The slow-down in the development of nuclear energy globally, as a result of the Fukushima Daiichi accident, poses dire consequences for our fight against climate change, global human health and the resilience of global electricity systems, writes Sama Bilbao y León, director general of World Nuclear Association.

The final report of an independent inquiry into the UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority's award of the Magnox decommissioning contract, related litigation and its subsequent termination has been published. Led by Steve Holliday, a former CEO of National Grid, the process to hold the Magnox Inquiry began in March 2017. Holliday was asked to conduct an inquiry by Greg Clark, then secretary of state for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

The German government has reached an agreement with EOn, EnBW, RWE and Vattenfall on compensation for the forced premature closure of their nuclear power reactors. The utilities are set to receive a total of almost EUR2.5 billion (USD3.0 billion) in compensation after agreeing to drop all legal actions against the government related to the nuclear phaseout. The final regulation related to the compensation will be made into law by the end of this year.

The process of removing all 566 fuel assemblies from the storage pool of unit 3 at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan was completed yesterday, Tokyo Electric Power Company has announced. Fuel assemblies have already been removed from the pool at unit 4, but such work has yet to start at units 1 and 2.

The UK and Japan have signed a research and technology deployment collaboration agreement to help automate nuclear decommissioning and aspects of fusion energy production. The collaboration is expected to lead to new robotics and automation techniques used in Japan and the UK.

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.

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.

Industrial services provider Bilfinger has completed the dismantling of the two steam generators at the shutdown Mülheim-Kärlich nuclear power plant in Germany. Bilfinger, which was contracted by plant owner RWE in 2017, dismantled the steam generators in situ. Each of them measured around 23 metres in height, 4 metres in diameter and 450 tonnes in weight.

Holtec International has announced that the second double-walled canister had been loaded with RBMK reactor used nuclear fuel into the Chernobyl nuclear power plant site’s Interim Storage Facility in Ukraine yesterday.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved the transfer of unit 2 of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant and the corresponding possession-only licence from FirstEnergy Corp subsidiaries GPU Nuclear, Metropolitan Edison Company, Jersey Central Power & Light Company, and Pennsylvania Electric Company to a subsidiary of EnergySolutions known as TMI-2 Solutions. In addition to the NRC approval, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities has approved the sale of TMI-2 to TMI-2 Solutions.

The UK's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) has a "perpetual lack of knowledge" about the state and location of waste on its 17 sites, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee says in a report published today. The NDA should set out how it will develop a clearer means of reporting publicly on the level of uncertainty and risk across its sites, and how it will prioritise work on its sites in order to decommission them in the safest and most efficient way, the committee said.