UK Defence Secretary is quoted by UK Defence Journal as saying that "The UK is exploring options to re-establish a nuclear-fuel cycle for reactor fuel for defence purposes" as part of the modernization of the UK Defence Nuclear Enterprise. The Secretary clarified that the project would respect the voluntary moratorium on the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons that is currently in place.

The United Kingdom currently has no facilities that can produce HEU for naval reactors. The material for this purposes has been provided by the United States.

Rosatom plans regarding the construction of sodium-cooled fast neutron reactors remain uncertain. After the government postponed the work on BN-1200 reactor in 2018, the developers updated the design to make the reactor more competitive. The new design is known as BN-1200M. The first BN-1200M unit is expected to be deployed at the Beloyarsk NPP in the Urals, which operates BN-600 and BN-800 reactors. The developers, as well as the regional authorities hope that the construction will begin in 2027 and that the reactor will begin operations in 2034.

Rosatom's long-term plan, however, assumes that a new fast-neutron reactor of an unspecified type will not begin operations at Beloyarsk NPP until 2038 (with one more unit added in 2040). The plan includes new fast-neutron reactors (again, of an unspecified type) that are expected to begin operations in Seversk in 2037-2039 (two reactors) and at a new Sibirskaya NPP in a not-yet-selected site in the Irkutsk region in 2041-2042 (two reactors). All these reactors are expected to have a power of 1255 MWt, suggesting that they will be the BN-1200M or a similar design. It is possible, however, that these will be lead-cooled reactors, based on the Brest-OD-300 design. Some Rosatom materials mention a lead-cooled BR-1200 reactor. The construction of Brest-OD-300 is underway in Seversk and it is expected to begin operations in 2028.

The uncertainty with the reactor type seems to suggest that despite the modifications, Rosatom still has questions about the viability of the BN-1200M design. Another sign of this is the cancellation of the Krasnoyarskaya NPP project, which called for the construction of four BN-1200M units in 2037-2042.

TerraPower and ASP Isotopes signed a term sheet for the construction of a uranium enrichment facility in South Africa. The facility is expected to provide HALEU for TerraPower's Natrium reactor.

The announcement does not mention specific dates for the construction of the plant. Given that ASP Isotopes has no experience in producing HALEU in the quantities required for the Natrium reactor operations, the process could take considerable time. Natrium would require about 15-20 tonnes of HALEU for the startup core and 3.6 tonnes of HALEU annually (see Edwin Lyman's report, p. 67). It should also be noted that South Africa has no 123 nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States.

In July 2023, TerraPower signed an MOU with US-based Centrus to secure supply of HALEU.

The Department of Energy selected four companies to provide enrichment services to help establish a U.S. supply of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU). The selected companies are Louisiana Energy Services (which operates the Urenco USA enrichment plant in Eunice, NM), Orano Federal Services (a subsidiary of Orano USA), General Matter (appears to be a recently formed company), and Centrus (operator of the American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, OH).

According to DoE, "the contracts will allow the companies to bid on work for enrichment services, a key piece of the high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) supply chain." These contracts are part of the program to establish domestic enrichment capacity in the United States.

UPDATE: World Nuclear News reports that

According to publicly available information, General Matter Inc is a company that was registered in California earlier this year, with Scott Nolan named as its CEO. Nolan, a former SpaceX employee, is a partner at venture capital firm Founders Fund which was co-founded by billionaire investor Peter Thiel.

Urenco USA installed first centrifuges as part of the project to expand the capacity of the enrichment plant in Eunice, NM. The company confirmed that the the current phase of expansion will increase the capacity of the plant by 700 tonnes of SWU per year and that the cascades will become operational in 2025. The Eunice site "has the physical space and license to further expand its annual production up to 10 million SWU." The facility began operations in 2010.

The expansion is intended to take advantage of the Department of Energy program aimed at boosting the production of enriched uranium in the United States.

US National Nuclear Security Administration reported the completion of the production of the first plutonium pit for the W87-1 Modification Program. The NNSA reported that

Plutonium pit manufacturing was completed at LANL, with Livermore Laboratory responsible for the pit design and KCNSC [Kansas City National Security Campus] responsible for production of non-nuclear components.

This process is part of the effort to rebuild the capability to manufacture plutonium pits. The production was stopped in 1989. The goal of the current program is to reach the capacity of 30 pits per year at LANL and "no fewer than 80 pits a year" across the nuclear enterprise.

The W87-1 warhead will be deployed on the Sentinel ICBM, which is currently under development.

France's state-owned company Orano announced a plan to build a large enrichment facility in the United States. The facility will be located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

The company apparently plans to use the funds allocated by the US Department of Energy to boost domestic enrichment capacity.

In 2008, Orano's predecessor, Areva, had a plan to build an enrichment facility, known as Eagle Rock Enrichment Facility, EREF, in Idaho. The project, however, was abandoned in 2011 and Orano USA withdrew the license in 2018.

INS Arighat, India's second nuclear-powered submarine, was commissioned into the Indian Navy on 29 August 2024 (see also a post on X). The ceremony took place in Visakhapatnam. The submarine joins the lead ship of this class, INS Arihant, which entered service in October 2016.

INS Arighat (also Arighaat or S2) was built at the Ship Building Centre in Visakhapatnam. It was launched in November 2017.

Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited (JNFL) officially announced that it has postponed the completion of the Rokkasho reprocessing plant. The plant is expected to begin operations in FY2026 (which ends in March 2027). This is the 27th delay since the construction began in 1993. In December 2022, the plant was projected to be completed by mid-2024.

This newly announced delay, assumed to be of two and a half years, is required to address serious issues raised by Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA). One major reason for the slow pace of the process has been the need to complete a review of the "ground model" for the earthquake-resistant design attempted by JNFL. The NRA is concerned about the project being "schedule-driven".

The completion of the MOX fuel fabrication plant, previously scheduled to start in the "first half of fiscal year 2024," has been postponed as well, with the new date in FY2027.

UPDATE: JNFL has published process charts for both the reprocessing plant and the MOX facility.

Reprocessing plant

MOX fabrication facility

Nuclear Fuel Services, a subsidiary of BWXT, has been awarded a contract by the US National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to conduct a domestic uranium enrichment pilot plant study (see also the ANS story). The cost of the year-long contract is $3.3 million. This study, which is part of the NNSA's Domestic Uranium Enrichment (DUE) program, should "inform the acquisition approach for a DUE pilot plant that can be repurposed for High Enriched Uranium (HEU) production."

This effort is distinct from the program that seeks to establish the production of High-Assay LEU (HALEU) based on the American Centrifuges operated by Centrus. Instead, this program is based on the work of the Domestic Uranium Enrichment Centrifuge Experiment (DUECE) that has been carried out at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory since 2016. This work focuses on the development of a small centrifuge that can be used to produce LEU to fuel tritium producing nuclear reactors (see Tritium and Enriched Uranium Management Plan Through 2060). In addition, the NNSA "hope[s] to leverage this pilot plant for future Highly Enriched Uranium production for naval nuclear propulsion." The pilot plant is expected to begin LEU operations "by approximately 2030." It will also be required to demonstrate the capacity to produce HEU with enrichment of 93% or higher.

The Request for Information, released in July 2023, indicated that the capacity of the pilot plant after conversion for HEU production is expected to be about 50,000 SWU/year. The production-scale capacity is likely to be considerably higher.