The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has completed its technical assessment of a draft environmental impact statement for a proposed Near Surface Disposal Facility for radioactive waste from Canadian Nuclear Laboratories' Chalk River site. CNL must now address all federal and public comments received on the proposal before submitting its final EIS.

The UK's National Nuclear Laboratory announced yesterday that new research into nuclear energy generation proposes a "paradigm change" to support future reactor systems which 'eat up' used fuel without prior reprocessing to 'squeeze out' a factor of up to 20 times more energy from nuclear fuel. The systems could lead, NNL said, to a "significantly simpler" fuel cycle, an end to the accumulation of used fuel, and the elimination of any waste which would need to be stored for many thousands of years, while providing large-scale and secure low carbon electricity.

Uranium enrichment company Urenco yesterday said it expects to commission the Tails Management Facility (TMF) at Capenhurst in the UK in 2018, after construction delays. The facility, to deconvert depleted uranium hexafluoride tails, had previously been expected to enter service this year.

Bulgaria started construction of a national repository for low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste yesterday, marking the occasion with a ceremony. The repository is being built at the Radiana site, close to the Kozloduy nuclear power plant.

Global engineering consultancy Amec Foster Wheeler has been awarded two framework contracts by the UK's LLW Repository Ltd to carry out environmental safety case and waste characterisation work. The combined value of the contracts is about £4.0 million ($5.1 million).

All the basic conditions are now in place for remediation work to begin at several uranium legacy sites in Kyrgyzstan after the country ratified a framework agreement with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The European Union is to provide an initial contribution of €16.5 million ($19.4 million) for the work.

The first shipment of used nuclear fuel assemblies from Russian nuclear submarines has arrived at the radiochemical plant Mayak in Chelyabinsk, near the Ural Mountains, from the former base of the Russian Northern Fleet at Andreeva Bay.

The US Department of Energy's Transuranic Waste Processing Center, at Oak Ridge in Tennessee, has sent its first shipment of processed and treated transuranic waste since 2012 for permanent disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, in New Mexico. 

The USA's Holtec International has announced the early completion of all major civil construction work associated with the Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI) expansion project at Entergy's Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. The facility is undergoing complete defueling of its pool as a prelude to decommissioning.

Companies are being invited to bid for a contract to demolish the Dounreay Materials Test Reactor in Scotland. A contract notice will appear in the Official Journal of the European Union for the project estimated to be worth around £7 million ($9 million) over three years. A contractor is expected to be appointed in the first half of 2018.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved further actions related to its review of the Department of Energy's application for authorisation to construct a high-level radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Yucca Mountain has since 1987 been named in the US Nuclear Waste Policy Act as the sole initial repository for disposal of the country's used nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive wastes.

A unique piece of equipment that can compress a 55-gallon (200-litre) waste drum to a fifth of its original size has achieved 100,000 hours of operation at the US Department of Energy's Idaho site. Compacting has reduced the number of shipments of transuranic waste from the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project for disposal in New Mexico.