South Korea's Nuclear Safety and Security Commission has approved the decommissioning of unit 1 at the Kori nuclear power plant near Busan. The unit was permanently shut down in June 2017, becoming the first South Korean reactor to enter decommissioning.

Finnish radioactive waste management company Posiva announced that the first copper casting blank has been produced for the fabrication of a final disposal canister to be used in the Onkalo used nuclear fuel repository.

Sweden's radioactive waste management company Svensk Kärnbränslehantering AB has selected Swiss construction firm Implenia as its collaborative partner to build the first underground section of the final repository for used nuclear fuel in Forsmark.

Energy services group GDES and technology company Alisys are developing an autonomous quadruped robot for decommissioning and waste management firm Enresa to support the decommissioning of the Santa María de Garoña Nuclear Power Plant in Spain.

Civil engineering for ONDRAF/NIRAS' surface disposal facility in Dessel will be carried out by the NucleusSafe partnership, with construction company Denys responsible for electromechanical aspects. Work is to begin later this year.

The removal of all four steam generators from the reactor building at Germany's shut down Unterweser nuclear power plant, which began in mid-May, has now been completed, PreussenElektra announced.

Belarus Energy Minister Denis Moroz has said the country is looking at potentially locating its planned radioactive waste disposal facility in the Grodno, Mogilev or Gomel areas.

The estimated GBP136 billion (USD184 billion) cost of decommissioning the Sellafield nuclear site in Cumbria would increase even more should work be further delayed, the UK House of Commons Public Accounts Committee has warned. It says not enough progress has been made in addressing the project's most significant hazards.

Lincolnshire County Council has decided to withdraw from talks about the possibility of a UK radioactive waste repository being built in Theddlethorpe. The move leaves two communities in Cumbria involved in the process of selecting a site for the permanent deep burial of nuclear waste material.