Spot, a robotic quadruped, has completed a trial at the Dounreay site in Scotland, UK, where it successfully navigated an evaporator cell in the Fuel Cycle Area that has been shut off for 25 years.

Swedish nuclear technical services provider Studsvik and German radioactive waste specialist GNS Gesellschaft für Nuklear-Service mbH have formed a strategic and exclusive cooperation to implement Studsvik's inDRUM technology for the German market. inDRUM is a patented technology for the treatment of problematic wastes, such as legacy wastes in aging drums.

All the nuclear fuel at the shut down Mühleberg nuclear power plant has now been transported to the Zwilag interim storage facility in Würenlingen, Swiss utility BKW announced. The removal of the fuel marks the completion of the first of three stages of decommissioning of the plant.

The licence issued for the construction and operation of a consolidated interim storage facility for used nuclear fuel in Texas has been cancelled by a US appeals court. The court ruled that the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission does not have the authority to license a private storage facility away from nuclear reactors.

The process of treating, cleaning and emptying the 14-metre-deep fuel element storage pool at the Grafenrheinfeld nuclear power plant in Germany has been completed. It follows the emptying and cleaning of the reactor pool at the end of last year.

Orano USA has completed work to separate and pack the top third of the reactor vessel, with its embedded internal components, using its patented Optimized Segmentation process. The reactor vessel will be cut into three segments as the company carries out accelerated decommissioning of the plant.

Holtec International has completed its first used fuel loading campaign at a newly commissioned dry storage facility at the Slovenian nuclear power plant earlier than expected. Sixteen casks holding a total of 592 used fuel rods have now been placed in the facility.

Defuelling of the second of two shut-down RBMK reactors at the Leningrad nuclear power plant in Russia has now been completed, an important step in the process to decommission the units.

Poland's Ministry of Climate and Environment is seeking municipalities interested in participating in the process of selecting a site for a new surface repository for low and intermediate-level short-lived radioactive waste. The country's existing national repository for such waste has been in operation since 1961.

A contract has been awarded for the backfilling of the former salt mine in Gorleben, Lower Saxony - previously considered a possible site for geological disposal of Germany's high-level radioactive waste.

The first waste has been removed from the Pile Fuel Cladding Silo, one of the oldest waste stores and one of the highest hazard facilities on the UK's Sellafield site.

The installation of equipment has begun at TVEL's JSC Electrochemical Plant in Zelenogorsk in Russia's Krasnoyarsk Region for W2-ECP, the country's second plant for the processing of depleted uranium hexafluoride. The plant is part of a long-term project to manage and make use of depleted uranium stocks in Russia.