nuclear reactor

Italy's parliament has approved a return to nuclear power, decades after the country shut down its reactors following referendums influenced by the Chernobyl disaster. The vote opens the way for new nuclear projects as Italy looks to secure energy supplies and cut emissions. Debate is expected over costs, safety and timelines, with supporters calling it a step toward energy independence and critics recalling Italy's long-standing opposition to atomic energy.

Italy has approved a law that will once again allow the country to produce nuclear energy, nearly four decades after a referendum banned it. The move reverses the shutdown of the Italian nuclear programme that followed the 1987 vote and signals a policy shift, with debate now expected over how and where new reactors would be built.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has completed its environmental review of the planned restart of the Crane Clean Energy Center in Pennsylvania, a key step toward restarting the former Three Mile Island Unit 1 reactor. The review clears a major regulatory hurdle for the project, which Microsoft has agreed to support through a power purchase deal to supply its data centres with nuclear energy.

A research team has used quantum computing to perform FLiBe chemistry calculations, according to the American Nuclear Society. FLiBe, a molten fluoride salt mixture of lithium and beryllium, is a leading coolant and fuel carrier for molten salt reactor designs. Accurate predictions of its chemical behavior are difficult for classical computers, making the work a notable step toward applying quantum methods to nuclear reactor design and simulation.