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Nuclear Forensics International Group Anniversary Meeting at Livermore
After a little more than 25 years, the Nuclear Forensics International Technical Working Group (ITWG) is returning to its roots in Livermore, California. Founded in 1995 in a meeting at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), the ITWG met in Europe for 24 straight years from 1996 through 2019.
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Radioactive Sources: Discussing Safety and Security
Today, radioactive sources are used in many areas including energy, medicine, industry, food and agriculture, research, and in environmental monitoring and protection. “Radioactive sources are all around us, offering immense societal and economic benefits, but they may also pose a risk. Managing these sources well, protects us from accidental radiation exposure and keeps them away from people with malicious intent,” said IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi.
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Assessing the Risks of Toxic or Flammable Clouds
The Chemical Security Analysis Center was established by the Department of Homeland Security to identify and assess chemical threats and vulnerabilities in the United States and develop the best responses to potential chemical hazards.
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Iran Can Produce Nuclear Explosive Now, and 2 Bombs within One Month of a Breakout: IAEA
The IAEA’s new report on Iran’s nuclear status says that Iran’s breakout timeline is now at zero. Iran has enough 60 percent enriched uranium – highly enriched uranium, or HEU — to be able to produce nuclear explosive. If it wanted to enrich the 60 percent HEU to 90 percent HEU —typically called weapon-grade uranium (WGU) — it could do so within weeks. Whether or not Iran enriches its HEU up to 90 percent, it can have enough HEU for two nuclear weapons within one month after starting breakout.
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Protecting Nuclear Waste Containers from Metal-Corroding Microbes
Canada has about three million bundles of used nuclear fuel, which contain the solid uranium that powers nuclear reactors. They’re stored in above-ground containers at seven facilities across the country, with 90,000 added every year. The containers only last about 50 to 100 years, but used nuclear fuel must be stored for one million years before its radiation levels return to that of naturally occurring uranium ore. Canada is getting closer to moving all its spent nuclear fuel to a single facility, and encasing each fuel container in bentonite clay, and researchers are studying whether that clay could support microbial life – which could eat away at the metal containers.
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Keeping Communities Safe from Chemical Hazards During Hurricane Season
Extreme weather from hurricanes and tropical storms can devastate communities along the coasts, and the threat of subsequent hazard chemical releases can be just as deadly.
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The Pandemic: Implications for Terrorist Interest in Biological Weapons
What if the IS or al-Qaeda obtained and spread a highly contagious virus in a community or country that they sought to punish? With the pandemic highlighting weaknesses in response efforts, will these groups now seek to obtain infectious viruses to achieve these same deadly results?
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Bolstering Security by Detecting Hidden Anomalies
The ability to assess deviations from expected movement requires a deep characterization of normal activity across times of day, days of the week, weeks of the year as well as across different types of people. Current human mobility modeling techniques can provide high-level insight into human movement for the study of disease spread or population migration, but they don’t provide the complex, fine-grained modeling the Intelligence Community (IC) needs to identify more subtle anomalies with confidence.
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Threshold Reached: Iranian Nuclear Breakout Timeline Now at Zero
Iran has crossed a new, dangerous threshold: Iran’s breakout time is now at zero. It has enough 60 percent enriched uranium, or highly enriched uranium (HEU), to be assured it could fashion a nuclear explosive. If Iran wanted to further enrich its 60 percent HEU up to weapon-grade HEU, or 90 percent, it could do so within a few weeks with only a few of its advanced centrifuge cascades.
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Iran’s Current Nuclear-Weapons Status: The Facts
A report published in April by the Institute for Science and International Security, and an interview with David Albright, the report’s co-author, offer startling, and disturbing, insights into the rapid, and likely irreversible, progress Iran has made toward developing a workable nuclear weapon since the Trump administration, in 2018, decided to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal.
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Keeping Communities Safe from Chemical Hazards During Hurricane
Extreme weather from hurricanes and tropical storms can devastate communities along the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific coasts, and the threat of subsequent hazard chemical releases can be just as deadly.
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Iran Now Has Enough Fissile Material for One Nuclear Bomb: IAEA
Iran has enriched enough uranium for making one Hiroshima-size nuclear bomb, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in its quarterly report. The IAEA says that Iran now has around 43 kilograms (95 pounds) of uranium enriched to 60 percent (in March, Iran had 33 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent). The 43 kg of 60 percent enriched uranium would yield about 22-25 kg of uranium enriched to 90 percent, which is weapon-grade.
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Reforming DHS’s Biodefense Operations and Governance
Today’s biological threats show no signs of desisting any time soon. Naturally occurring outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics, and laboratory accidents pose a growing challenge – while the number of high-containment laboratories and amount of dangerous research continues to increase unabated. “DHS, as chief among those federal departments and agencies responsible for securing the homeland, must overcome its current state of fractionation and demonstrate to the rest of the government, country, and world that it is capable of coordinating and leading efforts in biodefense and other arenas,” Carrie Cordero and Asha M. George write.
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Codifying Support for Nuclear Inspections in Iran
The main obstacle for a new nuclear deal with Iran is Iran’s disregard of its safeguards commitments and defiance of standard International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) procedures are more problematic for a nuclear deal. Resolving those outstanding inspection issues offers a far more promising pathway to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons in the long run.
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Computer Code to Speed Up Airport Security
Imagine moving through airport security without having to take off your shoes or belt or getting pulled aside. Researchers are working on the Open Threat Assessment Platform, which allows the Transportation Security Administration to respond more quickly and easily to threats to air travel safety.
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