The US Department of Energy has been given approval by the Association of American Railroads to begin building and testing the Fortis specialised railcar for the transportation of used nuclear fuel. Fortis is one of two railcars being developed by DOE and could be operational within the next five years.

Orano NPS has found no corrosion concerns or precursor indications of stress corrosion cracking in 20-year-old stainless steel canisters in use at three US dry storage facilities for used nuclear fuel. Regulatory inspections of the canisters, all of which were loaded into their horizontal, above-ground NUHOMS storage modules more than 20 years ago, were carried out as part of an ageing management programme to verify the NUHOMS system is performing as designed.

There are no fundamental geologic limitations to disposing of radioactive waste in deep horizontal boreholes in Estonia, a study conducted by US nuclear waste disposal company Deep Isolation on behalf of Fermi Energia has concluded. Such a repository could be used for the disposal of used fuel from small modular reactors proposed for deployment by the Estonian company. Fermi Energia is the first European company to contract with Deep Isolation on a preliminary geologic study to manage advanced reactor waste.

A list of 67 potential sites for a radioactive waste storage facility has been published by Societa Gestione Impianti Nucleari SpA, the Italian state-owned company responsible for dismantling the country's nuclear power plants. The publication of the list on 5 January, announced in five national newspapers, started a period of public consultation.

Sweden's Studsvik has signed a contract worth SEK134 million (USD16 million) with Norway's Institute for Energy Technology for loading equipment, transport, handling equipment, examination and pre-treatment of nuclear fuel from the JEEP I research reactor at Kjeller. The fuel is currently held in an ageing storage facility at the site which does not meet current requirements.

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories announced yesterday that it has completed all shipments of highly enriched uranium target residue material from Canada to the USA, bringing its TRM Repatriation Project to "a safe and successful conclusion". The culmination of nearly a decade of work and planning removes "a major nuclear liability" from the Chalk River Laboratories campus, CNL said.

Construction has been completed at the first of two sites in South Bruce, Ontario, ahead of the start of borehole drilling, Canada's Nuclear Waste Management Organisation has announced. The boreholes are part of the organisation's investigations into the suitability of the site for a geologic repository for used nuclear fuel.

The European Repository Development Organisation was launched yesterday by Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands, with other countries expected to join soon. It aims for member countries to work together to address the common challenges of safely managing long-lived radioactive wastes, including establishing shared multinational geological repositories.

Workers have begun activities to prepare for the demolition of a nuclear reactor at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in California, the Office of Environmental Management at the US Department of Energy announced on 22 December. A team from EM, the National Nuclear Security Administration, and the US Army Corp Engineers performed core drilling, surveying, sampling, and a study of potential demolition impacts last month.

The Czech Cabinet has approved a shortlist of four potential sites for a deep geological repository for used nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive nuclear waste. The government also approved a new schedule calling for the site to be selected by 2030, five years later than originally planned. The repository is expected to be operational by 2065.

Westinghouse will segment the reactor at the Ågesta nuclear power plant near Stockholm, Sweden, under a contract signed with Vattenfall. The country's first commercial power reactor - it operated between 1964 and 1974 - the R3 heavy water reactor supplied electricity and district heating to the Stockholm suburb of Farsta.