The Nuclear Research and Consultancy Group's plans for the processing and disposal of radioactive wastes from the Petten research reactor in the Netherlands over the next three years have been approved by the country's nuclear regulator. However, NRG must submit for approval an updated plan by mid-2022.

Spanish decommissioning and waste management firm Enresa has begun work to dismantle the dome of the containment building of the José Cabrera nuclear power plant. The plant - also known as Zorita - is the first to be decommissioned in Spain.

The UK Space Agency and Nuclear Decommissioning Agency have issued a challenge to smaller businesses and university start-ups to research and develop satellite-enabled technologies that could help support the country's nuclear decommissioning efforts.

British regulators see no fundamental issues that would prevent Radioactive Waste Management from developing "a fully scoped safety case in the future" for a geological disposal facility, but have identified a number of areas that RWM will need to improve when it does.

Demolition of the most visible remaining structures at Oak Ridge's East Tennessee Technology Park - the Centrifuge Complex - has started as employees aim to finish major cleanup work at the site by the end of 2020.

The Korea Radioactive Waste Agency has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Finnish waste management company Posiva to exchange technology and know-how related to the disposal of high-level radioactive wastes.

Canada's Nuclear Waste Management Organisation has finished drilling a second borehole at a site near Ignace in Ontario, as part of ongoing investigations to identify a suitable site for long-term management of the country's used nuclear fuel.
 
 

The California Coastal Commission has approved a coastal development permit for Southern California Edison's (SCE's) San Onofre nuclear power plant, enabling decommissioning of the plant to begin. The utility said it expects the dismantling of major structures at the two-unit plant to begin next year.

The UK government has designated its National Policy Statement for Geological Disposal Infrastructure, following its completion of 21 parliamentary sitting days on 2 October, the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy said today. BEIS has also published the Appraisal of Sustainability Post Adoption Statement and the Final Habitats and Regulation Assessment report.

All licences and assets of unit 2 of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania will be transferred to a subsidiary of EnergySolutions under an agreement signed yesterday by US utility FirstEnergy and EnergySolutions. The reactor, which suffered a partial meltdown in 1979 and never reopened, will then be decommissioned.

EDF subsidiary Cyclife Sweden AB has signed an eight-year contract with Uniper for the treatment and recycling of contaminated metal generated through the decommissioning of Oskarshamn 1 and 2 and Barsebäck 1 and 2. Uniper has a common strategy for dismantling and demolishing the units, which were shut down between 1999 and 2017.

Half of the last remaining radioactive fuel elements inside the Dounreay Fast Reactor have now been removed, Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd has announced. The elements had been jammed inside the reactor, and their removal has been a top priority for its decommissioning.