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Weekly News Roundup – Tuesday 23rd November

We round up the past week’s news and updates from the world of Nuclear.

Hinkley Point B contributes to major milestone in nuclear energy production, from Bridgwater Mercury: “HINKLEY Point B has contributed to a major milestone in the UK’s nuclear energy production. The Somerset station has generated enough power to meet the electricity needs of every home in the South West for more than 32 years, since it started generating power in 1976. And earlier this month, it was confirmed that Hinkley, along with the rest of the UK nuclear fleet, had generated a total of 2000terrawatt hours of power.”

Westinghouse signs initial contract for Ukrainian AP1000s, from World Nuclear News: “A contract signed by the Ukrainian nuclear operator Energoatom and US vendor Westinghouse will trigger the engineering and procurement of components for the first of several AP1000s planned for Ukraine.”

NASA Wants to Power Moon Missions With Nuclear Power Within 10 Years, from Interesting Engineering: “Humans haven’t set foot on the Moon since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. By the time they return to our cosmic neighbor by around 2025, the exploration landscape will be very different due to wide-ranging technological advances. In a bid to further accelerate the technology that will power future lunar missions, NASA, alongside the Department of Energy (DOE), has put out a press statement calling for companies to help it develop nuclear energy solutions.”

Rosatom seeks to develop small NPPs with hydrogen batteries, from Nuclear Engineering International: “Polet-Service, commissioned by a subsidiary of Rosatom, is to undertake research on a power supply for remote Arctic territories using low-power nuclear power plants with hydrogen-based batteries. According to the documents posted on the Russian government public procurement website, Rosatom will pay RUB34.45 million ($462,500) for this work, the customer of which is the NA Dollezhal Scientific Research and Design Institute of Power Engineering (Nikiet, part of Rosatom). The purpose is to determine the main scientific and technical approaches and tasks for the development of autonomous power supply systems based on renewable sources energy with hydrogen storage.”

Rolls-Royce submits SMR design for UK assessment, from World Nuclear News: “Rolls-Royce SMR Limited has submitted its 470 MWe small modular reactor (SMR) design for entry to the UK’s Generic Design Assessment (GDA) regulatory process. The review of the SMR design – based on a small pressurised water reactor – will formally begin once the government has assessed the company’s capability and capacity to successfully enter the GDA process.”