• Nuclear Agency Cannot Continue With “Business as Usual” in the Shifting Supercomputing Landscape: Report

    The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) needs to fundamentally rethink the strategy for its next generation of high-performance computing, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences.

  • Producing Medical Isotopes While Lowering the Risk of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation

    Scientists and engineers at Argonne have been working for decades to help medical isotope production facilities around the world change from the use of highly enriched uranium (HEU) to the use of low-enriched uranium (LEU), which is much more difficult to use in a weapon.

  • Enhancing Advanced Nuclear Reactor Analysis

    Nuclear power is a significant source of steady carbon-neutral electricity, and advanced reactors can add more of it to the U.S. grid, which is vital for the environment and economy. Sandia Lab researchers have developed a standardized screening method to determine the most important radioactive isotopes that could leave an advanced reactor site in the unlikely event of an accident.

  • Germany: Seeking Solution for Remaining Nuclear Waste

    Nuclear energy in Germany has been history since mid-April. The last three nuclear power plants ended their operations on April 15. Germany’s nuclear power might be gone, but nuclear waste isn’t going anywhere. The search for a location for a final repository remains a challenge.

  • North Korea’s Nuclear Tests Expose Neighbors to Radiation Risks

    Tens of thousands of North Koreans and people in South Korea, Japan, and China could be exposed to radioactive materials spread through groundwater from an underground nuclear test site. North Korea secretly conducted six tests of nuclear weapons at the Punggye-ri site in the mountainous North Hamgyong Province between 2006 and 2017.

  • Iran Enriching Uranium to Near-Weapon-Grade 84%: IAEA

    IAEA inspectors found uranium particles enriched up to nearly 84 percent in Iran’s underground Fordow uranium enrichment site. The 83.7 percent enriched uranium is just below the 90 percent purity needed for nuclear weapons. Experts say that Iran would need no more than 10-14 days to use the material to produce an atomic bomb.

  • How to Shelter from a Nuclear Explosion

    There is no good place to be when a nuclear bomb goes off. Anything too close is instantly vaporized, and radiation can pose a serious health threat even at a distance. Researchers simulated an atomic bomb explosion from a typical intercontinental ballistic missile and the resulting blast wave to see how it would affect people sheltering indoors.

  • How to Survive a Tactical Nuclear Bomb? Defense Experts Explain

    What would happen during a tactical nuclear bomb explosion, including the three stages of ignition, blast, and radioactive fallout? How one might be able to survive such an explosion?

  • A New Way to Assess Radiation Damage in Reactors

    A new method could greatly reduce the time and expense needed for certain important safety checks in nuclear power reactors. The approach could save money and increase total power output in the short run, and it might increase plants’ safe operating lifetimes in the long run.

  • Preparing More STEM Students for Careers in Nuclear Science and Security

    New funds will support efforts to educate and train the next generation of scientists and engineers and provide innovative solutions to challenges related to nuclear security.

  • The Cold War Legacy Lurking in U.S. Groundwater

    In America’s rush to build the nuclear arsenal that won the Cold War, safety was sacrificed for speed. ProPublica has cataloged cleanup efforts at the 50-plus sites where uranium was processed to fuel the nation’s nuclear arsenal. Even after regulators say cleanup is complete, polluted water and sickness are often left behind.

  • Zaporizhzhia: What Would Be the Consequences of an Accident?

    Although it’s impossible to say for sure what consequences an accident at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant might have on human health in the environment nearby, experts can make some predictions.

  • What Would Happen If a Nuclear Bomb Was Used in Ukraine?

    Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and meltdowns at the Chernobyl and Fukushima power plants clearly affected people’s health. But experts say it’s hard to predict the fallout from a nuclear war today.

  • Iran Nuclear Weapons Breakout Time Remains at Zero

    A new report from the Institute for Science and International Security summarizes and assesses information in the (IAEA) quarterly safeguards report for 7 September 2022. The main finding: Iran’s breakout time, that is, the time between a political decision to produce a nuclear weapon and the completion of such weapon, remains at zero.

  • Are Attacks on Nuclear Plants Legal under International Law?

    As fears rise that there could be a nuclear disaster at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia plant, DW looks at the Geneva Conventions, to which both Russia and Ukraine are signatories. Targeting nuclear plants is not actually banned.