The world's oldest nuclear waste store - the Pile Fuel Cladding Silo at Sellafield, England - has been cut open for the first time, Sellafield Ltd and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority announced yesterday. Built in the 1950s when the site's purpose was to make material for nuclear weapons, the silo is a locked vault that was "never designed to be opened", they said.

The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute has signed contracts with several domestic companies to develop technologies for decommissioning Kori unit 1, which was permanently shut down in June. It is the first South Korean reactor to enter decommissioning.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has completed its technical assessment of a draft environmental impact statement for a proposed Near Surface Disposal Facility for radioactive waste from Canadian Nuclear Laboratories' Chalk River site. CNL must now address all federal and public comments received on the proposal before submitting its final EIS.

All the basic conditions are now in place for remediation work to begin at several uranium legacy sites in Kyrgyzstan after the country ratified a framework agreement with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The European Union is to provide an initial contribution of €16.5 million ($19.4 million) for the work.

Southern California Edison has notified the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) that the parties in the San Onofre nuclear plant closure settlement were unable to reach agreement on possible changes the CPUC had unanimously approved in 2014. SCE has urged the commission to "affirm the existing settlement of issues related to the premature retirement of San Onofre in 2013 and bring closure to this protracted proceeding".

The USA's Holtec International has announced the early completion of all major civil construction work associated with the Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI) expansion project at Entergy's Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. The facility is undergoing complete defueling of its pool as a prelude to decommissioning.

Vítkovice Heavy Machinery and TSP Engineering have signed an agreement to cooperate in the decommissioning of British nuclear power plants and the supply of components for nuclear-powered submarines. Czech engineering company VHM said yesterday the contract is worth about CZK3.5 billion ($158 million) over the next five years.

Companies are being invited to bid for a contract to demolish the Dounreay Materials Test Reactor in Scotland. A contract notice will appear in the Official Journal of the European Union for the project estimated to be worth around £7 million ($9 million) over three years. A contractor is expected to be appointed in the first half of 2018.

The State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine has approved integrated systems testing of the interim used fuel storage facility at the site of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. The approval means the facility has officially entered the post-construction phase, the USA's Holtec International said yesterday.

The Spanish government has denied the renewal of Nuclenor's operating licence for the Garoña nuclear power plant. The decision means the reactor - which has been offline for more than four years - will now enter the decommissioning phase.

Demolition of the main processing facility of the Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP) at the US Department of Energy's Hanford site has begun. The building is the last of the PFP's four main facilities to be demolished after two decades of preparation.

EDF recorded a 3.7% year-on-year fall in net income and a 2.6% dip in sales in the first half of this year - to €2 billion and €35.7 billion - with its nuclear power generation impacted by unplanned outages. The French state-owned group said the results were in line with expectations, despite the launch earlier this year of a €4 billion capital increase.