The US Department of Energy's Transuranic Waste Processing Center, at Oak Ridge in Tennessee, has sent its first shipment of processed and treated transuranic waste since 2012 for permanent disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, in New Mexico. 

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.

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 US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved further actions related to its review of the Department of Energy's application for authorisation to construct a high-level radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Yucca Mountain has since 1987 been named in the US Nuclear Waste Policy Act as the sole initial repository for disposal of the country's used nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive wastes.

A unique piece of equipment that can compress a 55-gallon (200-litre) waste drum to a fifth of its original size has achieved 100,000 hours of operation at the US Department of Energy's Idaho site. Compacting has reduced the number of shipments of transuranic waste from the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project for disposal in New Mexico.

The US Nuclear Energy Institute has called for the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to reject a state of Texas request for payments from a fund intended for the disposal of used nuclear fuel. The request was made in a lawsuit filed in March by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton against federal agencies, including the Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

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.

A "scientific characteristic map" for the geological disposal of high-level radioactive waste has today been published by Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). The map does not identify potential repository sites, but indicates areas that have suitable geological conditions to host such a facility.

AA Bochvar Research Institute of Inorganic Materials (VNIINM) has announced its development of a type of steel to "significantly improve" the neutron-physical properties of a nuclear power reactor's active zones by reducing neutron loss due to parasitic absorption. VNIINM says the new material will also reduce the costs of radioactive waste handling and disposal.

The UK's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority received more than GBP1.0 billion ($1.3 billion) of commercial income in the 2016/2017 financial year, which it says reduced the "net impact on the public purse" to GBP2.2 billion. According to its annual report and accounts, published yesterday, the exact figure was GBP1.025 billion, which was down from GBP1.094 billion in 2015/2016. Around 85% of its income, GBP612 million, came from the reprocessing and management of used fuel and waste.

Italy is committed to the safe and effective decommissioning of nuclear sites and management of associated radioactive waste, an International Atomic Energy Agency mission has concluded. However, it noted areas for potential improvement.

NAC International's completion of a dry fuel storage campaign at the Kewaunee nuclear power plant four years after the unit shut down has set a new benchmark for the transfer of used fuel to dry storage.