Scuba divers have started working in the former fuel storage pond of the Sizewell A Magnox nuclear power plant in the UK. They will use lessons learned from underwater work previously carried out to remove radioactive waste from the ponds at the Dungeness A plant.

Twenty years after the passing of the deadline for the US federal government to start accepting nuclear waste for disposal, the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners has called on lawmakers to support funding for the review process for the Yucca Mountain repository licence application.

The UK's Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has today launched two consultations on the management of radioactive waste. The consultations are on a draft national policy statement for geological disposal infrastructure and on Working with Communities as part of the search for a host for the GDF. Both consultations started today and run until 19 April.

Sweden's Radiation Safety Authority today submitted a positive opinion to the government on Svensk Kärnbränslehantering AB's (SKB's) application to build a repository for used nuclear fuel, together with a plant to encapsulate the fuel prior to disposal. However, the Land and Environment Court in Stockholm has called for further documentation on the copper capsules in which the fuel will be stored within the repository.

Canada's Nuclear Waste Management Organisation has completed drilling the first borehole near Ignace to a depth of about one kilometre. It is one of five sites in Ontario to be investigated for the siting of a deep repository for the long-term management of the country's used nuclear fuel.

Mining operations have resumed after a four-year break at the US Department of Energy's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. A continuous mining machine has begun cutting into panel 8 in the underground salt formation, work that was halted following separate underground events in early 2014.

The French regulator, Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire, has issued a positive opinion on the safety options for country's planned deep geological repository for the disposal of high- and intermediate-level radioactive waste. However, it has reservations about the storage of bituminous waste within the facility.

A newly installed melter at the Defense Waste Processing Facility at the US Department of Energy's Savannah River site has poured its first canisters of vitrified radioactive waste.

Canadian federal and provincial authorities have completed their technical assessment of Canadian Nuclear Laboratories' draft environmental impact statement for the proposed in-situ decommissioning of Whiteshell Reactor 1.

The Centre for Advanced Robotics at the Queen Mary University of London was recently awarded a GBP1.0 million ($1.3 million) grant to help establish a centre of excellence for nuclear robotics in the UK. The focus of the centre will be to develop technology for aiding radioactive waste management.

Magnox Ltd has emptied more than half of the used fuel from the Wylfa reactors on Anglesey, in Wales, the UK's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority said today. When operating, Wylfa's two reactors together contained nearly 100,000 fuel elements.

The UK government has announced a series of measure that aim to realise the full potential of the of the country's nuclear power industry. The document 'Government to support development of next-generation nuclear technology' follows publication of the Industrial Strategy white paper last month, a core objective of which is to "ensure the UK is developing the technologies of the future and preparing to seize the opportunities they bring and build on its strengths", the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) said.