US nuclear waste disposal company Deep Isolation has been awarded a contract to conduct a borehole feasibility study for ARAO, Slovenia's radioactive waste management organisation. The study will examine whether a deep borehole repository could dispose of used fuel from Slovenia's TRIGA II research reactor at the Josef Stefan Institute in Ljubljana.

The Swedish government must make a decision on the application to construct a final high-level waste repository and not consider it separately from that for an expansion of the existing Clab interim repository for used fuel, write World Nuclear Association's Director General Sama Bilbao y León and Public Affairs Manager John Lindberg. Dividing the applications, they say, is a political game of 'Fox and Geese' that is extremely unworthy of an established democracy like Sweden.

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.

A group of six students recently spent nine days living in the Grimsel underground research laboratory in Switzerland in a simulated mission to the Moon. During the mission, the "astronauts" taking part in the Asclepios I project undertook several scientific experiments, the results of which could be applied to future actual space missions.

A major project to build a new ventilation system at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, USA has passed a milestone with the completion of the foundations for one of two major buildings for the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System. The 55,000 square feet (5100 square metre) New Filter Building will house the high-efficiency particulate air filter units that will clean air extracted from the WIPP underground.

The first stage of Ukraine's Central Spent Fuel Storage Facility is ready for operation, Energoatom has announced, citing an approval from the Architectural and Construction Inspectorate of Ukraine.

A government decision on Sweden's final waste repository will be delayed by the launch of a public consultation on whether the application for the repository should be considered separately from that for an expansion of the existing Clab interim repository used fuel, Finnish nuclear operator Fortum has said. A government decision, it warned, is needed before the end of this month in order to avoid future disruptions to electricity supply due to a lack of interim used fuel storage capacity.

Uranium enrichment services provider Urenco has approved the progression of the Urenco Metals Recycling facility project based at its Urenco Nuclear Stewardship subsidiary in Capenhurst, UK. The project will now move into the design phase. The facility, planned to begin operation in 2024, will provide a wide range of metallic treatment services for recycling and disposal.

A legacy radioactive source from a US Department of Energy waste inventory is now being reused more than 40 years after it was put into storage. The collaborative effort to prepare and transport the small neutron-emitting, plutonium-beryllium source from Idaho National Laboratory to Pacific Northwest National Laboratory takes the 'reduce, reuse and recycle' concept to the next level, the Department's Office of Environmental Management said.

Cavendish Nuclear has been awarded a contract by Magnox Limited to supply the Concrete Box Loading Facility at the decommissioned Hinkley Point A nuclear power plant in the UK. The facility will be used to process and package solid intermediate-level radioactive waste.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued its final environmental impact statement on Interim Storage Partners, LLC's application to build and operate a consolidated interim storage facility for used nuclear fuel in Texas. The regulator recommends granting a licence for the facility.

Recyclable-Fuel Storage Company Ltd (RFS) now expects its interim used fuel storage facility in Mutsu, Aomori prefecture, to begin operating in fiscal year 2023 (ending March 2024). Following several previous delays, the facility - construction of which began in 2010 - had been scheduled to start up later this year. However, the construction of additional safety measures is taking longer than expected.