The first full assemblies of a new kind of nuclear fuel have been loaded into Russia's Balakovo 1 for a five-year trial. Rosatom's REMIX fuel promises to close the fuel cycle using today's light-water reactors.

Work to prepare all foreign-owned high-level waste for return to overseas customers has been completed, the UK's Sellafield Ltd has announced. A total of 1840 containers have been prepared for return to overseas customers since 2008, as part of the closing out of commercial reprocessing contracts from the Thorp reprocessing plant.

EDF Energy will 'get on with' work to construct two EPR units at Sizewell C in Suffolk, UK, as soon as it receives government permission, which could come within six months, said the project's director of financing, Julia Pyke. She added that the company is working to fuel the reactors with recycled uranium.

Russia is ready to test a batch of fuel assemblies made from recycled uranium and plutonium. The REMIX fuel concept could be used with any reactor and promises a step-change in resource efficiency and waste reduction, according to Rosatom.

Recycled REMIX nuclear fuel has passed a five-year operational test in Russia and is ready for pilot operation, Rosatom fuel subsidiary TVEL has said. REMIX is designed to reduce uranium consumption and close the fuel cycle using mainstream light-water reactors.

France's Orano said it has signed contracts with German utilities EnBW, PreussenElektra, RWE and Vattenfall for the return of all the German nuclear waste remaining at its La Hague reprocessing plant. The entry into force of the contracts - worth in total more than EUR1 billion (USD1.2 billion) - is subject to the formal agreement of the German and French governments.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has discontinued work on a rulemaking that would have added a framework for licensing commercial reprocessing facilities to its regulations. In a notice published by the US Federal Register on 29 July, the regulator said its decision was based on the costs of conducting the rulemaking coupled with limited interest from industry.

A revised mixed oxide fuel utilisation plan, based on the latest operational plan for the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant and the MOX Fuel Fabrication Plant, has been released by Japan's Federation of Electric Power Companies. While only four Japanese reactors have so far been restarted using MOX fuel, FEPC envisages at least 12 units running on the fuel by FY2030. FEPC represents the 11 power companies, comprising nine utilities (excluding Okinawa Electric Power), Japan Atomic Power Company and the Electric Power Development Company (J-Power).

Operation of the mixed-oxide fuel fabrication plant under construction in Rokkasho, in Aomori Prefecture, is now expected about two years later than previously planned. Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited had aimed to complete its construction in the first half of fiscal 2022 (ending March 2023), but now expects this in the first half of fiscal 2024.

Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority has approved the modification of safety measures at Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited's mixed-oxide fuel fabrication plant under construction in Rokkasho, in Aomori Prefecture. Under the current schedule, the facility is expected to be completed between April and September 2022.

The expected completion of the reprocessing plant at Rokkasho in Japan's Aomori Prefecture has been put back again, to the first-half of FY2022 (ending March 2023), owing to the implementation of safety measures at the plant, including construction of a new cooling tower, Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited has announced.

The American Nuclear Society has called on the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission to take action on reprocessing and recycling of used nuclear fuel, saying the lack of an efficient, technically robust, and technology-inclusive regulatory foundation is a barrier to innovation, especially for vendors of advanced nuclear reactors.