World Nuclear News describes the arrangement as exploratory and non-exclusive, with no binding obligations on either side. That framing places the MoU well short of a project commitment: no site, no reactor selection, no capital allocation follows from it.

The Philippine build-out target gives the discussions a timeline to work against. According to World Nuclear News, the country aims for its first nuclear power plants to be operational by 2032 with an initial capacity of 1,200 MW. That figure is set to double to 2,400 MW by 2035 and reach 4,800 MW by 2050.

AboitizPower is described by World Nuclear News as a leading Philippine energy company. The scope agreed with KHNP covers nuclear energy technologies and their potential deployment in the Philippine market rather than a defined asset.

Radiant Nuclear has designed, built and transported a complete micro reactor named Kaleidos that fits onto the back of a truck, according to Atomic Insights. The unit will be fueled, started and tested through five phases, one of which requires 150 hours at full power without operator assistance.

The design targets speed at both ends of a deployment. Atomic Insights reported that Kaleidos can go from site delivery to supplying loads within 48 hours. At the other end of the cycle, the reactor is intended to be road transportable in just 30 days after being operated for its full life cycle at 100% power. That combination of mobility and rapid startup is the core of the product, rather than any single output figure.

The first customer named by Atomic Insights is military. Radiant was selected as an initial base power supply provider for the Space Force, with its first unit due for delivery to Buckley Space Force base in Colorado in 2028.

Manufacturing plans run ahead of that delivery. Radiant intends to roll one Kaleidos reactor per week out of its first factory, according to Atomic Insights. The company is also establishing its R-50 factory, sized at fifty reactors per year, together with a reactor fueling facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

The five-phase test program is the immediate gate. The 150-hour unattended full-power run tests whether a micro reactor can hold output without operator intervention, the condition a factory-built fleet would need to make serial production economic. Radiant has already moved a complete reactor by road, which is the step most micro reactor developers have yet to demonstrate physically.

Serial output at one unit per week from a single plant, and fifty per year from the R-50 line, describe a production model closer to industrial manufacturing than to conventional plant construction. Colocating fueling with the factory in Oak Ridge places two of the harder logistical steps at one site.

Entergy has signed a non-binding agreement with Holtec to study the deployment of dual-unit SMR-300 projects, according to World Nuclear News. The framework covers joint evaluation of customer demand, candidate sites, and possible commercial structures.

Entergy and its affiliates serve customers in Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas, World Nuclear News reported.

Holtec plans to deploy two SMR-300 reactors, named Pioneer 1 and 2, at the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station site in Michigan. That project is intended to demonstrate viability for additional orders domestically and abroad, according to World Nuclear News.

The agreement carries no commitment to build. Its stated scope is limited to assessing whether demand, siting, and commercial terms can support paired SMR-300 units.

China National Nuclear Corporation has announced the completion of cold functional tests at unit 8 of the Tianwan nuclear power plant in China's Jiangsu province, according to World Nuclear News.

The reactor is one of two VVER-1200 units covered by agreements signed between Russia and China in June 2018 for Tianwan units 7 and 8, World Nuclear News reported.

Construction of unit 8 started in February 2022. The two units are scheduled to enter commercial operation in 2026 and 2027 respectively, according to World Nuclear News.

The UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero published two summary business cases covering the small modular reactor programme on 17 August 2026. One documents the award of a Technology Partner contract by Great British Energy - Nuclear to Rolls-Royce SMR.

The second business case covers the appointment of an Owner's Engineer by Great British Energy - Nuclear, a role set to provide independent technical assurance, design review and delivery oversight for the programme, according to the department.

The Technology Partner award ties Rolls-Royce SMR to the UK small modular reactor programme as the selected reactor technology supplier, per the transparency data released by the department. Owner's Engineer scope, as described in the accompanying document, is separated from the technology supply role and centres on scrutiny of design and delivery rather than construction.

Both documents were released as transparency data under the department's own publication.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has docketed FANCO's Regulatory Engagement Plan for a proposed Category II High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU) deconversion and fuel fabrication facility, according to a company release carried by GlobeNewswire.

The plant is intended to produce ceramic fuel for FANCO's EAGL-1 reactor and for other advanced-reactor customers, the company said. EAGL-1 is described as a 240-megawatt-electric, lead-bismuth-cooled fast-spectrum small modular reactor.

Docketing of the plan does not itself constitute a license request. FANCO said it currently anticipates submitting its license application during the fourth quarter of 2027.

The engagement plan follows a letter of intent FANCO sent to the NRC on August 6, 2026, notifying the agency that it planned to seek a license under 10 CFR Part 70, the company said. That part of the federal rules governs possession and use of special nuclear material, the category into which HALEU falls.

Deconversion and fabrication sit at the point in the fuel cycle where enriched uranium is converted into a usable reactor form. FANCO's stated design pairs a lead-bismuth eutectic coolant with a fast neutron spectrum, and the company frames the fuel plant as serving both its own reactor and third-party developers.