Wednesday, 19 August 2026

Polskie Elektrownie Jądrowe (PEJ) has handed site management for Poland's first nuclear power plant to general contractor Bechtel, with earthworks starting on the construction site, according to World Nuclear News.

The handover coincides with the appointment of Budimex SA, described by World Nuclear News as one of the largest construction companies in Poland, as main contractor for the earthworks at the Lubiatowo-Kopalino site.

That first phase covers ground levelling, reconstruction and expansion of drainage systems, and a temporary road network of about 16 kilometres, per World Nuclear News. Ground movement and levelling will cover a future construction site of more than 300 hectares.

Under the permit obtained, site preparation is scheduled to run from the third quarter of 2026 to the first quarter of 2029. PEJ said it expects to pour first concrete for the plant's first unit in the fourth quarter of 2028, overlapping with the tail end of the preparation window.

More than 200 people are already working at the site, a number PEJ said will steadily increase in the coming months.

The reactor choice dates back to November 2022, when the then Polish government selected Westinghouse AP1000 technology for the Lubiatowo-Kopalino site in the Choczewo municipality in Pomerania, northern Poland.

Oklo's Groves Isotope Test Reactor has reached first criticality, and Deep Fission's underground reactor has received safety design approval, World Nuclear News reported. Both units sit inside the Reactor Pilot Program.

The Groves unit is sited near Lockhart in Caldwell County, Texas, and was among 11 advanced reactor projects the US Department of Energy (DOE) picked in August 2025 for the Nuclear Reactor Pilot Program, according to World Nuclear News.

Deep Fission's approval covers the Gravity design, a small modular reactor intended for emplacement in an optimised borehole one mile (1.6 km) below the surface. Each unit will generate 15 MWe using pressurised water reactor technology and low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel, World Nuclear News reported. The company broke ground in December at the Great Plains Industrial Park in Parsons for its pilot project.

Groves joins a run of criticality milestones under the same program. Antares Nuclear's Mark-0 was the first to reach initial criticality, in early June, closely followed by Valar Atomics' Ward 250, according to World Nuclear News. Deployable Energy's Unity demonstration reactor went critical on 1 July, and Aalo Atomics' Critical Test Reactor followed in the early hours of 4 July.

That sequence tracks against a target set by executive order. Reforming Nuclear Reactor Testing at the Department of Energy, signed by President Donald Trump in May, set the goal "to construct, operate, and achieve criticality of at least three test reactors using the DOE authorisation process by 4 July, 2026," World Nuclear News reported.

The DOE authorisation route, rather than a commercial licensing process, is the mechanism named in the order for those test reactors. Four units had already reached criticality before the Groves milestone, exceeding the three named in the order.

Deep Fission's path differs from the criticality-first group: its milestone is a safety design approval, not a reactor start-up. The borehole approach places the pressure vessel a mile underground rather than inside a surface containment structure.

The first five Russian engineering specialists have returned to the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant in Iran, Rosatom Director General Alexei Likhachev said, according to World Nuclear News.

That return lifts the number of Russian specialists at the Bushehr site to 25, Likhachev said, with more due back within the next two weeks provided there is no escalation of military action.

The company intends to go further if conditions allow. "If all goes well, we'll increase our project staff to 100 people by the autumn," Likhachev said.

Work on the site has not stopped. Construction on the main and auxiliary buildings for Bushehr 2 and 3 is continuing, alongside preparatory work on hydraulic structures, according to the same account.

The main control room of unit 4 at the Changjiang nuclear power plant in China's Hainan province has been commissioned, World Nuclear News reported, clearing a step before the reactor's start-up in early 2027.

A ceremony to launch operation of the control room was held on 31 July, according to World Nuclear News.

Work on the neighbouring unit is further along. Changjiang unit 3 achieved first criticality on 10 July and was connected to the grid on 1 August, the outlet reported. Both units are scheduled to be fully operational in early 2027.

China Huaneng holds a 51% share in the Changjiang Phase II project, according to World Nuclear News.