The U.K. government’s Office for Nuclear Regulation has granted EDF Energy formal consent to decommission the Hinkley Point B nuclear power plant in Somerset, England. The two-unit advanced gas-cooled reactor was permanently shut down in August 2022, and site owner EDF applied to ONR for decommissioning consent in August 2024.

Sellafield Ltd., the site license company overseeing the decommissioning of the United Kingdom’s Sellafield nuclear site in Cumbria, England, has awarded a 15-year framework contract worth up to £4.6 billion ($6 billion) to support “high hazard risk reduction programs” at the site.

The Savannah River Site in South Carolina will begin a leak-tightness test to qualify the megavolume Saltstone Disposal Unit (SDU) 10 to store up to 33 million gallons of solidified, decontaminated salt solution produced at the site.

The International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association (ITA), a nongovernmental organization made up of 81 member states working to advance the safe, beneficial use of subsurface spaces, is working with the International Atomic Energy Agency to support the advancement of geologic disposal facilities for high-level radioactive waste.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management and its contractor Bechtel announced on October 15 the start of nuclear vitrification operations at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP), also known as the Vit Plant, at the Hanford Site in Washington state.

Nuclear waste disposal technology company Deep Isolation is asking that the National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO) consider how spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste will be managed under its strategy for developing advanced nuclear power projects in participating states.

The American Nuclear Society has sent a letter to Energy Secretary Chris Wright with a set of recommendations for the Department of Energy to take to establish an effective national program to manage the storage, reprocessing, and final disposal of U.S. commercial used nuclear fuel.

Holtec International has confirmed it is canceling plans to build a consolidated interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in southeastern New Mexico. Named the HI-STORE CISF, the facility would have stored up to 10,000 canisters of commercial SNF on land owned by the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance (ELEA) near the towns of Carlsbad and Hobbs.

When the Department of Energy’s Office of Legacy Management recently faced an operational challenge at the Rifle Disposal Site in Colorado, it took subject matter experts across a wide array of disciplines to tackle it.

U.K.-based Cavendish Nuclear, a subsidiary of Babcock International, will work with Amentum on the next phase of work supporting the decommissioning of Japan’s Monju prototype fast reactor under a contract awarded by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved a license application submitted by Disa Technologies to use high-pressure slurry ablation (HPSA) technology for remediating abandoned uranium mine waste at inactive mining sites.

The OECD Nuclear Energy Agency has issued a report calling for more-detailed information on tracking the decay heat of spent nuclear fuel from light water reactors. According to the NEA, the report highlights the increasing importance of accurate decay heat estimations due to evolving fuel characteristics, including higher initial fuel enrichment, increased burn-up rates, and extended reactor cycle lengths.

The report, Summary of the NEA Assessment on Spent Nuclear Fuel Decay Heat for Light Water Reactors, summarizes the findings of a subgroup of the NEA’s Working Party on Nuclear Criticality Safety (WPNCS), which ran from January 2022 to January 2024.

Better information regarding the specific work needed to finish cleaning up contaminated soil and legacy landfills at Department of Energy nuclear sites could help the department better prioritize cleanup projects and improve budgeting decisions, according to an audit by the Government Accountability Office.

Nuclear waste disposal technology company Deep Isolation Nuclear announced it has signed a technology licensing agreement with government contractor Navarro Research and Engineering, giving Navarro access to Deep Isolation’s portfolio of intellectual property for use in nuclear and hazardous waste management applications across the states of Tennessee and Idaho.

WM Symposia, which hosts the annual Waste Management Conference in Phoenix, Ariz., announced it has signed a practical arrangement with the International Atomic Energy Agency aimed at strengthening international collaboration in the safe management of radioactive waste, decommissioning, and environmental remediation.

Global engineering company Amentum announced plans on Thursday to create 3,000 new jobs over the next four years on the back of growth in nuclear power and defense in the United Kingdom.

The announcement follows President Donald Trump’s state visit to the U.K., during which a number of deals between the two countries were announced.

Nuclear Waste Services, the radioactive waste management subsidiary of the United Kingdom’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, has reported on its inaugural year of the National Youth Forum on Geological Disposal. NWS set up the initiative, in partnership with the environmental consultancy firm ARUP and the not-for-profit organization The Young Foundation, to give young people the chance to share their views on the government’s plans to develop a geological disposal facility (GDF) for the safe, secure, and long-term disposal of radioactive waste.

The U.K.’s Sellafield Ltd. and Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power Company have pledge to continue to work together for up to an additional 10 years, extending a cooperative agreement begun in 2014 following the 2011 tsunami that resulted in the irreparable damage of TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi plant.

An International Atomic Energy Agency task force has confirmed that the discharge of treated water from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is proceeding in line with international safety standards. The task force’s findings were published in the agency’s fourth report since Tokyo Electric Power Company began discharging Fukushima’s treated and diluted water in August 2023.

More information can be found on the IAEA’s Fukushima Daiichi ALPS Treated Water Discharge web page.

Late last week saw two announcements from companies working to recycle used nuclear fuel on a commercial scale, providing welcome news to anyone hoping to see the United States move to unlock the hidden potential of the more than 94,000 metric tons of spent fuel stored at power plant sites around the country.