Orano has won a contract to dismantle the walls and structure of two former used fuel interim storage pools at Marcoule in France. Under the contract, awarded by the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, the company will use a 12-tonne robot in one of the biggest such projects carried out in the country.

This year will be a "milestone" in the USA's cleanup of legacy nuclear sites, including the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, as well as facilities in Idaho, Savannah River and Hanford, a senior US Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management officer has told stakeholders. In a separate development, miners at WIPP have completed the "rough cut" of the next area where transuranic waste will be emplaced.

The first of 33 scheduled transports aimed at moving about 5600 drums of radioactive resins and sludge departed from Italy's shut down Caorso nuclear power plant on 28 January en route to the Bohunice plant in Slovakia for their treatment and conditioning. All the drums in this second phase of shipments are expected to be transported by 2022.

Engineers at the UK's University of Sheffield have developed materials that they say could be used to help decommission the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear power plants. In the new research published today, they report their development of small batches of low radioactivity materials that can be used to simulate lava-like fuel containing materials. LFCMs are a mixture of highly radioactive molten nuclear fuel and building materials that fuse together during a nuclear meltdown.

Dismantlement of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station is to begin in February, Southern California Edison has announced. This follows the receipt in October of the final permit required for the decommissioning and dismantlement of the plant which closed in 2013.
 

The Swedish Parliament - the Riksdag - yesterday narrowly rejected a proposal from the nationalist Sweden Democrats party to reverse the planned closure of the two oldest reactors at the Ringhals nuclear power plant. Unit 2 of the plant was shut down at the end of last year, with unit 1 set to close later this year.

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories is to take part in the decommissioning of a prototype boiling water reactor in Lingen, Germany under a subcontract awarded by Atkins Energy Germany GmbH. The four-year contract includes the secondment of CNL staff as well as the provision of specialist equipment services and will see CNL for the first time apply skills and capabilities gained from Canadian decommissioning projects in the international market.

Global nuclear generating capacity stood at 392.4 GWe net at the end of 2019, down slightly on 2018, according to data from World Nuclear Association. Six power reactors were added to the grid last year and construction of three large reactor projects started, while nine units were permanently shut down.

Unit 2 of Germany's Philippsburg nuclear power plant was disconnected from the grid at 6.55pm on 31 December, as planned, marking the end of 35 years of operation. Operator EnBW said it will begin dismantling the unit in the second half of this year.

Unit 2 of the Ringhals nuclear power plant in Sweden was yesterday permanently shut down, ending 44 years of operation and 215 TWh of generation. Ringhals 1 is scheduled to shut down next year.

The trial removal of fuel debris from the damaged reactors at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant will begin at unit 2 in 2021, according to the latest revision to the mid and long-term roadmap towards decommissioning the plant. Meanwhile, the removal of fuel from the storage pools at units 1 and 2 has been delayed by up to five years.

The Mühleberg nuclear power plant in Switzerland today ended generation after 47 years in operation. Meanwhile, Ringhals unit 2 in Sweden and Philippsburg unit 2 in Germany are preparing to shut down by the end of 2019.