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Much progress has been made over recent years in the representation of nuclear in national, regional and international debates on energy and the climate, speakers agreed at the opening session of the World Nuclear Exhibition in Paris this week.

Sweden's parliament has approved a bill that will clear the way for new nuclear power in the country by removing the current limit on the number of nuclear reactors in operation, as well as allowing reactors to be built on new sites. The amendment will enter into force on 1 January.

The nuclear energy industry will be highly visible at the 28th Conference of the Parties, taking place in Dubai over the coming weeks, ÌÇÐÄÊÓƵ Director General Sama Bilbao y León told delegates at the World Nuclear Exhibition 2023 in Paris.

The European Parliament has adopted its position on the proposed Net-Zero Industry Act, which is intended to bolster Europe's manufacturing output in technologies needed for decarbonisation. MEPs included nuclear fission and fusion among a list of 17 technologies covered by the legislation.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Nuclear Energy report, Made in Britain: The Pathway to a Nuclear Renaissance, says multiple small modular reactor units should be ordered to justify firms' investment in UK production facilities - and calls for Wylfa in North Wales to be backed within the next year as the next large-scale plant. 

The Swedish government unveils a roadmap which envisages the construction of new nuclear generating capacity equivalent to at least two large-scale reactors by 2035, with up to ten new large-scale reactors coming online by 2045.

The French government and state-owned EDF have reached an agreement to regulate the price at which the utility's nuclear-generated electricity is sold to an average of EUR70 (USD76) per MWh once the current ARENH mechanism expires at the end of 2025.

Governor JB Pritzker has said he will sign a new bill lifting Illinois' ban on the construction of new nuclear reactors, after the state's lawmakers passed new legislation that will allow the construction of small modular reactors of up to 300 MWe capacity from 2026.

"A changing policy landscape is creating opportunities for a nuclear comeback," according to the International Energy Agency in the latest edition of its World Energy Outlook, with nuclear generating capacity expected to increase from 417 GWe in 2022 to 620 GWe in 2050 in a scenario based on existing energy policies.

Following months of negotiations, the European Council has reached an agreement on a proposal to amend the EU's electricity market design, agreeing to include existing nuclear plants in the reform. The agreement could result in France dropping a scheme forcing state-controlled utility EDF to sell a portion of its nuclear energy production to competitors below market-level prices.

Bruce Power announced it is launching an Expression of Interest process to "further understand nuclear technologies that could help meet growing demand for clean electricity and advance decarbonisation efforts in Ontario". In July, the provincial government said it was starting pre-development work to build up to 4800 MWe of new nuclear capacity at Bruce Power's existing site.

The Government of Canada has announced nearly CAD20 million (USD15 million) in federal funding to support the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to help enable a phase-out of coal-fired electricity generation by 2030. The funding includes CAD7 million to support pre-development work for a small modular reactor at Point Lepreau in New Brunswick.