After three years of careful dismantling, the square-shaped diffuser has now been removed from the top of the Windscale Pile Chimney on the Sellafield site in Cumbria, UK. The achievement has removed the seismic risk associated with the chimney, the remainder of which will now be dismantled.

Final testing is underway at the facility which will receive, process and dispose of solid radioactive waste from the decommissioning of Chernobyl. "This is a very important event," said the acting director general of Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Valery Seyda. "The last 'long-term construction' at the site is finally moving towards completion."

Rosenergoatom has begun unloading used fuel from the Leningrad 2 reactor in Russia. Partially used fuel assemblies will be used in units 3 and 4 at the plant during their final years of operation.

Australian welding technology specialist K-TIG has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the UK's Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre to develop innovative automated fabrication techniques for decommissioning waste containers. Under the MoU, K-TIG will work with the Nuclear AMRC to design, develop and supply the robotic welding cell to be used in the fabrication of the 3-cubic-metre stainless steel boxes to be used to safely store the UK's decommissioning waste.

The former Centrifuge Complex site at Oak Ridge in Tennessee is now ready for industrial development. The complex was one of the final collections of buildings to be demolished last year as workers completed the first-ever cleanup of a former uranium enrichment complex. The footprint of the former facility is earmarked for the construction of a proposed regional airport at the East Tennessee Technology Park.

An experiment using neutrinos from China's Daya Bay and Ling Ao nuclear power plants has now been fully dismantled, China's Institute of High Energy Physics has announced. It was successful in measuring the interactions between neutrinos more accurately than ever before.

Conditions at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant site have improved since a review in 2018, the International Atomic Energy Agency has concluded following its fifth review of Japan's plans and activities to decommission the plant. The IAEA team of experts reviewed the current situation at the site and future plans in areas such as the removal of used fuel and the retrieval of fuel debris, radioactive waste, water and site management.

Holtec Decommissioning International - a wholly-owned subsidiary of Holtec International - has announced decommissioning progress at the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in New Jersey and the Pilgrim plant in Massachusetts. All fissile material in Oyster Creek's reactor building has now been transferred to the on-site Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation, while at Pilgrim the transfer of the used fuel in wet storage to its ISFSI is proceeding at a record rate.

A mobile laser system developed by a research subsidiary of Russia's Rosatom has been used to remotely cut large metal plant components during a non-nuclear decommissioning process. The laser "can be used to cut metal structures up to 250mm thick, both on land and under water, in the temperature range from -50 to 40 degrees Celsius," said Azamat Bedanokov, deputy director general of the developers, the State Research Centre of the Russian Federation Troitsk Institute for Innovation and Thermonuclear Research.

The project to dismantle the historic Chernobyl Shelter Object can begin, after Chernobyl NPP was granted the requisite licence today. The ageing Shelter has been superseded by the New Safe Confinement, which now surrounds unit 4 and contains equipment to undertake the work.

Core components of Sweden's Ringhals units 1 and 2 will be cut up and disposed of by Westinghouse, starting as early as April 2023, plant owner Vattenfall has announced. A contract announced today covers the reactor pressure vessels, internals and fuel racks. The companies described the deal as "extending their long-standing nuclear energy partnership into decommissioning activities."

Decommissioning of the RBMK reactor at Leningrad 1 has reached a milestone with the removal of all fuel from the reactor core. Rosenergoatom plans to use some of the fuel in the two RBMK reactors which remain in operation at the Leningrad site.