Monday, 24 August 2026

China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) began loading fuel into unit 7 of the Tianwan nuclear power plant on 12 August, placing the first of 163 assemblies into the reactor core, according to World Nuclear News.

The unit is the first of two Russian-designed VVER-1200 reactors under construction at the site in China's Jiangsu province. Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom supplied the initial fuel load in January, World Nuclear News reported.

That fuel was manufactured at the Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrates Plant and falls under the contract covering units 7 and 8 at Tianwan. Construction of unit 7 started in May 2021, followed by unit 8 in February 2022.

Both reactors have commercial operation dates set for 2026 and 2027 respectively, according to World Nuclear News.

When every unit at the plant is running, installed capacity will pass 9 GWe and annual generation will exceed 70 TWh. World Nuclear News put the associated reduction in carbon dioxide emissions at 57.4 million tonnes a year.

Jiangsu Nuclear Power Company owns and operates the plant. The joint venture is split between CNNC with 50%, China Power Investment Corporation with 30% and Jiangsu Guoxin Group with 20%.

China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) intends to procure an engineering contracting package for the high-temperature reactor in the first phase of the Xuwei nuclear power project in Jiangsu province, according to World Nuclear News. The estimated value of the transaction is RMB10.3 billion (USD1.5 billion).

Shareholders will review the proposed procurement at an extraordinary general meeting on 17 August, CNNC said.

The package covers unit 3, the high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR), with first concrete expected to be poured by the end of 2026. Work on the site is already under way: first concrete for the nuclear island of unit 1 was poured in January 2026.

At the Lianyungang site, CNNC plans two Hualong One (HPR1000) pressurised water reactors of 1208 MWe net each as units 1 and 2, alongside the 660 MWe HTGR as unit 3.

Civil works for the power side of the plant were contracted earlier. A consortium of China Energy Engineering Jiangsu Electric Power Construction No 3 Company and China National Nuclear Huachen Construction Engineering Company won the CNY4.2 billion contract for construction of the conventional islands of all three units in September last year.

The project is designed around industrial heat as well as electricity. Once operational, Xuwei will supply 32.5 million tonnes of industrial steam a year, with maximum power generation of more than 11.5 billion kilowatt-hours, according to World Nuclear News.

Tennessee is one of five finalists for a Department of Energy "nuclear lifecycle innovation campus," according to Grist. The state joined Utah, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Idaho in July as the group selected to continue discussions with DOE on the project, Grist reported.

The siting contest sits alongside private investment already landing in the state. Grist reported that BWX Technologies purchased a factory in Jonesborough, Tennessee last year and announced plans for significant expansion.

BWXT also holds a 10-year, USD 1.6 billion contract to supply the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee with high-purity depleted uranium, according to Grist. The material is used to maintain the country's nuclear weapons arsenal.

Waste handling frames the campus question. Grist reported that the United States has 85 interim storage sites holding more than 86,000 tons of radioactive waste.

The physical constraint on large reactor construction sits in the forge shop, not the reactor design, according to Neutron Bytes. A single heavy forge turns out on the order of four reactor pressure vessels a year once the work is fitted in around other orders.

The World Nuclear Association puts the forging capacity needed for a very large Generation III-plus reactor at a press of roughly 14,000 to 15,000 tonnes, Neutron Bytes reported. That press has to accept hot steel ingots weighing 500 to 600 tonnes each.

Only a handful of presses worldwide clear that bar. Neutron Bytes puts the maximum for the largest forges in Europe at 12,000 tonnes, Japan Steel Works at 14,000 tonnes, and Doosan in South Korea at up to 17,000 tonnes.

The scale-up over the decades is steep. In the 1970s, two American mills ran 8,000 tonne presses handling 300 tonne ingots, per Neutron Bytes. Today's requirement roughly doubles the press rating and doubles the ingot mass again.

Demand is not waiting on the metal. China's State Council approved eight more nuclear units in late July 2026 across Zhejiang, Guangdong, Liaoning and Shandong, four of them Hualong One 2.0 demonstration reactors, according to China General Nuclear. The Hualong design has moved to an upgraded 2.0 version rated at 1,217 megawatts.

Outside China, Neutron Bytes points to the forging of the reactor pressure vessel for Hungary's Paks II VVER, a 1,200 MW unit under construction by Rosatom.

The arithmetic is unforgiving for anyone ordering a Generation III-plus unit: with four vessels a year from a qualified forge and a press list that starts at 12,000 tonnes in Europe, the order book for heavy forgings sets the pace of new build, not the number of construction licences issued.

Hungary's Paks nuclear power plant is expected to reach its nominal capacity of 2 GW by Wednesday after emergency water supply works, Prime Minister Péter Magyar said, with seven of the eight cold water pumps drawing from the river back in service.

Plant operator MVM said one of the turbine generators of unit 3 was reconnected to the grid at 23:00 on 22 August, and the load on the unit began rising. Unit 3 was the first of the units to be shut down.

Work on a bottom weir between the plant and Dunaszentbenedek has 150 metres left to build, according to World Nuclear News. In total, 33,500 tonnes of stone had left the country's mines for the work.

Paks comprises four Russian-supplied VVER-440 pressurised water reactors that started up between 1982 and 1987 and generate about half of Hungary's electricity.

The Danube's condition has forced curtailments at reactors further downstream. Romania's Cernavoda plant shut its first unit at the end of last month and its second unit on 13 August as a precaution against low water levels, World Nuclear News reported. On the morning of 12 August, the river reached 182 centimetres, below the 185-centimetre mark required for normal operation of the plant.

In Bulgaria, unit 5 of the Kozloduy plant, one of the two operable units, cut output by about 10% on Friday because of the conditions.

Bulgarian Energy Minister Iva Petrova said a levee 250 to 300 metres long is to be built on the Danube near the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant over the next 10 days or so.