The International Atomic Energy Agency has verified that Iran is feeding uranium hexafluoride into a recently installed cascade of 174 IR-2M centrifuges at the Fuel Enrichment Plant in Natanz. France, Germany and the UK - the E3 - warned yesterday that Iran's further violations of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action were "hollowing out" core non-proliferation benefits of the 2015 nuclear deal.

A German court has ruled in favour of Vattenfall in its case against the government relating to the nuclear power plants Brunsbüttel, Krümmel and Mülheim-Kärlich in northern Germany. The Swedish utility had argued that the conditions for compensation payments to nuclear power producers impacted by the country's nuclear phaseout policy, the Energiewende, were not clearly regulated and that previous amendments to the law could lead to a reduction of claims.

Germany is showing continued strong support for the International Atomic Energy Agency's mission to foster global peace and development, even as the country phases out its own use of nuclear power, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said yesterday during a two-day visit to Germany. Decommissioning and waste management will be important areas for future cooperation between Germany and the IAEA, he said.

Germany has published a list of potential storage sites for radioactive waste. The list, from waste management organisation Bundesgesellschaft für Endlagerung, follows parliament's approval three years ago for a science-based search for a site. It identifies 90 areas covering 54% of the country's surface area as potentially geologically suitable.

France's Framatome and the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in Germany have started commercial development of nuclear research reactor fuels based on uranium-molybdenum fuel alloys. The fuel can be used instead of highly enriched uranium, which is seen as a potential nuclear proliferation risk.

PreussenElektra has completed the construction of a second interim storage facility for low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste at the Unterweser nuclear power plant. The German utility has handed the facility over to Bundes Gesellschaft für Zwischenlagern, the government-owned company responsible for its operation.

The coronavirus outbreak has impacted German utility EnBW’s deconstruction plans for its Philippsburg nuclear power plant, which is in the federal state of Baden-Wurttemberg. The controlled detonation of the plant's cooling towers will take place on 14 May at the earliest as the date may be subject to change, it said.

The upgrade of the world's largest stellarator-type fusion device - Germany's Wendelstein 7-X - is set to enter a new stage with the final delivery of components for the so-called divertor. Preparations for installation of the water-cooled inner cladding components have been completed, with installation work expected to continue well into next year.

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories is to take part in the decommissioning of a prototype boiling water reactor in Lingen, Germany under a subcontract awarded by Atkins Energy Germany GmbH. The four-year contract includes the secondment of CNL staff as well as the provision of specialist equipment services and will see CNL for the first time apply skills and capabilities gained from Canadian decommissioning projects in the international market.

Germany's phase-out of nuclear power and increased use instead of fossil fuels could have led to 1100 additional deaths each year from air pollution, according to a study by economists at the University of California at Santa Barbara, the University of California at Berkeley, and Carnegie Mellon University.

Unit 2 of Germany's Philippsburg nuclear power plant was disconnected from the grid at 6.55pm on 31 December, as planned, marking the end of 35 years of operation. Operator EnBW said it will begin dismantling the unit in the second half of this year.

The Mühleberg nuclear power plant in Switzerland today ended generation after 47 years in operation. Meanwhile, Ringhals unit 2 in Sweden and Philippsburg unit 2 in Germany are preparing to shut down by the end of 2019.