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The second of two community partnerships has been formed in Copeland, Cumbria, UK, to take forward discussions around siting a geological disposal facility for high-level radioactive waste. Following the formation of the Mid Copeland GDF Community Partnership last month, neighbouring South Copeland has now put itself forward as a possible host for the facility.

A cleaning technique from the oil and gas industry is being used to decontaminate old pipeline sections from the UK's Harwell research site, saving money and allowing them to be recycled instead of disposed of as radioactive waste.

Work to prepare all foreign-owned high-level waste for return to overseas customers has been completed, the UK's Sellafield Ltd has announced. A total of 1840 containers have been prepared for return to overseas customers since 2008, as part of the closing out of commercial reprocessing contracts from the Thorp reprocessing plant.

The US Department of ¶¶Òõ´«Ã½ÔÚÏß Office of Environmental Management is marking thirty years of cleanup work at the Idaho National Laboratory site to ensure the protection and safety of the underlying Snake River Plain aquifer in compliance with state and federal regulations.

The Swedish government has stated that it intends to announce a decision on the expansion of the existing SFR repository for low and intermediate-level waste at Forsmark on 22 December. In a press conference today, Minister of Climate and Environment Annika Strandhäll said a decision on the application for a final repository for used nuclear fuel also at Forsmark will be announced on 27 January.

A pilot study by Sweden's Studsvik AB shows that all of Norway's metallic uranium research reactor fuel could be processed using its oxidation process in less than two years. Several studies have already recommended chemical treatment of the fuel before it is disposed of in an underground repository.

France's EDF and water, waste and energy management company Veolia will early next year create a joint venture - to be known as Waste2Glass - to develop Veolia's GeoMelt vitrification technology. The partners hope to extend the application of the technology beyond high-level radioactive waste.

The US Department of ¶¶Òõ´«Ã½ÔÚÏß has issued a request for information to help it create a consent-based approach to siting an interim storage site for US used nuclear fuel. The move represents a re-start of the federal programme after plans for a repository at Yucca Mountain were dropped in 2009.

Canada's Nuclear Waste Management Organization has completed borehole drilling work at Ignace, which is being studied as a possible host area for a deep geological repository for Canada's used nuclear fuel. Some 6 km of rock has been retrieved during the four-year drilling programme.

Napandee near Kimba in South Australia has been formally selected as the location of a national low and medium-level radioactive waste facility. Under the relevant legislation, the declaration today by Australia's Minister for Resources and Water Keith Pitt has the effect of the Commonwealth acquiring about 211 hectares of land for the purpose of hosting the National Radioactive Waste Management Facility.

Å koda announced it has completed development of a geological disposal package for the Czech Republic's used nuclear fuel. Made of corrosion resistant steel, it is a hermetically sealed container for the highly radioactive used fuel assemblies from its VVER reactors.

Ukraine's nuclear power plant operator, Energoatom, is conducting the final pre-commissioning trials of the Central Spent Fuel Storage Facility at the site of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The company's acting president recently inspected simulation tests of the removal of nuclear fuel from unit 3 of the Rovno nuclear power plant using technology supplied by Holtec International of the USA. The transfer of fuel to the CSFSF is scheduled to begin next year.