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round up


FRAMATOME HAS COMPLETED the acquisition of Trillium Flow Technologies France from the British group Trillium Flow Technologies. The divestment of Trillium’s French unit to Framatome is part of a massive, intentional dismantling and restructuring of the Trillium Flow Technologies global valve footprint.


D&D


A KEY REMEDIATION project has been completed at the All-Russian Research Institute of Chemical Technology in Moscow. The institute, established in 1951, played an important role in the Soviet weapons programme and is now a leading research and development enterprise under Rosatom, specialising in hydrometallurgy. Clean-up crews are systematically dismantling 13 major scientific and industrial buildings and have completed the dismantling of Building Eight, the former central radiochemical facility.


TOKYO ELECTRIC POWER Company has begun removing fuel assemblies from the used fuel storage pool of the badly damaged unit two at the Fukushima Daiichi NPP. A total of 615 fuel assemblies (587 used and 28 unused) are stored in the pool. They will be transferred to a general used fuel pool elsewhere on the plant site.


ADVANCED REACTORS THE US DEPARTMENT of Energy’s (DoE’s) approval of Oklo’s Preliminary Documented Safety Analysis represents the third of four major steps required to secure full federal authorisation to construct and operate the Aurora Powerhouse fast neutron reactor at Idaho National Laboratory (INL). The approval validates the comprehensive evaluation of the Aurora-INL plant’s technical safety foundation under the DoE’s Reactor Pilot Programme.


BLYKALLA HAS SUBMITTED the first-ever application for advanced nuclear financing under the Swedish Government’s new state aid framework. The proposed project in Norrsundet in the Gävle municipality aims to deploy six lead-cooled SEALER advanced modular reactors to address the growing power demands of the digital and industrial economy.


SMRS


STUDSVIK HAS SUBMITTED its application for state support to Sweden’s Ministry of Finance to develop up to 1.4GW-electrical of new SMR capacity. This represents Sweden’s first privately led, gigawatt-scale SMR initiative under Sweden’s financing framework. The submission represents a pivotal transition from policy planning to industrial execution within the Nordic energy sector.


12 | July 2026 | www.neimagazine.com


France ITER Magnet Cold Test Facility launch Operations have begun at the ITER Magnet Cold Test Facility in Cadarache, France. Following a 12-day cooldown process, engineers lowered the first 330t toroidal field coil (TF07) to its operational superconducting temperature of 4 Kelvin (-269°C). The ITER magnet cold testing programme was launched in 2023. The facility was established as part of ITER’s revised assembly and commissioning approach to mitigate technical risks before full machine integration. While it cannot perfectly replicate the exact physical stresses of a live fusion reaction, the


testing regime provides vital validation, including: ● Ramping up selected magnets to full operational electrical currents – 68 kiloamperes (kA) for toroidal field units and 48kA for poloidal field units


● Quench detection: Verifying that safety sensors instantly recognise a “quench” (when a magnet accidentally exits its superconducting state and suddenly generates high heat)


● Insulation integrity: Testing high-voltage ground insulation capabilities across extreme temperature shifts


● Joint and structural verification: Monitoring the performance of internal superconducting joints and how the components physically handle cryogenic stress


The custom-built 800m3 cryostat chamber


(measuring 11m×20m) safely isolates the components under high-vacuum conditions throughout the runs. Each selected magnet coil will undergo a rigorous four-to-six-month testing window, with the entire facility projected to operate over the next several years to de-risk the assembly pipeline. Following TF07, additional toroidal field coils


from different manufacturers will follow, as well as ITER’s smallest ring-shaped poloidal field coil.


United States DoE selects plutonium fuel players The US DoE has selected five companies to enter advanced talks over potentially using its Cold War-era plutonium as a nuclear reactor fuel. The DoE named these as Oklo, Exodys Energy, SHINE Technologies, Standard Nuclear and Flibe Energy. The Surplus Plutonium Utilization Program,


established in October 2025, is a federal initiative managed by DoE designed to recycle legacy weapons-grade plutonium into commercial fuel for next-generation advanced nuclear reactors. Following its establishment, the DoE issued a “request for applications”, opening the door for private developers to propose recycling and processing plans for roughly 20t of material. The programme was established in line with


Executive Orders (EOs) signed by President Trump in May 2025. EO 14299, Deploying Advanced Nuclear Reactor Technologies for National Security, ordered the halt of the prior “dilute and dispose” programme and initiated the shift toward commercial availability. EO 14302, Reinvigorating the Nuclear Industrial Base,


directed the secretary of energy to unlock the surplus plutonium stockpile for private industry fabrication into advanced reactor fuel. The US holds roughly 19.7t of surplus plutonium


stored at high-security weapons facilities in South Carolina, Texas and New Mexico, relics from dismantled nuclear warheads that carry a 24,000- year half-life. Companies building advanced SMRs are constrained by a lack of domestic uranium enrichment infrastructure. Plutonium has been proposed as an excellent alternative “bridge fuel” to get these reactors online sooner.


Russian Federation First Baim RITM reactor Russia’s ZiO-Podolsk plant (part of Rosatom’s Mechanical Engineering Division) has completed the manufacture of the first RITM-200S reactor unit for the lead floating nuclear power unit (PEB-106) for the Baim project in the Arctic. The PEB-106 was previously called MPEB (modernised floating power unit). A series of four such power units (Project 20871) is being built to supply energy to the Baimskaya ore zone in Chukotka. The developer of Project 20871 is the Iceberg Central Design Bureau. The developer of the reactor plant is OKBM Afrikantov. The first of the four units is scheduled for commissioning in 2028. The PEB-106 project, designed specifically


for the Far North and Far East, uses RITM- 200S reactors, which will supply 106MWe to consumers. Their service life is 40 years and the interval between refuelling is five years. The units will be held in place by rigid mooring devices, which make it possible to compensate for the movement of the power units from the ebb and flow. The power generated by the power unit is transmitted to the shore using 50 high-voltage cables. Three main floating power units and one reserve unit will be installed, which will be used during the repair of the main units. Each PEB-106 includes two RITM-200S reactor units with an electrical capacity of 58MW each. This is a modification of the RITM-200, which is already operating in the latest generation of nuclear icebreakers (Project 22220) – the Arktika, Siber, Ural and Yakutia. Igor Kotov, director of Rosatom’s mechanical engineering division, noted: “We already have 13 RITMs of varying power behind us for the country’s nuclear icebreaker fleet.” Currently, the division’s enterprises are at various stages of production with 14 more RITM-200 reactor units for nuclear icebreakers and floating power units. The Baim ore zone in the Bilibinsky district


of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug will see the largest project for the construction of a mining and processing plant based on the Peschanka copper-porphyry field. Investment in the project was initially estimated at Rbs900bn ($10bn) but has been revised upwards with Rbs170bn already invested. Since 2020, the world’s first floating power unit, the Akademik Lomonosov, has been operating at Pevek in Chukotka. ■


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