• Microbes clean up nuclear waste -- and generate electricity

    Researchers have discovered how microbes generate electricity while cleaning up nuclear waste and other toxic metals; the microbes effectively immobilize the radioactive material and prevent it from leaching into groundwater; the discovery could benefit sites changed forever by nuclear contamination

  • Earthquake moves Virginia nuclear waste casks

    Last week’s earthquake saw caused nuclear waste casks to move up to four inches, and concrete pieces to peel off in concrete bunkers used for storing nuclear waste; the NRC says the casks and bunkers were not damaged, and no radiation leaked out

  • Molecules could help solve radioactive waste concerns

    One component of nuclear waste — called “minor actinides” — present an extreme hazard as they are intensely radioactive and long-lived nuclides; they must be safely stored for at least 100,000 years; researchers have discovered a class of molecules that can selectively extract minor actinides, making the eventual waste far less radiotoxic

  • Teams dispatched to inspect Vermont nuclear plant following Irene

    Following the torrential rains from Hurricane Irene on Sunday, federal officials have dispatched inspection teams to examine the aging Vermont Yankee nuclear plant to ensure that the plant has not been compromised; the plant has the same design as the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan which suffered a partial meltdown following the 11 March earthquake and tsunami

  • Uncovering mechanisms key to fusion reactor walls

    A new tool will be hitched to an experimental fusion reactor at Princeton University to learn precisely what happens when extremely hot plasmas touch and interact with the inner surface of the reactor; fusion powers the stars and could lead to a limitless supply of clean energy

  • Radiation fears cripple Japanese food exports

    Japanese agricultural exports have yet to recover from the 11 March earthquake and tsunami due largely to fears of radioactive contamination; to combat these fears, local governments have done all they can to assure consumers that their products are safe; consumers remain wary despite these reassurances, and as a result the Japanese agricultural sector is struggling

  • First quantitative measurements of Fukushima leakage

    Atmospheric chemists report the first quantitative measurement of the amount of radiation leaked from the damaged nuclear reactor in Fukushima; the researchers calculated that 400 billion neutrons were released per square meter surface of the cooling pools, between 13 March, when the seawater pumping operation began, and 20 March 2011

  • NRC: far fewer people will die from U.S. nuclear plant meltdown

    A yet-to-be-published report concludes that the number of deaths that would result from a nuclear plant core meltdown in the United States would be far lower than all other previous estimates; the reasons: first, only 1 to 2 percent of the cesium 137 in a reactor’s core would escape in a meltdown, rather than 60 percent assumed by previous estimates, and, second, the slow moving nature of such a disaster would allow for orderly evacuation of people from the reactor’s vicinity

  • Swedish police arrest man for building nuclear reactor in his kitchen

    A 31-year old Swede was arrested after ahothorities discovered he was preparing to build a nuclear reactor in his apartment’s kitchen; he already had some radioactive material — ordered from overseas — and material acquired by taking apart a domestic fire alarm; he was discovered when he called the Swedish Radiation Authority to inquire whether it was legal to construct a nuclear reactor at home

  • U.S. General: troops unprepared for nuke risks in Japan

    A U.S. general admitted that U.S. troops stationed in Japan did not have the proper training or equipment to handle radiation exposure in the days immediately following the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant caused by the 11 March earthquake and tsunami

  • Blue ribbon commission calls for interim off site waste storage

    After deciding to stop the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository project, President Obama appointed a blue Ribbon commission to examine alternatives; the first report from the commission calls for interim storage of nuclear waste not on the site of nuclear power plants, and for the creation of a new corporation to develop one or more deep geological repositories “as expeditiously as possible”

  • Another Iranian nuclear scientist killed in Tehran

    On Saturday, Darioush Rezaei, a 35-year-old physics professor involved in Iran’s nuclear program, was killed outside is Tehran home by assailants on a motorcycle; Rezaei’s expertise — neutron transport — is at the heart of nuclear chain reactions in reactors and bombs; Rezaei joins an ever-growing list of Iranian nuclear scientists who have met an untimely death at the hands of mysterious assailants; the systematic, covert killing of nuclear scientists to prevent a country from building a bomb is a method Israel used successfully — if, at times, with collateral damage — against Egypt in the early 1960s and against Iraq in the 1980s; the precision and lethality of the current Israeli campaign against Iran’s nuclear weapons scientists shows Israel learned important operational lessons from those two campaigns

  • A first: China connects fast-neutron reactor to the grid

    Fast-neutron reactors use uranium sixty times more efficiently than a normal reactor; if adopted, the reactors would make current uranium reserves go longer; the reactor design also minimizes radioactive waste from nuclear energy; China is the first country to connect a fast-neutron reactor to its grid

  • Japan halts shipments of radioactive beef

    The Japanese government is coming under fire for only halting shipments of contaminated cattle now, four months after the 11 March earthquake and tsunami that led to the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi atomic energy station; authorities recently discovered that 637 cattle had been fed hay contaminated with radioactive cesium and then shipped from farms in northern prefectures including Fukushima

  • Virginia powerplant holds nuke disaster simulation

    On Tuesday, nuclear plant officials and emergency responders recently participated in an exercise to simulate an accident at the Surry atomic power plant in Virginia; Dominion Virginia Power, which operates the state’s four nuclear reactors, regularly holds exercises like these at the Surry plant, but following Japan’s nuclear disaster, the exercises have become even more important