Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power has signed a contract with Canadian nuclear engineering firm Kinectrics to provide decommissioning engineering support, building on a memorandum of understanding on the dismantling of nuclear power plants they signed in August 2019. The contract will see Korean nuclear power plant decommissioning personnel dispatched overseas for the first time.

Finnish utility Fortum has been awarded a contract by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland to decommission the Finnish Reactor 1 research reactor in Espoo. It will be the first nuclear reactor to be decommissioned in Finland.

A review of the management of treated water stored at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan has been carried out by the International Atomic Energy Agency. It says the two options under consideration for disposing of this water - discharge into the sea and via vapour release - are both technically feasible.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved the transfer of the licence for Crystal River 3 from Duke Energy Florida to Accelerated Decommissioning Partners LLC subsidiary ADP CR3. The transfer will enable ADP CR3 to carry out active decommissioning of the former nuclear power plant.

The coronavirus outbreak has impacted German utility EnBW’s deconstruction plans for its Philippsburg nuclear power plant, which is in the federal state of Baden-Wurttemberg. The controlled detonation of the plant's cooling towers will take place on 14 May at the earliest as the date may be subject to change, it said.

Holtec International has provided an update on decommissioning work at its Oyster Creek and Pilgrim nuclear power plants that is being performed by Comprehensive Decommissioning International, its joint venture with SNC-Lavalin.

Shutting down the Fessenheim nuclear power plant will lead to additional emissions and the loss of thousands of jobs, writes Valérie Faudon, general delegate of the French Nuclear Energy Society.

Japan has made a "systematic and meticulous" effort in decommissioning the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said after visiting the plant yesterday. The IAEA is ready to provide further support, he said, for the disposal of contaminated water stored on the site.

Russian nuclear fuel manufacturer TVEL has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Spanish engineering firms ENUSA, ENSA and IDOM on cooperation in the decommissioning and dismantling of nuclear facilities, as well as in nuclear waste management and related engineering and consulting services. They have also signed a roadmap for the development of various projects in the near term.

EDF has disconnected France's longest serving nuclear power unit - Fessenheim 1 - from the electricity grid, thus ending the reactor's 42 years of low-carbon electricity production. The unit was removed from the network at 2am on 22 February, as scheduled. The utility said the primary circuit cooling operations had been initiated to open the reactor vessel and unload its fuel. Unit 2 is scheduled for closure on 30 June.

French nuclear fuel cycle company Orano has been authorised to begin dismantling the Georges Besse diffusion enrichment plant at the Tricastin complex in southeastern France. The plant was shut down in June 2012 following 33 years of service and was replaced by the centrifuge-based Georges Besse II plant.

The Norwegian Nuclear Decommissioning agency has signed cooperation agreements with Finland's AINS Group and France's Orano on building a repository for the disposal of used fuel and waste from the decommissioning of Norway's two shutdown research reactors.