• S.C. sues DOE over Savanah River MOX facility

    South Carolina decided to go to court to prevent the Obama administration from cutting off funding for a troubled multi-billion dollar Savanah River plant in which weapons-grade plutonium would be processed and turned into suitable fuel for commercial nuclear reactors. The initial budget for the MOX project, when it was launched a decade ago, was just under $4 billion. Since then, construction costs have reached $8 billion, and DOE officials now say the plant will cost about $30 billion over the years it is in use.

  • DOE: Contrary to rumor, there are no evacuation plans for southeastern New Mexico

    The Department of Energy (DOE) said the other day that an Internet rumor which has been fueling concerns earlier this week about the need to be prepared to evacuate southeastern New Mexico because of recent events at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) is “absolutely” without basis. DOE notes that monitoring conducted by Nuclear Waste Partnership of air, soil, water, and vegetation are showing no radiation releases that would approach levels causing health concerns.

  • IDF ordered to continue preparations for striking Iran’s nuclear sites this year

    The negotiations between the P5+1 and Iran over Iran’s nuclear program continue, with an eye to replacing, by June, the current temporary agreement with a permanent one, but Israel let it be known that it is continuing to its preparations for a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon have instructed the IDF to continue its preparations for carrying out such a strike, at a cost estimated to be at least ten billion shekels ($2.89 billion) this year.

  • Israel State Comptroller says some IDF units unprepared for chemical attack

    Israel’s State Comptroller Joseph Shapira on Wednesday harshly criticized the Israel Defense Force (IDF) for not having sufficient number of gas masks for one of its branches. The comptroller levelled his criticism in the unclassified portion of his discussion of defense issue in his annual report on government performance. In February, Israel has discontinued the distribution of gas masks to the general population, and the dismantling of Syria chemical weapons arsenal has led some Israeli defense experts to question the need for Israel to continue and invest in defensive measures against chemical weapons attacks.

  • S.C. politicians want decision to halt work on Savannah River plutonium plant reversed

    Three Republican lawmakers from South Carolina — Senator Lindsey Graham and Representatives Tim Scott and Joe Wilson have – have asked South Carolina governor Nikki Haley to “explore any legal avenues” to prevent the mixed-oxide fuel (MOX) project at the Savannah River Sitefrom shutting down. The administration has decided to put the project on hold after repeated delays and cost overruns averaging 60 percent over the original estimates.

  • Loa Alamos lab has nowhere to send its nuclear waste

    With the U.S. only underground nuclear waste repository shut down owing to radiation leaks, Los Alamos National Laboratory found itself facing a problem: it has to find an alternative place to ship toxic waste from a mesa on its northern New Mexico campus, and it has until June to do so. The problem is shared by other sites with nuclear waste. The fact that the repository has been shut down indefinitely means that soon nuclear waste will begin to backup ate various locations around the country where nuclear weapons-related activity is taking place.

  • Cyber war in Ukraine – business as usual for the Russian bear

    In a war — declared or otherwise — bravery and perseverance are not enough. Communications are important. Effectiveness means being able to command your troops and gather information. It also means being able to trust your communications. Disrupting and distorting communications is a dark art, the “new black” in overt and covert conflict. This is what we are seeing in Ukraine. Russia appears to be having a fine time covertly sabotaging Ukrainian networks.

  • Israel open to offering missile defense coverage to Jordan, Egypt

    With worries about Iran military capabilities growing, a U.S. general on Monday said that Israel should consider extending the coverage area of its missile defense systems so they could cover Jordan and possibly Egypt, and an Israeli official cautiously welcomed the idea. The United States has funded most of the research and development work on Israel’s layered ballistic missile and short-range rocket defense systems, and under the Obama administration, Israel’s deployed missile interceptor systems have been integrated with U.S. global missile tracking and regional missile defense systems.

  • Underground recovery process at WIPP begins

    Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP), the management and operations contractor at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), said it has initiated the first phase of an underground recovery process which will lead to the resumption of nuclear waste disposal operations at WIPP. Initial results show no airborne radioactive contamination in the underground shafts.

  • Scotland demands U.K. govt. apology over radiation leak at MoD nuke facility

    In 2012 the U.K. Ministry of Defense decided to refuel the nuclear reactor on board Britain’s oldest nuclear submarine, HMS Vanguard, after a test reactor operating at the Naval Reactor Test Establishment at Dounreay, Caithness, in Scotland was found to have a small internal leak of radiation. The test reactor had been shut down after the fault was detected, and both the independent Defense Nuclear Safety Regulator and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) had been informed. It now appears that SEPA did not share the information with the Scottish cabinet, or with Alex Salmond, the First Minister of Scotland. Salmond, in a scathing letter to British Prime Minister David Cameron, has demanded an apology from Camron for “disrespecting” the Scottish Parliament and the people of Scotland and for treating both in an “underhanded” manner by not sharing the information about the radiation leaks.

  • Examining fire safety concerns raised by green buildings

    In 2012, the “Fire Safety Challenges of Green Buildings” report assembled a list of seventy-eight green building features and construction elements that could have implications for fire safety. The authors then derived a list of potential hazards associated with the features and elements, including greater flammability, faster burn rate, and increased hindrance to firefighters, as compared with conventional construction. A 3-year project, funded with a $1 million grant from DHS, will enable the further exploration of some of the potential risks and hazards identified in the 2012 report.

  • Predicting sliding mountain slopes

    If entire mountain slopes start to slide, danger threatens. It is not always easy to predict and monitor these mass movements. In an international project, scientists combined numerical models with microwave radar systems in Northern Tyrol — with promising results. The Steinlehnen slope in Northern Tyrol (Austria) started to move in 2003. Rockfalls threatened people, streets, and buildings. Meanwhile, peace has returned; although the slope is merely “creeping,” Steinlehnen has become an interesting research object for scientists in recent years.

  • Nuclear waste kept in parking area as N.M. repository remains closed

    The federal government’s only underground nuclear waste dump, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico, remains closed and state environmental officials have set deadlines for the Department of Energy and its contractor-operator of the site to deal with radioactive waste left above ground at the repository. Dozens of drums and containers which have been shipped from federal facilities around the country are being stored in a parking area at the plant, and inside the plant’s waste- handling building.

  • Gangbangin' in Syria: Two L.A. gang members in Syria to defend Assad regime

    About a hundred Americans have gone to Syria to take part in the war, all of them — with the apparent exception of two L.A. gang members named “Creeper” and “Wino” — to fight on the side of the Sunni rebels against the Alawite Assad regime. In a video recently posted on YouTube, the two are shown brandishing AK-47s and firing at an unseen enemy. Their tattoos identify one of them as a member of Sureños-13, which is affiliated with the Mexican mafia, and the other as a member of Westside Armenian Power gang. They tell the camera they are “in Syria, gangbangin’.”

  • NIST report on iris aging flawed: researchers

    In July last year, NIST released a report, titled “IREX VI: Temporal Stability of Iris Recognition Accuracy,” which concluded that its “best estimate of iris recognition aging” is so small that there should be no concern about the possibility of iris recognition accuracy degrading over time. University of Notre Dame biometrics researchers Kevin Bowyer and Estefan Ortiz have release a paper which points to errors in the NIST report on how iris aging affects the accuracy of iris recognition. They describe specific methodological errors in the NIST report, and present a list of suggestions to be addressed in a revised version of the report.