nuclear energy

Italy's parliament has approved a law paving the way for the country's return to nuclear power, more than three decades after Italians voted to shut down the country's nuclear plants following the 1987 Chernobyl disaster. The move would allow new nuclear facilities and advanced reactor projects as Italy seeks reliable low-carbon energy, but it reopens a debate many Italians remember vividly from the Chernobyl era and earlier referendums.

Iran has put forward a seven-day plan that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and see nuclear talks resume within a week, according to a report carried by Al Jazeera. The proposal ties freedom of navigation through the strategic waterway to a restart of diplomacy over Iran's nuclear programme. The Strait of Hormuz is a critical chokepoint for global oil shipments, so any move affecting it draws close attention from energy markets and world governments.

Donald Trump says he expects further talks between the United States and Iran to take place this week, with diplomacy between the two countries continuing. The comments point to ongoing efforts to reach an agreement despite long-standing tensions, and are being closely watched for their impact on regional stability and oil markets.

The Trump administration is moving forward with a plan to supply plutonium from dismantled Cold War-era nuclear warheads to companies that would convert the material into fuel for nuclear power plants. The proposal has generated debate and unease among nonproliferation experts and others who question the safety and wisdom of recycling weapons-grade material into commercial energy production.

Nuclear energy's radioactive waste currently remains hazardous for around 100,000 years, posing a long-term storage challenge for countries with nuclear programmes. Reports highlight that particle accelerators could dramatically reduce that timeline to just a few centuries, potentially transforming how radioactive waste is managed and stored worldwide.

The US Navy's W93/Mk7 nuclear warhead program has moved into a new development phase. The W93 is intended as a future replacement warhead for the Navy's submarine-launched ballistic missile arsenal. The milestone signals continued progress in the Pentagon and Department of Energy's long-term effort to modernize the US nuclear weapons stockpile, a costly and politically sensitive undertaking.

The National Centre for Nuclear Research (NCBJ) in Poland is leading a study of neutrino scattering at the Large Hadron Collider. The work examines how neutrinos, particles that rarely interact with matter, behave during high-energy collisions, a field that has drawn growing interest since collider experiments began detecting neutrino interactions directly. Physicists see the research as a step toward understanding these elusive particles in an energy range never before accessible.

The Albuquerque Journal takes readers inside Sandia National Laboratories' Z machine in New Mexico, the world's most powerful pulsed-power facility. Originally built to study materials under nuclear weapons conditions, the device is now central to research on fusion energy, exploring how the same physics that powers warheads could one day deliver clean, abundant power.