• IRAN’S NUKESIran's Nuclear Activities 'Raises Eyebrows' at IAEA

    By Biresh Banerjee and Zachary Crellin

    Iran’s enrichment of uranium and a lack of access to international monitors is fueling suspicions about its nuclear activities. The International Atomic Energy Agency said its committed to promoting dialogue with Tehran.

  • IRAN’S THREATMemo: The Reported Destruction of Secret Workshop in 2020

    By David Albright, Sarah Burkhard, Spencer Faragasso, and Mohammadreza Giveh

    On March 24, 2024, Iran International reported that an “industrial production workshop […] belonging to the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) was deliberately set on fire” in the summer of 2020. 1 The incident was not reported publicly at the time, and Iran International cites judicial and intelligence documents provided by a hacking group as their source. Iran alleged that the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, hired a group of nine Iranians to destroy the facility.

  • PROTECTING CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTUREPlan B: Keeping Nuclear Power Plants Cool in a Warmer, Drier Climate

    By Kristen Mally Dean

    Waterways — tried and true cooling sources for nuclear power plants — could get warmer due to global climate change. Climate scientists and nuclear science and engineering experts are joining forces to develop a plan B for nuclear power.

  • NUCLEAR RISKSRaging Texas Wildfires Force U.S. Main Nuclear Weapon Facility to Evacuate, Temporarily Shut Down

    Raging wildfires in the Texas panhandle have forced the evacuation and temporary closure of the Pantex plant, the U.S. premier nuclear weapons assembly facility. The Pantex plant said that “All weapons and special materials are safe and unaffected.”

  • NUCLEAR RISKSDecades After the U.S. Buried Nuclear Waste Abroad, Climate Change Could Unearth It

    By Anita Hofschneider

    A new report says melting ice sheets and rising seas could disturb waste from U.S. nuclear projects in Greenland and the Marshall Islands

  • NUCLEAR TRAFFICKINGJapanese Yakuza Leader Charged with Trafficking Nuclear Materials

    Takeshi Ebisawa of Japan, leader within the Yakuza transnational organized crime syndicate, was charged with trafficking nuclear materials, including uranium and weapons-grade plutonium.

  • NUCLEAR PROLIFERATIONA Non-Proliferation Solution: Using Antineutrinos to Surveil Nuclear Reactors

    Antineutrinos generated in nuclear fission can be measured to remotely monitor the operation of nuclear reactors and verify that they are not being used to produce nuclear weapons, scientists report. Thanks to a newly developed method, it is now possible to estimate a reactor’s operation status, fuel burnup, and fuel composition based entirely on its antineutrino emissions. This technique could contribute massively to nuclear non-proliferation efforts and, in turn, safer nuclear energy.

  • RADIATION DETECTIONBioengineered Potato Plant Detects Gamma Radiation

    A researcher in the University of Tennessee Herbert College of Agriculture has developed a potato plant that can detect gamma radiation, providing reliable indications of harmful radiation levels without complex monitoring technologies. The natural radiation sensor is affordable, too.

  • RADIOLOGICAL RESPONSEPreparing U.S., Partners for Radiological Response

    By Paul Menser

    After the September 11th attacks, security professionals worried that terrorists might detonate a “dirty bomb” – an explosive device enhanced with radiological source materials. Responders for this type of event had to be trained.

  • NUCLEAR WASTELos Alamos National Lab Safely Shipping Radiological and Hazardous Waste Off-Site

    A substantial amount of Los Alamos National Lab’s radiological and hazardous waste from years past was permanently disposed of at off-site facilities — a move in step with the Lab’s goal to mitigate hazards to workers, the community, and the environment while carrying out its national security mission.

  • NUCLEAR WASTEGerman Nuclear Phaseout Leaves Radioactive Waste Problem

    By Klaus Deuse

    While Germany searches for a permanent storage facility for its nuclear waste, it risks sitting on piles of dangerous waste for decades. The problem drains public finances by hundreds of millions of euros every year.

  • NUCLEAR WEAPONSNuclear Engineer Uses Machine Learning on Weapons Testing Images to Understand Fallout

    After WWII, the U.S. wanted to better understand what happened after a nuclear weapon was detonated. Researchers conducted tests in the southwestern U.S. and the Pacific Ocean and recorded those experiments on film. Scientists used the original reel-to-reel films to manually measure data from the blasts. Today, nuclear forensic scientists combine modern computational techniques with the historical records of nuclear tests to obtain precious insights into the physics of these type of events, which are otherwise hard to study experimentally.

  • NUCLEAR MATTERSUsing Artificial Mussels to Monitor Radioactivity in the Ocean

    Amid the global concern over the pollution of radioactive wastes in the ocean, researchers have conducted a study which has found that “artificial mussels” (AMs) can effectively measure low concentrations of radionuclides in the sea. It is believed that this technology can be applied as a reliable and effective solution for monitoring radioactive contamination around the world.

  • NUCLEAR INCIDENTSTraining for Nuclear Incidents and Preparing WMD Responses

    By Justin S. Griffin

    “Radiological material can end up in almost any location or any place and take on almost any shape and form,” an expert told participants a few weeks ago at the first Sandia Lab’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Counterterrorism and Incident Response Showcase. Preparing for nuclear incidents is not dealing with hypotheticals. “It is not practice. It is not an exercise. It is real life stuff,” he said.

  • Iran’s ThreatThe Iran Threat Geiger Counter: Moving Toward Extreme Danger

    By The Institute for Science and International Security

    The Iran Threat Geiger Counter from the Institute for Science and International Security measures on a regular basis Iran’s hostile intentions toward the United States and U.S. allies, and its capability to turn these hostile intentions into action. As with the radiation levels measured by a Geiger counter, any level above zero represents a degree of danger, and over the last six months, the threat posed by Iran has increased. As of May 2023, the Institute assigns Iran a total threat score of 140 out of 180, up from 130 in October 2022, and assessed as High Danger.