The US Department of Energy has issued a request for information to help it create a consent-based approach to siting an interim storage site for US used nuclear fuel. The move represents a re-start of the federal programme after plans for a repository at Yucca Mountain were dropped in 2009.

Canada's Nuclear Waste Management Organization has completed borehole drilling work at Ignace, which is being studied as a possible host area for a deep geological repository for Canada's used nuclear fuel. Some 6 km of rock has been retrieved during the four-year drilling programme.

Napandee near Kimba in South Australia has been formally selected as the location of a national low and medium-level radioactive waste facility. Under the relevant legislation, the declaration today by Australia's Minister for Resources and Water Keith Pitt has the effect of the Commonwealth acquiring about 211 hectares of land for the purpose of hosting the National Radioactive Waste Management Facility.

Škoda announced it has completed development of a geological disposal package for the Czech Republic's used nuclear fuel. Made of corrosion resistant steel, it is a hermetically sealed container for the highly radioactive used fuel assemblies from its VVER reactors.

Ukraine's nuclear power plant operator, Energoatom, is conducting the final pre-commissioning trials of the Central Spent Fuel Storage Facility at the site of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The company's acting president recently inspected simulation tests of the removal of nuclear fuel from unit 3 of the Rovno nuclear power plant using technology supplied by Holtec International of the USA. The transfer of fuel to the CSFSF is scheduled to begin next year.

The first of two community partnerships has been formed in Copeland, Cumbria, UK, to take forward discussions around siting a geological disposal facility for high-level radioactive waste. The move comes a year after an initial Copeland Working Group was established. A second partnership is expected to be formed soon in neighbouring South Copeland.

A project to relocate low-level radioactive waste from historic Canadian radium and uranium refining operations to a new, above-ground long-term storage facility has been completed, with the final layers of topsoil and grass placed on the engineered mound, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories has announced. The capping and closure of the mound at the Port Granby Project Long-Term Waste Management Facility completes a project begun in 2016.

A two-year effort by Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management and contractor Isotek to process and dispose of a low-dose inventory of uranium-233 stored at the US Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee has been completed. As well as eliminating legacy nuclear material the effort has also provided nuclear isotopes for next-generation cancer treatment research.

Final testing is underway at the facility which will receive, process and dispose of solid radioactive waste from the decommissioning of Chernobyl. "This is a very important event," said the acting director general of Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Valery Seyda. "The last 'long-term construction' at the site is finally moving towards completion."

Preparations for the environmental remediation of former uranium mining sites at Yangiabad and Charkesar are set to begin following the signing of a EUR2.0 million (USD2.3 million) grant agreement between the Environmental Remediation Account for Central Asia and the government of Uzbekistan.

The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority has said the studies included in the consultation on Svensk Kärnbränslehantering AB's application to build a final repository for used nuclear fuel at Forsmark present no reasons for it to change its previous assessments of the project. The regulator was responding to the government's referral regarding the application.

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power plan to leverage data gathered through decades of experience of the storage of used Candu fuel to underpin cooperative research activities under a new Memorandum of Understanding between the two organisations. They will engage in knowledge-sharing and other joint activities to advance storage, transportation and disposal practices for used fuel, and to explore opportunities to collaborate on nuclear decommissioning and waste management initiatives.