¶¶Òõpro

Unit 3 of China General Nuclear'sÌýYangjiang plant in Guangdong province has been connected to the electricity grid. The reactor is expected to enter commercial operation by the end of the year.

Sweden's Ringhals 2 is to be decommissioned in 2019 and Ringhals 1 in 2020, majority owner Vattenfall announced yesterday following an extraordinary general meeting of plant operator Ringhals AB.

New imaging technology that can see the radiation fields emitted in an operating nuclear reactor has been developed by researchers in the UK. Inspired by cats' eyes, the camera technology could provide real-time monitoring of reactor cores.

Unit 2 of the Sendai nuclear power plant in Japan's Kagoshima prefecture was restarted today, plant owner Kyushu Electric Power Company announced. It becomes the second Japanese reactor to resume operation after the country idled its entire fleet following the March 2011 accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

The single-unit Pilgrim plant - the only nuclear power plant in the US state of Massachusetts - will be permanently shut down by mid-2019, owner Entergy announced today. The utility said the continued operation of the plant is not economically viable.

Two new Chinese nuclear power units - Changjiang 1 and Yangjiang 3 - have moved closer to commissioning by achieving a sustained chain reaction for the first time. Both reactors are expected to begin operating later this year.

The restart of units 3 and 4 of Kansai Electric Power Company's Takahama nuclear power plant moved a step closer today with Japan's nuclear regulator confirming the units meet new safety requirements.

Two Belgian reactors will be able to operate until 2025 after the country's Federal Agency for Nuclear Control (FANC) ruled that the units could safely operate beyond their original 40-year design life.

Industry leaders last week debated how to bridge the gap between the ¶¶Òõpro's vision of an extra 1000 GWe of new nuclear power capacity by 2050, and the practicalities of working within current political, regulatory and financial environments.

L-3 MAPPS is to supply a severe accident simulator to Westinghouse for an unnamed customer in Tokyo. The contract is L-3 MAPPS' first sale of a plant simulator into the Japanese market.

The nuclear industry has many opportunities to build a sustainable and competent workforce to avoid a future skills shortage, Callum Thomas, CEO of recruitment consultants Thomas Thor Associates told delegates at the ¶¶Òõpro's Symposium in London.

Although the co-owners of Sweden's Ringhals nuclear power plant -Vattenfall and EOn - have yet to agree on the early closure of units 1 and 2, majority owner Vattenfall has said it will limit investment in those units which will mean they can only operate until 2020.