Exelon Generation has filed its detailed plan for decommissioning unit 1 at Three Mile Island in Pennsyvlania, but says the plant will remain in operation if the state enacts a policy solution to preserve nuclear capacity.

Cavendish Nuclear has completed the handover of the Silos Maintenance Facility at the UK's Sellafield site. The plant will support the retrieval of waste from the site's legacy silos.

Bulgaria's State Enterprise Radioactive Waste has awarded a further three-year extension to the Decommissioning-Repository Project Management Unit Consultant contract to the Empresarios Agrupados/Nuvia Consortium. The contract will now run through to 2022.

Installation has been completed of the equipment needed to remove material from the Pile Fuel Cladding Silo at the Sellafield site in the UK. Demonstration removal of waste is scheduled for later this year, with larger scale removal operations set to start in 2020.

With the anticipated increase in decommissioning-related activities over the coming decades, significant challenges lie ahead. By viewing nuclear back-end management through a sustainability lens, a set of principles that offer tremendous benefits for a wide range of stakeholders emerges, writes Kristina Gillin, a principal consultant in nuclear waste and decommissioning at Lloyd's Register. 

Installation of a final cover has marked the end of physical work associated with the demolition of a former vitrification plant at the US Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management's West Valley Demonstration Project, the only commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing plant to have operated in the USA.

Nuclear plant decommissioning is simpler, faster, and less expensive when taken into consideration during the siting, design, construction, and operation phases of the nuclear plant life-cycle. This is also true for radioactive waste management.

The Canadian nuclear regulator has scheduled a public hearing in early October to consider an application from Canadian Nuclear Laboratories to renew its decommissioning licence for the Whiteshell Laboratories site for a further ten years.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission is seeking public comment on its environmental review of proposed cleanup work at the former Northeast Church Rock uranium mine in New Mexico. The proposal would allow mine owner United Nuclear Corporation to transfer contaminated soil from the mine for disposal at the former Church Rock uranium mill.

Kyushu Electric Power Company today announced its decision not to restart unit 2 at its Genkai nuclear power plant in Japan's Saga prefecture. The unit becomes the tenth operable Japanese reactor to be declared for decommissioning since the Fukushima Daiichi accident.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has granted a request by CB&I Areva MOX Services to terminate the construction authorisation for the partially built mixed-oxide fuel fabrication facility at Savannah River in South Carolina.
 

Tokyo Electric Power Company has released photos of fuel debris within the primary containment vessel of unit 2 at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan. The company determined that the debris can be lifted, which will help in removing the material.